*Indie crush of CJ Roberts
What do you love most about being a
writer?
I love that it has made me good with arranging and organizing my
thoughts. I love that its helped me
improve my skill at putting them to paper in a manner that is not just
coherent, but also can evoke moods depending on what words I choose and how I
use them. I also love that it has given
voice and form to the storm of images and fictional situations constantly
swirling inside my head, and allowed me to share them with like-minded readers
and writers.
What do you like the least about
being a writer?
That I don’t yet earn enough at it to support myself in the
manner to which I’ve grown accustomed (smiles.) The day job remains a
necessity, however, I’m committed to working hard and to seeing that my writing
style continues to improve and evolve so that one day, perhaps I can
financially sustain myself by doing what I love.
What are you working on now?
I’m
working on a sequel to my first erotic novel, “The Escapists.”** There are a lot more stories to be told on
the island where the events of the novel take place. I want to tell them all in as many books as
it takes.
Is there a question you hate
answering?
There are several, though I’ve never encountered any of them
during an interview. Two that spring immediately
to mind, and are questions I’ve actually had posed to me, are:
1.
“How much did you get paid for (insert recently-published
title of one of my stories that does not exceed 3K words)? Like, a thousand dollars?”
2.
“The part where (insert name of character from one of
my written works that the speaker has read) said/did (insert what character
said/did)…Is that from something, or
did you make that up?)”
Mankind: Good or evil? Explain.
At
risk of sounding arrogant, I think concepts of “good and “evil” are often
subjective and that mankind is best described as a work in progress. That’s why
I’m simultaneously amused and saddened by knowing entire demographics continue
to be considered altogether superior or inferior to others, and that this will
probably always be so. The idea that an entire group of people without
exception should be considered less savage or loving or honest or moral than
another based on something as superficial as skin color, religion, gender,
sexual orientation, etc. is so ridiculous that it would be hilarious if I
didn’t know how damaging it is to the progress of human hearts and minds. I
feel the same about those so convinced that Earth is not only our universe’s sole
life-sustaining planet, but the only one capable of sustaining
intelligent life. I sincerely hope this
isn’t true. I can’t tell you how sad it would
make me if I were to receive irrefutable proof that humanity (with all its malice
and greed and
schadenfreude) is the
absolute pinnacle of intelligent life in the universe. For the sake of all
living things, there needs to be something better than us out there (and no,
I’m not talking about a god or divinity). If there were not, and we are truly
the single most evolved species in existence right now, then to my thinking, that
speaks very poorly of the universe.
