Author Interview – Michael Meyer

What do you consider the most challenging about writing a novel, or about writing in general?

The most difficult part for me is placing the following words on my manuscript: The End. I get very involved with my characters as I write. I laugh and cry with them, and I agonize over their actions and their circumstances. They are like my own children. I am sad to see them grow up and then go off to live their lives on their own. Letting go of the daily interaction with them is tough. It is like having a movie that has fully engrossed you coming to an end. It is like being so absorbed by a book that you are reading that you simply never want it to end. Saying goodbye is tough, even though I know that my little ones have all found a very good home at Amazon.

Did writing this book teach you anything and what was it? I learned to be very tolerable of people’s reactions to my writing. If a reader dislikes what I have done, then so be it. We each have individual tastes. I absolutely will not allow someone’s negative reactions to my work bring me down. Instead, I focus on the positive things that people say about my writing. I must say that it took me time to get to this position, but that is where I now am and intend to remain.

Do you intend to make writing a career? My career is now over. I was a university professor for over 40 years. Writing is my hobby. It is my avocation, not my vocation.

Have you developed a specific writing style? Not really. My two humorous novels have quite a different style than my two international suspense mysteries. The characters, plot, and genre of my book all help determine the most appropriate style for that particular piece of writing. For example, in THE SURVIVAL OF MARVIN BAINES, I use quite a few short sentences, sometimes even intentional fragments, to keep the tempo just right.

What is your greatest strength as a writer? My greatest strength, I feel, is the fact that I am proud of what I write. I am a very demanding reader, and the fact that I am like a reader as I write my own novels is a real plus, I feel. If I am not absolutely satisfied as a reader with something I have written, then it does not find a permanent home in my book.

Have you ever had writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it? I immediately get away from my writing. The minute writing becomes a chore, it will no longer be my hobby. Since I plan to write until I die, I want it to always be an enjoyable experience for me. Life is too short to view it in any other fashion.

Can you share a little of your current work with us? COVERT DREAMS is a suspenseful thriller that moves at a fast pace from Munich to the burning sands of Saudi Arabia. It explores two very popular themes, missing persons and mind games. I think that these two themes continue to be so popular in the suspense genre because mysterious thrills have always been very attractive to people. We want to know the what, why, how, and who. Lookie-loos abound in our world. We are curious. We want answers. We hope to learn from the dread that happens to others.

How did you come up with the title? A series of lifelike dreams drives the main character, B.J., to Munich in order to find out how he happens to visualize the city so vividly in his dreams and how he can speak German in his dreams, though he has never been there before and although he does not speak the language. The Covert comes from a highly specialized government program in Saudi Arabia, where answers to many of the main character’s questions reside. Thus, COVERT DREAMS pretty well sums up the nature of this international suspense thriller.

Can you tell us about your main character? B.J. has a great job and a loving wife. But all of a sudden he begins experiencing a series of lifelike nightmares, where he knows intimate details of Munich, a city in which he has never been. He can speak German in his dream, a language he does not know. Everybody thinks he is losing it. Is he going crazy? To save himself, he knows that he has but one option: he must go to Munich to uncover the truth behind his dreams.