Author Interview — Hank Buchmann

Today I'm honored to have the opportunity to interview the accomplished author Hank Buchmann. Hank is well-traveled, articulate, creative, and has years of experience as a writer. I'm so happy he agreed to share his time, writing, and thoughts on the craft with me. Thanks Hank! Now on with the show.

You’ve published a literary novel for the Kindle. Quick! Give us the title and genre of your book and a 30-word or less tagline.

The Steady Running of the Hour is about Edmund Ellicott, age 92, retelling his life to a 16-year-old high school girl. But Edmund’s experiences cover far more than just WWI—a gripping, tangled web of adventure and dangerous liaisons, assassins and love. 

How did you come up with the title of your book?

It is a line from WWI war poet, Wilfred Owen, who was killed seven days before the armistice was signed, ending the war. It was Owen’s words that finally put a realistic face on the horrors of war. The title also, more or less, represents the scatter-shot way a mind—Edmund’s old  mind—recalls memory, jumping back and forth, yet dragging on. 

Edmund Ellicott is a collector of souls. Are you a collector of anything?

Besides books, I would say I collect the significance of memory. Our attic and my writing office—the Crow’s Nest—could suffice as an Indie Bookstore, in appearance, anyway. But my father, who is still alive at 96, was a great inspiration and resource in describing Edmund Ellicott’s drifty memory. The book contains no chapters, only breaks, and it could, I suppose, resemble someone trying to capture a spilt bag of marbles rolling across the floor.

I love the comparison of memory to a spilt bag of marbles. Lovely imagery! I think I chase my marbles around at least once a week.

What gave you the idea to write a story about a stubborn, 92-year-old war veteran who has a story to tell?

Initially, it was my interest in World War I. A lover and reader of history, I realized about ten or so years ago that I did not know much about one of the most important wars in the world’s history. So I launched into a self-study and ended up reading about 25 books on the subject. Even now, it is like a magnet. Any new non-fiction or novel that comes out about that era draws me in.

From there, it was Owen himself. A fascinating young man, I started reading his work after reading Pat Barker’s extraordinary book, Regeneration, about Craiglockhart hospital in Edinburgh where the shell-shocked victims were treated. Owen was there.

 

Tell us a little bit about your cover art. Who designed it? Why did you go with that particular image/artwork?

Having smart, creative children always pays itself in dividends. My daughter, Rachel, who is a professional photographer, and a wizard with the nuances of geeky tech-stuff—stuff is what I tag most things I don’t understand—was my go-to person for covers. She first designed my western novel’s cover, Dead Woman Creek, which I wrote under the name, Buck Edwards. We did an actual photo shoot of, yours truly, for that cover. For Steady Running we searched for public domain photos that best fit the storyline. The top portion of the cover is an actual WWI Canadian sniper, which is what Edmund was. (An American in the Canadian army.) The fiery house aspect is significant to the story because of two vivid fire scenes in the book. Rachel and I agreed that the mix of black and white and color gave the cover a “grab-me” kind of look.

I know you have an upcoming western novel in your Marshal Boone Crowe series. Can you tell us about that?

Ha. Even though I grew up around cattle and horses, and playing cowboy and Indian was an everyday part of my life for most of my childhood, I more or less decided to write a western as a vendetta. I have done battle with many bookstores, including Barnes and Noble, over the inequity of westerns on the shelf. If a foreigner came to this country looking for a good western novel, they would leave believing that Louis L’Amour was the only western writer we ever had. Now L’Amour is good; I’ve read my fair share. But after going into a bookstore a few years ago, and seeing 28 books on the western shelf and having 26 of them be L’Amour’s, I went into a minor ballistics.

“But he sells,” the clerks says.

“Of course he sells, if he’s the only one on the shelf.”

Anyway, Boone Crowe is an aging marshal from the Wyoming Territory, circa 1880s. He wants to retire, but, as is revealed in Dead Woman Creek, not everything works out the way we want them to. In my second installment, Showdown in the Bear Grass, Boone Crowe is set against a family of wandering cutthroats. Partnered with a man who starts out being his prisoner and ends up being his deputy, the two seek justice on behalf of a young eleven-year-old girl who has survived the massacre of her parents.

And justice is key here, as Boone Crowe is one for ‘swift’ justice, the kind most of us want when we hear of unspeakable crimes. But humor finds it way into these dramas, too. I’ve heard, and I believe (think Jack Reacher and Sherlock Holmes), that it is often the character as much as the story that keeps readers coming back. Boone Crowe, I feel, has that kind of appeal. And his tales are always peopled with younger and often complex fellow characters.  

