CommWealth
By Michael D. Smith
By Michael D. Smith
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Interview with Michael D. Smith:
Interview with Michael D. Smith:
Crystal: I have the pleasure of hosting Michael D. Smith. Welcome Michael! I'm so happy to have you here today! Would you share a little bit about yourself with us today?
Michael: I have an odd mantra, dating back to my Rice
University days, springing from being a shy introvert shrinking back from
interaction with a dizzying, energy-sapping exterior world. In the middle of
intense adolescent Sturm und Drang
this statement popped into my head: “There’s a super colossal mess jungle going
on. It’s my business to get involved with it, any way I can.”
The upshot was that I realized I needed to
observe, participate in, and process everything around me for my writing and
visual art. My wife Nancy refined this a bit later when she told me” Everything
you do in this life is for your art.” Whenever I feel oppressed by exterior
obstacles, I just have to remember that they are also fuel.
The best part of my writing is the
satisfaction that comes with a solid investigation of “what’s been psychically
going on recently,” and this includes even the fun, fast-paced plots of the
science fiction I do. All my fiction has a psychological quality, whether it’s
science fiction or literary, even in its humorous moments. When it’s coming out
well it opens up new inner territories for exploration.
I very much enjoy drawing the characters,
and the drawings often give me feedback into character development. Some of the
CommWealth characters are on my
website:
In addition, the cover of CommWealth is my painting of several of my main characters.
Crystal: Do you have a favorite scene you would like to share with us?
Michael: In CommWealth,
my insufferable anti-hero Allan confronts the government inspector checking out
a potential Hoarding charge:
The front door pounded. The doorbell chimed
merrily, again and again.
“Jesus!”
Allan cried.
That can’t be a claimant, can it? They can’t do this! Not now! Christ, I
jinxed myself even to think that! I’m sick, I’m writing! Doesn’t that count for
something?
The door pounded again. “CommWealth
Inspector!” came the cry. “This is CommWealth!”
“Oh my God!” Allan flung off the
comforter and bounded for the front door. Which was worse—the claimant—or
the CommWealth Inspector? He whipped the door open to a world of
darkness and cold silver rain ... and to a gaunt scarecrow in glistening black,
rotting flesh hanging off his skull ...
“CommWealth Inspector Hardy. You are Allan
Larson of 12 Jimson Court Parkway?”
“God ... God ...” Allan gasped. No, it wasn’t a rotting skull ... it had a
little wet mustache! “Christ,
it—it’s you!”
The same skinny twerp Allan had gotten the
Porsche from this afternoon blinked back at him. “Jesus ... it’s you!”
“Uh—listen—look, you know the Thirty Days
Enjoyment—”
CommWealth Inspector Hardy shook rain off his
black overcoat. “I trust, Mr. Larson, that you will allow a CommWealth Inspector inside your home?”
“Uh ... sure! I—I just can’t believe it’s you!”
Hardy smiled tightly and held out his ID. “I’m
Inspector Number Thirty. One of five Class A Inspectors for the Linstar
CommWealth Jurisdiction. I trust you have no problems with an inspection of
your home tonight?”
“Well ... no ... no, of course not ... it’s
just that ... just that ...”
“Mr. Larson, the coincidence of our meeting
like this notwithstanding, I’m certainly not here to reclaim the Porsche, or
try to request anything personally from you, both of which would be illegal in
any case.”
“Well ... well ... but ... you have to admit
you were pretty ticked off.”
“Well, sir, I suppose I was preoccupied this
afternoon. I was on my way to prosecute a major corporate Hoarding incident in
North Linstar, and you happened to catch me off guard. I’m so very
sorry. Now may I please enter your home?”
“Well ... well, I suppose I could understand
...” Allan stammered, eying the inspector’s thick clipboard notebook in growing
dismay.
“I assure you it’s entirely a coincidence that
I’ve drawn your house tonight. As you’ll note from Form G on my clipboard here,
this inspection was ordered four days ago. Now it’s quite wet out here, Mr.
Larson. May I please come in?”
“Oh ... yes, certainly ...” Allan said, moving
aside. “I’m so sorry, sir ... I mean, I guess I always pictured CommWealth
inspectors as sort of ... like these cold, calculating monsters, you
know—I mean ...”
“Who is it, honeykins?” came the soft voice.
