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James W.
Killman
Send in the
Clowns
Tell
your readers a little about yourself, where you grew up, where you live now,
where you went to school etc. Let them get to know the personal you.
Well, I was
born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and we lived there until I was fifteen. Then we
moved to Memphis for a year, and then we moved to Houston, Texas. I loved
Houston. In fact, I loved Texas, always have. But Dad got moved to New Orleans,
and that’s where I graduated from high school. Well, on the West Bank anyway. I
went to West Jefferson High School; you may have heard of it.
I come from a
long line of farmers and railroad people, strictly blue-collar.
I started
college at Louisiana Tech, and when money got really tight, I dropped out and
went to Parris Island. I can tell you my mother was not happy with that career
move. Vietnam was still a thing, you know, so I spent six years in the Marine
Corps Reserve and worked at a couple of jobs. I had a small plumbing and
electrical business where I learned—the hard way—that I didn’t know enough
about business. So, I went to work as a contract manager for a glass company
and moved to Panama City, Florida.
Along the way,
I got married, had two terrific children, and tried to get ahead in life.
Sometimes I was trying to get ahead when I should have been spending more time
with my children, I fear. To steal a phrase from a friend, I was sometimes a
“distracted father.” I was called to the ministry and went back to college, and
then, to seminary at Emory University in Atlanta.
I had a heart
transplant in September of 2000, and that was, to say the least, a big turning
point in my life. How many heart transplant recipients do you know? Quite frankly,
life as I had known it was over.
So, I spent a
few years teaching both math and English—I’m kind of
right-brained/left-brained—and I retired in 2019. That’s when I thought to
myself, “I am finally going to start writing those novels I’ve been threatening
for so long.
What
inspired you to author your book?
I have always
been a writer. I wrote newsletters, house organs, investment proposals, and a
little bit of everything at several different jobs over the years. I even wrote
several federal grant requests for nonprofits.
But I had this
. . . need, I guess you could say, to write a book. I think I have some
things to say, and I want to say them before I’m dead. So, I wrote a novel—one
not yet published; it’ll be out later this year—and just started the job of
editing it when a very close friend approached me with a story concept. He
asked if I thought I could do something with it, and I was off. He’s a business
partner now, and he helped me to edit and refine Send in the Clowns as I
wrote it. I write, and he handles all the important stuff.
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Where
did you get the inspiration for your book’s cover?
Anyone who
reads the book will “get” the cover. There is a music box that figures in the
story, and its figure is on the cover of the book. I chose the starry night
background because it is not only beautiful, but it also reminds me of the
star-crossed nature of life, love, and the affairs of all human beings which I
hope if reflected in the story.
Who
has been the most significant influence on you personally and as a writer?
Let’s do as a
writer first:
I think one of
the very best writers of the last one hundred years was Pat Conroy. The opening
lines of some of his books are the stuff of genius:
·
“I wear the ring” from The Lords of Discipline;
·
“My wound is geography” from The Prince of Tides;
·
“I was born to be a point guard. Just not a very
good one” from My Losing Season.
Even if you
don’t like his stories, those lines alone are worth buying the book for. In
fact, when I peruse a bookstore—and God help us, those are few anymore—I
usually read the first line of any book I consider.
As an avid
reader, I am always impressed, no, stricken with good language. And those Conroy
openings rank up there with ole Bill Shakespeare himself. So, I try to make the
language I use come alive and strike a chord with the reader.
I also love
the understatement of Mark Twain, and the over-the-top stories of Kurt Vonnegut.
At a personal
level, the most significant influence may have been my maternal grandfather. He
would come get me when I was a boy, and we would ride around and just talk. . .
about family, and life, and things a man should know and be. He never lectured,
he just talked. But I remember those talks. And when he got old, I would go and
get him, and we would drive around, smoking cigars, and talking.
He thought I
was a lot smarter than I am because I got the education that was not available
to him when he was a kid. I showed him some shop drawings I had done for a
construction job, and he just thought I was a genius.
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What
were your struggles or obstacles you had to overcome to get this book written?
For me, a
story is kind of there in my mind, but making it into something readable is the
hard part. And to steal a quote from Stephen King, I have to write the story to
see how it all comes out, but I also want the reader to be part of it. I am
sometimes quite surprised to find out what happened along the way of the story.
How was I to
portray someone with a terminal illness or in a wheelchair and not make them
into either a caricature or merely an object of pity? I didn’t want that for my
characters or my readers. And even the antagonists have to be human. The
protagonists definitely have to be human, you know, sometimes silly or foolish
or thoughtless or just human! But they also have to be someone we love and care
about.
I also worked
hard to make sure the story was not clichéd. This is not a romance, a Hallmark
movie where you know the ending from the start. There have to be some surprises
and little tidbits of subtlety along the way. And I want the readers to be both
satisfied with the ending and yet wanting more when they close the book.
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Tell your readers about your book.
This is the
story of two people, Gio and Gina, who both have a terminal illness, who meet
by chance, and who find each other extremely attractive, though they are quite
different from each other. And both have careers and families or friends who
want to take care of them. But Gio and Gina want to focus on living the life
they have left and not focus on some impending death. You know, spend time
living instead of dying.
It is also the
story of the people around these two who try to care for them and even become .
. . jealous? angry? unhappy? Or maybe just concerned with the romance as it
develops. There is a good bit of miscommunication because there always is
miscommunication in life.
Who
is your target audience, and why?
I have two,
actually. The first is younger readers who will read an adult-level novel and
think about life choices, reactions, living and dying, and even how to deal
with others who are sick or crippled or dying. We insulate our children in the
modern world far too much, I think, from the very certain vicissitudes of life.