Do you have a special time when you write?

I would love to say yes, but it comes and goes. When I am on a roll, I could write all day, until things get sloppy. But, you know, it depends on the story I’m working on. And I’m usually working on more than one. If it is the right day and the right story, mornings are great, right after a little reading and coffee time on the veranda. But, silly as it may sound, my characters have more to do with a fixed schedule than I do. They harangue me night and day. So I end up being a slave to my characters, as they know, even more than I, what they want to do and say, and my sleep has been interrupted often with their howling.

What are the essentials you need when sitting down to write? (tea, music, pajamas, chocolate, etc.?)

High up on the 3^rd floor of our Queen Anne, where my Crow’s Nest is located, I have no bathroom or source of water. So I tote up what will last me for a while. I like big bags of ballpark-type peanuts in the shell. That way, if I pause, I can munch a bit. I like something cold, too, like ice tea. Those are probably my key treats. I’m more comfortable after I am showered and dressed, but not always. I like music, too, wordless music. The soundtracks to A Very Long Engagement and The Last of the Mohicans have served me well.  So has the soundtrack to Love in the Time of Cholera, and anything by Enya.

Where do your ideas come from?

The whole thing about writing, for me, is three-quarters mystery. It is, quite honestly, a spiritual journey of sorts. I was born the black sheep in a family of carpenters, farmers, and storekeepers. When I told my farmer-father that I wanted to write poetry, he thought I had lost my mind. At least in my case, it is a gift from God, and I’ll have to ask Him someday how all that stuff works.

Having said all that, my ideas come from everywhere. I know, I know, that’s not a good answer. I get a glimmer. Then, from the glimmer, a slight piecing together. It could come from something as simple as the expression on a stranger’s face, or the sound of birdsong. But my initial ideas are pretty thin. Once I have a character or two, then they jump in and help me out.

Earlier this month, driving to a wedding in San Francisco, and then further southeast to the Grand Canyon, I found myself on the long lonesome highway through Nevada putting a good deal of my Boone Crowe III novel into my head. One thing leads to another.

What is the hardest thing about writing?

A paradox of two things. First, wanting things to be perfect. Secondly, being impatient and, therefore, making mistakes. Even Steady Running could have some silly careless errors in it—which I hope the reader will forgive this one time—that all the proofs did not find. I learn from that.

But I have been working on a literary piece for years called Darling Liberty, which I am determined to finish someday…soon. But I’ve written at least eight openings and even changed the POV now, too. Sheesh.

What is the easiest thing about writing?

The easiest part of writing for me is…‘loving it.’ I never tire of it. I never have writer’s block. I never run out of new projects ideas. (In fact, I have too many now.)

What is your favorite quote and why?

Well, I have many. But my favorite is one I coined myself and which I have tried over the years to hammer into the heads of my students. It is: “Writing creatively isn’t something you make happen, it’s something you let happen.”

For young writers, just getting their feet wet, I think they try too hard at a business that has its own soul. You can detour a lot of good material by always thinking you are the master of the thing. The story itself is like an unborn child—already there, developing into something very real and precious, waiting for you to allow it to breathe on its own.

That's great advice! Sometimes we can get so tangled up in what we want to happen that we don't allow for spontaneous moments of genius.

What book are you reading now?

I usually read a couple at a time. After our Grand Canyon trip, I just picked up Down the Great Unknown by Edward Dolnick (about John Wesley Powell’s 1869 journey of discovery through that great canyon). I’ve had it on my shelf for years, but this seemed an appropriate time to read it. Dolnick is far from a dry writer. In fact, just this morning I found myself laughing out loud at one of his silly metaphors.

Also, like the Bible, and Don Quixote—both taking me years to read—I have been poking my way through Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. And I just finished Zane Grey’s Call of the Canyon, which I wrote an Amazon review for. All my Amazon reviews are under the name sir henry. The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin and D. H. Lawrence’s forgotten book, The Fox, both excellent. (sir henry wrote reviews for these, too.)

What is a novel you think everyone should read?

Jennifer, you being a baker, know all about ingredients and spices. You know that nothing taste truly great unless all the mixings are in there. So, I feel the same about reading. I read almost everything, though I have not found fantasy, outside of Ray Bradbury, to have grabbed me, even though I have a YA fantasy I am writing on from time to time. So, I think readers should branch out once in a while, and don’t get trapped into a single genre—discovery is made by exploration.

