Dr Bob Rich is a Write Australian author of boundless enthusiasm. He thinks, and he shares his thoughts with other people in many different ways. Here is what he has to say about his writing life and how he Writes Australian.
Q.1. As mudsmith, psychologist and author, how do you go about balancing your three hats?
A. Oh Sally, that's only THREE of my roles. Actually, I have to earn my bread and butter as a nurse. I work for an agency, and when I don't have enough clients, or when I want extra money for something,I work more shifts. The psychology involves couselling people face to face, on the phone and over the internet. I always am surprised at how well my clients do at improving, I must be doing SOMETHING right to help them, but where I lack is in being a good businessman. So, I have never managed to earn a living from counselling. For one thing, I'm too stupid to tie people to me for years. On the average, my clients are able to go it alone in four sessions or less.
More on other roles, I keep falling into them. A couple of years ago I joined Toastmasters in order to be able to face the media when I become a best-selling author . So, now I am also a storyteller. And a few months ago, I needed to grow a new head for the next hat: now I am a freelenance editor, and actually this business is the best paying one I've had so far. I'm charging half rates compared to those asked in the USA, and yet I reckon I could live on two books a week. But probably the most important role I have, what I AM, is a conservationist. There are only two kinds of people: those who can see past the end of their nose and are therefore conservationists -- and the others are suicides. For the past 30 years, my whole life has been devoted to trying to save a piece of future for my grandchildren, and everyone else's grandchildren.
Q.2. Could you give us a bit of background on what led you to become a writer?
A. I just did, believe it or not. In 1972, I was writing up my Ph.D. thesis, and it was boring me to the point that I was falling asleep in the Library. And I couldn't do that: there were 700 young people to whom I was Mr Rich the lecturer. I had small kids, so just to keep awake, I read books and journals on Futurology. No, no, no, Sally, that has nothing to do with Astrology, or even Nostradamus. It's taking existing trends and studying what will happen if they continue in the same way. The predictions were SCARY. I won't list them all, but can summarise them in one sentence: the evidence was predicting a terrible thing: today's world! So, I became a born-again Greenie. After thirty years, I can say, 'It's not my fault!'
My family and I changed our lifestyle. I thought about how I could influence others. Now, part of the problem is 'the missionary spirit', 'marketing', salesmanship', so I didn't want to engage in that. Politics didn't appeal to me. I started to write.
At first, it was all pedestrian stuff: how to this and how to do that. I went out of my way to learn skills, and as I learned them I taught them. That's a talent I happen to have. Then I sketched out a manifesto for changing the world. Actually, you can read this sketch at essay.html. But a friend said, 'No-one reads stuff like that. Write fiction and that will carry your ideas.'
Ridiculous! Me write fiction? But eventually I got to it. My second published book, 'Woodworking for Idiots Like Me' is actually a collection of short stories, although it does teach woodcraft as well. And for the past six years, my writing skills have bloomed, mainly because I have always sought feedback, and took it seriously.
Q.3. Who is your favourite among your characters? Why? Do you identify with him/her?
A. That's hard. Whichever is in my thoughts at the time, the central character in my current project. All of them are my children, even the villains and nasties. All of them deserve to be understood. All of them are me in part.
Currently I am writing the next book in the series, 'The Stories of the Ehvelen'. The protagonist is a young Doshi, 16 at the start of the story. To the Ehvelen, the heroes of my series, he is an enemy. but at the moment I am telling the story of three years of the war through his eyes, and so I am him.
My major project before that was my first-ever full length SF story, 'Sleeper, Awake'. While writing that, I WAS Flora, a 52-year-old woman with cancer, and also Kiril, a young man consumed by jealousy (and I very strongly identified with his suffering, even though I have never been bitten by THAT particular monster) and young Tamas who is in love for the first time in his life, and Abel, who at 68 still wants to do everything he used to be able to do as a youngster (that one is VERY close to home), and above all Tony, who has been dead for 1500 years, but is still the most important person on the planet.
