Another
bookmark for the Scribbler – our first guest from the beautiful Shenandoah
Valley of Virginia, USA. When I visited Phyllis’ website, I liked the intro –
Espionage Fiction. Real Spies. Real lives. A hint of romance. Can’t go
wrong with that.
Recommended
by another fellow author, Phyllis has agreed to a 4Q Interview and is sharing
an excerpt.
Phyllis
A. Duncan is a retired bureaucrat but one with an overactive imagination—or so
she’s been told since she started writing stories in 3rd grade with
her weekly list of spelling words. A commercial pilot and former flight
instructor, she graduated from Madison College (now James Madison University)
with degrees in history and political science. History and politics manage to
find their way in almost everything she writes.
After a
career in aviation safety, she retired a decade ago to write for herself
instead of Uncle Sam. In between writing sessions and spoiling her
grandchildren, she reads anything she can get her hands on, sings in a UU
choir, cheers on the New York Yankees, and watches NASCAR.
4Q: What caught my eye on Amazon is A WAR OF DECEPTION received the New Apple Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing - Best Historical Fiction. Please tell us about this story and the thrill of winning the award.
PD:
All of my work is based on historical events from the mid-Cold War forward. They say write what you know
(I flout that all the time.), and I’m a child of the Cold War. However, A WAR OF DECEPTION takes place in early 2001 and involves the unmasking of a Russian mole who was an FBI agent. It’s loosely based on the real Robert Hanssen, who provided secrets to the Soviet then Russian intelligence for almost 30 years before he was caught in February of 2001. The Russians used him to confirm secrets they got from another mole, Aldridge Ames from the CIA. Of course, I threw in some plot twists and a subplot to spice it up a bit. It’s somewhat out of sequence because in it my protagonists are at the end of their careers in espionage when they not only discover this mole but that someone from the old KGB is out for some revenge.
In 2017 when A WAR OF DECEPTION came out, I entered it in a number of professional contests—three or four, I believe—and by early 2018, I’d already accepted I’d not placed in any of them. No matter; it was a good story and had received some good reviews.
Then came the email from New Apple Awards. I was beside myself with joy because I felt that the award was recognition not only for a good story but for my acumen as an historian. I’ve always been frustrated by historical fiction that gets the details wrong, especially now in the age of The Google, and I was determined I’d do my best to assure I got the facts straight. I felt this award was an acknowledgement of that.
4Q: I’m impressed with your large collection
of work. I know this is a difficult question but do you have a favorite? One you enjoyed writing the most?
PD:
I’ve been productive since my retirement, which was the point. Several of the works published I started years ago when I worked full-time and could never finish because of my workload. In fact the last 3 to 5 years in my job, I hardly wrote anything of my own—only studies, reports, and white papers for my agency. Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe there are 13 books with my name on them out there in the world, with number 14 coming out in the spring: 4 novels, 2 novellas, 4 short story collections, 3 novelettes.
Designating a favorite is hard; I love them all as if they were my babies. But, I’d have to say my favorite is a novella entitled THE YELLOW SCARF, which is about the Balkan civil wars in the early 1990s. I think it’s my favorite because it shows public servants will put the personal aside for the mission, and it also deals with coping with personal loss and the importance of the media when genocide is involved. The backdrop for most of the novella is Sarajevo in then Yugoslavia at the height of the sniper attacks.
However, I’d say the one I enjoyed writing the most was a short story collection, SPY FLASH II, four full-length short stories inspired by headlines in the summer of 2016. Because the stories were contemporary, it was a lot of “fun” to write.
4Q: Please share a childhood anecdote or memory.
PD:
Oh dear. It was a difficult childhood, but I’ll go with something from the early years of high school.
I was a huge fan of STAR TREK and
THE MAN FROM UNCLE. (This show is why I write espionage fiction and have a character who is Russian.) Whenever I got bored in class, I’d bring out my notebook and write stories using characters in those TV series, what we today call fan fiction. That was all fine and good because it looked like I was taking notes, but one day in English class Ms. McInnes caught me and took my notebook.
