Author Interview ~ Adam Palmer

Adam Palmer is a freelance writer, video/film producer, and musician who spent his early twenties playing in a variety of bands. His previous works include Mooch and Taming a Liger: Unexpected Spiritual Lessons from Napoleon Dynamite. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with his wife and six children, none of whom would actually like listening to Knuckle Sandwich. Read more about Adam Palmer on his website.

I just finished reading Knuckle Sandwich, which I loved. (to read a review of Knuckle Sandwich,
(click here ) Your humor is well described as biting. Your knowledge of the industry pulled the reader right in. What sparked the story?

Well, thank you for your kind words. I’m glad you liked it, and I’m glad you saw the humor in it. The story was sparked largely by my own experiences during that time of my life. When I was a freshman in college, I worked in a Christian bookstore and started a Christian band with a friend from Oral Roberts University. A lot of my knowledge of the industry came from firsthand experience—I played a lot of those shows Knuckle Sandwich plays in the book.

And I guess that’s really where the story came from. I started out wanting to tell the story of the Christian music industry from the inside out, because I think a lot of people don’t have a clue as to what it’s really like. But as I kept writing, the story evolved and became less focused on the behind-the-scenes aspects of music and more focused on Jeremiah’s journey to authentic faith.

The nugget of the story came from a desire to tell some of the anecdotes I experienced during my career as a musician, but the ‘what if’ moment came in the midst of the first draft. Initially, I was planning on building a sort of war between Matt and Jeremiah for Liz’s affections, until I started writing the scene where the boys meet Liz. I had set it in a Christian dance club, and I already had a strong idea of Liz’s character traits, so I realized she wouldn’t be in that club alone—she would only be there with a friend. That’s when I invented Amanda and everything started to fall into place.

Do you have a new book or project coming out?

I have a couple of things on the horizon, but the only concrete book I have coming out soon is The High School Survival Guide, which is a practical and spiritual guide for high school students. I’m still working on the first draft of that. There are many other potential things I’d like to discuss, but can’t until they materialize contractually.

Tell us about your publishing journey. How long had you been writing before you got a contract? How did you find out and what went through your mind?

I had been writing off and on for years before I got a publishing contract. I did a ton of freelance journalistic work like reviews and articles for magazines and such. Then I got a regular job working for a Christian marketing company and focused my writing on that. I got some gigs doing some ghostwriting on the side, and then came my big break: my friend Jeff wanted to do a devotional book based on the movie Napoleon Dynamite. He wanted to call it Taming a Liger.

Jeff worked for a publisher (not NavPress/TH1NK, who publishes my books), and pitched the idea to them. They passed, so he pitched it to Nav, who snatched it up and me right along with it.

Now, a month before this happened, I had, on a lark, written my first novel. I chose to use the method for National Novel-Writing Month, where you write a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. My friend Kevin had written his novel during the official month of November, and it turned out well, so I thought I should do it, too. Except I did mine in February, so I had to crank it up a bit to get my word limit in two fewer days.

So, after I finished work on Taming a Liger, I told my editor that I had just written a novel, and asked if she wouldn’t mind taking a look at it and telling me whether it was any good. I had no intention of becoming a novelist—I’d never written one before or anything. I was just curious. One thing led to another, and NavPress/TH1NK signed me to a two-book deal.

That was a pretty awesome phone call. I still remember driving around in my cheapo Volvo listening to Nicci tell me about the deal. It freaked me right out. I couldn’t believe it. I was a full-time freelance writer by then, which meant I was taking a lot of crummy small jobs just because I needed the money—the idea of getting paid to write stories was a little overwhelming. Still is.

Do you ever struggle with writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?

I don’t struggle so much with writer’s block as with writer’s apathy. I am the worst procrastinator I know, and my life is full of distractions. I have a full-time job, plus a wife, plus many children, plus music at church (my wife and I are worship leaders), so, on the rare occasions when I have some downtime, I usually only want to watch movies or look up stupid stuff on the internet.

How do I overcome it? The best way is to go to the Starbucks by my house. Though I’d rather support the many local coffee shops in Tulsa, I go to Starbucks because the local shops have free wi-fi, whereas I have to pay for it at Starbucks. And I refuse to pay for coffee shop internet. So, since I don’t have internet access, I don’t have the sudden urge to dash off an email, or crank out an IM, or check the scores of whatever sporting event happens to be in progress at the time. I just throw on some headphones, put the ol’ iTunes on shuffle, and start typing.