But of all my characters, the favourite is probably Porcupine of Quiet Glen, known to his remote descendants as 'Porcupine the Inventor'. In the Stories, he has two lives. At first, he is exactly the kind of person I'd love to be: immensely strong and agile, a creative genius who can do everything, handsome and loved by all, and yet a fearsome warrior. And then he is terribly wounded, and his second life begins. His once handsome face disfigured, his existence wracked by constant pain, he becomes the Fifth Storyteller, and spends the rest of his long life helping others to cope with loss and sorrow.
I'd like to believe that, should severe misfortune ever strike me, my response will be similar... but who can tell?
Q.4. Your books marry sci fi or fantasy with philosophical issues in a very entertaining fashion. Can you tell us why you chose this genre for your writing?
A. I didn't. It was not a choice. I just write, and what comes out is what comes out. It's an extension of me, it is me. That's the way I am. I have written short stories that are contemporary crime mysteries, or about the lives of teenagers, I have written historical fiction about various time periods, and I have written fantasy and magic realism. And always, I write as I think, no false front put on.
Anyone doesn't like it is allowed to put it down unfinished. But the feedback is that people rarely do that. In fact, I have been blamed for quite a bit of lost sleep. Philosphical issues ranging from aggression/bullying through cooperation to species survival are important to me. When I am walking down the street, if I see a screw or nail lying on the ground, I pick it up and take it home. A few years later, I might find a use for it. When I am some place where people leave on unneeded electric lights, I turn them off (the lights, not the people), to save fossil fuels for the future. In school, I was only ever involved in three fights, and each time I was rescuing someone who was being bullied.
That's the one thing that gets me enraged: seeing the weak bashed by the strong. So, when I write, the same kinds of issues emerge. It's just me, the way I am.
As for being entertaining, I guess I've got a twisted mind. Again, I can't help it. Oh, things are mostly acceptable, until I get tired. The first part of my brain to go to sleep is the Censor -- and after that, look out! I tend to write my best material in the quiet of the small hours. Sometimes, my characters manage to say things I'd never think of. Once, it was about 3 am, I was writing a scene when this young man was facing the ruler of his people. He said 'Honoured Khan, life is too short to be treated with the seriousness it deserves.' Now, I'd NEVER have been able to think of that myself! And if I had, I certainly wouldn't say it to the supreme boss.
Q.5. Some of your books are self-help. Do you think books can offer people the same level of help as a personal appointment might?
A. You can't learn to ride a bicycle from a book. Well, you'd fall off, wouldn't you? You can ONLY learn by doing. This is true for everything, because everything is skill and habit. But a book can tell you what to practise, and can suggest things to do when something goes wrong. It can also be a source of inspiration and companionship.
Being apprenticed to a wise teacher is of course the best way to learn. But not all teachers are wise, or patient, or even competent. Anyway, it's not an 'either/or' situation, but an 'and'. The best way to use a book is to find someone who doesn't need it.
In my counselling, I very often write letters to my (face to face) clients, and provided I got it right, this can be enormously healing for them. Some of my letters have lived in handbags or wallets for months. Research shows that one good therapeutic letter is worth about four face to face sessions. Told you I'm a rotten businessman! A 'how to' book from someone like me is just a very long personal letter. At least, that's how many people have taken my books. I have thousands of friends I have never met. When my daughter went WWOOFing around Australia, she found my 'Earth Garden Building Book' in about 80% of the homes she visited, and these people all treated her like the daughter of a friend.
Q.6. Whoa, Bob! What's WWOOFing?
A. Sally, I thought you'd know. It has nothing to do with dogs, but stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms. Where I live, we are a WWOOF host farm, and we get a constant trickle of wonderful visitors. They come from anywhere in the world, though about half of them are Australians. You write to WWOOF in Buchan, Victoria (that's address enough), they send out the information. You pay a fee and get a booklet of contacts and some other benefits like a insurance policy.
Then you write to potential hosts and arrange a stay. We've had people who came for a week and stayed for months. The volunteer gets to travel on the cheap, in real life rather than through the sieve of tourism, makes friends and learns skills. The host gets some work done, and is stimulated and inspired by contact with idealistic, mostly young people.
Q.7. If you could choose two of your books to stand for you in the 22nd Century, which two would you pick, and why?