“Oh, crap! Not—not now!”
“Well—hello there!” Lisa gushed,
entering the foyer in her light blue teddy, with every square inch of
everything a man could possibly want transparently on display.
“Uh … good … uh … evening …” Hardy gasped.
Without looking at him Allan could feel
Hardy’s eyes bulging. “Lisa, why don’t you go back and watch more TV or
something? I’ve got serious business
here.”
“Oh, it’s all so boring,” Lisa said.
“There’s nothing on I want to see! Did I understand this gentleman is
actually a CommWealth inspector? I’m so pleased to meet you,
sir!”
Hardy continued to gape.
“Uh … now … now just go back to your TV—or
something …” Allan said.
“You’ve made a big mistake interrupting
Mr. Allan at his writing!” Lisa smiled up at Hardy. “He banished me to
the TV room so he could write his play! That’s how dedicated he is to
his craft! He’s a famous playwright here in Linstar!”
“Is—is
that so?” Hardy stammered.
“But he can banish me wherever he wants
because he owns me! I’m just his little slave now! I have to do whatever
he says! How about that? So I guess I’ll watch some more boring TV all
by myself! So, bye now! Maybe I’ll see you later?” She undulated a hundred
eighty degrees and flounced back to the TV room.
“It’s … uh … my … uh … girlfriend … ”Allan
grunted. “She … she’s a little—”
“Yes ... I ... I see ...” Hardy muttered as
the TV room door clicked shut.
“I mean, I really don’t know why I got her ...
I mean, she’s little touched …
or … or something—I don’t know—but she sure can wear a guy out!”
“Well ... yes ... I suppose ...” Hardy cleared
his throat. “Well, then, back to business, Mr. Larson.” He draped his wet
overcoat and umbrella on the gold railing by the carpeted stairs. “First of
all, again, I’m sorry I seemed irritable over your completely understandable
CommWealth request this afternoon.”
“Oh! That! No problem! No problem at all,
sir!”
“Of course, my main concern was the time spent
in procuring new transportation to my official appointment, but I suppose we
all have to remind ourselves that objects like Porsches, whether they’re used
for pleasure or for CommWealth business, have no real value in themselves. It’s
the sharing that matters, after
all.”
“Yeah! Of course! You sure got that right! I
mean, everything in this house is—is open to sharing!” Allan gave the slightest nod towards the TV room. “Uh,
sir ...”
Crystal: Where did you come up with the idea for your latest release?
Michael: CommWealth came from a long three-part dream; the
novel is a fleshing out of the first part, in which anti-hero Allan
demonstrates his easy adaptation to the new property-less society as he
requests every object that strikes his fancy and hauls it all back to the
mansion he booted someone else out of. The dream’s second part, in which Allan
is requested to work in Australia and becomes part of a murder mystery, and the
third, where he returns to America shattered and in need of spiritual
regeneration, weren’t used, but I’ve always considered that their energy is
present in the novel, adding depth to the characters’ motivations. The dream
was so complete and compelling that the first draft of CommWealth seemed to roll out effortlessly.
I have a blog post
about the origin of the novel. In fact this is the entire dream written down
shortly after I had it, and forms my first outline for the novel:
Crystal: What are you currently working on?
Michael: I just sent the final edits of the fifth book
in my science fiction series, to the publisher, and am almost finished with
Book Six. I also just finished an
intriguing and perhaps silly project that I self-published: I took my childhood
manuscript of Trip to Mars, and
turned it into a picture book. Despite its making only marginal sixth grade kid
sense, this is really an adult work, the images taking precedence over the
2600-word child story. I also have fresh respect for anyone trying to publish a
children’s book; making a publishable manuscript out of these images has been
an arduous though rewarding chore.
Crystal: Do you have any special routine that you follow when you are writing?
Michael: If I have a morning free, that’s the best time
for rough draft fiction, as I seem to be at my freshest then. But I wind up
doing most of my writing in the evening, after work. I always have something
cooking and I navigate each writing session by what project appeals to me,
which has the most energy resonance.
I do almost all my writing on my laptop,
though sometimes I cut up printouts and tape notes to notecards which I can
physically sort across a table. I have a 1940’s Royal manual typewriter I
sometimes use to bang out early notes. If any prove useful I’ve found I can
scan and OCR the results.
