Featured Author – Pete Morin

The feature of today is an author I hadn’t heard of before, but what surprising things he writes and tells us about himself. Let’s not waste another minute. So without any further ado, here is … (drumroll)

Pete Morin

Hello Pete, welcome to my blog. Glad you could make it. I’d like to start with revealing a few details from your life.

What! You got to be kidding me? You came prepared and brought a real bio? Great! Come on, share.

Bio

Pete Morin has been a trial attorney, a politician, a bureaucrat, a lobbyist, and an astute witness of human behavior. Now, he’s a lawyer, musician and crime fiction writer.

Pete’s short story, Club Dues, appeared in NEEDLE, A Magazine of Noir, and other works have appeared in Words With Jam, 100 Stories for Haiti, and Words to Music. All of his fiction is available in ebook.

When he is not writing crime fiction or legal mumbo jumbo, Pete plays blues guitar in Boston bars, and on increasingly rare occasion, plays a round of golf. He lives in a money pit on the seacoast south of Boston, in an area once known as the Irish Riviera. 

Pete is represented by Christine Witthohn of Book Cents Literary Agency.

You’re an author who seems to have fun living his life. And your job experience have all elements to provide you with enough writing material.

Okay, on to the interview. That is why you are here, right?

Can you give me your best Whoop? Unless you have another one which works better for you?

My best whoop has nothing to do with fiction. I am also a musician, a blues guitarist, and my best whoop(s) occur when my fingers do something I’ve never seen them do before – like they’re acting on their own.

Okay, sounds like a winner that one, but does it work all the time, even those times when the muse has gone and done a runner on you? And when did you first start with it?

No, it doesn’t work all the time, which is why it’s the best when it does. Sometimes you’re on, sometimes not – it’s all so extemporaneous and inspired by the moment, that’s what gives it the Jazz.

Fortunately for me, when music doesn’t inspire me, writing does, so the muse just moves from the writing desk to the studio.

Right, you might be on the right track there. Let’s do a few of the yada yada questions before we move on to the fun.

What is the title of the book you would like to talk about?

DIARY OF A SMALL FISH

Oh! I quite like that cover! Even without knowing what the book is about it tells you it must be about a white collar man (a suit) who has an adventure of sorts.

Did you have difficulty coming up with the title?

No, it came to me during the writing of the first paragraph, and I never wavered once. For some reason, titles do that for me, they just show up out of thin air.

If you would have to change the genre, what would it be then?

It would definitely be romance. The reason this novel did not sell (according to my agent, anyway) is because it’s not enough crime, too much romance. There is a very poignant love story involving the MC, his ex-wife and his girlfriend. And no, it’s not that kind of love story.

Hahaha, okay. I believe you! Surely it will sell now. You’ve made me very curious and I bet with me a few more readers.

Just to confuse you we’ll take the alternative route now.

What don’t you like about writing, or whatever you need to do marketing wise?

There’s nothing I don’t like about writing, but then, I’m the only person I know who actually liked law school. However, I despise everything about marketing, except for doing blog interviews with clever people.

(Blushing Lucy) Why thank you, Mister Morin. 🙂 

Tell me, when your muse is visiting and you’re on a roll, what would seriously drive her/him away?

An invitation to play golf does it every time, as well as a gig with a blues band. But distractions don’t generally take me out of my zone. I’ve never had trouble diving back in, no matter how long the lay-off (which will go weeks sometimes – my choice).

What does your muse look like?

It’s a shapeshifter. One time, she was Lauren Bacall, another he was Muddy Waters.

Lauren Bacall! Beautiful woman that, you are a man of taste. For those who might not know her, a picture of the lady.

Do you ever speak to your characters and do you get along all the time?

They sure do speak to me. If we do get along, it’s because I don’t argue with them. The last manuscript I finished (now on an editor’s desk somewhere at Thomas & Mercer), the elderly dowager across the street from a murder scene kept insisting on being the murderess. That was when Lauren Bacall emerged. I’m so glad she did, because she is a fascinating character and once she gets out of the loony bin, I’ll bring her back.

