Author Interview – Simon Jenner

What is your favorite quote, by whom, and why? My favorite quote comes from the bible: John, chapter 15, verse 13. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

To me it epitomizes the best in man and gives us all a target to aspire to. There are many throughout history who have lived true to these words so surely they can inspire us to at least try harder in everything we do.

What are you most proud of accomplishing so far in your life? To be honest I know that I haven’t achieved as much as I am capable of, through nothing more complicated than inertia. I have been a victim of this for much of my life although my wife has tried desperately for the last 14 years to cure me. She’s succeeding slowly. What was that dear? Take the bins out. Just one minute.

What is your favorite color? Blue. Not a pasty pale blue but the dark blue of denim. There is no other colour worth mentioning, except for maybe a relatively dark green which I guess comes second. Pink is for girls, red is too harsh, brown is dull and yellow is too bright. We want blue, we want blue!

What do you do to unwind and relax? Anything with my family. Other than that I love to read a good book or watch a good film, depending on how the mood takes me.

If you could leave your readers with one bit of wisdom, what would you want it to be? It’s so cheesy but it has to be that ‘anything you achieve through hard work and effort is far sweeter than anything that falls easily into your grasp.’

When you wish to end your career, stop writing, and look back on your life, what thoughts would you like to have? That I tried hard enough to warrant the success I achieved and that I gave a few people a distraction from their troubles along the way.

Can you tell us about your main character? My main character is John Smith, a talented underachiever, who is forced into a life-threatening adventure against his will. He lives a most uneventful life knowing that if he doesn’t try, he won’t fail, and when he is thrown into a world of sex, murder and deceit, he discovers where his true talents lie. Becoming Ethan Justice, he shows us that heroes aren’t born but a product of circumstance.

Who is your publisher? I’m still self-publishing digitally, although I do have a children’s picture book in print and Ethan Justice is planned for paperback very soon. I can’t imagine allowing control of my work and earnings to be in anyone’s hands but my own.

Will you write others in this same genre? Ethan Justice 2 is about sixty percent complete and I’m aiming to get the final version to my editor by 28 Feb 2013.

Have you included a lot of your life experiences, even friends, in the plot? I always draw on my own experiences but tend to bastardise them to fit the needs of my story. I had a friend ask me to write him into my current work as an ageing Romeo who young women find irresistible. I had him down as something rather different, so I guess he won’t like the final version.