Author Interview ~ Austin Boyd

Astronaut finalist, inventor, Navy pilot, poet and novelist--Austin Boyd is a man of many talents with a passion for suspenseful techno-thrillers and eye-popping plot twists.














What book or project is coming out or has come out that you’d like to tell us about?


The Evidence is the first of the three-book space suspense series Mars Hill Classified with a release scheduled March 15th, 2006. The Proof is due out in October 2006, and The Return in the summer of 2007.

In my first book, credible indications of alien life on Mars and a devastating terrorist attack on Washington combine to thrust astronaut John Wells into the challenge of his life—does God call him to leave his wife and family in order to fulfill a strong calling to a career in space? His faith, his marriage—and his sense of destiny, to make a difference—are at irreconcilable odds. He must make a decision about priorities and his calling. In so doing, John is caught up in the mystery of the millennium.

Tell us about your journey to publication. How long had you been writing before you got the call you had a contract, how you heard and what went through your head.

I was a Navy pilot and NASA astronaut finalist. In the midst of my pursuit of selection to the space program, my wife suffered serious health problems and we decided to retire from the Navy—and end my thirty-two year quest of astronaut selection. In 1996, after yet another “no” from NASA, I began to write about the stresses of a man who felt a strong call to space, where that call put him at odds with his commitment to family. After eight drafts of my novel, along with reading every Writer’s Digest book I could find and securing a second mortgage on my house to pay for freelance editorial support, I had learned volumes about the craft of fiction writing.

I hired freelance marketing support from Hawkeye Editing Inc., and together we went on the search for an agent or a publisher. One hundred proposals and rejections later, Mr. Les Stobbe contacted me about representing my book. Les was the Editor in Chief at Moody Press, and now works to exclusively represent first time authors. Within seventy-two hours of signing a contract with Les, five publishers expressed interest in the book, and we had formal offers from two of those within three months. The day that NavPress brought me to Colorado, hosted me like a king, and committed to a three-book publishing contract was one of the best in my life. I will always be grateful to the NavPress team for their enthusiasm and trust.

I began writing poetry at age nine, self-published a poetry anthology at age 24, and wrote nearly thirty technical articles and papers as a space engineer in the Navy—but in 2005 I finally had a book contract, nearly forty years after I set out to become an astronaut. Perhaps the spark I felt as a kid to go to space was meant to eventually lead me to write about going to space—even if I could not go there in person.

Do you still experience self-doubts regarding your work?

Absolutely. I always wonder if I can keep up the writing pace, and keep up the creativity. I wonder if people will like my work. Another problem is that I can’t trust myself to be fair—I’m too critical of my own writing. And, it seems, I usually can’t trust close friends to be critical enough—they’re too nice with their reviews. So, I opted to hire freelance editors to kick my teeth in. I learned a lot that way—and the money was well spent.

What’s the best advice you’ve heard on writing/publication?

Go to a writer’s conference. When I signed with Les Stobbe he had two requirements. One of them was that I must go to a writer’s conference. I’d never been to one, much less considered that it mattered. I thought conferences were love-ins for critique groups and author groupies. I was so wrong. The Mount Hermon Christian Writer’s Conference connected me with all of the editors who buy Christian fiction, and it led to critical networking and mentoring. I was blessed by wonderful authors like T. Davis Bunn, Brandilyn Collins, Jim Bell, Randy Ingermanson, Karen Ball, Rachelle Gardner, Jeff Dunn and Linda Nathan.

What’s the worst piece of writing advice you’ve heard?

“Eliminate every adverb and –ing suffix from your writing.” Bad advice if taken to extremes. Prose without at least a bare sprinkling of adverbs is stilted.

What’s something you wish you’d known earlier that might have saved you some time/frustration in the publishing business?

Sell the author, don’t sell the book. Get an agent if at all possible. Work long and hard to find one, even before you seek a publisher, because an agent knows better than anyone how to sell the writer. If you sell the book, you’ve sold one manuscript. If you sell the writer, you can potentially sell many. I never gave my background as a Navy pilot, astronaut finalist, space engineer, and war veteran any credit for marketing potential. That was a huge mistake.

