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Innerview: Lewis James

Describe your writing routine…if you have one.

I have two writing styles: one romantic and one pragmatic. In the romantic style I use a pen and notepad and physically place myself in an environment (café, park, hotel lobby) that is a novel break from the norm. In the pragmatic style I go to my office, sit in front of my computer, and begin typing.

I know you were in Calcutta when you finished writing Beating Kings, Burning Angels. Where did you write when you were abroad?

I wrote in cafes and youth hostels mostly.

What is your ideal writing environment?

I have found that being in a café or writing in a place surrounded by people, usually moves me into a more flowing creative state. I also know that the flowing creative state is an illusion and that to write, you must simply take the time to write. Then rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Perhaps it is the beer that can be ordered while in a café that is important because it numbs the monotony of rewriting.

What do you do when you aren’t feeling inspired or motivated to write?

Grin and bear it and keep writing. I’ve written junk while thinking I was inspired and I’ve written good stuff when feeling unconnected to the moment, myself, or any wellspring of mystical union.

What authors inspire you most?

Steinbeck, Heller for Catch 22.

In your essay, Journals in the Attic, you discuss your obsession with Pulp Fiction and that Beating Kings was, in part, inspired by the film or your reaction to the film. Can you elaborate on that?

I got into a funk in writing, thinking it was important to try and just reflect reality for reality’s sake. Pulp Fiction snapped me out of this by making me realize that trying to reflect reality for reality’s sake really doesn’t really mean anything and is pretty boring. Would someone want to watch some random video taken at a street corner or footage from an ATM surveillance camera? This is reality but damn boring. Pulp Fiction made me realize that a novel is about the story stupid.

You wrote Beating Kings, Burning Angels pre-Crash. What was your reaction to the parallels in the two stories?

About 10 years pre-Crash. The parallels in the story are setting (LA), content (characters working through their individual dramas with race relations as a backdrop), and style (individual story lines with intersecting threads). My reaction was enjoyment and envy. Enjoyment of a well-crafted movie and envy that it made to the big screen and I haven’t.

I appreciated that you shared your fantasies about winning a Best Screenplay Oscar for Beating Kings, as I always have fantasies about the fame and glory of publishing something extravagantly spectacular. What’s your earth-bound, bottom line hope for your novel?

My hope is that I make money, lots of money, off my novel because I would like to live a life where I have the financial resources to do whatever the hell I damn please. Once I have enough money in the bank, I will change my position and preach that writing for money is crass and destroys the integrity of the artistic impulse.

Favorite quote?

“Seek simplicity and distrust it.”

Lewis James lives in Monrovia, CA with his wife and three children. His writing reflects his diverse experiences. Lewis has been a dairy worker in Israel, a mortgage broker in Southern California, an Alaskan fisherman, a Beverly Hills nanny, and has even paid his dues as a solar sunscreen salesman. His travels have taken him from the top of Norway to the bottom of Chile and around Australia by van. He has traveled into the remote jungles of Borneo by way of a handmade raft, to monasteries of Tibetan Buddhists and to the bazaars of the Afghanistan Mujahidin.

Interwoven vignettes, in the style of Crash, explore the racial tensions of Los Angeles in the days just before, during, and following the Rodney King Riots. Beating Kings and Burning Angels follows the lives of five Angelinos, lacing together their personal stories and views on race relations. Unpredictable revelations bring each story to a provocative and compelling resolution.

The eBook is currently available at the DPPstore under the PulpBytes Imprint, for $8.95. The DPPstore (www.dppstore.com), a division of DigitalPulp Publishing (www.digitalpulppublishing.com), offers the best in eBooks from new and lesser-known authors, just as DPPpress (www.dpppress.com) promotes works by self-publishers and independent presses. Our eBooks are downloadable on an assortment of readers. The dppstore – reinventing reading.