with Milt Mays
We are delighted to welcome thriller writer Milt Mays to Omnimystery News today, courtesy of JKSCommunications, which is coordinating his current book tour. We encourage you to visit all of the participating host sites; you can find his schedule here.
Milt's new suspense thriller is The Guide (Milt Mays; May 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats), which asks the question, "Is your fly fishing guide willing to die for you?"
We had the chance to find out for ourselves when we caught up with Milt to talk about his work.
— ♦ —
Omnimystery News: Into what genre would you place your books? And is it an advantage to have them categorized as such?
Photo provided courtesy of
Milt Mays
Milt Mays: The Guide is an outdoor adventure, thriller. My previous book, Dan's War, is a technothriller. The advantage of labeling books in a genre is for those that read for genre. They can easily see what broad brush strokes they can look for. The disadvantage is that genre labels can be misleading if you expect all thrillers to follow a certain formula like authors you have read in the past. I don't like conforming to formulaic writing of thrillers, so mine will be different. But they'll keep you turning the pages.
OMN: Tell us something about The Guide that isn't mentioned in the synopsis.
MM: Not only does Stony, the fly fishing guide, have to save his client from a serial killer, he must save him from a blizzard, animal predators unusual to Colorado, and worst of all, he must save his client from himself.
OMN: How would you tweet a summary of the book?
MM: Time to relax and go fly fishing … except a serial killer is closing in. Will your guide die for you? Is your doctor the serial killer?
OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in the book?
MM: I believe there are parts of me and every doctor in the idealistic Jake, and the dark Roman, and I have infused The Guide with many real-life experiences of doctor dilemmas and poignant moments. Stony, the guide, has many real experiences I myself had as a guide. And he portrays a conglomerate of many PTSD patients I have seen.
OMN: Complete this sentence for us: "I am a thriller writer and thus I am also …".
MM: I am a thriller writer and thus I am also obsessed with murder, evil, and how they interact with good, even in the same character. And to push a plot to the limits to get people to turn the page faster.
OMN: Tell us a little more about your writing process and pushing a plot to its limits.
MM: An idea strikes me, like in The Guide, when one of my guide clients lied about his health and it turned out to almost be very serious, getting stuck in the wilderness with a dying man. So, I started with that premise and added several twists, like a serial killer threatening the client and guide. I don't like outlines, but in complex plots I have had to go back and make a timeline/plotline on a whiteboard and review everything once it's done. Even after finishing a novel, I may go back weeks or months later and add twists that change the whole story, but always make it better.
OMN: Describe your writing environment.
MM: A computer, a printer (no kidding!). The keyboard is raised on a 1.5 inch book The Rainbow Book of Art, because I have a tall sitting height. I have a backup hard drive and thumb drive I backup all my work. I sit in a comfortable chair and there are bookshelves with numerous writing references above the computer: The American Heritage Dictionary, The Chicago Manual of Style, Roget's International Thesaurus, etc., and five world and state atlases I use a lot to get places right. Another nearby bookcase has other references, medical, fly fishing, camping, hiking, biking, and any I use in a particular novel. There are many edited printed novels from test readers lying on my desk ready to go through before I finish the novel completely. The closet is full of manuscripts of prior novels sent to other test readers, business cards and posters. There is a framed multimedia artistic rendition of Dan's War that my daughter created for her Master's in art education There are pictures and a shadow box of my Navy days, photos of family. Behind my writing chair is a road bike trainer and my fly tying bench with all the equipment and vises and hooks, etc. I look out my window to the west and see the foothills of the Front Range, and can see the tip of Long's Peak, though I usually keep the blinds closed to avoid distractions of thinking of fly fishing.
OMN: You have a lot of reference material handy in your workspace. How else do you go about researching the plot points of your stories?
MM: I try to write what I know. In The Guide I wrote about doctors and fly fishing guides and the wilderness, all familiar to me first hand. Some things I wanted to experience first-hand — hiking and camping in Alaska, and Colorado wilderness, wolves and grizzlies in Yellowstone. I also interviewed experts like wilderness trappers, oncology doctors, policemen. In addition I used a multitude of books on the mind of a serial killer, the habitat and history of grizzly bears and wolves, Vietnam and PTSD, sexual abuse. Of course I used the internet, but I find I must have several sources on the net before I will believe it, and always like to back it up with books or experts. The most exciting experience was camping in the wilderness Alaska with two friends for a week, not seeing a person the whole time. We floated down a river and tent camped on gravel bars every night, completely self-sufficient. Luckily one of my friends was a guide, and a great one.
OMN: Tell us a little more about the settings for your books.
MM: Both books are set in real places and I try to get most of the geography and directions and local environment correct. I don't want people who have been there to say “That's not right,” and take them out of the novel. Sometimes I take liberties with the exact places and/or characters or animals, to make things more interesting. Imagine that!
OMN: What kinds of books do you read for pleasure?
MM: I read all types, though fantasy and sci-fi have fallen off my radar. I have been concentrating recently on catching up with great literature, Pulitzer's and other award winners, to see what makes them great. But I love thrillers, mystery, and suspense. I cut my teeth on The Hardy Boys, Sherlock Holmes, Doc Savage, and Michael Crichton. I love Robert Crais with his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike books, as well as Craig Johnson and Sheriff Longmire. Another favorite is James Lee Burke for his lyrical descriptions of scenery, character interactions, and the interesting plots.
OMN: What's next for you?
MM: I want a best seller and a Great American Novel. Who doesn't? I think that my writing is improving every week so perhaps that will occur. If not, just having a few people stop me and tell me they enjoyed my books means a lot. Personally, I want to teach my grandson to fly fish and watch him catch his first fish on a fly, ride my road bike with my son to the top of Trailridge Road, and continue to camp in the wilderness of the west with my wife, my kids, and my dog.
— ♦ —
Milt Mays grew up in Colorado, though he spent most of his adult life as a Navy doctor, caring for those at the forefront of many conflicts, including Vietnam. He graduated from the Naval Academy and Creighton Medical School. His medical career included tours with the Marines, a Navy Security Group in Scotland, Pensacola Naval Hospital, and now at the Veteran's Hospital in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
He has been a fly fishing guide in Rocky Mountain National Park, and continues to ply these waters with a long stick and pieces of fur and feather.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at MiltMays.com or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
— ♦ —
The Guide
Milt Mays
A Suspense Thriller
A serial killer … a doctor … and the guide who stands between them …
Stony lives for fly fishing in the wilderness. It literally saved his life. After Stony massacred an entire village in Vietnam, addiction and PTSD almost killed him. Alaska, fly fishing, and a woman and her wolves brought him back from the brink. He made a vow to her on her deathbed to always help people, and to never kill another man.
Now he has a new lover, and is finally clean. So when he takes a seemingly ideal client deep into the wilderness of Rocky Mountain National Park, he never dreams that his most sacred vow will be tested to the breaking point. He will have to save his client from a serial killer, a murderer so devious he has managed to become a respected doctor — and his client's partner.
It's taken Stony thirty years to disentangle himself from psychological hell. Now, hampered by all the dangers high altitude wilderness can throw at him, Stony must risk sinking into mental hell forever by killing an evil doctor — or risk losing not only his client, but his new soul mate.
0 comments:
Post a Comment