An Interview with………Michael Saad has been writing almost his entire life. He is about to release his first full length novel, All the Devils Are Here. He lives in Lethbridge, Alberta. A teacher by day, a writer by night, this is a fascinating journey of how Mike fits it all into 24 hours.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
MS. I write in my ‘man-cave’ as my family so affectionately calls it. It is my own, customized room in the house filled with items that fuel my imagination. Everything from Star Wars posters & memorabilia (yes, I’m a wannabe Jedi – I’m totally a child of the 1980s…), historical paintings, nature portraits, my favorite books, and hockey artifacts. Every writer needs his or her own, customized work space, whatever that is, and it needs to be tailor-made by the writer, and for each writer that’s different, but it’s so important.
I didn’t always have my man-cave. In the past, as a university student, my writing was best done in a little cubicle in the basement of my old university library. It wasn’t customized and was quite drab, but it was my space and I did my best writing there. It doesn’t matter where ‘your’ space is, but you need one, no matter what stage you are in as a writer. J.K. Rowling famously wrote her first Harry Potter novels in a coffee shop, but it was – for that time in her life – ‘her space.’ I had to work up to finally earn my own office – my wife and I had to share a work space for quite a long time (which, I should point out, was perfectly fine) but our new house allowed us our own space, and this man-cave I can truly call ‘mine.’
Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)
MS. I usually have a hot Irish Breakfast tea, or an ice-cold Green-Tea, depending on the season, as I write. It’s like a little shot of ‘pick-me up’ whenever I take a short break or have a lapse in my thinking. I also play certain music that, for whatever reason, somehow suits the mood of the story or piece that I’m working on. For All the Devils Are Here, for instance, the music of Nickelback and Ed Sheeran somehow spoke to me, so I would play their songs to either get in the mood to write the story, or to recharge and reset myself to counter those moments of Writer’s Block.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
MS. I am a full time teacher in a small, rural high school. I love my job, my students, and teaching, but it is very time consuming, so to find time to write, and write well, is always a challenge for me. I’m always in awe of anybody who works full time and is able to accomplish a major project ‘on the side’ whatever it is – building a shed, a graduate thesis, running a marathon, sculpting a piece of artwork – because I know how hard it is to balance completing a task like that while having a demanding career…..
Join us for Part 2 of this author’s Interview, Monday June 27th
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! April, a long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House). May’s author was Jordan Rosenfeld. Michael Saad, Canadian author, will be June’s author. Robyn Carr is July’s author.
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