Pauline
(P. M.) Griffin
has been writing since her early childhood.
She enjoys telling a good tale, and since she always works with characters
and situations deeply interesting to her, she finds the research as rewarding
as the scribbling/keying.
Griffin’s
Irish love of story telling coupled with her passion for history, the natural
world, and the above-mentioned research have resulted in seventeen novels and
ten short stories, two Muse Medallion Award winners among them, all in the
challenging realms of science fiction and fantasy.
She
lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her cats Nickolette, Jinx,
and Katie and three tropical fish aquariums.
When did you consider yourself a writer?
That’s hard to answer. I was playing with my own stories
preschool. I began writing “real”
stories mid grade school, about fifth grade, my first novel in sophomore year
high school. (All of these were learning
experiences, totally unpublishable.) However,
the moment when I knew I must write is fixed in my memory. I was in the second grade, 7 years old, and I
had borrowed Andre Norton’s STAR RANGERS on my first visit to the public
library. One scene so affected me that I
knew I had to do the same thing, that I had to create on the same level, had to
give on the same level. I describe all
this as an adult, of course, but I’ve never seriously wanted anything
else. That does not meant I didn’t
intend to support myself and live as a decent, functioning human being as well.
Do you have a schedule when you write or
do you write whenever there’s some peace and quiet? If you have a set schedule,
share it with us.
Not a schedule, but I do have a method
developed over the years. First, I think
through a scene in my mind. I then write
it out, pencil on paper and edit that once.
After that, it is inputted on the computer, being edited as I key. The editing process is continuous, because I
keep cycling through earlier material as I enter later chapters. The book is fairly well polished by the time
it’s finished as a result.
Any odd rituals that get you in the mood
to write? Where do you write? What’s on your desk?
No rituals.
I do the initial thinking stage anywhere
or everywhere when I’m not actively scribbling.
I carry the writing materials with me, and the pencil comes out on
subways, waiting to be served in restaurants, waiting at an appointed spot for
friends to arrive. The keying naturally
takes place on my computer.
My desk contains the computer and
peripherals, printer, some general reference material, and my pencil mss.
Tell us where the idea came from...how
long it took to write...difficulties you may have encountered and how you
overcame.
The ideas come as a flash, often a line of
dialog. The time it takes depends on the
book or story. Some move faster than
others. I tend to write quickly,
especially when I’m really fired up about a scene or situation. My biggest danger is getting so involved in
the research, which I love, that I delay in picking up that trusty pencil.
Pick three words that describe you as a
person.
Animal lover
Responsible
Serious minded
Pick three words that describe you as a
writer.
Enthusiastic
Dedicated
Just plain happy writing (well, that’s
more than a word, but it’s accurate)
As a multi-published author do you find
the process of writing, editing, promotion getting easier? Also, how many published
books do you have?
There’s no change in the initial stages,
but the advent of computers has made the whole editing and polishing process
easier. It allows the author to submit a
much more polished, a much better, manuscript, and it is a blessing during the
formal copy, line, and galley edits. No
more mailing hard copies back and forth and discussing questions via telephone
or clipped-on notes.
Currently, I have seventeen novels and ten
short stories published with several more of each contracted or awaiting
contract.
Since your books touch on romance what
would you consider the most romantic thing a man can do to show a woman how
much he loves her?
Be there for her. Give her respect, love, and support in life’s
joys and in times of difficulty.
How hard is it to step away from
characters you’ve spent time with and finally pen THE END? Do you have an
impulse to continue their story?
I love my characters, especially those in
the Star Commandos series, and I know them very well, including their past and
future lives. However, I am not driven
to continue the series beyond the point where I recognize that it has reached
its natural conclusion.
Do you picture a famous movie star
when penning your hero? If so, name a few. Same for the heroine.
No.
Since I watch very little fiction, I’m not really familiar with the
current contenders. I gave up movies and
TV long ago along with a number of other “extra activities” when I realized
they had to go if I was to both write and fulfill the responsibilities of
living.
