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Interview – Gary Clifton

Interview

– When did you start writing, what moved you to start writing?

I think nearly everyone wonders if they could write a book. I was assigned to a long Secret Service graveyard shift in D.C. The protectee was a Senator sniffing at the 1984 Democratic Presidential nomination. The Service had pulled a small camper onto the parking lot of a Synagogue across the street from the candidate’s home for restroom and related needs. An old manual typewriter stared me down for some time before, to avoid madness, I began typing. The upshot: by the time I finished the assignment, I had seventy thousand or so words roughed out on what turned out to become a novel Burn Sugar Burn (publisher’s title) which was published in national paperback by Paperjacks of New York.

– Tell us about your books. Why should everyone buy them?

We’re discussing two here: A western composed of thirteen stand-alone but chronological short stories which I originally wrote for Bewildering Stories Ezine: Henry Paul Brannigan, Stories Worth Tellin’. Brannigan, a young bible-respecting teetotaler at the outset encounters his spunky beautiful wife, Elizabeth, in the initial chapter, “Hill Country Showdown,” when a stagecoach he is driving is robbed and Elizabeth is abducted. Brannigan mounts one of the stage horses, pursues, and kills two notorious outlaws. They marry, Brannigan is appointed a Texas Ranger, they have a son, Tad, and the remaining episodes detail what I feel is a wide and intriguing variety of trials and tribulations of a young, honest, intrepid officer of the law in the rough-and-tumble of mid to late-nineteenth century Texas .

The second, Never on Monday, is a mini-book—50 pages in this case— wherein several victims are gunned down by machinegun fire in a downtown Dallas delicatessen, just after opening for the day in the early morning hour. Included in the dead are the deli owner, an organized crime “made guy”, several employees, and a uniformed Dallas Police Officer. Veteran Homicide detective Davis McCoy leads the investigation, which wends its way through a morass of infidelity, sexual promiscuity, and treachery which surprises even the hard-nosed murder cop. An alternative title could have been Dysfunction Does Dallas.

I was a Special Agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, U.S. Treasury Department most of my adult life—Eliot Ness’s outfit. The tale is based in a true story with names and other info changed to protect the guilty.

– What is your all time favorite novel/book? What makes it special?

The Last of the Mohicans, J.F. Cooper. On cold winter nights, I’d walk the mile to the Carnegie Branch Library. Like a dumb kid would, when I applied for a library card, I gave my correct address. They wouldn’t issue a card to people in that neighborhood—it was a “blighted area”, you see, a slum in real-speak. Yeah, we had folks who’d steal anything including rocks, but books? Most couldn’t read and it’s hard to pawn a book.

So, I sat in a corner until they closed and read many things. Hawkeye, Uncas, Chingachgook were—to a kid with a hole in his shoe—strong, independent people who could handle adversity or Hurons with equal ferocity. Yet, they were kind and considerate men who saved beautiful ladies and overcame the tyranny of short-sighted, arrogant administrators. No, that’s not why I became a fed. That was a result of doubling the salary of a high school teacher/coach, plus getting a free front row seat for the damnedest show on earth.

– Tell us a bit about your writing process.

When I have an idea, sit and type, which has been often.

– What author would you love to have dinner with?

Elmore Leonard, Raymond Chandler, Louis L’Armour and about forty others.

– Tell us about your hobbies and passions other than writing.

I live in North Texas where high school football is king. I also have a wood shop out back which is the envy of do-it-yourselfers everywhere.

– We have many followers who would like to start writing a book or are already writing their first book, any advice for these brave people?

Aspiring writers: Sit down and type. If you don’t have an idea, write about last Thanksgiving dinner, but type. Finish some sort of the project you’re massaging. You can always go back to tweak and edit, but you can’t edit what you ain’t got.

– How often do you write, daily, every other day or?

Several days weekly.

– What are you reading at the moment?

Elmore Leonard: La Brava

– A final message for our circleofbooks.com readers.

General comment to aspiring writers: Keep crunching keys. Write something, even if it’s crap. Then keep re-writing until it’s not crap.

Thank you Gary Clifton. We at circleofbooks.com wish you much success!

Click here to visit the author page here on Circle of Books.

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