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.

Interview with novelist Peter Davidson

Welcome, readers. My special guest today is novelist Peter Davidson. He has a new humorous novel out, titled PENNY: Hands I Passed Through. . . Things I Saw . . . Stories I Can Tell!

Bio:

Peter Davidson is the author or co-author of twenty-eight published books including novels, non-fiction, college textbooks, and children's picture books. His works have been published by McGraw-Hill Book Company, Perigee/Putnam Publishers, Haworth Press, Sweet Memories Publishing, and others.

Welcome, Peter. Please tell us about your current release.

PENNY is the story of a very special U.S. one-cent piece that passes through the hands of ordinary people, the famous, the infamous, the saints, and the sinners and hangs out in churches, honkytonks, and everywhere in between.

Why is this particular penny so special? Well, because it was the final penny ever minted of 95% copper, on October 22, 1982. After that, all U.S. one-cent pieces are pathetic and puny, consisting of 97.5% zinc with only a touch of copper thrown in. That's why.

What inspired you to write this book?

Through the years, my wife or I would occasionally look at a coin in the palm of our hand and say, “If only this coin could talk, what stories it could tell of the places it has been, the people it has met, and the stories it could tell. This was where the idea originated. For virtually all of my adult life, I have kept every penny that I have gotten my hands on and have around eighteen gallons of pennies. Being a fan of the penny, it seemed that using a penny as the central character of the book was a natural fit.

Excerpt from Penny:

Bubba sheepisly approaches a clerk at the Recorder's counter, pulls out his mail order Marriage Minister Certificate, hands it to the clerk and says, “Please don't laugh at me, but I bought this Marriage Minister Certificate by mail order for $9.95 and now someone has asked me to marry them. It's not legal and binding, right?”

The clerk studies the Marriage Minister Certificate and says, “Yes it is.”

“W-h-a-at? Bubba exclaims in disbelief.

“It's legal and binding. The couple getting married comes in here and picks up the marriage certificate prior to the wedding. After you conduct the wedding, you sign the certificate, and they bring it in here and file it. That's all there is to it.”

“You're putting me on, right?” Bubba says.

“In fact, we have a list of about a dozen Marriage Ministers like you and people who are planning on getting married often stop in and pick someone from the list to do the job. Do you want me to add your name to the list?”

“N-o-o-o-!” Bubba groans.

“Well, then you're all set, Reverend” the clerk says with a little smile on her face.

“Smartass,” Bubba mutters to himself as he leaves the Recorder's office.

So, it was decided—Brother Bubba was going to marry Holly and Dale, but he has a problem.

What exciting story are you working on next?

I have a manuscript completed: GOING OUT WITH A BANG!: Making Your Mark . . . Leaving A Legacy . . . And, A Final Farewell That'll Knock Their Socks Off! I have a literary agent from San Francisco who is shopping it around to publishers.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

As a youth, I always had a paperback in my pocket and I read every chance I got. When I was in college, I got a few encouraging comments from some professors on my term papers and in the summertime when I wrote to some of my college friends, they commented that they enjoyed my letters. A combination of those things created an interest in writing in me.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

Writing books is my only fruitful activity. When I write a book, I normally work on it every day until it is finished, although I do not necessarily have a set time that I write each day. My goal is to make the first draft as close as possible to being the final draft of the manuscript. However, I spend a good deal of time proofreading and polishing the writing, often changing a word here and there.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

You have probably heard people say, “I'm going to sleep on it” when they have a difficult decision to make. They may or may not realize it, but if you have a troubled mind or have a difficult decision, you will undoubtedly ponder it as you fall asleep and your subconscious mind will mull it over throughout the night. When you awake, the situation will be much clearer and the answer may be there. I use this same technique when I have a dilemma about how to approach a scene or topic. It really, really works.

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

I actually don't recall any grand plans from when I was a child. As a teenager, though, I loved music and when I was in my early twenties, I developed a desire to write songs. I actually wrote around a hundred songs, a couple were recorded, and one of them was used in a television series in The Netherlands. As it turned out, my songwriting “career” is more properly called a hobby, but I had a lot of fun with it. Becoming a book writer, was a close second choice.

Anything additional you'd like to share with the readers?

If you have a desire to write, keep at it and never, never quit.

Links:

Website | Amazon author page | LinkedIn | Twitter

Thanks for being here today, Peter.