About Me — Jodi Compton. A Q-and-A with the author … by the…
By: Jodi Compton
Tags: Writing, About Me

About Me — Jodi Compton

A Q-and-A with the author … by the author! All about the writing life, how to handle success (learned the hard way), and the must-have writer’s accessory.

Photo: Author’s own. A publicity photo for the release of ‘Hailey’s War,’ my third novel.

Wait … This is a Q&A? Why?

I’ve found that writing in a question-and-answer style is a fun, quick-moving way to write autobiographical pieces. It keeps me from getting too verbose (a common problem for writers, who as a group are comfortable behind the keyboard), and it eliminates clunky transitions.

Okay. Let’s start with this: Who exactly are you?

I’m the author of four mystery novels (I tend to use the term “crime novels,” but either/or), with a fifth coming out through Amazon in 2021. I’m also a freelance book editor, and before coronavirus shut down most of live entertainment, I was getting some bookings as a stand-up comic.

You’re kidding! What kind of stand-up?

Yeah, everyone wants to know about the comedy, though it’s the smallest part of my professional life. Really, I was at the “twenty dollars and a comped drink” stage, and didn’t have great expectations to go further. But in late 2018, I did my first open mic, and I got my first paid booking in March 2019. I started out doing observational comedy — the classic Jerry Seinfeld/David Brenner model — but pretty soon found I liked a more “screwball” style, sometimes with props or costumes.

For example, sometimes I’ll bring a paper shredder and extension cord to a show, and hide it in the wings. Then, if a joke bombs, I’ll say to the audience, “Can you guys hang on just one sec?” I’ll grab my notebook and pointedly rip a page out, pull out the shredder until its in the spotlight, and shred the joke right on stage.

Also, when I attended my first open mic after Oregon loosened its quarantine restrictions (they’ve since gone back into effect), I walked in wearing a full hazmat costume and gas mask. (Not a real hazmat suit, which would have been pretty expensive. I bought it from a Halloween retailer).

Has comedy given you insights into fiction writing?

It sure has. In fact, I wrote a piece about that for Medium. You can find it here.

Let’s talk about the fiction. Did you always want to be a writer? Were you influenced by your parents?

Yes and yes. My career choice was almost set in stone from childhood. My parents didn’t pressure me, though. My mother was a special education teacher, and she specialized in helping kids who were struggling with reading. So it was almost inevitable that I learned to read before I went to kindergarten. I was about two, in fact. I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t read.

My father loved books, especially crime stories and spy thrillers. So I read a ton of those growing up; they were always around. He was also really big on learning. If I asked him what a word meant, he’d wouldn’t tell me. He’d always say, “Let’s go look it up.”

So you started writing for publication, when, your early 20s?

I wish! I was somewhat lazy, or maybe “entitled” is the better word. I thought that as soon as I was ready to start writing, success would just fall into my lap. Plus, I’d gotten the idea — from myriad sources, not always directly — that writers need to get a lot of “life experience” before they can write anything of interest to the world. But that’s not true across the board: A great many writers work from their imagination, while having fairly unremarkable day-to-day lives.

I’m lucky that’s true, because the “life experience” I was racking up was decidedly unsexy: college, some grad school, then a newsroom job as an editor. An interesting environment to be in, but it wasn’t exactly the life that a great semi-autobiographical novel is made of.

So, my original question was, you started writing at age …

Sorry! I was 28. I wrote a few short stories, but pretty quickly got down to the work of writing a novel. I finished it at age 30.

Did you self-publish?

No, all four of my novels have been released through New York publishing houses, and London houses for the British edition. But the publishing world is definitely changing. Amazon is re-releasing my early novels, and then Redball, my fifth book, is also coming out via KDP. Amazon definitely isn’t a “last chance self-publishing” option any more.

How much did your life change after publication?

Not very much, but only because I didn’t let it. I had this pretentious idea that I wasn’t going to let success change me, that I was about the creative process, not sales figures and money, et cetera. Which is fine, but it meant I was still living in the same small apartment in San Luis Obispo, California, and I was spending almost all day alone there, except to go to the gym, and maybe see a friend on the weekend. My world was a bit of an isolation chamber; I was in my head all the time. It was a lot like what people have been going through in 2020, with the Covid-19 lockdown. I had a bout with depression and insomnia around that time. I’ve recovered now, and though I’d like to say I pulled myself out by sheer willpower, I didn’t. Medication helped a lot.

This brings me to the advice I’d give an aspiring writer: Writing is absorbing and satisfying, but it can be lonely. So if you make it big enough to quit your job, you’ve really got to make sure you have people in your life. “Coffee dates” aren’t enough. I like to be working on a common project with people: Comedy serves that need, for example. We’re all at open mics together (or were), bouncing ideas off each other and trying to get better.

That’s good advice for someone who makes it, but what advice would you give a writer just starting out?

Nobody said it better than Oliver Stone: “Ass plus chair equals writing.” It’s easy to forget, even when you’ve been doing the job for years.

The other thing is, no one needs to give you permission to be a writer. There’s no minimum age or maximum age. That’s the great thing about the job. So don’t wait for “someday.” Tomorrow is promised to no one.

Is there a must-have writer’s accessory?

Lady Bird.

Lots of us swear by dogs. Here’s my first dog, Lady Bird. Didn’t she cut an intelligent-looking figure? She probably came from the Merced pound, because I got her from a foster home in northern Central California. That’s significant because because the staff of the Merced animal shelter, at that time, liked to give the dogs names of Golden Age celebrities. So she was probably originally “Lady Bird Johnson.” I also had a foster dog for a while named Claude, who I think was probably “Claude Rains.”

Saloop.

Here’s Saloop, my current dog, waking up from a nap. He’s a blue heeler/Jack Russell terrier mix, I think. Him, I got to name myself, so I gave him the name of a great dog of fiction. In Colin Cotterill’s The Coroner’s Lunch, the dog that ‘adopts’ Dr. Siri Paiboun is named Saloop.