Winner. It’s a word we all love to hear. I know that I love to hear it. When someone says, “Wow, you’ve done a great job, you win. I get a little giddy to be honest. I, personally,( let’s not get this mixed up with any official stances on winning from my employer Open Heart Publishing or any of its subsidiaries.), feel that winning is indeed everything.

We here in the great state of Texas have an almost unhealthy obsession with two things. Our lawns and our football. Neither are about the grass or the sport played on it. Maybe the sport influenced the lawn obsession. If your grass looks like a football field, around here you are winning. And that, is what this is all about WINNING!. Unhealthy obsession or not it’s the bottom line.

Winners get all sorts of perks. The spotlight is on you and you have to produce the same winning heart and attitude. And when you do that successfully you feel even more the winner. Unhealthy cycle or not, we all want to be the winner.

Our current winner is Eric Trant. Eric took a resounding victory in our “An Honest Lie Volume 1: Encouraging the Delinquency of Your Inner Child” contest. And he will tell you it took some effort. Now he is beginning to reap the benefits of that effort. I asked Eric a few questions about what it took to be a winner.

Open Heart Publishing: In An Honest Lie Volume 1 you blessed us all with the gem of a tale Apple Tree. What was your inspiration for that story?

Eric Trant: My stories write themselves. I remember starting Apple Tree having no idea where I was going. All I knew is there were two boys running down a trail in the woods going somewhere important — to see an apple tree — and my muse latched onto their coattails and hung on until the end. My inspiration, of course, was my own childhood. We always had someplace to go, not much time to get there, and the places we reached were magical and far more important than all those places I go these days, in adulthood, in that same big hurry.

OHP: Right I get that. I am only now remembering what it was like to be a kid with some where important to go. When they get there your magnificent tree is split into two branching sides. The left still held a fruit. Did you split the remaining fruit to the left side of the tree in reference to the Left Hand Path?

E.T.: Going through school, I remember my teachers always asking questions like that, regarding symbolism and what the author meant. Even back then, in high school, before I really got to writing, I always figured (I’m from Texas, so I “figure”) most authors don’t think about all that stuff. If they do think about it, the magic gets twisted and lost the way you might try to organize dandelion seeds that are still on the stalk. As soon as you touch that dandelion seed, it plucks off and floats away and that’s it, the magic’s gone. So I don’t think on these things, I don’t touch the thoughts after they’re thunk. I hold it up and say, “here it is, there you go”, and if that’s what it means to you, that’s your dandelion, and I didn’t muck it up by trying to make it into my dandelion.

So no, to me the branch was to the left for no other reason than that’s where it was in my head. I had to look up the Left Hand Path, even. When I first read your question, I thought you meant The Path Less Travelled.
But to you, to Davin, and maybe to other readers, sure, that apple’s the Left Hand Path. It’s whatever you need it to be.

OHP: In the end Melvin makes a terrible mistake. What do you, as the author, think would be the outcome of that mistake, for Melvin, Danny and the rest of the world?

E.T.: Oh, man, spoiler. Good things would come of it. I frankly never thought of it as a mistake, but rather another step in our journey, nothing more.

OHP: Your victory in the first An Honest Lie competition was a great one. It’s a long competition so what advice would you give the Authors of the upcoming An Honest Lie Volume 2: Delusions of Insignificance? A

E.T.: Thank you! I enjoyed the experience and the energy surrounding AHL Vol. 1 and allowed myself to be excited about my story, and quieted that little voice that’s in all of us saying, I’m not good enough, I’m not good enough.

That, for me, was the biggest roadblock. It still is: Shutting down my Inner Doubter. Last night I met a published author selling her books at a festival here in my hometown. My wife broke the topic that I write, and that I’m published, and she nudged me into talking with the author. I wasn’t going to mention that I write. It embarrasses me. I can discuss working out, or sports, or math, or programming, or woodworking, and none of that bothers me. But writing, that’s a private thing for me. Talking about my stories and what I write is almost like discussing the intimate details of my sexual preferences. It’s a tough thing to do! In public! I can write about writing, hide behind the anonymity of printed words, but to discuss writing, face-to-face, with other people listening and hanging on your words… So you ask for advice, and all I can shovel out is this: Quit being shy. Talk about your work. Talk about your writing. Don’t listen to advice on what you should write — everyone will tell you what to write, ignore them — but listen to what they say about authors they love and hate. You don’t need to discuss current works, but know your genre, have a few snips of what sort of work you write, and be proud of your accomplishments. That’s the advice I give myself every day. I took that advice on AHL Vol 1, and it worked out all right.

