Life at Open Heart Publishing

Here we are again with another featured author from “An Honest Lie, Volume 1: Encouraging the Delinquency of your Inner Child.” Sharing some thoughts with us is Jon C. Forisha, author of Jellyfish Castles.  Enjoy!

Hi Jon. Let’s start with a question about your story. How does “Jellyfish Castles” reflect your own life?

Once when I was but a wee tyke, I was with my family vacationing at a beach. I forget what beach so we’ll act like it doesn’t matter. There must have been a thousand jellyfish there, and every one of their unthinking gelatinous bodies was lurching for the support of some hapless human swimming in the ocean. My mother, in a very non-characteristic spurt of vengeance, became the jellyfish killer, catching and burying jelly after jelly in the sands of the beach. I was saddened at their demise at the time, but now, hearing more and more about the constantly multiplying jellyfish population, it doesn’t seem like such a sad story.

That’s a very interesting childhood memory, Jon. I can see your mother must have had great influence on you. Who or what inspired you to be a writer?

When I was in 4th grade I wrote fan fiction (had I known that’s what it was at the time I would have immediately stopped) for the games Diablo and Starcraft, and an episode for the show Buffy. They worried my parents and teachers at the time, but their fears were quickly dispelled when I turned out to not be crazy; I just liked crazy stories. I got into fantasy novels by RA Salvatore around 6th grade and from there moved through Science Fiction. My love for writing has developed over the years, but it all started with worrying my teachers in 4th grade.

Where would we be without teachers? Well, we know about your childhood now. What about your future? If someone were to write a story about you, what would the title be?

The Alchemist of Creativity. This would be because whenever somebody says nothing is creative anymore, I am saddened. People say, “_______’s just a newer version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre!” or, “_______ is just like Star Wars!” This has been a saying for quite some time, people admitting that Shakespeare was the last creative thinker, that all the rest of us artists that were unlucky enough to come after the father of Romeo and Juliet are doomed to a life of cleverly borrowing and reusing elements invented before we were conceived. Therefore, if someone were to title a book about me The Alchemist of Creativity, that would be a grand compliment to my skills as a writer. As an Alchemist of Creativity I may combine elements and form new ones! I might make literary, and creative, gold at long last!

A very passionate point of view. What are some other things you are passionate about (besides writing)?

I’ve been a drummer since 6th grade, playing everything from xylophone and drum set to congas and Peruvian box drums. I’ve been in four or five bands and still play to this day. We turned my older brother’s bedroom into a music studio when he moved out, and it’s now home to more instruments than I care to admit.

It sounds like a great room to relax and have fun in. Tell me, when you aren’t relaxing and having fun and are hard at work, how do you go about writing? What is your writing process?

I generally think up some wacky concept (usually while doing something mundane, like brushing my teeth), joke around with it in my mind for a bit, realize it could actually turn into something, and then write the concept as a note on my phone. I then read over it weeks later and wonder what I was thinking. A few hours after that, I realize what I might have been thinking and I go back and ponder over it some more. As the notes on my phone stack up, eventually I really start rooting for one of them, and then it becomes a story with the help of some lightspeed typing!

Sounds like a very efficient way to go about it. Let me ask you something off-the-wall now. How would you describe yourself in 7 words or less?

These questions are always difficult to answer without appearing conceited. But here it goes: amazing, glorious, funny, awesome, sexy. Oh, that was only 6? I think it covered the gambit anyway.

Six are good enough! Here’s another one. How do you encourage the delinquency of your inner child?

I do zany things like make a U-turn where it specifically states not to. I play my drums loudly when I know someone will be annoyed. And then I write goofy stories, most of which will never see the light of day due to their inanity. But, really, hopefully every good story has at least a little bit of delinquency encouragement tied into it. I mean, could Jim Hawkins ever have saved Doctor Livesey and the gang in Treasure Island had he not acted a buffoon in the face of Long John Silver?

Well, Readers, I’ll let you be the judge of that! And that’s the end of our interview with Jon C. Forisha. Tune in again for more interviews with the authors of “An Honest Lie, Volume 1: Encouraging the Delinquency of your Inner Child.”

Find out more about Jon C. Forisha at http://thecolorsplorge.wordpress.com.

Jon C. Forisha is currently a Creative Writing student at the University of North Texas.  He was born and raised in Plano, Texas, and attended Plano Senior High School, where he enjoyed playing very loud music as the Drumline Captain.  Among his other works, he writes science fiction stories about everything from airships sailing post-apocalyptic landscapes to insane doctors experimenting on kidnapped hobos.  During his senior year of high school, he entered into and was chosen as a winner for the National Council of Teachers of English Achievement in Writing Award.  His winning story for the contest was about a German roboticist who created ridiculous machines to ease the burden of day-to-day living.  He actively plays music, drumming for two different bands and eating up the rich musical setting that the University of North Texas has to offer.  His favorite authors include Neil Gaiman, Kurt Vonnegut, and Michael Chabon.  He frequently visits his local public library, where row upon row of books never fail to call to him.  He plans on starting a career of writing short stories and novels and plans to break into screenwriting in the near future.  When not playing music or writing stories, he is hard at work determining how to keep the constantly multiplying jellyfish population from becoming the rulers of the world.  As of yet, he has found no plausible solution except to trap them in sand castles, though he is still hard at work.

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