What advice would you offer to new
writers?
Write.
It’s the only way to learn how to use words, how to get them to convey
your ideas and emotions to others. They
are to us what notes are to musicians and paints are to artists.
Remember, once you seriously begin to
write, you may have to wait a while to be a published author, but you are
an author. Don’t lose that knowledge.
STAR COMMANDOS
Commando-Colonel Islaen Connor is working
undercover to investigate an illegal colony on the planet Vishnu. Warned by her foremost opponent in the recent
galactic War, War Prince and former Arcturian admiral Varn Tarl Sogan, the pair
escape ambush and flee into the unexplored wild country beyond the young
settlement. There, as they struggle to
survive in a harsh, perilous land, they discover the living terror against
which all Vishnu’s other life forms have been forced to adapt. Their presence unknown by interstellar
authorities and, therefore, unsupported, the innocent colonists face certain
and gruesome annihilation unless Connor and Sogan can raise the alarm in time
and then conquer in the desperate battle they must wage to hold back and defeat
a foe that they know to be of nearly elemental power in its hunger-driven
determination and inconceivable numbers.
COLONY IN PERIL
Connor,
Sogan, and Karmikel are on the planet Jade where Vishnu’s former colonists have
been resettled. There, they have several
encounters with the local animal life, some dangerous, some pleasant. They bond with a young gurry whom they name
Bandit. They discover a plot by a
high-ranking official to stage a murderous pirate raid to annihilate the
colonists and appropriate the planet’s rare gemstones. In order to thwart that danger, Sogan and
Connor must not only fight a space battle against vastly superior odds but also
draw upon the massed telepathic powers of Jade’s wildlife.
MISSION UNDERGROUND
Connor,
Sogan, Karmikel, and Bandit are joined by demolitions expert Bethe Danlo on a
mission which requires them to penetrate the vast underground caves of the
planet Hades in order to capture a planetbuster, an ultrapowerful weapon left
behind in the aftermath of the recent War and now in danger of falling into the
hands of pirates who have discovered its existence and allied themselves with a
traitor in order to seize it. Their own
guide is violently anti-Arcturian and shows Sogan a considerable amount of
hostility during the difficult and dangerous trek to their goal where a sharp
fight and the peril of the armed planetbuster await them.
DEATH PLANET
Sogan
is too familiar with the planet Mirelle.
During the War, the crews of a fighter squad from his former fleet fell
victim to the world’s deadly, seasonally active fungus, and the only vessel to
return almost claimed his life. Now, he
must lead his unit there to destroy those derelicts before raiders can use them
to wreak havoc on the ultrasystem with their weapons and even crueler destruction
from the fungus impregnating the ships.
They make a long, hard journey through Mirelle’s caves, encountering the
dreaded fungus, and then complete their mission in a cataclysmatic attack from
both air and sea only hours before the dreaded spores will be released
MIND SLAVER
Ships
have been disappearing in Quandon Sector, and the Commandos planet on Omrai to
discover why. Formidable wildlife and
bitter cold almost end the mission and their lives with it, but Connor
discovers the horrifying answer to the puzzle.
A gigantic Arcturian battleship had crashed some ten years previously
and is using slave labor and material from the captured vessels to reoutfit
itself and return to a war its crew cannot know has ended. To Sogan’s horror, he learns the workers are
held, not by physical force, but by mental compulsion, and the mind slaver can
only be a kinsman of his. If this almost
spaceworthy war craft and its renegade commander return to the starlanes, the
results will be disastrous, but how can the unit and their on-world ally stop
the twin menace?
RETURN TO WAR
Connor,
Karmikel, and their former unit had served on the planet Anath for several
months during the War. Now, they and
their current comrades are back in response to a call for aid to combat another
invasion. This time, the enemies are
Britynons, old foes of Connor and Karmikel’s homeworld. They are out to take Anath to settle on her
and to rape her resources, and they are prepared to annihilate the governmental
and major population center of the premech native people in order to break any
hope of resistance from that quarter. Can a near-suicidal raid by the Commandos
prevent that assault, which will otherwise come before the help they have
summoned from the Federation Navy can arrive?