Where do you write? Do you have a dedicated office or a corner or nook in a room?

I write all over the place, but some places are better than others. I like to write in public—for some reason it inspires me when I do a little people-watching. It helps me find little human elements to interject into my stories that make them feel more real.




Once I was at a deli/coffee shop in the morning at a really busy time when I saw this teenage kid walk in with a Styrofoam Sonic cup, beeline to the soda fountain, fill his cup, and walk out without paying. I was working on Mooch, my first novel, at the time, and it struck me as something my main character would do, so I gave him that action and got a pretty interesting scene out of it.

I also write at home a lot, after hours when my wife and kids are asleep. I’ll just sit on the couch and go crazy. Try to find that zone.

Do you have a word or page goal you set for each day?

Both novels I’ve written using the National Novel-Writing Month style of 50,000 words in 30 days. That boils down to about 1600-1700 words/day. But with Knuckle Sandwich, I got on a roll and basically wrote the last 15,000 words in one day. And this was all before the editing process, which is when the story really takes shape.

What does a typical day look like for you?

In addition to my writing pursuits, I have a full-time job as a video/film producer, so that takes up a lot of my time these days. When I was a full-time freelancer, my typical workday was 9:00 to noon at my favorite local coffee shop, then lunch with my family, then about 1:00 or so to 4:00 at a different coffee shop. And that was all the writing I would do. Now, though, I do most of my writing at night and on the weekends.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve heard?

The most liberating thing I’ve ever heard was “write what you know.” It’s really true. And I’m not talking about plot elements necessarily, but just write characters you know, characters you want to spend time with—because you will be spending time with them. A lot of time. I also look at my characters as extensions of me, almost. Especially with Jeremiah and Matt from Knuckle Sandwich. I’m not really like either of those guys, but if I’m not careful, I can see myself becoming either of them.

As far as practical advice, the best thing I ever heard was to let my characters dictate my story, and not the other way around. I think I read that in Stephen King’s On Writing, which is hands-down the best book about the craft of writing I’ve ever read. When I was writing Mooch, which is about a major slacker guy orchestrating a heist of a dead man’s money, I got halfway through the story and realized that I hadn’t really thought through any of the heist elements. Like, how Jake (the main character) would pull it off.

So I thought through Jake’s world—his personality, his character traits, his environment, his friends, his stuff—and just thought, “How would Jake use the things around him to make this heist successful?” I looked at the situation through his eyes and then made plot decisions based on that, instead of going the other way around. And the more I’ve written, the more I’m able to trust my instincts and, if you will, listen to my characters tell me where they want to go.

What do you wish you’d known early in your career that might have saved you some time and/or frustration in writing? In publishing?

You know, my frustration is limited. I’ve had a really good experience thus far. God has been good to me.

How much marketing do you do? What have you found that particularly works well for you?

When Mooch came out, I didn’t know thing one about doing marketing for a book, so I didn’t do any. I thought the publisher would do it all for me, and while they did some marketing, they didn’t go gonzo with it like it was the next Harry Potter or anything. My friend Mark, who is also an author, once relayed some advice to me: “Publishers don’t sell books; authors do.”

So this time around I’m trying to make myself as available as I can for interviews and that sort of thing. Also, I’m trying a couple of extra things: I set the book in Tulsa, so I’m trying to get as much buzz in this city as possible, hoping to parlay that into some regional buzz, and then some. In addition, since the book is about music, I’m trying to get it into some influential hands in the music business, just to see what happens. But so far, the grassroots, blog-based marketing is the best I’ve found (and I’m not just saying that for your benefit).

Do you have any parting words of advice?

Just to be honest in your writing. It’s easy to write a trite, formulaic story that costs you nothing, but it isn’t going to have much soulish impact. I think of that wonderful scene in Walk the Line, when Johnny Cash goes to audition for Sam Phillips, and he sings some tired old southern gospel song.

Sam stops him in the middle of his song and tells him (if I may paraphrase), “If you were hit by a truck, and lying in the gutter dying, and you had time to sing one song that would let God and everyone else know how you felt about your time on Earth, would that be the song you’d sing?

That same tune we hear all day, about how you have peace within, and it’s real, and you’re gonna shout it? Or would you sing something different, something real? Something you felt? Because I’m telling you, that’s the type of song people want to hear. That’s the kind of song that truly saves people.”