John Zakour – interview
John Zakour is the writer of the Zachary Nixon Johnson series of books. The series was initially co-written with writing partner, Lawrence Ganem. Now Zakour is writing the Zach Johnson series of books on his own. After the publication of his latest book, The Blue-Haired Bombshell, I asked Zakour if he would be willing to answer some question.
John Zakour’s answers are in bold.
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Hey, thanks for letting me interview you. I appreciate it.
How is the gout treating you? My mother suffers from that in her feet and it gets pretty bad before she goes to the doctor and gets him to prescribe some medicine to help break up the crystals that form, relieving the swelling and pain.
The gout has turned into tendonitis it hurts less and less each day but it’s taking longer than I had hoped to get better. The docs in my family just say, “when you get older these things take time”
Recently, you published the fifth in the Zach Johnson novels. How does that feel?
It feels really good!! I’m proud of Zach from a sheer fun read point of view.
When you started writing these novels did you (or Lawrence Ganem) think it would be more than three novels?
I hoped, but you can never be certain. This is a tough business.
What was it like working with Lawrence Ganem?
Larry is my cousin and my buddy so it was fun. Just it’s a slower process making two minds write as one. I tell people I wrote the verbs and he wrote the nouns.
Why did he leave the writing team?
Just took up too much of his time. He has one more day job than I do (1) and one more kid than I do (2) so he didn’t have a lot of time to spare.
What is your process like when you sit down to write a novel? More, are you someone who plans everything out and then proceeds to write a little every day on a set schedule, or someone who has a general idea and just rushes to get everything done?
I plan everything out. I take more time planning than writing. It’s a road map but I have plenty of options to take detours.
When I read the latest novel, The Blue-Haired Bombshell, you start the novel off introducing the various characters that are important to the story. The scene is Zach already in his friend Randy’s lab and already in danger. In that first chapter you not only introduce characters, give a pretty solid recap of the preceding stories, but also introduce a lot about what is going to come later in the novel. How hard was it to write that chapters? What kinds of revisions did it go through?
The first chapters are hard to write. You want them to be exciting but you also need to introduce the tone of the book and the character to the reader. Plus being the 5th book in a series you need to give enough info about the world to new readers without boring more established readers. Once it’s set though the novel flows well from there.
The preceding book in the series was The Frost-Haired Vixen – a story set in the North Pole with your femme fatale being your worlds incarnation of Santa Clause… Santana Clausa, in that novel you did not introduce the villain until about midway through the book. Would you be willing to talk about the decision to delay the introduction of that character and how it helped you write the story?
Quite frankly, I just wanted to try something different. I liked keeping the reader guessing.
I’ve noticed from your website that your early publications are more in the line of technical publications rather than fiction. Why did you follow that course in getting published?
Because my degrees were in Computer Science and those types of books just came natural to me. I much prefer making my own worlds though.
Back to Zachary Nixon Johnson, your protagonist, what kinds of adventures are you planning for him in the future? Can you give any clues as to what foibles and troubles he is going to encounter?In Flaxen Femme Fatale he will run into the deadliest female yet. Enough to say, nuclear bombs have nothing on this lady.
You bring back different characters from different books to help Zach in his quest to find an answer to whatever series, world shattering problem he is encountering. It seems like an interesting choice to bring these characters back. What prompts that choice and as you are writing do you ever think about pulling away from using one of your other femme fatales by introducing someone else that might be able to help? Or have these characters become such an integral part of the cast that you fit them in where they are needed?
This newest book has less reoccurring bad girls from the past. I like using some characters from past books because I feel it helps tie the books together a bit. The only ones who have be in all the books are the genetically enhanced Thompson girls as they have become an integral part of Zach’s world.
Do you have plans to write outside of the Zach Johnson universe? If so, any hints as to what to expect for future books, characters, settings, etc.?
Actually I have a YA SF coming in April from Brown Barn Books. It’s called: Baxter Moon Galactic Scout. It’s kind of like Zach for kids.
I also plan to write a more serious SF story about a guy with wolf and shark dna laced into his body who runs off to Earth’s farthest outpost to find his humanity.
Finally, what advice can you give to aspiring writers?
It’s really helpful to have a spouse or significant other with a job for steady income and insurance!
Again, thank you for allowing me to interview you,
Thank you!
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Also, check out John Zakour’s current comic book (or at least the first 8 pages) over at www.zuda.com.
[...] Doomsday Brunette, Radioactive Redhead, Frost-Haired Vixen, and Blue-Haired Bombshell). Heck, I even interviewed the author. This is a writer I actually enjoy reading and even though I have (as yet) not gotten back to [...]