Can you name the food and drink that will surely get you started?

Osso buco.

Nom! Okay, a picture and the recipe. 🙂

Seriously, one of my bad reviews called it “a really long story about rich people enjoying expensive food and wine (which he goes to staggering extremes to explain in every detail during almost every scene).”

I think its an exaggeration, but yeah, there is a lot of food in the story, and both of the main characters probably could stand to drink less. But hey – food and booze are fun.

I’m sorry, but we all eat and drink. I think it paints the picture to show what the food and drink is the characters eat and drink. It shows what they are about and that they are alive! I can’t stand it when characters never seem to eat or drink during a whole novel.

Would you be able to come up with an excuse on why you haven’t written a whole day, and have me believe it too?

Why do I need an excuse? I do a lot of ruminating in between writing spurts. And a day job and a family. And I play music. I can’t fit them all into every day. To whom do I pay the fine?

Okay! Hold your horses, 🙂 You don’t need an excuse at all. I was just wondering if you could come up with an excuse. You are a writer of great fiction and your excuse for ‘I didn’t write today because …’ would have been fun to read. But I can’t force you into fiction mode. On with the rest of the interview it is. 🙂

The last question, why would you ever want to live life behind a keyboard slaving over a manuscript?

It keeps me out of the bars.

That is a very good reason. 🙂

Okay, now that we have the mandatory questions out of the way, shoot your mouth off. Tell me whatever you want the blab about. But please no cat’s, dogs, or children. Make me laugh, or cry, or even envious. Tell me something none has ever heard before from you. hehehe, love those little dirty secrets, real or make believe. 🙂

I got back into writing fiction and playing music when an energy healer (my cousin’s wife) told me there were two things I needed to do to fill a hole in me. True story.

I had a brief affair with short fiction in college (I was an English major focusing on creative writing in the mid 1970’s), and although I’d played guitar since I was 10, I stopped playing around the same time. Since then, I’ve done just about everything else but. Starting in the 1980’s, back problems drove me to just about every health care professional there was, from orthopedic surgeons to energy healers (ask me about the acupuncturist). In 2002, the energy healer did a “reading” and told me she sensed that I was missing music and writing. I hadn’t really thought of either, but as soon as she said it, I knew she was right.

So the next day, I found a Fender Stratocaster in the want ads and opened a blog.

That fast? Wow, you’re a man who doesn’t wait for things to happen, but takes life in the direction he needs it to be. You’re my kind of person!

Right now, it’s hard to say which of my “occupations” I enjoy the most. Music, fiction and law seem to exercise different parts of the brain and creative impulse, and since I have so much of each of them to do, I find I’ve developed the ability to jump aboard one when the others take a rest. I think being into fiction and music has made me a better lawyer, and certainly has made life more fun for me.

And my back is much better, too!

Good to hear that!

Pete, it was fun having you and I do hope your book will do great too. Thanks for stopping by and answering my questions.

Thanks for the invitation to join you and your friends. It’s been a blast.

Glad you had fun being here.

Let me just post a blurb for that wonderful book of yours.

When Paul Forte is indicted by a federal grand jury, everyone suspects prosecutor Bernard (don’t call him ‘Bernie’) Kilroy has more on his mind than justice. Then the FBI agent in charge of Paul’s case gives him a clue to the mystery: Kilroy is bent on settling an old family score, and he’s not above breaking the law to do it.

Paul is already dealing with the death of his parents and divorce from a woman he still loves. Now, with the support of an alluring grand juror, Paul must expose the vindictive prosecutor’s own corruption before the jury renders a verdict on his Osso Buco.

After that blurb I really want to read the book.

The only thing left for me to do now is tell the readers where they can buy your book and–not unimportant either–where they can find you online.

Amazon

B&N

KOBO

SMASHWORDS

www.petemorin.com is where the man is to be found online.