Author Bio:
Michael Smorenburg (b. 1964) grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. An entrepreneur with a passion for marketing, in 1995 Michael moved to California where he founded a business consultancy and online media and marketing engine in the burgeoning internet. In 2003 he returned to South Africa where he launched a security company. In 2015 he divested of the business to write full time. Michael’s greatest love is the ocean, historic insights, keeping up with the latest breakthroughs in science, understanding the cosmos and sharing all he learns.
What inspires you to write?
A kind of magic.
I'm serious.
I have no idea why I write or what inspires me — it happens way deep in side my noodle, far from rational planning or thought.
I'm a binge writer and I never know what will set me off, suddenly I'm struck by an urge to write that is as powerful as the hunger that draws one to food or exhaustion condemns one to sleep… the urge to write, to write furiously, and to write, ignoring all other duties, is akin to any of the other bodily urges I've ever experienced. It comes from the same place and is satisfied in the same way.
It becomes a scary and overwhelmingly exciting place to go because I never know how long it will last and whether it might dry up just as quickly, mid story.
(so far, those droughts have been short lived).
On that note, I never really get writer's block — I'm writing and loving it, or I'm doing something else. I don't fight it either way.
So the short answer is that I don't have the foggiest clue why I write, no more than someone else can say for sure why they dance or run or flirt..
Tell us about your writing process.
Thus far, I have been compelled by that 'thing' (whatever it is) to tell stories that embody exciting science and history.
I get the urge, sit down and become someone else. The first line rattles onto the keys and I sit back and watch, sometimes amazed, as characters arrive, peril is encountered, tragedy is visited, love is embraced.
Like hitting a golf ball, the less I think about it and the more I allow instinct to do its thing, the better it works out. Shaping and polishing can come later, I just let the story flow–and I'm generally surprised at what pops up… all the best plot twists have come this way.
Recently my family complained that we haven't had a vacation anywhere for a while, and this struck me as odd.
They were fundamentally right, though.
We haven't got in a plane or even a car to go somewhere in quite some time.
Except, I personally *had* traveled widely and wildly in the past year… I have been into the future, into the past, to the bottom of the ocean, through some of the worlds most exciting cities, out at the far-flung reaches of civilization, into the human brain, and off to the very cutting edge of technology.
I've been there because my stories so engrossed me that I'm emotionally convinced that these travels were real. I know the folks I met in my books as well as I know my best friends, my family and most hated enemies.
The greatest sound I hear is a reader complaining that I gave them sleepless nights; relating how they too were equally lost in one of these stories.
As to white-boarding and outlining characters?
Well, no!
I would not dare to whiteboard my friends and other relationships, planning how we'll travel together or throw a party.
It just wouldn't work out if I tried that.
And the same goes for the characters who live in the pages… their world and their character can't be planned, they simply would never behave if I tried to force them into those roles. I just let them live as they wish to be, line after line, one moment at a time.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
Talk to my characters?
That's a little distant, it's like asking if you talk to your spouse, siblings, parents and kids.
Well, yes, we're on talking terms–and so much more.
They're very insistent and I never second guess them. They are who they are. They die when they must. They leave when the wish. They appear at times that surprise me — and I suppose if they can do all these things for me, they'll do them for readers too.
Who are your favorite authors?
I have been through so many reading phases in my life that it seems like asking me in front of my gathered friends who my best friend is. I really don't know.
There are so many authors for so many moods — all of them write beautifully and impart so much on countless topics and human tangents.
I'm rather *non*-conformist in that I tend to be left cold by all the hype around big names and cult-following authors (and movies).
My fiction phase was in my late teens and early twenties (that's thirty years ago). I read the big names back then (I didn't say I read all of them to the end though!).
I'm easily bored and quickly turned off by nonsense, trite and contrived writing.
Right now my favorite authors are all non-fiction–I'm back in a learning phase.
My latest phase has taken me on an odyssey into biographies, sciences, history and the study of the human brain, evolution and culture.
It is these exciting topics that are distilling in my mind and finding their way into the tapestry of fictional tales I write.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
In the late '90's I was represented (in the USA) in non-fiction. My agent sold 3 titles.
For twenty years I have been too involved in business to find time to write.
When I sold my company I felt the urge to write a novel.
I've just finished the 5th novel, started the 6th and can't wait to get that out of the way because the 7th is howling for attention from the shadows.
The writing world (I have found) is a surprisingly difficult one. Every person who owns a computer is an aspiring author. The result is that the publishing trade is completely overwhelmed by submissions, and to get heard above this clutter is, to my thinking, a waste of my time.
The best use of my time is to enjoy myself, write stories that people want to read, put them out there and see if they get traction in their own right.
If they don't, that's fine — I've had my fun in the process of creating them.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
Making predictions is always difficult, particularly about the future 🙂 So many factors are at play, so many unknowns.
Hazarding a guess…
I am a little fearful that attention spans plummeting to the level of tweets does not bode well for convoluted plots.
This trend is further hastened by the plunging cost of producing high-quality audio-visuals (and soon virtual reality and artificial intelligence enhanced productions). I see this stiff competition for consumer attention as steadily undermining publishing as we know it.
Regarding print publishing — We all love the paper book, but economic and other imperatives will steadily shift the market toward e-books.
The over-supply of writers and diminishing readership suggests to me that writing for money will be a reality for only very small clan — the rest of us writers better embrace doing it for the love of the craft.
Fortunately I do.
What genres do you write?
Drama, thriller, adventure, historic
What formats are your books in?
eBook, Print
Website(s)
Michael Smorenburg Home Page Link
Follow Michael Smorenburg On Amazon
Author’s Social Media Links
Goodreads
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
All information is provided by the author and is presented as it was submitted so you the reader get to hear the author’s own “voice” in their interview.