Interview with Frederick Lee Brooke Author Of Doing Max Vinyl

Here is a quote from Frederick’s blog that says it all: “A couple of months ago I bumped into Laura on Twitter.  Not only is Laura the author of acclaimed YA book Winnemucca and 13 on Halloween, she is also an old friend from high school I had completely lost touch with.  In this picture you can see Laura and me more than thirty years ago at a restaurant in Chicago with a group of friends.  Thirty years later, she lives in California with her family, and I live in Switzerland with mine, and we both write books.  Isn’t it cool that we found each other again on Twitter?  Yeah, Fred. It is. Very. Cool. You can read my interview with Fred here.

L.A.H.E. : What book did you fall in love with as a teenager?

F.L.B: I woke up as a reader during high school and then college, and discovered how whole worlds could be created with words.  One Hundred Years of Solitude was probably the book that made the deepest impression on me, early on.  But I loved the language of Samuel Beckett, I loved reading Proust, I loved Tolstoy and Turgenev, and many others as well.

L.A.H.E. : What’s your favorite scene from Doing Max Vinyl?

F.L.B: There is a scene in which Max’s ex-wife Ginger brings him a gooey chocolate cake to help him celebrate something.  When she walks in to his office he has several pairs of his own Calvin Klein briefs spread out over his desk, for reasons I won’t give away here.  He quickly collects all the briefs and stuffs them in a drawer, but he misses one.  This leads to some good almost slapstick comedy afterwards.  There are quite a few comic situations in the book, but I’ve always enjoyed this one.

L.A.H.E. : Who/what provided your greatest inspiration in writing Doing Max Vinyl?

F.L.B: The idea for Max Vinyl had been kicking around in my head for years.  But the pressure of running a business and raising a family kept me from pursuing my dream of writing.  Then, in 2008, a writer friend of mine lost his battle with clinical depression and took his own life.  I was forty-five years old, and his untimely death made me re-examine my own life.  I decided it was time to finally get going with this writing thing.  I started writing Doing Max Vinyl and never looked back.

L.A.H.E. : So sorry to hear about your loss. What other struggles did you have to overcome in writing Doing Max Vinyl?

F.L.B: I had two struggles.  The first was to beg, borrow and steal the time away from my family and my business to have time to write.  It was hard to write only on weekends, on school vacations, and at night, when I was tired.  This is why I quit my day-job and decided to devote all my time to writing, even though this is a source of some angst.

The second struggle was learning to listen to my characters.  This is something I am still getting used to.  I have an outline for the sequel to Doing Max Vinyl, but I am finding the characters are consistently more violent and more radical than whatever I put down in my outline.  They go far beyond what I’ve planned for them.  This is actually quite entertaining.

L.A.H.E. : Who would be cast in the movie of your book?

F.L.B: Annie is not very tall, but she’s very quick and strong, due to her Army training, and she has white-blond hair and blue eyes.  She’s a little depressed, too.  I guess there are probably a lot of actresses who could play Annie, but I have such a clear idea of Annie in my mind, I would find it extremely difficult to cast anyone.  Max Vinyl is the kind of slimy, leisure suit character that is sometimes played by Brad Pitt.  Having said that, I could also imagine a Matt Damon or a Russell Crowe in the role.  Can you call and offer it to them for me?

L.A.H.E. : Hee-hee. Sure. Got Brad on my speed-dail. What’s the most awkward moment you had [and wouldn’t mind sharing] in high school?

F.L.B: I found out this girl wanted me to ask her to the senior prom.  I was only a junior, while she was a senior.  She also happened to be a girl that I’d had a crush on for a long time, even though we didn’t really know each other.  Juniors and seniors didn’t usually have classes together.   I would see her in the halls, and I think we both sang in the choir.  So I was ecstatic when she asked me to the prom, and we actually went out a couple of times in the weeks leading up to it.  At the time I decided this was the high point of my high school career.  Then we went to the prom, and she spent quite a bit of time with other boys and girls, and on the whole it was less than the perfect prom.  Soon after, she broke up with me.  Someone told me she had wanted to go to the prom with another boy, but he had asked another girl, and that was why she had gone with me.  I was disappointed, and this was awkward.  But I think I was also relieved, because I had felt a lot of pressure being her boyfriend.  Very awkward!

L.A.H.E. : Nothing like prom drama! I can’t believe all this went on and I didn’t know about it:) Do you have any advice for new writers?

F.L.B: My advice to new writers, especially independent writers, is to write for yourself.  Listen to the voice in your own head, and stay true to it.  Don’t just try to figure out what the market wants and write that.  We are artists, not marketers.  The art is your unique voice, and your voice comes from deep within you, not from your interpretation of what the fickle market is telling you.

I was at the Art Institute of Chicago yesterday, and we saw paintings by Rembrandt and Van Gogh and Seurat and Renoir.  Did they paint pictures that they thought people wanted to buy?  No, for the most part they painted straight from the heart.  Like for example Van Gogh’s painting of his bedroom at Arles.  This is great art.  We may never achieve it, but this is what we should aspire to with our writing.

L.A.H.E. : What are you working on now? Can you share a blurb from your new book?

F.L.B: My new book is a sequel to Doing Max Vinyl.  Max Vinyl does not reappear, but Annie Ogden, my heroine does.  I didn’t get to explore her character in the first book as much as I would have liked.  She’s a returning Iraq vet, a former third grade teacher who became a combat soldier, and now she’s back home, completely adrift, quite scarred psychologically.  In the sequel she makes discoveries about herself that are going to be very satisfying for the reader, I think.

L.A.H.E. : What fuel flavors your prose? [chips, popcorn, chocolate, etc….]

F.L.B: Coffee is important.  I also take lots of walks.  I write very happily at home, but sometimes I have to get out, and then I go somewhere else and write.  Usually a place where they have coffee (not always Starbucks, of course!)

L.A.H.E. : If you could take a trip anywhere in the world, where would you most like to go?

F.L.B: I’ve been learning Turkish for the last few years, so I would most like to go to Turkey.  I would like to go there, live with a family for a month, be forced to speak and hear only Turkish, and attend a very intensive course.  I’ve been to Istanbul three times already, only for short trips, and that is where I would like to do my studies.  The problem is that in order to do this I would have to go there alone and put aside writing, reading, family, and all other interests and problems for the entire time (in order to get the most out of it).  So I know I will have to compromise.  Possibly I will be able to do it for two weeks, some time in the next year or so.  I hope I will.  Turkish is a really interesting language.

Hmmm. And I’m just happy to get to the gym three times a week. Note to self: learn another language! Thanks for stopping by Laurasmagicday, Frederick! One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of my favorites too.

5 Easy, Fun Steps To Making Your Book a Reality

You have Successfully Subscribed!