Interview with featured author Tim Jollymore (meet him this Sunday)

In this interview, this Sunday’s featured member Tim Jollymore draws on experience and insight to share his take on what writing and “the writing boom” is about. What steps to take and reflections to make are needed before one can understand what path to follow?

Tim Jollymore is author of five books. Listener in the Snow is an adventure set in snowy Northern Minnesota. He’s written two mysteries Observation Hill, a novel of class and murder and The Advent of Elizabeth. Lake Stories and Other Tales is a story and essay collection, while People You’ve Been Before is a novel exploring “adventures in sobriety.” He has published book of poems titled Christmas in the Winter Garden. He is presently at work on a sixth: The Second Confession of Saint Augustine, a historical novel set in North Africa at the 5th Century end of the Roman empire.

For this work, Jollymore has received four independent publishing awards. He was a two-time finalist in the North Eastern Minnesota Book Awards and he’s garnered high praise from Publishers’ Weekly and repeatedly from the Saint Paul Pioneer Press.

Jollymore was born in Duluth, Minnesota and took his English degrees at the university there. He relocated, mid-life, to the San Francisco Bay Area, pursuing business, architecture, and teaching. Learn more about Tim Jollymore’s books at finnswaybooks.com

Getting to Know Tim Jollymore

What is the most important piece of writing advice that you could give to other writers?

Don’t take advice. Listen to YOUR muse. Strive for art.

Tim Jollymore

I tell you; don’t take advice. If you must, scrutinize each bit. Listen to YOUR muse. That is why you take walks in the morning. Check to see that your “advisors” don’t have their hands too deeply in your pockets, for some only see the currently swelling ranks of writers as a financial opportunity for them. Strive for art. Be unafraid to liberally use adverbs.

What are your writing habits?

I write from 9:00 to noon and then do whatever I want! Henry Miller, though, in his 11 commandments of writing, says, “Don’t be a dray horse. Live life . . . drink if you want to.” So, I can tell you (and Henry) I do not write every day. I travel, “I laze and loaf and invite my soul,” but when I am working it is nine to noon, five days a week.

What writers inspire you?

It is not the writer but his/her writing that inspires me. Living writers whose writing interests me are Pers Petterson, Richard Flannigan, John Krakauer, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Paul Auster, and Sigrid Nunez.

 I find CWC membership a great place to land in a storm, or, really, during a calm.

Tim Jollymore

My “Dead Novelists’ Society” includes William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Henry James, Charlotte Bronte, and Mark Twain.

Where are you in your writing career?

Of five books published since 2014 (one in its third printing and one in its second) the most successful is Listener in the Snow, my debut novel. So be it.

My plans extend a couple of years with The Second Confession of Saint Augustine, and, continuing in a different vein of historical fiction and returning to my Minnesota topics, is Missabe Miss, a World War Two, home-front novel.

Much of my writing shares a devotion to characters of a common sort, everyday people, who are shown through their interior lives. I adhere to the practice of stylistic crafting experimentation with points of view, and the condensation of storytelling into three or four days.

How long have you been a part of CWC-BB, and what does membership mean to you?

I’ve been with CWC for five years, a dual member for two. I find CWC membership a great place to land in a storm, or, really, during a calm. It is also a distraction from writing. I avoid becoming simply a denizen of an organization. I want to write!

How do you manage your writing life?

Min Kamp (my struggle), to use Knausgaard’s title, is a battle between publication activities and promotion of my work which incorporates traveling, and actual hours spent writing. Min Frelse (my salvation) is that the great pile of ideas, characters, and themes continues to grow and to wait for my attention.

To read a sample of his work, go to http://www.jollymore.wordpress.com for excerpts of novels, short stories, and reviews.

Meet Tim Jollymore this Sunday at our next meeting

For full details, such as schedule, directions, raffle info and more, please see the post announcing this Sunday’s event. In addition to getting to know featured member Tim Jollymore, this meeting will offer legal advice for literary contracts, as well as assistance with craft and marketing.