I do not write a lot of foul language or gratuitous sex into my books because I
want my fourteen-year-old granddaughter to read this without being embarrassed.
And then, I
want to target people who read a lot and appreciate a good story, thinking
readers. I want someone who might ordinarily read a romance novel to read my
book and think, “you know, that’s better than most of the romance novels I
read,” because it’s not a romance novel by the definition of the genre. This
might make for a good movie, but maybe not a Hallmark movie.
I try to
challenge readers with a liberal sprinkling of literary allusions and a bit of
foreign language or even arcane jazz numbers, not because I am trying to
befuddle or show out, but because that’s how I think, and I will not write down
to anyone. My paternal grandmother only went through the third grade, but she
was one of the best-read women I even knew. She taught me that people—young,
old, well-educated or not—are intelligent and thoughtful.
I want to write for those people.
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The story will
lead you somewhere you probably haven’t been.
By that, I mean it delves into emotions and thoughts that we don’t see every
day, but we might want to think about. We tend to hide from these thoughts and
emotions.
And it’s a
good story.
What
do you consider your greatest success in life?
Having two
children who are healthy and happy and good, upstanding people in spite of
their paternal genes. Ha. Both my son and daughter, both in their forties now,
live productive lives and make me proud, even when I don’t get to see them as
often as I should like to. My son has proven to be a great father to his
children. My daughter helped raise her stepson and her husband’s nephew as her
own, and she did a fine job with both of them. I consider my part in raising
them to be proof of a successful life.
What
one unique thing sets you apart from other writers in your genre?
My history, my
faith, and my love for people. Sitting in a sophomore English class, I listened
to a professor I adored lecture on Ernest Hemingway, telling how he was a
successful newspaper man who wanted to write novels. “But he knew that he
hadn’t been around enough,” she said. So, he quit his job and joined the
Spanish revolution. How’s that for a stupid, romantic gesture!
Shortly after
that, I dropped out of school and went to Parris Island. Believe me, the Marine
Corps will take you around and show you things you didn’t even know existed.
How
do you overcome writer’s block?
I write.
I keep
writing, usually throwing out the trash that I write, but I keep writing. I
also look through my old notebooks trying to find an idea or a phrase that will
stimulate an idea or lead me in a direction I hadn’t thought of before. I’ve
started several stories with one line that opened a whole vista of
possibilities. For example, my next novel starts out with the line, “Forgive
me, Father, for I have sinned.”
What
one piece of advice do you have for new authors.
Don’t listen
to the advice of writers, including me. We’re all different, and there are no Six
Secrets to a Successful Writing Career or The Certain Way to Craft a Story.
Some great writers outline the whole thing to begin with and others just write.
I would advise anyone who wants to write to do it: write—and keep writing. And
have a thick skin because most of what most of us write is junk!
But you can
make a living writing for others if you don’t want to or can’t write fiction.
Writing grants, technical writing, and newsletters and be satisfying and
financially rewarding. Most people either can’t or won’t write at all, so
if you write at all, that alone sets you apart from the herd.
IF—and this is
important—you can structure a complete sentence, and do the punctuation
correctly, and carry the thoughts through, you can outdo most people. That is
basic writing, not great literature, and most folks can’t do it at all,
certainly not well.
You probably
won’t be the next Stephen King or J. K. Rowling or Pat Conroy. But you may be,
and if you feel the need to write, nothing will scratch that itch but writing.
Write in your spare time. Make time for writing. Find a sponsor (if there
really is such a thing). Get your thoughts on paper. Do whatever it takes to
write.
The worst
thing that will come from writing is that no one will read your work. (Yes, I
know, Shakespeare pointed out that not understanding a man’s verse kills hi
like a reckoning in a little room.) But no one, and I mean no one, should reach
the end of their days regretting that they didn’t go for it, whatever “it” is.
Tell
your readers anything else you want to share.
Life is short.
I spent almost two months in one hospital room at the age of forty-seven where
I was either going to die or get a heart transplant. I thought about a lot of
things and had a few regrets, but not once did I regret not spending more time
at the office. Not spending more time with my family? Yes. But the office got
too much of me as it was.
Life is good,
but sometimes you have to make it beautiful by choosing to ignore the ugly or
find the beauty that lies within the ugly. One should, I think, refuse to be
unhappy and miserable because, like the apostle Paul, we can find contentment whatever
the circumstances.
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ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
James Killman was born in Arkansas where he lived until he
was fifteen. His family then moved to Memphis, Houston, and New Orleans where
he graduated high school with honors. After two years in engineering school, he
joined the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, where he served in various specialties
including military policeman, mobilization NCO, training NCO, and platoon
sergeant. He returned to school later and received cum laude degrees from Troy
State in English, history, and psychology. He also attended seminary at Emory
University. He has experience in plumbing/electrical contracting, manufacturing
management, project management, software consulting, and the ordained ministry
in past lives. After a heart transplant in 2000, he taught both English and
mathematics in high school and college. His past writing credits consist of
house organs, technical writing, newsletters, and private work for hire. Mr. Killman now lives on Lake Oconee in Georgia with
his wife, Lynn, and his faithful companion, Waylon, the French Bulldog. He
spends his time as a boulevardier, writer, grandfather, and a full-time
ne’er-do-well. If you want to talk, he’s your man.
FOLLOW THE AUTHOR
http://jameswkillman.com
https://www.facebook.com/james.killman2020
https://twitter.com/killman_w
https://www.instagram.com/jameswkillman/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-w-killman-055980ab/
https://www.bookbub.com/profile/james-w-killman
https://www.amazon.com/James-W-Killman/e/B091NC25Z2/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21432869.James_W_Killman
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