I was lucky to get an interview with the non-fiction satire author Jay Alden Bailey who wrote Mudflap & Mudflap The Gloves Come Off.
Please, tell us a bit about yourself…
I have been a self employed contractor/arborist for 44 years doing all sorts of real estate/property projects and have many experiences with a wide variety of people at all sorts of levels, coming from different backgrounds and viewing life from different perspectives. I have been married for 30 years and have a daughter 28 and a Son 31 years old, who are stable, well adjusted/developed people.
Why should I buy your books?
They are fun fast reads that make you think.
“I wrote my first book in three weeks, mostly between the hours of 3am and 7am.”
Subgenre: Non Fiction, satire/humor
Pages: 263
Self-published: 2020
Jay Alden Bailey links:
Mudflap The Hero.com
Facebook - The Author's Inner Circle
What got you into writing? And how long have you been doing it?
I wrote to establish/copyright the Character Concept "Mudflap" Any person who puts their own interest below that of another person or a cause and ends up "under the proverbial bus."
Why did you choose to write non fiction? And why pick the satire/humor subgenre?
I didn't mean to create a memoir, write non fiction or humor, I needed a story for my character. I had lots of notes to myself and was facing a surgery with time to recover and not being able to physically work; so I planned to write my book during this scheduled winter down time. When I got home from the hospital I couldn't lift anything more than 10 lbs, my lap-top was about all I could handle. I sat up in bed and started reviewing my notes, they were a complicated pile of all sorts of ideas; so I put them down and started to write my earliest memories and 47,000 words poured out. I wrote my first book in three weeks, mostly between the hours of 3am and 7am, because I kept waking up thinking of things and couldn't go back to sleep. I spent the afternoon and early evening editing after a midmorning nap. My sense of humor, often dry, and love of satire came out naturally in my work.
Which other author has had the biggest influence on your writing?
No author influenced me. I was inspired mostly by my mother who always had her nose in a book, loved words and knew how to use them.
What’s the best thing about being a writer?
Exercising my mind.
What’s the hardest thing about being a writer?
Marketing my books.
Do you have any tips or an author app, tool, or resource that you can really recommend we try?
Support other authors, make friends and learn from them, your peers are your biggest asset and your biggest reward, don't operate in a vacuum.
And now it's time to yank out your Palantir! Let’s talk about the future. What new projects are you working on?
Mudflaps Guide to Selling Your Property and Picking a Realtor.
Do you expect new technologies to come along soon that will have a huge impact on self-publishing? For instance, when will we see a decent novel written by an AI author?
No, not me. I am old school, my lap-top is as high tech as I am going to get.
Do you have any dreams you’d like to share?
Writing past 100 years old.
Anything else you would like to say before we close?
Don't wait for your dreams to come true, be proactive about everything in your life. If you are a reader support your favorite authors by leaving reviews anywhere you can. If you are an author join the Facebook group The Authors Inner Circle and friend me, too.
Thank you for doing the interview Jay and I hope Mudflap finds a lot of readers out there, you deserve it!
