Fiction Scribe

Hello and welcome to Fiction Scribe, Mr. Abrams.

Let’s start with getting to know you a little better. List five things you feel define you as a person.

1. Love – for my wife, friends, children, books, our planet.
2. Laughter – Enlightenment is directly related to laughter.
3. Joy – Life is short.
4. Passion – Don Juan taught me to embrace life.
5. Wisdom – We all walk the same road even if the shoe styles change.

I am working to create a new genre of stories called Wisdom Fiction – page turning stories with rich, complex characters that explore the perennial questions of being human—who we are, how can we love, how can we make a good sangria?

First off, congratulations for all the wonderful accomplishments. I read on your website that the movie rights have just been sold for The Lost Diary of Don Juan.

Let’s go back to the start of things for a moment. What inspired the initial idea for The Lost Diary of Don Juan?

One night I went to bed asking myself a question that I believe every married man or woman asks eventually: how could I stay happily and passionately married for the rest of my life? The next morning I awoke as if I had been shaken. It was then that I first thought of Don Juan, the universal symbol of passion.

I wondered what if he had kept a diary. What secrets would it contain? What could we learn from him about the nature of passion? And ultimately, what might cause the world’s greatest seducer to forsake all women for one woman? I left my wife’s warm sleeping body, walked past our three sleeping children, and sat down at the dining room table. It was as if a voice was whispering the story in my ear.

Don Juan’s story wouldn’t be your typical historical fiction (how much is historical and how much is fiction being up for debate); did you have any difficulties with marketing this book in the beginning?

Due to having one of the best agents in the world who truly believed in my book right from the start, I really didn’t have any troubles getting the book published; I was even offered a two book deal. However, marketing the book has proven a little difficult, but not because the book isn’t your typical historical fiction—readers who love historical romance writer Diana Gabaldon and other historical fiction writers such as Phillipa Gregory and Tracy Chevalier have written to tell me how much they loved my novel. It’s been difficult because, as a first-time novelist, I don’t already have a large fan base. So I had to start a grass roots campaign (mostly on the internet) to get word out about my book.

Donna Woolfolk Cross, first-time historical fiction author of Pope Joan, has become very well known to book groups due to her grass roots campaign to let them know about her book. The first hardcover edition of her book went out of print rather quickly, but due to her own persistence, the paperback has continued to sell very well for the past ten years. I think this shows that authors can’t leave the marketing to their publisher – they only have so much time and attention to devote to one book.

Why Don Juan and not another prominent male historical figure?

There are many other historical men I could have written about, but none would have had the same lessons to teach us about love, romance, and relationships. I needed to tell the story of Don Juan because only through him could I explore the true nature of passion and how we can make it last.

What makes the Don Juan of your book different from the interpretations we already know?

I wanted to explore the true nature of love and passion by creating a more complex Don Juan than the one we usually meet. His previous incarnations in plays, novels, and films have only allowed us to see the man from a distance, and we have judged him accordingly.

Reading about his life in the form of an historical diary set in Golden Age Sevilla lets us go further into the body, mind, and heart of the man himself. What we find there is far more than an indifferent playboy, but rather a man for whom romance was elevated into an art form, a Casanova with a calling.

What would you like your readers to take away from reading this book?

Don Juan taught me many things as I worked on his diary. And ultimately, he answered the question I went to bed with that night. He taught me how to fuse passion and compassion together for a life time. These are the lessons I would like the readers to take away from my book.

I learned that passion and love are arts that must be cultivated through daily practice like any art, including writing. I learned that all women are contained in one woman, as no doubt are all men contained in one man. To know one woman’s body, heart, and soul is enough for a lifetime of satisfaction. True passionate love is the fusion of passion and compassion, the alchemy of lust and love. Feelings come and go, no doubt, but love is about what we do—and don’t do!

What are your dreams for your writing? Where do you see yourself in five years both as a writer and as a person?

As a person I see myself as a better husband, father, friend, and human. As a writer I’d like to be in conversation with even more readers around the world, offering stories that help us to live with greater joy and meaning. I’d like to have successfully straddled the divide in modern literature between plot-driven commercial fiction and character-rich literary fiction. Can’t we have heart-racing, entertaining stories with living, breathing, three-dimensional characters?

What is the most valuable piece of advice you have been given/learned in your life as a writer?

Start with a question, not an answer. Ask yourself a question you desperately need to know about life, create a fictional world filled with real characters and discover the answer. Novelists are scientists of the human imagination.

Is there anything else you would like to share with the readers here?

If they would like to read a few chapters, they can read them at: www.donjuansample.com. That page also links back to the Lost Diary website, www.lostdiaryofdonjuan.com.

Thank you very much for coming by this blog. I wish you more great successes with The Lost Diary of Don Juan.