Today, Norm Goldman Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com is honored to have as our guest Caleb Pirtle.

Caleb has authored more than fifty books. His works primarily include travel and history books, as well as several works of fiction and non-fiction. He and his partner, Frank Q. Dobbs, have also written the screenplay for one motion picture, Hot Wire, teleplays for three television movies, Gambler V: Playing for Keeps and Wildcat: Sarah Delaney and the Doodlebug Man  for CBS and The Texas Rangers for TNT. He has optioned his and Dobbs' screenplay, Bum's Luck to a Canadian production company.

He wrote and produced the historical trilogy of the East Texas oilfield, Echoes from Forgotten Streets, Visions of Forgotten Streets, and Life on Kilgore's Unforgettable Streets. In addition, he also wrote as well as supervised the design and publishing of a major book entitled No Experience Required: Jackie Sherrill and Texas A&M's 12th Man Kickoff Team and a grilling cookbook for Dick's Sporting Goods. For London Square Media, he wrote and produced the oversized coffee-table book, Great Moments in Alabama Football History, showcasing the paintings of Rick Rush, known as America's Sports Artist.

For almost a decade, Caleb, during its first and formative years, served as travel editor for Southern Living, acclaimed nationally during the 1970s, as the fastest growing and most successful magazine in the country. For that period of time, Southern Living won three Discover America Awards for its travel coverage of the region, and he was fortunate enough to be named Man of the Year by the Travel South Association.

Good day Caleb and thanks for participating in our interview

Norm:

How did you get started in writing? What keeps you going?

Caleb:

I knew from an early age that I wanted to be a writer. I grew up in East Texas in an era when neighbors gathered in the evening to sit on somebody's front porch and tell stories. Conversations were nothing more than the telling of stories. That's what I wanted to do: tell stories. I graduated with a degree in journalism, worked on small newspapers and large ones, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and went to Southern Living shortly after the magazine was founded. At the Star-Telegram, I had four deadlines a day. At the magazine, I had two deadlines a month. The spare time drove me crazy, so I began writing books. It is easy for me to keep going. While I'm writing one book, I always get a new idea for the next one. It's often difficult to finish one manuscript because I can't wait to jump on the next one. As I've always said, the great motivator that keeps me going is an empty refrigerator.

Norm:

What is your creative process like? What happens before sitting down to write? Do you work from an outline?

Caleb:

For a book, I write a one-sentence log line that gives me the basic plot twist. For my upcoming novel, Place of Skulls, I wrote: "While investigating the death of a DEA agent in southern Arizona, a former CIA operative with no name or any fragment of memory uncovers a religious artifact that was hidden for five centuries in Mexico, a relic that, if true, will forever change the face of Christianity." Then I write in-depth sketches of my primary characters. I learn every aspect of their lives. I get to know them as well as I know family. Then I turn them loose on a blank sheet of paper and follow along behind them, writing down what they do and say. I write my opening paragraph and my final paragraph at the same time. It's like following a road map when I travel. If I know where I am and where I'm going, then I can get there.

Norm:

What discipline do you imposed on yourself regarding schedules, goals, etc?

Caleb:

I write ten pages of manuscript a day. Each morning, I revise and re-write the ten pages from the day before, then, in the afternoon, I write ten new pages. I never write more than ten pages. I like to stop in the middle of a scene. That means when I get back to the manuscript, I know what I'm going to say. It keeps me from ever having to look at a blank screen and wonder what to write next. I just finish what I've already started, and that jump starts the next nine pages.

Norm:

How has your environment/upbringing colored your writing? What genre are you most comfortable writing?

Caleb:

As I mentioned, I grew up in East Texas, which is the South, where story telling is an art form that's handed down from one generation to another. I was raised in a strict fundamentalist church where hellfire and brimstone rained down three times a week, so I learned early about the drama of life, past and present. No matter what I write, those Biblical damnations always find their way into the manuscript. A majority of my books have been travel or historical narrative, but I am becoming far more comfortable with novels in the genre of suspense and mystery. However, so much of the offbeat information I run across while researching travel and historical books work their way into the novel.