OHP: That’s great advice.I like the way you roll. Can we expect to see something from you for An Honest Lie Volume 3?

E.T.: Don’t forget AHL Vol 2! I have a story in there, too, and it’s my wife’s favorite story. She loves it, printed it out and showed it to all her friends at work. I’m thinking I have a few sales already made for AHL Vol 2.

OHP: Yes you wrote “One Small Step“. That is one of my personal favorites.

E.T.: Now, for AHL Vol 3… I sure hope I can get something in AHL Vol 3. Certainly you, the editor, will see something, and if it passes muster we might see it printed up for a nice hat-trick of short stories with Open Heart Publishing’s AHL series. I already have some ideas, and I am considering hosting a blogfest to generate submittals from my fellow writers online. Yes, you’ll see more of me.

OHP: That sounds great. We are looking forward to working with those we’ve already published and we are looking forward to reading some of the stuff ya’ll recommend. As the winner of the first An Honest Lie competition you will be the recipient of a book deal with Open Heart Publishing. Can you leak any information about what we can expect?

E.T.: Ah, the book, the book, my debut novel though it’s not the first book I wrote. I have several books in various states, from half-baked to well-done, from too-short to too-long. I have one, though, that I wrote in the Fall of 2009, in that just-right state. It’s still fresh enough to me that it’s not boring, but it’s edited enough that I can clean it up and submit it quickly. I’ve tried to talk about the book, and when people ask what it’s about, I stumble (see advice to talk about your work!)

I say, “Fiction. Fantasy. Not high fantasy, no elves or anything, but there’s some magic in it. Not witch magic, but, you know, something that is imaginary. Magical dreams and this naked angel, and a blue-faced and expressionless God. It’s about two men who have had enough of this life. All they want is to get to the end as fast as possible and at their funerals their friends and family will gather around and say, Thank Got that’s over!
It’s about finding hope even in a hopeless situation. It’s about the fact that everything happens for a reason, even bad things — especially bad things, those things you think should never have happened to good people — and about going on even when there’s no place to go except the next step, onward ho.”

Here’s an excerpt from Evander’s Forge, the novel I plan to submit for publication:
http://diggingwiththeworms.blogspot.com/2010/06/blogfest-dream-sequence.html

OHP: Oh, wow. That’s fantastic, and you are getting rave reviews. We can’t wait to see more. Well we are looking forward to working with you in the future. How can your fans find more of your work?

E.T.: You can always check my blog: Digging With the Worms.

I’ve thought about changing the name to EricWTrant.com or something, but the name — Digging with the Worms — means something to me. The worms are my muse, and I feel like I owe them the respect, at least, of a blog of their own. I’ll probably get my own website soon, for the book and for my other writings. I don’t plan to only publish one book and quit, you know. I plan to be around for a while.

OHP: I’m a fan.

Davin Kimble – Jr Editor.

Eric Trant earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 1994, and is the son of a librarian and English teacher, who shared with him her love of reading, writing, and above all, storytelling. Each morning he rises well before the Texas dawn, and in the quiet writes thousands of words. He is self-taught.

Raised during his formative years in the East Texas Piney Woods, and then later in a small town on the Texas Gulf Coast, Eric maintains an avid fascination with outdoor living. Eric’s blended perspective of rural, small-town, and city lifestyles is at the heart of his stories, often leading the reader deep into the woods where as a child, he and his brother discovered so many wonders. He now lives near Dallas, Texas, where he continues to explore the world around him.

He holds a U.S. patent for a statistical outlier algorithm, and has received numerous technical recognitions as a semiconductor engineer. His most-prized award is a simple plaque reading Anyone can be a Father, but it takes someone special to be a Daddy. This plaque sits on his desk, in front of the embossed US patent.
Eric’s professional career covers a broad range of experience, including over twenty years of writing. As a freelance writer, he has dozens of short stories and five novels to his credit.