Q&A with Randall Luce discussion

You want to get in my business? Here's the place to do it. Ask me about my influences, why I started to write, when, and how I go about it. And how did I emerge from the orange groves of Southern California to write about the Mississippi Delta?

Hi Randall, yes, I'm interested in all of those as well as how long you have been writing, do you workshop or have readers, all are interesting.

Thanks for the question, and welcome to my Q&A.

Motherless Children is my first book of fiction. I think I started it in 2003(or was it 2002)? Before that my writing was in the academic mode. But when I was a kid, I was fascinated by the idea of writing fiction. But as I grew older, I didn't think I could do "voice," so I put those thoughts aside.

I started Motherless Children on a whim -- I never thought I'd finish it. Now I'm hooked. I've been writing fiction for close to ten years now. Novels.

I hope to get my second novel out some time this year. And I'm in the middle of my third.

I took two workshops on writing mysteries at the Bethesda Writers Center (Maryland). It was a very positive experience, but since then I've been pretty much on my own. No readers. I've paid for some professional editing, but one of the biggest drawbacks for independent, self-pubbed writers like myself, IMHO, is the lack of an editor. (But I hope you didn't think so while reading my book!)

From you icon, can I assume that you write too?

I'll get back this evening. Most of the time, for the course of this Q&A, I'll be here in the evenings, after my day job.

I love the voice in many of your characters. I think a deeper character development at the beginning of your novels will peak more interest in readers. I found I was drawn more to Auntie and her father's stories because of a deeper character development. I would have enjoyed further connection with Swain and Piercy had their characters developed more "meat" earlier in the novel.

Michelle wrote: "I love the voice in many of your characters. I think a deeper character development at the beginning of your novels will peak more interest in readers. I found I was drawn more to Auntie and her fa..."

Thanks for the comment. (I'd have responded earlier but I was out of town for a week -- vacation -- and away from a computer.)

The Q&A "officially closed" on July 19, but I'll still be looking in to respond to anybody who cares to comment.

Michelle wrote: "I found I was drawn more to Auntie and her fa..."

I'm glad you liked those stories. Once I decided to write a mystery and set it in the Delta, I really wanted to use some of the stories I had heard and read while I was in the Delta about it's frontier days. No place is one thing, and that material was very important to me to give a full picture of a very interesting place.

What are you writing now?

Michelle wrote: "What are you writing now?"

I'm editing for release my second novel, "Smokestack Lightnin'", which is a sequel to "Motherless Children." Sam Swain is back, but he's no longer Chief of Police. It's the mid-1950s, the Citizen's Council has come to Williams Point, and Tommy Lott is running for mayor. Plantations are mechanizing, blacks continue to leave the county for the North, and the question of whether or not to court industries to diversify the local economy (and maintain a working class capable of supporting local businesses) is dividing local whites. Proponents of diversification are convinced that their opponents are trying to sabatoge their first project, a consolidated school, by stealing building supplies from the construction site.

In the midst of this two men, a white and a black, go missing on the same day. The black man, Maceo Hardeman, a local activist, left behind his automobile, riddled with gun-shot and crashed into tree. His father asks Swain to recover his son's body. The white man is Swain's relative, Delmore Scruggs, and Swain is convinced Delmore had a hand in Maceo's disappearance before disappearing himself.

Swain tries to find out what happened to both men. His investigation keeps taking him to Shepardsville, the site of an abandoned community that now is the construction site for the consolidated school. Meanwhile, some very nasty characters try to stop Swain, by any means necessary.

I'm also working on a third book, that takes place in Williams Point during the Freedom Movement in 1962 & 1963. I've finished an early draft but am in the midst of a very extensive re-write.

And thanks for asking.

Congrats and best wishes on your new book!

Thanks. Hope you get it. Hope you like it.