A. Fair go, Sally, I haven't written them all yet, and my writing is continually improving. Of the ones completed so far, 'Sleeper, Awake' is the best, with 'The Start of Magic' a close second. I have just received the first review for 'Magic'. A writer for whom I have a great deal of respect (Katherine Krueger writing as Kate Soundby) glanced at the start, and next thing it was 3 am.
Probably my most successful book will be the one I die over. I have scripted my death. I am 107 years old, and standing on a stage, facing a large audience and the descendants of today's TV cameras. It's the launch of my latest book. And there in front of the world, I have a massive heart attack and pop off. Now surely, that'd have to make the book a best-seller + +! But I don't know the title or theme as yet. Got a few years to go.
Q.8. Do you write on a regular basis, and if so, what is your schedule?
A. I don't do ANYTHING to a schedule, not even sleep . But I am writing all the time. Everything I see, hear, read, remember is raw material, and ideas keep popping into my mind whenever I don't wrestle them off. I can then recall them for a day or two, so it's just a matter of starting a new file in the computer and planting the seed. When I am at a loose end, I click on something, thinking, 'Now, what's this?' And if it grabs me, hey, we're off.
But even if something slips away, it's there. Research shows that a person (any person) NEVER forgets anything. All your experiences are there, until you die. Forgetting is not the same as a 'delete' in a computer, but just the loss of the path. At the moment, I have my young Doshi going off to war, and saying good-bye to his woman, his 2-months-old son, and his two child slaves who are very attached to him (he is a nice bloke). And all the partings I have ever lived through or read about or seen on film are there, available to me, so that I can BE him in that poignant situation. And so I can write it in a way that makes it real to the reader. I don't need to recall any specific situation, it's sufficient that it colours my imagination.
I do a lot of my writing while driving a car, washing dishes, ironing, working as a nurse, even sitting on a toilet. It's all in my head, and bears fruit when I switch on the little computer.
Q.9. How much of your own character and opinion gets into your novels? Is this deliberate, or a side-effect?
A. My motivation for writing is to change the world. I want a humanity that is cooperative instead of aggressive, organised to give us meaningful lives instead of the fractured alienation that haunts so many people, caring instead of hating. I want a way of life that is indefinitely sustainable, that respects all life of any species, that acts as caretakers for the future instead of as thieves from it.
I have studied all this for thirty years, and know what I am talking about. I know exactly what kind of world order would satisfy our basic human needs. This is not a utopia, for people need constant challenge and even chaos. I have presented different realisations of this model, in the life style of the Ehvelen, in the way Tony and Artif run their world in the future of 'Sleeper, Awake', in dozens of my short stories. Everything I write is me.
Q.10. Say you have a fan who loves your books. Which other author would you recommend for him/her?
A. You for one. I have really enjoyed Candle Iron, and I know I'll love your other titles when I have a chance to read them. Not that I could read them all, you have written too many. But I have read the little snippets you often put at the bottom of your emails, and they are intriguing. My favourite author is Dick Francis. I hope he lives forever and continues to write a book a year. I am not that keen on the horsey bits, but he always explains some other field of expertise as well, and his characters, story line and descriptions are faultless. In the field of non-fiction, it has to be David Suzuki. I think you'd have predicted that.
Q.11. What book(s) are you planning and/or writing now?
A. 'The Making of a Forest Fighter' is a little over half finished. I have a book sketched out titled 'Stop Smoking! You can do it too'. Last year my mother died, and before that I gathered a huge amount of information about her remarkable life, and I'll write her biography: 'Aniko: The stranger who loved me'. And I have a whole heap of email questions from troubled people, and my answers to them, and I want to put these together into a book. Cross Roads Publishing is currently considering my second short story collection, titled 'Through Other Eyes'.
Thank you to Bob Rich for his time in answering all my questions so fully. More about WWOOF? Check it out here. http://www.wwoof.com.au/
Among many other careers, Dr Bob Rich is an award-winning writer, editor and psychologist.
You can read my review of Sally's Young Adult fantasy Candle-Iron, and her review of Sleeper, Awake.