Do you have a scripture or quote that has been speaking to you lately?

“I have called you for such a time as this.”

Is there a particularly difficult set back that you’ve gone through in your writing career you are willing to share?

I suffered and learned and struggled through eight separate editorial reviews and rewrites. Some of them I paid for (self-flagellation through freelance editors), and others were part of the important book refining process with the amazing David Lambert and my editors at NavPress. Rewriting is an essential part of the business, and that message had been drummed into me by Writer’s Digest how-to books. But I must admit that transitioning from one editor to the next and suffering the death of a thousand cuts took a lot out of me. That which does not kill you only makes you stronger. I am much stronger now.

What are a few of your favorite books? (Not written by you.)

Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller; the poetry of A.A. Milne (Now We Are Six, When We Were Very Young); The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury; Mutiny on the Bounty, and all of it’s sequels by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall; The Tarzan series, Edgar Rice Burroughs (childhood favorite); The Last of the Mohicans, James Fennimore Cooper.

If your authorial self was a character from The Wizard of Oz, which one would you be and why?

The scarecrow. I’ve always loved the guy, since my early years when my mother read me every one of the L. Frank Baum books to me at bedtime. Scarecrow and I suffer the same self-doubt about our abilities and we both get the stuffing beat out of us every so often—yet we always come back stronger and wiser.

What piece of writing have you done that you’re particularly proud of and why?

That would be my last poem, written in 1977, entitled “Ask the Flower Petals.” It’s the most succinct piece of writing I’ve ever done. It spins a lifetime of emotions in precious few words. After I wrote it, I quit writing poetry—cold turkey. After all, no self respecting Navy pilot should be caught sitting around penning quatrains in a wartime ready room, should he?

Do you have a pet peeve having to do with this biz?

Writing often seems ‘dumbed down’ in much of modern fiction. Mellifluous descriptive prose, like that of the classics, seems to have no place in today’s marketplace. That’s a shame, in my opinion.

Can you give us a view into a typical day of your writing life?

I love the mornings. I’m up and typing sometime between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m., and I write until 6:30. Then it’s time to wake the kids, drive them to school, and then go to work. I put in 10-11 hour days as Vice President for Business Development at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) selling advanced aerospace engineering services and products.

Then I head home for dinner around 6 p.m., do kid’s homework or ‘honey-dos’ until 9, and write again until 10:30 p.m. I hold myself to a daily writing budget of 1000 words on weekdays, and 3000 each on Saturday and Sunday. I don’t watch television very often, and when I do, I often wish that I was writing. My wife tells me I have two jobs and that I don’t know how to relax. She’s probably right.

If you could choose to have one strength of another writer, what would it be and from whom?

I would choose the descriptive prose of T. Davis Bunn, a mentor and friend who is a best-selling author in the Christian fiction genre. Davis has a remarkable gift for detail.

Do you have a dream for the future of your writing, something you would love to accomplish?

For a future novel, my dream is to write fiction that absolutely captures the heart of the secular reader, inspiring a passionate desire to know more about Jesus Christ. I hope to stir a reader to say “I want that” when she sees Christ in my characters.

My dream for the future of my career has been to spend my later years writing fiction, and building furniture in my wood shop. I’ve just designed and started building an entire office of mission oak furniture—the future writing desks, file cabinets and shelves on which I will create my next novels. I dream of being a full time author and artisan, at home with my pianist wife who teaches twenty piano students in our house.

Was there ever a time in your writing career you thought of quitting?

Yes. In 2001, many of the things I wrote about in my first book were coming true, and I had not yet learned the craft of fiction well enough to market the manuscript. The plot line of my first draft came true in the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, and then NASA launched the Pathfinder Rover to Mars. My book became old news overnight, yet I had a long way to go to learn the craft and sell my work. The frustration almost overcame me, but I remembered the scarecrow: I got back up.

What is your favorite and least favorite part of being a writer?

My favorite part is sitting down at 5 a.m. at the computer to type in a quiet house, with family asleep and our calico cat let in for the morning, curled up at my feet. My least favorite aspect of writing is the time it takes away from my family. I really do have two jobs. Cindy is right—I work too hard.

