7 Questions For: Author John Claude Bemis

John Claude Bemis tried to write about wizards and dragons. Growing up in rural eastern North Carolina, he read fantasy classics like J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis. But when it he began writing his own fantasy-adventure books, he decided to look to a different set of archetypes. John found inspiration for his fiction in old-time country and blues music and began to explore how Southern folklore could be turned into epic fantasy. This passion grew into The Clockwork Dark, a trilogy set in a mythical 19th-century America full of hoodoo magic, battling trains, and mermaid-like sirens in the swamps of Louisiana.

The first book in the trilogy, The Nine Pound Hammer (Random House, 2009), was described as “a steampunk collision of heroes, mermaids, pirates, and good old-fashioned Americana” by Booklist and was a New York Public Library Best Children’s Book 2009.  

Click here to read my review.  

The Wolf Tree is the second book in the trilogy and will be followed in summer 2011 by The White City. John Claude Bemis lives in Hillsborough, NC with his wife and daughter.

And now John Claude Bemis faces the 7 Questions:

Question Seven: What are your top three favorite books?

The Jack Tales by Richard Chase. In these Appalachian folktales, Jack rivals Loki as the ultimate trickster figure. He’s heroic, hilarious, and flawed. A weird fantasy world filled with lots of bloody giant slaying.

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. Souls manifest as animals. The truth-telling alethiometer. Armored bears. The brilliant world-building is matched by a stunning concept for the plot.

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. I don’t think there’s a single truly evil character in this epic sci-fi quintet of books. But it definitely has one of the best villains: the terrifying resurrected man, Grike.

Question Six: How much time do you spend each week writing? Reading?

I write 3 – 4 days a week, usually for about 6 hours at a time. I also find many other hours in the week to work things out in my imagination when I’m washing dishes, driving, or taking hikes. I read every day as much as I can. Reading is a critical part of how I’ve learned to be a writer.

Question Five: What was the path that led you to publication?

Forming a critique group pushed me to work seriously on trying to get published. I can’t stress enough how important it’s been to have that creative community of ambitious and talented fellow children’s book writers. Three of the four of us are now published. Along with Jennifer Harrod (who you’ll be reading one day), there’s J.J. Johnson, whose debut is coming out this spring, This Girl Is Different, and Stephen Messer who wrote Windblowne and has The Death of Yorik Mortwell coming out next fall.

I did considerable research to find an agent I felt was the best fit for what I was writing. My time was better spent researching agents’ likes and dislikes rather than to submit blindly to lots of agents. My agents Josh and Tracey Adams are amazing. Josh knew immediately the editor who was right for my stories: Jim Thomas at Random House. Through lots of work, I’ve had the good fortune of teaming up with amazing people who have made my stories the best they can be.

Question Four: Do you believe writers are born, taught or both? Which was true for you?

Anyone can be a writer. I don’t believe a gifted few are born to be artists. I believe anybody who feels an artistic calling can become more creative through hard work. Nature surely plays a role, but the creative arts are nurtured. Imagination and story-telling are learned skills just like rebuilding an engine and making jump shots. It takes lots of practice and discovering your unique artistic sensibilities.

Question Three: What is your favorite thing about writing? What is your least favorite thing?

When I’m engrossed in the process of creating a book, it’s like enjoying the best possible movie. To be deeply a part of the characters and their world as I live the story in my imagination is an extraordinary experience. I love planning. I love hitting obstacles and sorting them out. I even love revisions. My least favorite part is probably the anticipation as I wait for a new book to hit the shelves.

Question Two: What one bit of wisdom would you impart to an aspiring writer? (feel free to include as many other bits of wisdom as you like)

Write the story that nobody else but you could possibly write. Take what you’re most deeply passionate about and weave it into your story. Make that story wildly original. I think the best way to generate wildly original ideas is to put unexpected subjects together in ways readers have never seen before. This is the richest sort of creative thinking. A spider who writes messages in a web. A boy being raised by a graveyard of ghosts. A journey in a dirigible peach. To come up with these sorts of boldly unique ideas, you have to look deeply at the world and notice strange, unexpected patterns. You also have to have a lot of guts to put your unique vision out there for readers.

