📚 A Bookish Chat with 'The Five Watches' John R. York | Author Interview | #AuthorInterview #BlogTour #Interview #TheFiveWatches

Today we welcome John R. York to The Writer's Life e-Magazine! John is the author of the time travel novel, The Five Watches: An Accident of Time. This interview is part of his Blog Tour by Pump Up Your Book. Enjoy!

John R. York has been writing and publishing his stories since 2016, but he’s always been a storyteller, even as a kid in Central Ohio where he grew up. His life experiences provided him with a wealth of tales to share with others and resulted in his debut work, Wolf’s Tale. He has since published five more novels, including the award-winning Journey to Eden. A retired high-tech executive, he currently lives with his wife, Paula, in New Port Richey, Florida.

Website: www.johnryork.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.york.9277

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@johnryork and www.tiktok.com/@dreamwriter

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/John-York/author/B0771RCZJ2?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21571052.John_York

Welcome to The Writer's Life! Now that your book has been published, we’d love to find out more about the process. Can we begin by having you take us at the beginning? When did you come up with the idea to write your book?

Thank you for the opportunity to connect with your readers. The Five Watches: An Accident of Time will be released on August 15. I’ve written novels in several different genres, including science fiction, but it’s been a few years since I’ve published anything in that genre. I really wanted to tell another sci fi story and was leaning toward a time travel tale as a possible sub-genre.

At the same time I was beginning to mull over ideas for my story line, the daily news appeared to grow more and more ominous: daily mass shootings, increased political polarization, provocative social media chatter about forcibly taking back America, a plethora of social upheavals, concerns about conflict with our adversaries, climate issues, and on and on. And I began to worry about our future, about the eventual fate of humanity. A dystopian future as a theme for my novel began to form.

But then a serendipitous thing happened one evening. As I half-heartedly scanned the television guide for something less depressing to watch, I spotted the original movie, The Time Machine. After the show was over, I searched my library for an old book of seven stories written by H. G. Wells that I knew lay hidden somewhere on those shelves. The Time Machine was the first story in that 1934 publication, and I impulsively sat down in my office and read it. I was surprised by the many differences between the book and the movie.

Later that night, after I finished the story, I decided my new novel would definitely be a time travel tale. I knew that time travel would be the perfect backdrop for weaving an entertaining story of mankind’s persistent propensity to destroy itself into a cautionary tale. Time travel would also give me a convenient device for providing a last-minute ray of hope when all seemed doomed. I also wanted to emphasize that there are still lots of good people in the world, people capable of saving the world, and time travel gave me a large pool of candidates to choose from.

Who is your publisher and how did you find them or did you self-publish?

I self-published my first five novels while living in California, where I knew almost everybody. In 2021, wife, Paula, and I sold our ranch and moved to Florida, where I knew absolutely nobody.

In an effort to find some fellow writers in the area around our new home, I contacted a local chapter of a writers’ group. Unfortunately, the group had essentially dissolved during the Covid pandemic. There was one man, the chapter’s president, who agreed to meet with me. He eventually introduced me to Ginger Marks, who owns DocUmeant Publishing. She invited me to submit my latest manuscript, Trouble in Choctaw County, a modern western, native-American fantasy. DocUmeant Publishing, an indie publisher, published that book in August 2022 and will be publishing The Five Watches.

Do you believe a book cover plays an important role in the selling process?

Without a doubt, a book’s cover is an important aspect of a novel’s potential appeal. When readers are looking for a book, it’s the first thing they typically see. A book cover should attract the eye. Our cover for The Five Watches: An Accident of Time attempts to suggest the mysterious process of someone passing through time. The background of the cover is a washed-out picture of a forest, which could be in the future or the past. We think the font used for the title is eye catching as well. We tried to design the cover to entice prospective readers to stop and take a closer look.

How hard was it to write a book like this and do you have any tips that you could pass on which would make the journey easier for other writers?

For me, stories come naturally and they’re fun to write. A book, on the other hand, feels more like work and is challenging to produce. I’m no literary artist. I’m a storyteller. So, I begin with a story outline, developing short biographies of all the significant characters as I go. I usually start the actual novel with Chapter One, but thereafter I might write a scene that comes later in the story or write a few chapters sequentially. It depends on what part of the story inside my head that I’m trying to capture during the creation.

At the end of the story writing process, I have a completed manuscript. Then comes the hard part. It usually takes me several months to transform the story into a legitimate novel of some merit. That process includes proofing, editing, rewriting, and polishing.

What I would suggest to writers who are just beginning is to write your story, just get it out of your head and down in writing. Of course, it will have to be edited and refined, but getting your story written down, I believe, is the most important step.

What other books are you working on and when will they be published?

I’ve got two more novels already completed as first drafts. The next book I hope to publish in early 2024 is called Retribution, a dark crime drama featuring two antihero types as my protagonists.

The second manuscript is, I believe, quite unusual. It’s a story of the life of a 121-year-old piano. The piano in I am Everett is sentient, as in alive, and the novel offers a look at American history from 1901 through 2022 from the perspective of Everett as he travels through the years from New York to Cuba to Florida.

What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?

Readers will discover nuggets of supernatural influence in the beginning and in the end of this book. I’ve purposely kept them vague to allow people to draw their own conclusions.

Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book?

The Five Watches is a precautionary tale. Unless we figure out how to overcome our predisposition to destroy ourselves and the world we live in, we will eventually diminish. The promise of the future cannot be realized unless we make significant changes. But the road to change is cluttered with obstacles and difficult choices, some of which will land us in a future that is not at all promising. The silver lining to the story is that change can come from ordinary people, from those who rise up to meet the challenges of life and take action to achieve extraordinary things.

Thank you again for this interview! Do you have any final words?

Thank you again for the opportunity to introduce myself to your readers, especially those who enjoy traveling through time in their imaginations using books as their tour guides. Meanwhile, just remember that we all travel through time at the same speed, sixty seconds per minute. Time is precious.

What might happen if a handful of people living in different eras became entangled in time, some intentionally and some accidentally? The nineteenth-century scientist, Dr. Wilhelm Gussen, is passionate about improving the welfare of mankind, and so he begins a journey through time in a quest to learn about future advances in epidemiology. Physicist Emory Lynch, from the twenty-seventh century, studies an old pocket watch, said to be a time travel device, and accidently stumbles into the twenty-first century. In 2019, Jim Zimmerman, the de facto neighborhood go-to guy, finds himself caught in the middle of a clandestine, future conspiracy. True to his character, he becomes inextricably involved in future affairs that involve saving humanity from itself—dragging his wife and a few neighbors along for the ride. Thus, begins a time travel adventure that examines the stubborn predictability of human behavior and how some things, even over time, never seem to change.

Praise:

“The Five Watches is filled with interesting characters and enchanting tapestries woven into the fabric of time itself. John explores not only the ravages of time but more importantly the impact of individual kindness, caring, and selflessness towards others that is heartwarming. I enjoyed this suspenseful page turner, the connection to everyday people and to imaginable heroes that we can all strive to become. Uplifting! – Jim Richards, Beta Reader

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/46fjjp6f