New interview with author Peter Davidson

Helping me wind up the week, and the month, is author Peter Davidson. He’s he to share a little bit about his humorous personal experience and advice book, Marital Advice to My Grandson, Joel: How to be a husband your wife won't throw out of the window in the middle of the night.

Peter was last here at Reviews in Interviews in July 2017 when we talked about his humorous book, Penny.

Bio:

Peter Davidson is the author or co-author of twenty-nine books published by McGraw-Hill Book Company, Perigee/Putnam Publishers, Northwestern Publishing Company, Sweet Memories Publishing, Haworth Press, and others. His works include fiction, non-fiction, college textbooks, children's picture books, and training materials for business and industry. Davidson is also a songwriter and one of his songs was used in a television series in The Netherlands.

For more than two decades, Peter Davidson was one of America's most active writer's seminar presenters, having presented over 625 one-day seminars in a fifteen-state area from Minnesota to Tennessee and Colorado to Illinois. 

Davidson has been a professional recording studio owner, college professor, and retail store owner. He trained over 700 real estate agents, something that he believes he will have to answer for on Judgment Day.

He is the recipient of the prestigious Leavey Award granted by Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge. Davidson and his wife life in the Lake Okoboji resort area of Iowa in summer and in Arizona in the winter.

Please tell us about your current release:

When my grandson, Joel, got engaged, I decided to jot down a few words of marital advice for him, based on my vast experience as a husband. Then I thought, why share this wisdom with only one person when I can share it with the whole world. So, I started a blog and listed new marital advice every week. As the popularity of the blog grew, people suggested that the material be turned into a book, and, well, here it is!

What inspired you to write this book?

This started out as a few words of wisdom for my grandson for him to get a few chuckles from and maybe to pick up a few helpful hints about his role in his marriage - and then it just evolved into the blog and then evolved into the book.

Excerpt from Marital Advice to My Grandson, Joel:

One of my favorite parts of the book are the more than twenty short quotes that each occupy a whole page and that summarize some of the major points in the book or provide a little philosophical message to ponder. Here are a few of my favorites:

As the marital bus rumbles down the highway of life,

there cannot be two people wrestling for the steering wheel,

or surely the bus will crash. Know when it is your turn to drive

and when it is time to quietly sit in the back seat.

When your wife gives you that steely-eyed, clinched-jaw scowl,

known as “The Look,” it means that you have obviously

done something wrong, but what?

You will find out as soon as she gets you alone.

“Buy me flowers, candy, jewelry, clothing, perfume, a card,

or nothing at all -

but do not ever buy me an implement of work as a gift.”

What exciting story are you working on next?

I have a manuscript completed that I was working on when my grandson got engaged and the idea for Marital Advice to my Grandson, Joel took off and occupied a lot of my time. Right now, I'll be working on promoting this book for several months. Then, I hope to get back to pitching the other book to literary agents. It deals with making your mark, leaving a legacy, and when the time comes, going out with a bang.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

When I was a youth, I always had a paperback in my pocket and read every chance that I got. The thought about writing a book someday was in my mind at a young age. I didn't take the thought seriously until I got to college and got a few nice compliments on some of my written assignments by my professors and even more than that, when I got some nice comments from my college friends when I wrote to them over the summer. I actually considered myself to be a writer when I got my first work published.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like?

I pursued various ventures in addition to writing for many years, as described in my bio, above, but writing has been a major and constant part of my life for over four decades. Right now, writing is my only work-related activity.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I suspect that a lot of writers do this same thing, and a lot of people use it to help clarify or solve problems in their life: I “sleep on it.” When I am having difficulty figuring out how a scene should go in a novel or how some material should fit together in a non-fiction work, I fall asleep thinking about the issue and when I awake in the morning, the solution is there, after my subconscious mind has mulled it over while I slept.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I don't recall any aspirations until I became a teenager, and then I wanted to be a Rock 'N Roll star. That didn't happen, but the professional recording studio that I owned along with three partners was inducted into the Rock and Roll Halls of Fame in Minnesota, Iowa, and South Dakota, and us along with it, so I got a little taste of it and got to hang out with a lot of musicians along the way.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

Although I was involved in various activities and pursuits during my life, the one constant was writing – I was always writing something. Sometimes I wrote only for my own pleasure, but usually I had an eye on potential publishing. Not everything that I wrote got published, but every one of those manuscripts that didn't get published, and never will be, were a labor of love and I'm glad that I wrote them. To aspiring writers, I have only one piece of advice: “Keep writing.” When I'm working on a book, I like to work on it every day. I don't necessarily have a set schedule and I have never had writer's block, so I can write about anytime and anywhere. We have a summer home and a winter home, and I have completely staffed offices in each home.

Links:

Blog | Amazon | LinkedIn | Twitter

Thank you for being here today, Peter.