Thank you for requesting an author interview for my new zombie fiction novel GNASH. I really appreciate the opportunity to answer your questions and highlight my work
Brian Parker was born into a military family at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. His family moved all over the United States before his father retired from the Army when he was in third grade. The family settled in the very small town of Seymour, Missouri and purchased a 55-acre farm where the family raised cattle for personal use, chickens and the occasional pig. Brian learned the value of a hard day’s work on the farm and also discovered the enjoyment that could be gained from books and the escapism they provided to a young kid with dreams of bigger things.
Brian is currently an Active Duty soldier who lives in Texas with his wife, who is also an Active Duty soldier, and their two young children. He enjoys hiking, running, Crossfit and writing. Brian is an avid reader of all genres of literature and he’s dabbled for years with writing but GNASH is his first completed manuscript.
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Thank you for granting us an interview... now, let's ask you a few questions...
Where are you from?
I was a military brat until my dad retired when I was in the third grade, then we settled in Seymour, Missouri and bought a farm. I stayed in Missouri until I joined the Army after college. When I wrote the book I was living in DC and now I live in Texas.
Tell us your latest news?
I'm starting in a new position at work in a few days. I'm really excited because I've served in the unit before and they have a rich and storied history over the past century.
When and why did you begin writing?
I've always been interested in writing and expressing my thoughts on paper. I wrote all through high school and college, but I took a brief hiatus for the first several years of my Army career. Even though I'm probably busier now than at any other time, I'm at the point where I've decided to re-prioritize and focus more on my writing.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I think what actually solidified it in my mind that I was a writer is that I forced myself to keep going near the end of GNASH and when completed the book. I took a long time to write it, almost 2.5 years, because I was writing in the evenings after the kids went to bed, during lunch break, even when I had "free" time during my deployment to Iraq, so it really began to get pretty tedious near the end and when I finished it, I had such a huge sense of accomplishment. That's when I knew I was a writer.
Do you have a specific writing style?
I like to give very few details about the characters' appearance and let the reader decide how they want to picture the person. I also like to use footnotes to describe acronyms instead of parentheses inserted into the text, hat way, if the reader already knows what it means, they won't get distracted by the definition and can continue reading.
How did you come up with the title?
I really like the biblical passage from the New Testament, Luke 13:28. It says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. I don't really read the bible much anymore, but the gnashing of teeth part stood out to me. I was going to use "Gnashing of Teeth" but there was already an older WWII memoir out there with that title, so I shortened it to "GNASH". I actually like it better now than the longer title.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp? I think that we all want to believe that good conquers evil so that's a theme throughout...oh, and that French people suck.
How much of the book is realistic?
I'm an Active Duty Army guy, so all the military stuff is real. In fact, if I think about it objectively, I probably went too heavy on the military side of it, but hey, you go with what you know, right?
Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
Well, until a few weeks ago I worked in the Pentagon before the Army moved me to Texas, so for the first part of the book I wrote about my workplace. And really, who DOESN'T want their workplace to be ground zero for a zombie outbreak!
What books have most influenced your life most?
The entire Shannara series by Terry Brooks. Hands down. I love Brooks' style of writing and his ability to totally capture the audience.
If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
I like Terry Brooks a lot, but after reading "Pistol Poets" by Victor Gischler I was inspired to write. In fact, I went back a few days ago and looked through my journal that I kept in Iraq and the day I finished reading that book I wrote that I wanted to write and really become serious about it. I was already about 50 pages into GNASH at that point, but it was really just a hobby, I wasn't taking it seriously yet. I HIGHLY recommend all of Gischler's books.
What book are you reading now?
I just started "The Guns at Last Light" by Rick Atkinson. It's the third book in his Liberation Trilogy about the African/European Theater during WWII. I'm also a big history buff.
What are your current projects?
I'm actually working on a kids' book. I've got most of the story written so far and I have an animator signed up for the project, so hopefully I'll be able to get that out there before too long. That's really about all I want to say about it right now because there's not really anything out there like this project and I don't wanna get scooped if the release is pushed back...stay tuned though!
Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.
This is going to sound crazy, but I love to work out and I think the people at my Crossfit box (gym) were a great at helping me to clear my mind and think straight after getting my butt kicked.
Do you see writing as a career?
I definitely see it as more of a hobby. I've got 14 years in the Army, so I'm not going to quit on that, but maybe after I retire, I might try to pursue it full-time. It's either write or be a greeter at Wal-Mart, right now it's a toss-up.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
I spend about 4 pages talking through a card game that the main character is involved in, I think I'd shrink that down to half of that. But otherwise, I'm pretty satisfied with it. I definitely think the experience of actually completing a novel has made me a better writer though, so I look forward to future projects.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Finding the time to do it around everything else that I have going on. For GNASH I set a weekly goal of five pages per week. Some weeks I wrote more, others I didn't make my goal. It sounds ridiculously simple to write five pages a week, but try to write anything when you're riding around in a vehicle all over the Iraqi desert in 120 degree heat.
Who designed the covers?
I drew everything on my computer. I made the main symbol by merging a biohazard with a nuclear warning symbol and placing a skull with a gas mask on it. Originally, I had the Pentagon/DC skyline on the bottom with a red sky above, but I bounced the picture off of several people and only one of them liked it, so I switched some things around and everybody liked the DC pic up top and the black bottom, so I went with it.
What was the hardest part of writing your book?
Finishing it! Like I mentioned earlier, finding the time to do it was one thing, but then having the tenacity to just keep on going after so long was very hard.
Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?
It's amazing, but I never knew how huge the sense of accomplishment would be upon completion. I always thought I could write a book, but it's actually pretty hard to do, so when you finally get done, there is a sense of relief and you feel like Tom Hanks in "Cast Away" when he makes fire. You know the feeling, look what I have done!
Do you have any advice for other writers?
Keep at it. Set attainable goals for yourself like write XX pages a week or work on your project for XX hours a week. Don't set ridiculously high goals because it will be ridiculously hard to achieve them, make moderate goals that you can reach and then set new ones for yourself as you go along.
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Somebody has to be the bad guy. The novel is about real places and real peoples, don't get upset that I chose a splinter group of radical Muslims to be the bad guys. Hell, I chose the French to do something even more absurd and short-sighted as a response to what the terrorists did...
GNASH is available on Amazon.com for Kindle.
Thank you so much!
~Brian Parker
Redleg13A@hotmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/BrianParkerAuthor