Norm:

What has been the best part about being published?

Caleb:

The best part of being published is knowing that the book is behind me, and now I can concentrate at last on writing the next one. Being published is simply validation that perhaps my work has not been in vain. As with any writer, I can only hope that someone enjoys reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Norm:

What do you want your work to do? Amuse people? Provoke thinking?

Caleb:

I'm not funny enough to amuse people, and I doubt if my thoughts are deep enough to provoke someone else's thinking process. My only hope is to entertain with a little suspense, mystery and intrigue, providing someone with an escape from the harsh realities of their day to day living. I don't care if they forget the story as long as they are haunted for a time by the characters.

Norm:

What's the most difficult thing for you about being a writer?

Caleb:

In the beginning, it was difficult to harness the discipline necessary to sit down each day at the appointed hour and write. I hated to write down the first word for a book because I knew, once that word was on paper, I was committed. I would spend a week cleaning up my office to keep from writing that first word down. After all of these years, the discipline of writing is as easy as the discipline of breathing. I don't think about it anymore. I just do it.

Norm:

Has a review or profile ever changed your perspective on your work?

Caleb:

Book reviews and critiques have been extremely invaluable to me. They tell me what I may be doing right and assuredly what I'm doing wrong. My plot may be too oblique. My characters might need to be more tightly drawn. I may have too much narrative and too little dialogue. But, after I throw a little salve on my ego, I become excited again because I know the mistakes I should correct and why I should correct them. A good reviewer shows me the turn in the road so I won't keep driving over the same cliff. A good review also allows readers to discover a writer they did not know existed.

Norm:

Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

Caleb:

I read different authors for different reasons. William Faulkner always re-energizes my reason for writing. I am a disciple of Robert Parker's dialogue. Lee Child keeps me on the edge of my seat. And I study Pat Conroy to learn the best ways to slam a noun and an adjective together in order to paint a memorable and vivid scene. No one does it better.

Norm:

What do you think of the new Internet market for writers?

Caleb:

I think the Internet is the best thing that has ever happened to serious writers. There are a lot of wonderful writers with fascinating books who never get a break because, in the past, they were always caught up in a numbers crunch. Too many good writers. Too few publishing outlets. Now, for the first time, the inmates actually are running the asylum. The Internet and eBook revolution have given unknown writers a place to publish and gain their own foothold in the national marketplace, provided, of course, they have a strong, viable, and proven marketing plan.

Norm:

Do you have any suggestions to help our readers become better writers? If so, what are they? As a follow up, what, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing?

Caleb:

Good writers should not be content to merely write the obvious. They need to attack a story from an entirely new angle and point of view. They should read good books as text books, not as entertainment, always asking themselves: Why did the author choose that particular plot line? What motivated the character to do that? Why so much dialogue? Why so much narration? When I read, I try to dissect what an author is trying to do, always making an effort to lean what I should do in order to write a better book. Good writing is the ability to put a reader in the middle of a scene, in the middle of the story, allowing the reader to feel as though he or she is eavesdropping on a private conversation, not merely reading dialogue. To me, a good book has three elements: Is it professionally written? Does it have a compelling story? Are the characters believable and difficult to forget? Styles vary. Voices vary. The story and characters are all that count.

Norm:

What are you upcoming projects?

Caleb:

At the present, I am finalizing my novel, Place of Skulls, for publication, and I have finished my research for the second novel in the series of a continuing character. I hope to have the next book finished by spring. I don't yet have a title, but I know how it begins and ends. I won't know what happens in the rest of the book until it happens.

Norm:

Where can our readers find out more about you and your books?

Caleb:

My new books can be found at venturegalleries.com, and most of my books, old and new, can be found at amazon.com and the other eRetailers.

Norm:

Is there anything else you wish to add that we have not covered?

Caleb:

No matter how well we do or don't write, we are forever indebted to strong, respected, book reviewers to tell us how we need to improve and tell readers whether our books are worth their time. We would be lost without you, your expertise, and your love for books.

Norm:

Thanks one again and good luck with all of your future endeavors

Click Here To Access Caleb Pirtle's Books On Amazon