How much marketing do you do? Any advice in this area?

I am a professional marketer for SAIC, selling engineering services for a $200M business unit of a $7B company. I love to do the marketing for my book, and relish the public relations part of the process. I like it all, from working with the art department on the design of my covers, to developing sales pitches, marketing plans and ‘hooks,’ to contacting newspapers and media outlets for press opportunities. It’s a blast.

My advice is this. Good authors must learn how to be good marketeers. My earlier advice—that you must sell the author, not the book—is a key point here. You must learn the writing craft, but unless you want to see your book languish in its first printing, you must also learn to sell. Don’t depend on the publisher to do this hard work for you. It’s your responsibility to sell the book as much as it is theirs, but many writers ignore that fact. Take the initiative to help the publisher and the marketing department and you will be of double value to the industry… as a writer and as a sales-savvy author.

You were an astronaut candidate finalist. Can you tell us a little about that experience?

When I was twelve I felt a strong pull toward astronaut and I put everything I had into my dream. I worked hard in school, won a full scholarship to Rice University, made it through flight training, and then did everything I could as a Navy pilot and spacecraft systems engineer to get selected for astronaut. NASA takes applications every two years, although there were some off years with the Challenger disaster. I applied eight times—the most of any officer in the Navy, I’ve been told—and I got incredibly close. I was a Navy finalist four times, and once I made it all the way to Astronaut Candidate finalist, with an interview in Houston in the summer of 1994. I interviewed the same year that Rick Husband did. He was the commander of the Columbia mission, and our life stories have many common elements.

His wife’s book, High Calling, does a remarkable job of capturing the stresses and dreams of anyone who pursues astronaut selection. My wife, Cindy, put up with an enormous amount of that stress enduring eight applications and years of separation while I was deployed overseas chasing Russians, flying in wars, chasing drug runners, or working long hours at the Pentagon. After fifteen homes in twenty years, the pressure manifested itself in her as medical problems, and we felt it was finally time to stop the ‘great chase.’ I retired from the Navy in 1998 and continued to write about life as an astronaut, drawing on my experiences. So, in a way, I’m headed to space in a vicarious way—through my main character, John Wells.

You have two actual flags from space ships. How'd ya snag those babies?

Many astronauts befriended me in my years of chasing the space dream, most of them in the Navy—fellow aviators with whom I flew or served. Two of them were particularly helpful, doing everything in their power to help me get to the top of the selection list. Captain Steve Oswald, USN and Captain Bill Readdy, USN, better known as “Oz” and “Reads”, made a special presentation to me on my retirement from the Navy. They gave up a small U.S. flag flown on each of their last missions, and had the two flags mounted in a special frame with a personal citation from NASA.

I’ve been told that very few people ever received a double-flag presentation, and it is very special to me. Each of those men ascended the astronaut ladder to the top—both serving at some point as the NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight. “Reads” was in that job when Rick Husband’s Columbia mission ended in disaster in 2003. “Reads” and “Oz” did everything they could for me. The rest was in God’s hands, and here I am today, writing about it. That was His plan.

Parting words?

In March 2005, after Les Stobbe had engaged the interest of several publishers, I was at the Mount Hermon Christian Writer’s Conference. I was in shock—overwhelmed by the sudden transformation from non-stop rejection notices to enthusiastic competing publishers. I went out early on the last morning of the conference to hike to a nature trail chapel deep in the redwoods. In prayer in that forest chapel, I asked God “Why me? Why this sudden interest? What’s next?” From that prayer, I heard God’s clear message in reply. His message stunned me then, and it gives me great hope today as I face unforeseen challenges in the future. His words to me were these: “This is what I spent forty years preparing you to do. It’s time.”

My parting words are that God needed four decades to do His work in me, to prepare me, to place me on the path to astronaut, Navy pilot, author, marketer, and engineer, that I might write about it one day in a way that could inspire others. When your days seem dark, and the future is uncertain, be like the scarecrow: stuff the straw back in your chest, paste on a smile, and keep on plugging. Remember that God has a marvelous plan for your life. He will reveal the plan in time, and accomplish a great work in you.