Today's Chat with Sarah features James Doucette author of The Last Assassination, Russia's Biggest Hack, The Not So Great American Novel, Witnesses to the Crucifixion, and Flat Top Mountain Ranch.
To view the author page on the Onlinebookclub bookshelves, click here.
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1. You've written several books. What is your favorite and least favorite part of the writing process?
My favorite part of writing is telling a tale and doing the research. My least favorite task is the mechanics of publishing.
2. Critique and constructive (hopefully) criticism comes with being an author. Have you ever gotten a particularly unfair review and how did you handle it?
The most unfair review I’ve received on Amazon was, “I read three chapters, and the book didn’t interest me.” I didn’t answer this. I preview somewhere near one hundred books a year, to render a review based on a small sample seems unfair.
3. How long does it take you to write a book?
Six months to a year.
4. Let's cover a few of your books that we didn't get to in the first interview. Flat Top Mountain Ranch was more of a western complete with cattle drives. Have you had experience being a ranch hand?
My wife and I bought our first sections of what became the Flat Top Mountain Ranch in nineteen eighty-eight. Over the years, we’ve added and subtracted to our ranch land via acquisition and leases. Raising cattle has always been a part-time business for us. At one point, we leased or owned ten thousand acres and had five hundred cows. The height of the operation was around the turn of the century. I sold my Banks and cable television systems in nineteen eighty-eight. Denise commented that this doesn’t feel like retirement. In twenty eleven, I discovered I had cancer and had to curtail our cattle business. Today, we own two thousand acres and lease our land to a rancher and receive lease payments for grazing rights.
I have never been one to send people to do jobs I would not do, and I enjoy getting out and doing the work. I’ve become a fair horseman. The land we originally purchased had nothing on it. Me and the man who has worked for me since nineteen eighty-four built all the fences and work areas. Neither of us had any experience doing ranch work, but we figured it out by just doing it. Handling cattle on horseback came easy. One of my best teachers was a gentleman from Old Mexico (note: this is a local reference to people from Mexico and is not a derogatory statement). We have many Mexican cowboys. One comment I’ve heard is wild horses and crazy cattle make cowboys. I’ve worked with many professional cowboys, not the one you see at the rodeo, the cowboy that leaves the house at six a.m. with his horse in a trailer and gets home after the work is done. One fellow told me, “We work from can until can’t.” These days, working cowboys are a dying breed. I wouldn’t claim to be a proficient cowboy, but I’ve ridden many miles and branded my share of cattle. A mangled backbone ended my horse breaking adventure. I spent my eightieth birthday on horseback. We’ve participated locally in team penning and team sorting events.
Several places we operated were located two to five miles apart. It’s easier to do a cattle drive than to load them on a trailer and haul them a short distance. Herding cattle is less stressful. I can’t catalog how often we’ve done cattle drives. But, on more than one occasion, the cows got spooked, and the stampede was on…yee-haw!
The land we’ve owned or leased are in rough country, quicksand-like filled river beds, and steep canyons. One place we rented was off the grid, with three thousand acres, and it took two days on horseback to gather the cattle. We camped out and made breakfast over an open fire and used that fire to heat the branding irons. After a hot, sweaty day, Denise and I rode to a cattle stock tank and took baths. I commented to her, “I never promised you a rose garden.” Herding cows that have been on their own for six months to a year is challenging.
5. In the first interview, you talk about wanting to do a contemporary western with Flat Top Mountain Ranch as a backdrop. Can you tell us a little more about what you have planned for that?
There will be more cowboy stories in my unnamed next book. The setting is modern-day West Texas. It’s about a New York policeman who gets disgusted with New York City and relocates to Canyon, Texas. Joe D’Angelo, a Sergeant of twenty years on the New York City police force, shoots a bank robber, the shooting broadcast nationwide. Joe’s wife died of cancer, his son killed in action in Afghanistan, and his parents passed away. His U.S. Army buddy calls Joe just as he is contemplating suicide. D’Angelo relocates to Canyon, Texas. Joe’s Texas education is about to start. The book covers life in a small West Texas town and modern ranching. There are twists and turns. I expect to complete the new book by the end of the year.
6. Witnesses to the Crucifixion is a collection of sermons. What were the challenges in writing and publishing such a book?
My Pastor’s sermons were written as a speech. Without changing the message, we had to convert the spoken sermons into written form. My written contribution was the epilogue. I wanted others to hear this story. The onlinebookclub’s book of the day program has spread these sermons around the world. You asked me earlier about offensive book reviews. One Amazon reviewer called this collection of biblically-based sermons a fairy tale. This is offensive.
7. What is the most important theme you want readers to glean from this collection?
That the sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross has paid for our sins, a debt we can never repay.
How about a few fun questions.
8. If you could cure only one disease, what would you cure and why?
Alzheimer’s. One of the toughest cowboys I ever worked with was turned into a quivering shell of his former self. The pain this cost his family and friends are too great to measure. I’m now eighty years old and still have stories I want to tell. If I can’t write and recognize my wife, I don’t think I’d like to continue living, and I wouldn’t want my family to go through that.
9. Paperback or e-book?
I read nearly fifty books a year. E-books allow me to read without stuffing the read books under the bed. E-books enable me to preview another fifty to sixty books a year without having to buy them or spend hours in the book stores.
10. Share something about yourself your readers don't know.
I’m dyslexic. In the last forty years, nothing I’ve written has been seen by another person if my wife hasn’t corrected it.
11. What superpower would you most want and why?
A photographic memory. All my research is done multiple times because of my disorganized process.
