Maxwell Ruth, a cantankerous, old high school history teacher falls down his basement stairs and soon thereafter starts hearing “The Words” over and over again--- endingtimeendingtimeendingtime. His life is changed forever.
In this story we learn about the lives, loves, and losses of Max, Hargrove and Gwen Stinson, Beth and Bob Hazelwood, and Constance Young. They are lively, funny, at times; a little bit lost or wounded, yet resilient and hopeful. They are wrestling with life’s most challenging issues, including, abuse, loss, infidelity, aging, secrecy and what gives life meaning. And, like all of us, they would like more, more time to find the answers to life’s most important questions. The clock, though, is always ticking and time is always short.
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What is your book about?
What is your book about?
This is a novel about love and loss,
hope and the constraints of time. The main character Maxwell Ruth, a sixty-two
year old high school history teacher who is obsessed with Abraham Lincoln,
desperate for a relationship with a woman, and frustrated with a life less
great than he had hoped. After a fall down his basement steps, Max starts hearing
a voice with a simple yet puzzling message, “endingtimeendingtimeendingtime.”
Subsequently, Max’s best friend’s
marriage falls apart under the dead weight of grief and indifference; his
neighbor’s marriage, already at risk due to infidelity, is revived; and Max
falls in love with the lively and sensuous Constance Young. All of this takes
place with an awareness that’s life’s clock is always ticking and each
character, in his or her own ways, discovers the limits of More More Time.
What
inspired you to write this particular story (and/or series)?
The
title of the book came from a game I played with one of our granddaughters when
she was about eighteen months old. I would hold onto her wrists while she went
limp on the hardwood kitchen floor. Then I would swish her around the kitchen.
She’d laugh and laugh. Soon I would get tired and say, “Gianna, one more time.”
Well, she thought I was saying, “More more time,” and so that’s what she called
the game. I liked this so much that I decided to use it as the title for my
next book even though I didn’t yet have an idea for a story.
Do
you have specific techniques you use to develop the plot and stay on track? When
I start writing a novel, I have usually done two things. First, I write
profiles of the main characters so I have an idea who they are. Second, I think
of challenging situations in which to put them so I can see how they will
interact, how they will behave and think and feel. After that, I just plunge
into the process. I don’t know how any of my stories will end until I am almost
finished. Sometimes, despite my planning, new characters emerge, demanding to
be a part of the narrative. I try to write regularly, but I don’t write every
day. I must say, though, that even when I’m not sitting at my computer, I still
feel like I’m writing. The ideas are simmering or percolating of just lying
dormant, waiting for me to get going.
What authors inspire or influence your work? Because my background is so varied (I am a retired family psychologist and minister) the writers who have influenced me most aren’t just fiction writers. Among them are: Paul Tillich (philosophical theologian); Martin Buber (philosopher); Ernest Becker; Norman O. Brown; Annie Dillard (nature and fiction); The Cloud of Unknowing by Anonymous; Ellie Wiesel (Holocaust related fiction); Nikos Kazantzakis (fiction); Rainer Maria Rilke (poet); the journals of May Sarton; the journals of Thomas Merton; the novels of Philip Roth; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey. I better stop!
Favorite snack when writing. I am an ice cream addict. Panda Paws. Toffee Coffee. Mmmm.
Once
a character is fully developed do you set them free or do they still dance
around your mind? This is a great question. I don’t thing
I ever “fully develop” the characters. I think it’s much more mutual than that.
In the beginning, of course, I am in charge of what characters do, wear, think,
look like, etc. But soon they start exercising their own influence over what
happens in their lives. Many times I have to amend the story because a
character has gone off in a direction I hadn’t anticipated, or I have tried to
get them to do something they would never do. All this sounds quite odd, unless
you do any fiction writing, then you understand the power of characters to
influence stories.
What
project(s) are you working on now?
I
always start a new novel when I am going through the publication process for a
current novel, so a year ago I started writing “Parrot Talk” about two brothers
who were estranged from their mother for over forty years. When they are
notified of her death they also discover that she had a pet parrot who, it
turns out, has a lot to say. I have a long way to go with this one!
Where
can readers find you and your book(s) online?
My books are most easily available through Amazon.
“More More Time” is at AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE
You can also visit me at www.davidbseaburn.com
David B. Seaburn served a rural country parish, worked in community mental health, was an assistant professor of psychiatry and family medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center for twenty years, and also directed a free public school-based family counseling center before his retirement in 2010. He has written five novels: More More Time (2015), Chimney Bluffs (2012), Charlie No Face (2011—Finalist in General Fiction, National Indie Excellence Awards), Pumpkin Hill (2007), and Darkness is as Light (2005). He and his wife live near Rochester, NY. They have two adult daughters and two wonderful granddaughters.
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