FIRE PLANET
The
Commandos find themselves facing an enemy more awesome than anything mere human
foes could present. They are on the
planet Tambora seeking information about a stolen shipment of Navy arms when
they realize the volcano dominating the world’s island capital is no longer
dormant. The challenges confronting them
are enormous, perhaps insurmountable.
They must first convince the local population, who hate and fear off-worlders
far more than the natural force with which they have always lived, of that
fact. Once they do, they must still
struggle with the task of evacuating the very low-tech population before the
inevitable and imminent irruption.
Connor and Sogan remain until the very end, with the eruption in full
progress, in an attempt to save three youths who concealed themselves rather
than evacuate. Can they escape
annihilation in the massive cataclysm?
JUNGLE ASSAULT
The
Navy has located a shipment of stolen arms shipment on the planet Amazoon, and
the Commando unit has been sent to retrieve it.
Misfortune shadows the mission.
Their transport crashes, killing all the on-world support troops, and
the four must make their way through Amazoon’s dense and deadly jungle alone if
they are to fulfill their assignment.
Sogan’s ability to control and/or influence nonhuman life forms is tried
to the breaking point as they encounter myriads of leeches, stinging wasps and
other insects, and voracious frenzy-feeding fish. The unit struggles against a variety of
navigational problems on the rivers that are their highway to their goal. When they finally reach their target, they
find the raiders, whose affiliation is still unknown, are already loading the
arms into their starships. Sogan faces a
terrible decision: Let the ships lift
with the munitions, dooming the population of some innocent planet to the
horrors of a full military assault from space, or strike them down in a manner
that will damn him forever in his own and in his comrades’ eyes.
CALL TO ARMS
Sogan,
still writhing under the shame of his role in what he considers the Amazoonan
atrocity and hungering for vengeance against the mastermind of the arms
robbery, welcomes Connor’s announcement that the man has been discovered –
until he learns their quarry is located not only on her and Karmikel’s
homeworld, but on a farm adjacent to her family’s home. They accept the challenging mission, but
their investigation proves time consuming, frustrating, and increasingly
perilous as several assassination attempts are made against them. Of greater peril still are the planet’s
fearsome storms, which threaten the entire unit with annihilation. Above all is the nagging fear that even if
they get the needed evidence, they may well be unable to profit by it. Their on-world opponents are a large company
heavily armed and well able to use their weapons. Their enemies in space control a large,
deadly fleet. Failure against either
party guarantees untold suffering and death for the people of the peaceful
agrarian world, yet how can four Commandos and their surplanetary allies hope
to thwart such powerful foes?
WATCHDOGS OF SPACE
The
Commandos team up with Navy Chief Admiral Gray Jack Dundee on a mission to
eliminate raiders from the aptly named Pirate Stars. Sogan assumes command of Dundee’s
battleship to fight one of the most challenging duels of his life against a
Pirate Stars opponent. If successful,
the unit must depart for what is likely to prove a suicidal assault on the
heavily armed renegade base supporting the enemy battlecraft.
Even
as they struggle in space, a new threat has developed at home. The fact that Sogan survived his execution
has at last been discovered by his former associates. Four of them are on-world, and they question
what to do about him, whether to ignore or eliminate him, while the Emperor
himself conceives a very different plan for his disgraced former admiral.
6 comments:
No wonder you don't have time for much entertainment -- you're list of accomplishments humbles me.
Best of success,
Loren
Great interview, Pauline! Much success in 2014
Discipline comes in all forms. You are a disciplined writer, someone to emulate.
Pauline, what a wonderful interview! Congratulations on your many accomplishements!
Best wishes!
Susan Bernhardt
P.M.-I enjoyed getting to know you through this interview. Continued success with your writing!
Excellent interview. Even I learned so much more about Pauline.
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