Question One: If you could have lunch with any writer, living or dead, who would it be? Why??

J.K. Rowling. I have so many questions for her. Not about the world of Harry Potter but about her creative process.

 

 

www.johnclaudebemis.com

Book of the Week: THE CLOCKWORK DARK: THE NINE POUND HAMMER by John Claude Bemis

The Nine Pound Hammer is a fun and exciting steampunk adventure that is equal parts funny, scary, and awesome—especially the many action sequences sure to keep readers on the edge of their seat. Full confession: the Ninja is old and out of touch and has never read steampunk before now. Yes, you are right to condemn me, Esteemed Reader. But if the rest of steampunk is anywhere near as good as this book, you can bet I will be reading more.

It’s a little bit difficult for me to review this book as a story because it’s the first in a trilogy and though I’ve started reading the second, the third isn’t out yet and until it is, it’s hard for me to judge the plot as it is incomplete. But The Nine Pound Hammer certainly gets the series started out on the right track.

Meet twelve-year-old Ray. He’s got a little sister, no mom, and a dad whom he hasn’t seen for years, but who left him a magic lodestone Ray is convinced will lead him to something great, possibly an adventure, and possibly back to dad (the lodestone has magical GPS properties, you see). The novel starts with Ray making the decision to leave little sister to a foster family and to jump off a moving train toward adventure. Writers take note, this is a very exciting way to start a novel: a gut-wrenching decision and an exciting action indicating that Ray is either very brave, or not very bright (he's brave).

Ray has some adventures in the woods with poison acorns—it would take too long to explain—some pirates (poison Arghcorns?), a bear, and then, ironically, he boards another train. This time Ray’s riding a traveling medical show train filled with a cast of marvelous characters we just know are going to accompany Ray for the next two books.

There’s something odd and dare I say magical about this train. One of the performers in the medicine show is a blind sharpshooter and just how does that work without magic? From one of the train cars, Ray hears a song that drives him mad with desire old school Odysseus style. Ray investigates and finds something there that changes everything. I’m not going to tell you what, but if you’ve read your Homer, you can probably guess. And if by Homer, you thought I meant Simpson, this will all come as quite a surprise to you.

Speaking of mythology, The Nine Pound Hammer is all about it. The story takes place at a time in America when folks like Paul Bunion and Johnny Appleseed were about. But in Bemis’s when, these folks aren’t just mythological, but real and acting in the world—and yes, I know Johnny Appleseed was always real, but there’s a more fantastic version of him that never existed and that’s the sort you’ll find roaming the pages of The Nine Pound Hammer. The myth you need to know for sure going in is the myth of John Henry, who might have been real.

Who is John Henry? If you know, skip to the next paragraph, but if you’re like me and it’s been a while, you might need a refresher. For the record, Mrs. Ninja was appalled that I didn’t remember John Henry, but I far prefer modern American mythology in which the heroes sling webs and batarangs. Here is a nice John Henry myth summary from John Bemis you’ll want to know going into The Nine Pound Hammer:

The song’s hero, John Henry, is an ex-slave who works on the railroad, a “steel-drivin’ man” who lays tracks and digs tunnels through the mountains. One day, a steam drill is brought in to replace the men digging the tunnels. In an attempt to save the men’s jobs, John Henry challenges the steam drill to see who is faster: man or machine. With Li’l Bill, his shaker (the man who holds the drill bit for the steel driver to hit with his hammer), John Henry carves out more rock than the steam drill. But as everyone cheers, he collapses with his nine-pound hammer still in his hands. The mighty steel driver’s huge heart bursts from exertion. Whether or not John Henry really existed, he is a powerful symbol of our humanity: the self-sacrificing hero who fights the soulless machine until his heart bursts.

I see I am already going to break my resolution of shorter reviews and we can’t have that. So I’ve got two points for writers this week, an angry rant, and some favorite passages to share, and after that, we’ll call it a review. But first, I must say how much I loved the Hoarhounds, which are ferocious beasts, and they alone are worth reading this book even if it weren’t great in so many other respects. Here is a lovely description of the darling Hoarhounds:

Breaking from the forest, the monster was more terrifying than Ray remembered from his dream. Larger than a bull, the Hound bristled with frost-hardened spikes of fur. Long, terrible fangs crowded its mouth, and as it swung its head, the deathly, bitter cold breath whipped out from its snout.

