B. O’ree Williams, A Passionate Writer from Oregon

     1. Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from and how long have you been writing?

         Well, my name is O’ree Williams and I live in a town east of Portland, Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States with my wife, son and two cats. By day, I work in IT, in the healthcare field. After the workday is finished, and my familial duties have been seen to, I generally retreat to my office or arm-chair in my living room next to the fire and write. In my spare time, I enjoy the outdoors, particularly recreational activities ranging from snowboarding to whitewater rafting to fly-fishing. I would say that I am a fiendishly avid reader, often consuming one more book per week (in between writing days). I have been writing all my life in one fashion or another.

       2. Have you always gravitated towards being an author?

           No. While I have written pretty much all my life in one form or another, I really didn’t get serious about being an “author” until about fifteen years ago.

      3. What is your beverage of choice while writing?

    To be honest, I’m not much of a drinker when writing, though tend to gravitate to Scotch Whiskey when the mood takes me. Frankly, I prefer music as my writing aid more so than libations as it is more prone to put me in the frame of mind for writing.

     4. What are your favorite types of characters to write about?

          This is a tough one, since I don’t really gravitate to one particular type of character. It wholly depends on the story I am writing at the moment.  I suppose if I had to choose, I go in for the sage leader type who can either be the hero of the story or a supporting role. The character Captain Francis Grim from The Aeronaut’s Windlass by James Butcher comes to mind. But as I said, it really depends on the story I am writing about.  My most recently finished novel, for example, my main character is a neuroscientist who is for all intents and purposes has a detached sense of the world around him. By way of comparison, the main character of the novel I am currently work on, is the reluctant hero who despite valuing morals, equality and fairness, is running from his past. I suppose the main characters of my stories share some same values, but I think their personalities and modus operandi curtail themselves to the story, adapting as necessary, as opposed to setting their personalities in stone and going from there.

     5. Do you aim for a set number of words/pages per day? Also, do you write every day, five days a week…?

        This depends on the project I am working on at the time.  On average, I would say I write for days a week when working on a novel. However, that of course gets ratcheted up to seven days a week when I am competing in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month competition in November). As to word count, I would say I average between 4000 and 6000 words in a sitting. Then again, it also hinges on what kind of scene I am writing. I am what you could call a plotting pantser in my writing style which means while I generally plot out my projects, I do a lot of the cuff writing when writing the in-between scenes. Those scenes I have plotted generally tend to be higher in word count, while the off-the-cuff stuff runs shorter.

      6. What projects are you working on currently? Are you writing a book?

         I have three separate projects going on at the moment: Two published works and the first draft of a novel. The publications are an anthology entitled The Rearview Mirror due out January 21st 2021, as well as my sci-fi novel entitled Sanctuary due out on February 15th 2021. The sci-fi novel is the first book in my trilogy called the Beyond The Horizon Line The other novel I am currently writing is nearing completion of the first draft which I hope to have completed by mid-February.

     7. I read Once Upon a Story, which was published last year. And you’re again up to publishing another anthology this year. Do you always like team work?

            Overall, I enjoy collaborating on projects like the anthologies because it tests writers on many levels from conceptualizing to editing to publishing. The same can be said for individual projects too, but doing collaborative work is on a whole other level than working on an individual project. In particular, for Once Upon a Story I was primarily a contributor (Submitted two stories), though I helped out in the background with publication and other stuff. However, for The Rearview Mirror, I was much more involved in that I came up with the overall concept for the project as well as contributed stories and other tasks. In truth, it sometimes felt like project management (having to stay on top of all the behind-the-scenes parts) and that got to be a tad daunting. Regardless, the project is for the most part, finished, and I am very proud of the end result. All that said, I think it will be a bit before I take on another anthology project. And while I enjoyed the collaborating, I have a backlog of novels that have been scratching at the back of my head for a while which need to get written first.

      8. Tell us about The Rearview Mirror

             As I began to mention in the previous question, The Rearview Mirror is an anthology (of sorts) in that it is a collection of short stories. Unlike a traditional anthology, however, the stories in The Rearview Mirror come together to form a linear story line. This was accomplished by adding “interludes” at the end of each story, which served to connect the stories as well as provide the overall story arc. This type of anthology is not very common, but they are out there. Frank Miller’s Sin City is an example of this kind of anthology, as is Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye. At any rate, I came up with the idea of telling a story of a week-in-the-life of a ride-share driver, but with the added complication that the driver is mentally unstable. From there I came up with the idea of the individual stories being told from the perspective of the passengers getting a ride from the main character. Other than providing a few guidelines, I gave the authors free reign to write whatever they wanted to and I did my best to come up with the opposing point of view at the end of the stories in the form of the interlude. The result was the collection that ended up being an amalgamation of gritty, dark stories. As an aside, I think we were collectively in a dark place last year, and this project reflected that aspect in many ways.

     9. How did you come up with the idea of Active Alumni Writers?

           The name refers to a group of writers who all took an online class from The Write Practice®. One of the main goals of the class is to build a writer’s support group, which they referred to as a cartel in the class. Along with this, part of building said cartel involved reaching out to the other writers via vid chat in order to build stronger relationships. Taking this all into account, one of my fellow classmates and I had been chatting and came up with the idea of creating a group outside of class where it carried on the same principles. We reached out to our classmates and offered up the idea and thus the Active Alumni Writers group was created.

      10. What have you found most challenging about it?

              I would say trying to keep interest levels up has been the most challenging aspect of the group. After all, we’re all human, and our attention spans are only so long. The moment something becomes familiar, it becomes background. I confess, I find myself struggling to keep up with the group sometimes, but that’s when my friends in the group seem to sense my own attention waning and they are able to lure me back in.

      11. What is one of the things you’re most thankful for as a writer?”

           I am thankful for many things as a writer, namely the sense of peace I garner from my writing. I also am thankful for all of the other writers I have become friends with.  Writing can be a lonely pursuit, and we as writers have the most delicate of egos. We are terrified of having others scrutinize our work as we tend to correlate our own sense of worth with the quality of our writing. Having other writers to interact with allows us to learn and grow in a way that ultimately shows us that no matter what we write or whether our stuff is awesome or terrible, we’re not alone in this endeavor. Furthermore, it also teaches us that we all have to start somewhere. Everyone does that, I am grateful. 

       12. In your opinion, what is the measure of a successful writer?

              To answer that question, one would have to define “success”. To me, being successful means that I find fulfillment in my writing, whether it is shared with the world or just a few people. It also means that whether I publish a piece of work or not, I remember that I write for myself. Granted, if one of my works suddenly hit the New York Times Best Seller list, I of course would be extremely jazzed. But the likelihood of that occurring isn’t something I like to hang my hat on. As long as I enjoy what I write, and perhaps my friends as well, then that is a success to me.

       13. Where can we learn more about you?

         You can find out more about me on my website https://bowilliamsbooks.com, or my other site, https://aawriters.com, or look me up on the Active Alumni Writers Facebook Group, or email me at bo@aawriters.com