Today it is my pleasure to introduce Craig Lancaster, author of 600 Hours of Edward. I loved this book! Craig’s writing is captivating. I hope you’ll all check it out!
About Craig:
Craig Lancaster was born in Lakewood, Washington, and grew up in suburban Fort Worth, Texas. A longtime journalist, he has worked at newspapers big and small in Texas, Alaska, Kentucky, Ohio, California, Washington and Montana. 600 HOURS OF EDWARD is his first novel.
About His Book:
Edward Stanton, a middle-aged man with Asperger syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder, lives alone in a small house in Billings, Montana, where he has managed to keep the world at arm’s length. He sticks to things he count on, like his nightly viewings of the ’60s cop show
“Dragnet,” and things he can count, like the days of the year and the daily temperatures. But in a 25-day slice of his heavily regimented existence, the world turns the tables on Edward and forces him to confront life in all its beauty and ferocity.
A Chat With Craig:
1. What made you want to write this particular story?
The idea came to me when I started thinking about the dramatic possibilities of someone who lives his life in rigid patterns — the same rituals, tied closely to the clock — and what would happen if circumstances beyond his sphere of control started kicking the legs out from under those patterns. It seemed to me that if I could pull that off, a lot of the things that make for good fiction would be in play.
2. You did an incredible job portraying Edward’s character. While reading this book, I felt like I was right inside his head. Do you have experience with mental illness that helped you create this character?
Not really. Edward, it should be pointed out, has twin disorders. He has Asperger syndrome, a form of autism, and that’s a developmental disorder. It’s accompanied by a strong streak of obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is common among Aspies in particular and people with autism in general. What I wanted to do was build a character for Edward that was consistent with his diagnosis, and then get out of the way of it. So any accuracy — and thank you for the compliment! — is more a case of being true to what I imagined him to be than a reflection of anyone in particular. I’ve since met many
Aspies and those who care for them, and I’ve been gratified by the positive response. I didn’t want Edward to be a caricature or a cartoon, but I also didn’t want his condition to be THE story. It’s a purposely non-clinical book.
3. Did writing this book require much research?
I’m always sheepish about answering this question, because the answer is no. I made sure that I had a good grasp of what Edward’s traits might be, but I didn’t want to become so deeply versed in Asperger syndrome that I was writing a textbook character study.
4. Do you have a specific writing routine?
I tend to write late at night, when the house is quiet and there are no distractions. I’ve completed two novels (my second, THE SUMMER SON, will emerge sometime next year, knock on wood), and the experiences have been quite a bit different. 600 HOURS OF EDWARD was drafted in 24 days, then polished over the next couple of months. THE SUMMER SON, on the other hand, took me a few months to draft, and I’ve gone through some pretty intense rewrites to get it where I want it. In general, in first-draft mode, I work pretty quickly, simply because I want to get the general story down on the page. All of the work that counts the most tends to happen in subsequent drafts.
5. Who and/or what are your writing influences?
I grew up reading Hemingway and Steinbeck, and while I’d love to mimic them, it’s probably best that I be a first-rate me rather than a third-rate them. As I got older, I immersed myself in literature of the West — Ivan Doig, Wallace Stegner, Annie Proulx, etc. I’m fundamentally interested in strong characters and sound architecture in writing. I have my excesses, but for the most part, I’m partial to a spare, simple approach. If I feel myself getting too verbose, I know I’ve left the track that works best for me.
6. What’s next in your writing career?
I’m going to continue herding THE SUMMER SON to its publishing destiny, and I’ve also set the groundwork to start my own small literary press. My professional background is on the production side of publishing, so I’m eager to identify some writers and projects I’d enjoy working with, and to bring those things to the marketplace. Publishing is in such an interesting, scary place right now, and I feel compelled to take my shot at seeing what sort of possibilities exist out there.
I’m also about 15,000 words into my latest novel idea. Soon, I’ll be diving back into that after an extended hiatus prompted by the publication of 600 HOURS OF EDWARD.
***
Signed copies are available from Craig at:
www.craiglancaster.net/
You can also learn more about Craig and his work on his blog:
http://craiglancaster.wordpress.com/
And you can find him on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/craig.lancaster
Pingback: West Of Mars — Win A Book! » Blog Archive » 600 Hours of Edward