Telolet Apps: Q A with Ray Daniel!

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Q A with Ray Daniel!

**This week, we sat down down with Ray Daniel, whose critically-acclaimed Corrupted Memory was published earlier this month.**

Midnight Ink: How long have you been writing?

Ray Daniel: I started writing seriously when I turned 40, though the clues were there all along that this should be my path. I�m an Engineer with a minor in English. The first book I bought out of college was On Writing Well by Zinsser, and I once wrote an MBA paper as a short story.

Even so, I didn�t really think about writing until I read the book Now, Discover Your Strengths. The book suggested that I do the things for which I had a natural talent. That when it occurred to me that I was a pretty good writer and I should focus my energy there. I quit playing chess (I was terrible) and started writing.

That was 12 years ago.

MI: What influence have other authors had on your writing?

RD: Robert B. Parker was my favorite author and my earliest influence writing. I used to tell people that I liked reading �first-person, wise-cracking, Boston-based mysteries.� Now I write �first-person, wise-cracking, Boston-based mysteries.�

The Teaching Company audio course �Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer�s

Craft� had a significant influence on my style. I hadn�t expected that to happen when I bought the course.

Today�s influences include Karin Slaughter, who is a master of writing sensory-focused scenes in simple language, and William Martin who writes dual-timeline novels that combine history with modern life.

MI: If you weren�t a writer, what would you be doing?

RD: Stand-up comedy. There is something addictive about writing jokes and figuring out how to deliver them to an audience in a consistent fashion. It�s a difficult art form and a high wire act. I gave it a shot at this open mike night and loved it.

MI: If you have a job outside of writing, what is it?

RD: I design computer chips, which is why Tucker is a hacker. I wanted an engineer as a main character and designing computer chips was too arcane for a general audience. I wanted to capture the engineer�s worldview.

There�s a joke about how engineers see the world:

A minister, a doctor and an engineer are golfing together. They are suffering because the foursome in front of them is miserably slow. Finally they flag down the groundskeeper and ask, �Why are those guys so slow?�

The groundskeeper says, �Oh they�re firefighters who were blinded in a fire. To thank them for their service we let them play whenever they want.�

The minister says, �That is terrible, I will pray for those men.�

The doctor says, �I know some ophthalmologists. I�ll see if I can get them help.�

The engineer says, �Why can�t they play at night?�

Pretty much sums us up.

MI: What are your favorite things to do when you�re not writing or working?

RD: Reading, playing softball, and fretting about the Red Sox. Also I enjoy Facebook and have to admit to spending too much time there.

MI: Who is your favorite mystery sleuth and why?

RD: Spenser. He had a powerful influence on me as a young man. He demonstrated that being a man meant something and that there were rules to correct behavior. I think he influenced a generation of young men, much as Robert B. Parker influenced a generation of mystery authors.

MI: Do you have a favorite murder case from a book (either yours or another author�s)?

RD: The murder case in Corrupted Memory is pretty nifty, if I do say so myself.

MI: What was your inspiration for this series?

RD: My work in high tech. The story in Terminated was specifically inspired by the way a company named Avant! stole computer source code from another company named Cadence. (You can look it up!)

MI: Tell us about Aloysius Tucker.

RD: Tucker is, like many engineers, a guy who can�t let go of a problem once it grabs hold of him. He cannot use a gun, he cannot fight, and he doesn�t run all that fast, also he�s not really all that tough.

But he is brave.

Tucker works to do the right thing regardless of personal risk because he doesn�t want to live in a world where he let his fear control him. He can be infuriating since he�s got poor people-reading skills, and he sometimes doesn�t thing things through.

In the end he�s a good guy.

MI: How does this series compare to your past works?

RD: This series is my past works.

Well, to be more specific, this is my first published fiction. Previously I�ve written business books (Leading After a Layoff) engineering books (The UVM Primer) and poetry (Robot Haiku). But that was all written by another guy named Ray Salemi.

MI: Do you have a pet? Tell us about him/her.

RD: We have three dogs: A Chinese Crested, a Yorkie-Poodle and a Shitzu-Poodle. Technically that means we have three pets, but you could also see it as having one pet: a dog pack.

MI: What food could you live off of for the rest of your life?

RD: Beef.

My Dad was from Argentina, so I grew up with a love of cooking beef over a grill.

MI: Do you have a favorite recipe?

RD:

2 oz. of Lagavulin Scotch

2 ice cubes (can be replaced by one big ice cube.)

Place the ice cubes in an on-the-rocks glass.

Add Scotch.

MI: What�s your favorite part about being an Inker?

RD: Our sense of community.

The only tangible benefit I can guarantee anyone who wants to be an author is that they�ll get to hang out with other authors, usually at conferences. Being an Inker automatically gives you a posse at any mystery conference.