I thought I’d never see it again, and the next day she asked me to stay after class. Figuring I was in big trouble, I was set to apologize, but she gave me the notebook back. She’d read all the stories inside and had made editorial suggestions. “Don’t stop writing,” she told me. “Just not in my class unless it’s an assignment from me.”
In 2000, I won a small publishing contract and had a collection of mostly literary short stories published, RARELY WELL-BEHAVED (out of print). I dedicated it to her. I truly felt the loss when I heard she’d passed away not long after I graduated from high school. She’s still the reason I continue to write.
4Q: Tell us about your writing habits.
PD:
I try to write every day, either something new or to edit something I’ve written. I have a blog where I post about writing twice a month (www.unexpectedpaths.com), and a bi-monthly newsletter (Secret Briefings). I also write a lot of bad ad copy for marketing my books. LOL. That’s one form of writing I’m not very good at, but I have a marketing consulting who helps. I still keep a notebook with me and often will write in a coffee shop or restaurant, taking down interesting snippets of conversations I overhear.
Every November I participate in National Novel Writing Month (a 50,000-word rough draft in 30 days). Most of my yet-to-be-published works have come from that exercise. This year was my 12th time.
Because I write historical fiction, research intersperses with my writing. I’m not a writer who can make a note that says, “Check this fact later.” If I’m not sure about something, say, what kind of cell phone or computer technology was available in 1993, I have to go check it right then. I can’t wait. Sometimes, that slows down the writing.
I usually write/edit/revise/research for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon. I have been known to look at my watch and realize I’ve been at it all day.
4Q: I understand that you are an editor as well as a talented author. Care to tell us more?
PD:
I started my writing career as a reporter on a government aviation magazine, and several years later had the opportunity to become the magazine’s editor. I’m a stickler for good grammar, aka a “grammar Nazi,” and for good, solid writing, so it was perfect for me. Yes, that was nonfiction, but I set a standard at the magazine that our articles would not be dry and full of technical jargon. I wanted people reading the magazine to feel as if they were “hangar flying,” i.e., sitting around an aircraft hangar talking flying. In the beginning that took a lot of rewriting.
I also edited a huge technical manual for aviation safety inspectors, getting it into language that fit the gambit of education levels in our workforce. My fiction editing started with my writer’s group where I live and other members asking me to read their stories and make suggestions. Some aspects of fiction and nonfiction editing are the same, though I prefer fiction editing now because of the language flexibility.
I particularly like working with new authors and independent authors. I’m sort of on a one-person campaign to encourage independent authors (self-published) to make sure their work gets professionally edited. Even with more than 30 years editing experience, I have an editor for my books. A fresh set of eyes is important.
I’ll edit almost any genre, though I don’t read much romance or religious fiction and don’t feel qualified to evaluate work in those genres. However, if it’s a good story, if it piques my interest and holds it, I’ll edit it.
4Q: Anything else you’d like to mention?
PD:
Yes. Learn your craft. Go to workshops and other types of writing instruction. Annually I go to a weeklong workshop at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop. There are often one-day workshops available most anywhere, but if that’s not possible for you, there are plenty of craft books out there: Stephen King’s ON WRITING; Ursula LeGuin’s STEERING THE CRAFT are two of the best. I firmly believe you can’t tell a good story unless you first learn the structure of a story.
Join or form a writing group in your area. It’s important to have a support network of like-minded people to encourage you and/or critique you—especially when the rejections occur. But most of all…
Keep writing.
An Excerpt from THE YELLOW SCARF:
(Copyright is held by the author. Used with permission.)
Chapter 13
A Man of Means and Taste
Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
“Though not yet arrived by the calendar but felt in the bones, winter
in Sarajevo means its citizens will have to strip the city of its remaining
trees for firewood. They will also resort to other sources of fuel: interior
doors, furniture, even books and clothing, anything burnable.