A good many books, once read, would or could make a reader’s reading life fuller and richer. Few, if any books, are more beautifully written than Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. He had the same 26 letters of the alphabet to work with as Hemingway did, or Faulkner, and yet he created a work equal to the statue of Venus.

Still, the opening pages of Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides could make a man weep for its tender elegance. Thornton Wilder’s The Eighth Day and Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient remain favorites of mine also, as is Somerset Maughm’s The Razor’s Edge.

What do you do when you’re not writing?

You mean when I’m not mowing our huge lawn (which I have to mow today) or reading books, which is like education for me (every book a class)? I rarely watch TV, outside of baseball, football, and hockey, so I try and stay involved with the younger generation. I worked for 20 years in two different middle schools, and I count young people as some of my best friends.

And our children—six between my wife, Becky, and I—are close-knit and happy. We gather around the BBQ often, or try to keep the grandkids from breaking windows with their hockey sticks. But books play a big part of my down time.

How do you relax? What do you do for fun?

Becky and I like to travel. We’ve driven from eastern Washington State to Boston and back, twice. And we drove down through New Mexico, Texas, and the Gulf states and up the eastern seaboard, (loving Savannah, what a city) a few years back. That is how we best see America—on the ground. So even a short 2-day trip to Missoula, Montana, or Seattle is fun and relaxing.

Other than the two novels mentioned so far, what else have you written?

The Boone Crowe II story, Showdown in the Bear Grass, will be up soon. And I am hoping to get a zany novel called Holding a Hand of Hearts up around the same time.

Most of my published short stories and poems are in somebody’s archives somewhere. I self-published a collection of poetry, Amends, earlier this year, and I don’t plan on putting it on Amazon. I could probably be convinced to send a copy to anyone on Twitter who might be interested.

I do have a lot of material in the works. I haven’t been sitting on my laurels. I have a good deal of work, like Holding a Hand of Hearts, that was borne out of many years of writing and will be seeking the light of day eventually, including a collection of short stories.

Fun Zone!

You were a combat correspondent in Vietnam. If you could go as a

correspondent anywhere to report on any story, what would you choose?

I must say first that I am a Journalist Emeritus. By that I mean, even an ex-

journalist, still catches a surge of it in his/her blood once in awhile. I learned

some lessons in Vietnam, and that is that objective journalism is dead, for the

most part. There is so much bias in reporting that I can hardly read a newspaper

or watch a news show. And it is a great contributor to much of the division we

have in America today, people still believing everything they see or hear.

But, if I were to go anywhere as a correspondent today, it would be as a feature story writer, covering the human aspect of a situation. I did a lot of that in the war, writing about the locals, or their orphan children, the many soldiers who did good things for the people. Alas, it was not enough to break the stereotype presented of the GI by the civilian media.

So, I think my tender heart would find me writing about children, perhaps where their lives were being interrupted by hardship, Egypt perhaps, as a lot of fine people there are suffering.

           

If you lived on the western frontier during the time of Dead Woman Creek, what would your occupation be?

I wonder if my alter-ego could be as tough as Boone Crowe. I do have that side where I can get pretty ticked. And, like one of my characters in my upcoming Crowe novel says, “I know which end of a gun the fire comes out.” But my newspaper background might play a part. Newspapers had, after all, a huge influence on public opinion, even then. I, like Boone Crowe, would always have my sights set on a little spread though, a few cows, a loving wife, and a cigar.

Do you have any unique talents or hobbies?

I don’t juggle or yodel, if that’s what you mean. My wife says she is jealous of my great recall ability, remembering everything, she claims, including the plot line of books I read 40 years ago. But that’s not something I practice, it’s just there. Hobbies? I do like to read. A lot.

If you had Doc Brown’s delorean from Back to the Future, would you drive it into the future or into the past? Where would you go?

That’s easy. The past. In fact, that is one of our family’s favorite subjects, the “what-if” topic. Sometimes we sit around the patio on BBQ weekends and go for an hour quaking like a bunch of ducks about such things.

Still, morbid as it sounds and as hard as it might be to watch, I have always been intrigued by events like the Alamo or Custer’s Last Stand, wondering precisely how they played out. In the case of the Alamo—and I will be giving a small presentation to Becky’s 7^th grade history class on just that—the night before the final battle, as men are writing letters to loved ones, what was it like to sit among men who knew that tomorrow they were going to fight to the death against an enemy they probably didn’t hate?

Same with WWI. I would have like to do what Edmund Ellicott did—sit in a soggy trench on the Western Front and share a cup of weak tea with Lt. Wilfred Owen.

Night owl or early bird?