My first point for writers comes not from the text, but from the acknowledgements that follow the book: Enormous thanks go out to my critique group—Jennier Harrod, Stephen Messer, and Jen Wichman—talented writers who helped shape this book in so many ways. You remember our old friend Stephen Messer, don’t you? The PUBLISHED author of Windblowne. That must have been some critique group! This here point makes itself: if you are serious about your writing, get yourself a critique group. If you don’t have time for one, start a blog, reach out to other amazing bloggers and swap critiques with them:) Speaking of which, Michael, if you’re reading this, I’ve started your manuscript and I will totally have notes for you in a week or two.

My second point to writers is that if racism is required in your story, don’t try to clean it up or airbrush over it. Write the racism. Please note, I am not advising the writing of racists things—you’re on your own if you decide to go there—but if you’re writing about a situation in which racism should be present, leave it in. Here is an example from the text:

Having been introduced to the crowd as the pitchman, Nel began. Ray recognized that, although ceremonial, this gesture by Mister Everett was intended to legitimize Nel to an audience that might not otherwise accept the Negro pitchman.

Ninja, you might ask, in a story about magical rocks and pirates that takes place in a fantastical alternate history that never happened, why not leave out the racism? Excellent question, Esteemed Reader! In an alternate history, it might be okay, but if your novel is going to center around the myth of John Henry, it is not okay. I’m not going to tell you how John Henry plays into the book as that would be spoiling, but trust that the title The Nine Pound Hammer signifies his importance.

John Henry is two things: really strong and a slave. To leave out the slavery part is to betray who he is at his core, and you can’t have American slavery without racism (although corporations and credit card companies are fast figuring out a workaround). Similarly, you can’t have American history without racism as it is who we have been. Never mind that we wish we hadn’t been, we were, and to go forgetting it ensures that we shall be again.

You wouldn’t depict a famous battle without American soldiers dying as to deny that reality denies their sacrifice. Well I say to you that denying a history of disgusting, hideous racism denies the sacrifice of those who have worked to bring us where we are: not an un-racist utopia, but in a spot where with our President and that fact that Mrs. Ninja and I can be married without a hanging posse showing up we can maybe start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

All this brings me to my angry rant: who the heck thinks they have the right to edit Mark Twain? Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of my most favorites, is not a racist book, though it contains racist characters from a racist time. Defending this stance is the subject of another post. I know the N-word is nasty and hard to read, but it’s also a word people actually said the way Twain depicts them saying it in that novel. More, Twain knew it was a nasty and hard-to-read word and used it accordingly. Mark Twain is perfectly capable of making his points about the foolishness and horror of racism within the text itself. His book is its own defense. He doesn’t need us cleaning up his language. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a literary masterpiece, not a Disney Cartoon, and we writers need to protest this affront. If they start editing Twain, what will they take out of your books long after you’re dead or before? We’ll have none of this Orwellian double-speak, thank you very much.

In conclusion, The Nine Pound Hammer is a marvelous book and you should buy yourself a copy:) Be sure to check back Thursday when John Claude Bemis will be here at this very blog to face the 7 Questions and on Saturday when our mystery literary agent will be revealed. And now, as always, I will leave you with some of my favorite passages from the book:

“You’re nuts, Lenny,” his friends laughed and goaded from the crowd.

“Not as batty as him.” Lenny pointed at Buck and sniggered. “Get it? Batty.”

His friends contorted their faces in confusion.

“Bats is blind,” Lenny explained.

His friends howled.

“Come to me, Hoarhound!” he cried. (I have always wanted to cry this myself—MGN)

Si fell at his side, kissing his brow and cheeks and wiping the sweat from his face.

“Conker!” she cried. “Are you alive? Say something!”

He smiled weakly. “I must be dead if you’re kissing on me.”

The locomotive reversed and began to slink away in the dark like a viper curling back into its den.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Book of the Week is simply the best book I happened to read in a given week. There are likely other books as good or better that I just didn’t happen to read that week. Also, all reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.