“But that
hasn’t happened yet. There is still hope things will go back to the way they’d
been. Faint hope diplomacy will restore common sense. Fainter hope the U.N.
will be effective for once.
“The waning
autumn has dyed everything in the city a miserable gray, darkened the pocked
buildings, and shrouded the mountain ridges with clouds, hiding the positions
of the Serb artillery there. Even the people seem gray, their faces pale from a
summer and fall spent inside and venturing out only at night for the false
safety that provides. The fog over the city rarely dissolves in the weak sun,
and a pall of smoke from thousands of wood stoves feeds the dingy air.”
Zachary
Holbrook stopped the playback of what he’d filmed the day before. He knew what
would soon happen on the tape, and he wasn’t ready to relive that yet. Also,
the feel of the narration wasn’t quite right, even though he’d been editing it
most of the night. No, he’d have to go back there with a fresh tape and reshoot
some footage to lay the narration over.
He ejected the
cassette from the Handycam and pressed a label on it. With a Sharpie, he wrote
the date and the words, “Yellow Scarf,” on the label. He put the cassette in
the messenger bag where he stored all his tapes, the bag he took with him
everywhere.
Zack dressed in
his least smelly set of clothes and pulled on his flak jacket. A check of the
Handycam showed him it had a full charge, but he put extra battery packs in the
pockets, along with plenty of blank cassettes. He took a back stairway to the
Sarajevo Holiday Inn’s parking garage to avoid running into his media
colleagues at breakfast. Many of them, who had regular jobs with American and
European networks, looked down on freelancers, even when they paid to use film
he’d shot because he would go to places they wouldn’t. He didn’t want any of
them glomming onto him today.
Zack missed the
little Fiat he’d had the year before, but this ancient Land Rover served him
better. He could off-road out in the countryside. The stories weren’t always in
the city. Rumors swirled about an orphanage between Sarajevo and the mountain
ridge, caught in the crossfire. That would get good play. Maybe he’d head there
later today, but first things first.
He pulled away
from the mustard-yellow box of a hotel he couldn’t bring himself to call home
and drove back toward Sniper Alley. Last year, someone had spray-painted
“Welcome to Hell” on the wall of a bombed-out building near the Holiday Inn; it
hadn’t faded.
Every day, for luck, as he passed the
graffiti-ed wall, he intoned, “Welcome to Hell,” his mantra. He shoved a
cassette of his favorite music, a gift from his lover in Paris, into the tape
deck and smiled when Mick Jagger began to sing, “Please allow me to introduce
myself. I’m a man of means and taste.”
Thank you, Phyllis for being our guest this week. All the best to you in your future endeavors.
And thank you to my readers. If you want to discover more about Phyllis and her stories, please follow these links:
Amazon Author page: http://bit.ly/PADuncan
Facebook Author page: ww.facebook.com/unspywriter
Instagram: www.instagram.com/paduncan1
Twitter: www.twitter.com/unspywriter
Website/Blog: www.unexpectedpaths.com
Newsletter Sign-up: http://bit.ly/SecretBriefings
An accomplished
artist whose work has been recognized by People’s Choice Awards and the
Beaverbrook Gala. Her work is part of the University of New Brunswick’s
permanent gallery.
JB: It’s
difficult to pick just one, however there’s three that stand out for me. The
first would be “Valmont” a portrait of my grandfather that I made in 2013 and
submitted to the Kingston Prize, a national portrait competition. To this day
it’s probably one of the most ambitious and technically challenging drawings
I’ve done. The second is “The Calling” a coloured pencil drawing done in 2018
that was part of a series of four portraits for a show at Gallery 78 in
Fredericton. I felt like I was exploring the concept and story behind the work
more in this drawing. I like that’s it’s open to interpretation, I feel like
the viewer is getting a glimpse of a larger narrative. And finally, a more
recent piece done in 2019 called “Figure 1”. At the time, I felt like doing a
few drawings that combined photorealistic elements and more traditional mark
making. The result is work that is both technically precise while highlighting
the mark, thus reminding the viewer that the work is a drawing.