Both. I want to be awake for as much of my life as possible. The sleeping habits of young people, sleeping away their days, is sad to me. During the school year, we rise as early as 4:30 a.m. and can stay up till ten or eleven. Weekends we sleep in, till around six. That’s our coffee time on the veranda.

Where is one place you would love to travel to?

I have been to every state in the union except Kansas, Alaska and the Islands. We hope to pick up Kansas next summer, and even though our plane landed in Alaska on the way to Vietnam, it was dark as tar—I saw nothing. Becky has only Kansas. So, Alaska and Hawaii are on my list, the later to see Pearl Harbor and Captain Cook’s grave.

I would also like to go to Belgium and see what’s left of the WWI trenches.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I would like to be a writer someday.

An elf walks through the door right now wearing a swimming suit and eating a candy bar. What does she say and why is she here?

She is there to tell me that the refection I see in the curved windows of our portico, which makes me look very slim, is not an illusion at all, but real, and that even in a swimming suit, I too, can look as foxy as she does, regardless if I can’t stay away from Twixt or 3 Musketeers or my favorite licorice.

And now, before you go, how about a snippet from your book that is meant to intrigue and tantalize us:

How could he tell this innocent little redheaded girl with the pink skin about is daughter? He’d have to tell her about Dovey then too. And Etta.

“Can I ask you some more questions about your daughter?”

“Why?”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

“Why do you want to?”

Their eyes met now in what seemed a minor test of wills. “Because it seems interesting to me that you don’t know where she is.”

“She is in a place I cannot find.”

This answer was so ridiculous it made Katie laugh. “Mr. Ellicott. I’m already behind everybody else in this class. Thanks to you. So I’d—”

“Thanks to me. What’s that supposed to mean?”

For the first time she set her jaw. She blew back a fall of bangs and glared at him. “I have an idea, Mr. Ellicott. I have an idea about how I want to write this and you’re not helping me.”

“An idea, heh. And what kind of idea is that?”

She sat up, straightened her back, pushing her robin egg breasts against her blouse. Twisting up the corners of her mouth she leaned close to him. “I want to ace this assignment. I want an A. And I’m not going to get an A asking you how hold you are.”

Edmund returned her stare glumly and she felt momentarily unsure of herself for having spoken so boldly. Incensed by this reaction, he spoke gruffly to her. “Don’t you dare look beaten. You’ve made half your case. Now give me the rest.”

She hesitated.

“Come on. I won’t be a party to a pushover.” He was back in the classroom again, his ears turning hot with excitement. “What’s your so-called idea?”

She swallowed and then said, “I want more. I know what Kenny has.” Her eyes angled in the direction of the boy sitting with Herzog the ex-boxer. “He’s sitting on a goldmine. Kenny even told me so. Said Mr. Herzog is telling him about every fight he ever had. About a guy he actually killed once. In the ring.”

“So?”

“So!” She was getting exasperated. “You said you were an old soldier. Why are you making this so difficult? Talk to me.”

“You want me to be more interesting than Herzog over there so you can get an A?” He put his fist heavily on the table. “Look at that kid. Look at Kenny. Look at his body. He’s like a melted Popsicle sitting there.” They both looked. “Look at his face. He’s not interested in getting an A. He’s interested in getting a story. Kenny’s already moved past the grade. He wants the experience. He wants inside Herzog. He doesn’t care if he gets an F or an A. It’s about the experience.”

Katie was blindsided by this. When she looked back from Kenny there was shame in her expression. Her head nodded as if on a string.

“You want a story, young lady? I can give you a story. But what kind of stomach have you got? This won’t be about killing anybody in a boxing ring. This is about …about wholesale butchery. Are you strong enough for that? I don’t think so.”

Her bottom lip began to tremble and at first Edmund misjudged it as fright. But when her chin jutted out and the color rose up across her young neck he saw instead that it was fury, plain and simple.

“I am tired of getting pushed around by you.” The words crossed the space between them like an electrical arc. “You’re just an old bag of noise,” she hissed.

Edmund looked at her, saw an angry tear trembling at the edge of her eyelash. “You think you’re ready?” He seemed to be coaxing her now. “Well, we will soon know.”

She flung open her notebook stubbornly, not looking at him.

There was a disturbing knot of triumph stabbing him in the gut. I’ll teach this pony something. An acid smile pricked the corners of his mouth. For a moment he closed his eyes. Then he said—“Listen. For four years, I was the Angel of Death.”

Thank you, Hank!

You can follow Hank on Twitter @EHankBuchmann