Time constraints bother me; I often subsist on short writing sessions
before and after work, but I figure I have no choice but to press on anyway.
I’ve noticed an odd thing, though: as I near the time to leave for night work I
often come up with unexpectedly concise chapter endings. With ten minutes left
I might be confronting three pages of notes that normally would call for ten
pages of fiction, yet somehow it now occurs to me that these notes are
superfluous, that my Character X would perform this or that action in the next
few seconds and before I know it I have a perfect concise ending for that
chapter. This has happened so often that I wonder if I haven’t unconsciously
set this up.
Crystal: Did you have to do a lot of research for this book or any other? If
so do you have a fascinating fact that you have learned you would like to share
with us?
Michael: When working on my early notes for CommWealth I read a book from the
library about the nature of property rights, but it had only tangential meaning
for the novel and I sure can’t remember the title. I normally make up my
fictional worlds without benefit of much exterior research, though I make
rigorous fact sheets to make sure my worlds are consistent. For instance, the
facts file for my science fiction series is 110 pages single-spaced and
growing. The facts file for the standalone CommWealth
is about a tenth that, though again I want to make sure that this novel’s
world, crazy as it is, has internal consistency. The main thing I'm looking for
in any novel is a psychological solidity no matter how bizarre the plot may
get. I also drew on my less than stellar playwriting and acting stints at Rice
University as background for the amateur theatrical troupe in CommWealth.
Crystal: Who are some of your favorite authors that you like to read?
Michael: Franz Kafka is a favorite of mine. The Trial is almost a perfect book. I
think I’ve read 99% of everything Robert Heinlein published, and though it may
not look like it, I learned almost everything I know about writing science
fiction from him. I also read a great deal of nonfiction on almost any subject.
The ongoing Robert Caro biographies of Lyndon Johnson, for instance, are
masterpieces.
Crystal: Is there a genre you haven't written that you would like to try?
Michael: I write both literary novels and “literary
science fiction.” Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between these; the
dystopian aspect of CommWealth is an amalgamation
of the two. Historical fiction intrigues me, but it would be a real stretch to
write it--getting all the research down, feeling unable to veer into the
possible weird directions the novel might take me. A mystery novel would be
another challenge, but I imagine it would be an exercise in extremely clever
structuring. I threw in a murder mystery into an earlier literary novel, but it
really didn’t add much.
I’m in awe of excellent nonfiction writers
who’ve truly mastered their subject. I'm not sure I’d be capable of that depth
of research myself. But writing nonfiction doesn’t seem to be my function,
though I enjoy reading it and making use of it.
~*~*~*~*~*~
BLURB:
The CommWealth system, introduced just six months previously, has created a society in which there is no legal claim to any kind of private property. Any object from your house to the clothes you’re wearing can be demanded by anyone, to be enjoyed for thirty days before anyone else can request it. As actors in the Forensic Squad theatrical troupe adapt to this giddy chaos, CommWealth probes their breaking of the Four Rules sustaining the system, and several members navigate betrayals, double agents, and murder to find themselves leading a suicidal revolution.
BLURB:
The CommWealth system, introduced just six months previously, has created a society in which there is no legal claim to any kind of private property. Any object from your house to the clothes you’re wearing can be demanded by anyone, to be enjoyed for thirty days before anyone else can request it. As actors in the Forensic Squad theatrical troupe adapt to this giddy chaos, CommWealth probes their breaking of the Four Rules sustaining the system, and several members navigate betrayals, double agents, and murder to find themselves leading a suicidal revolution.
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About the Author:
About the Author:
Michael D. Smith was raised in the Northeast and the Chicago area,
before moving to Texas to attend Rice University, where he began developing as
a writer and visual artist. In addition to exhibiting and selling
paintings and drawings, he’s completed fifteen
novels.
Smith’s writing
in both mainstream and science fiction
genres uses humor to investigate psychological themes. On his
blog, he explores art and writing processes, and his web site contains further
examples of his writing and art. He is currently Technology Librarian for
McKinney Public Library in McKinney, Texas.
CommWealth
is his first novel published by Class Act Books.
Find out
more about Michael at:
Website:
www.sortmind.com,
Thanks for hosting me, Crystal! I really appreciate it!
ReplyDeleteMike