An Interview With J.M. Hauser
Thank you so much for sharing your book with me and agreeing to do a Q&A for my readers.
Give us a quick summary of Harold and the Dreadful Dreams!
Well, Harold Hufferbluss is a precocious 10 year old boy with a very vivid imagination. He has had very strong, colorful dreams since was 7, and they keep getting weirder. Sometimes they are nightmares that wake him up in a bed of sweat, and his parents do worry about the level of his immersion. But something else notices his dreams too, a being not quite of the world that slips through the astral planes like a dream itself: Slender Sam. Sam takes the reader on a journey through five of Harold’s nightmares, and we learn more about Harold and where he might be headed on this quest to learn about himself. This is the first short book of a planned series: The Harrowing Adventures of Harold Hufferbluss.
The central focus of this book is the magic of young people’s imagination in this dream world. What inspired you to write a book about dreaming?
Good question. The book actually developed in stops in starts, originating with a single short story that became Chapter One later: Harold & the Horrible Hurricane. That story itself originated from a real world beach trip at Myrtle Beach a few years ago where myself and my nephews actually DID witness a waterspout off the coast. Could a waterspout sweep you off the beach and suck you into the sky like an industrial vacuum cleaner? I framed the story as a dream so I could introduce as many fantastical elements as possible without violating the rules of real world physics and science. In a dream anything can happen.
Harold, as the main character of the book, faces challenges both in his real life and in his dreams. How do his real world struggles affect his dream world?
Of the five dreams in Book 1, they are all instigated by a real world catalyst; events in the real world (he calls it the Waking World) filter into the dreamscape. This eventually blurs the line between what is real and what is a dream, and future books push this boundary even further.
Did you have any major hurdles in getting this novel out into the world?
Ha! It has been one long hurdle! I always wanted lots of artwork in this book, so first I had to hire some artists. Completing that first phase – which was over 40 black and white interior pieces and a color front and back – took a long time. Fortunately, I had an excellent art team and we look forward to collaborating again. They really nailed the vision I was looking for. I did all the concept art first and then they brought it to vivid life.
The second major hurdle was just getting it put into print format and birthed into the world as a physical product. The third hurdle – the stage now – is having it recognized and marketed as something that actually exists and can be read and enjoyed.
How long did it take you to finish your novel, from first draft to publication?
Because the story evolved in jumps and starts, from a simple short story, to another short story, and eventually strung together as a short novel, it took over five years from concept to publication. Which, even to me, that sounds too long for such a relatively short manuscript, but that was how it happened. The pandemic also handicapped its publication as well in some ways, but not forever.
How did you find your calling as an author?
I have always enjoyed a love of reading and fantasy and creative imagination. My earliest obsession came from Greek Mythology and plumbing the elementary school library for books about Perseus, Medusa, the Minotaur and many, many more. I read The Lord of the Rings at age 11, loved it, and wrote my own short novel shortly after called Stone of Storms that my school secretary typed up and put into a binder. I even drew the cover, so I was illustrating books from a very young age.
This is your debut middle grade novel, but not your first published book. You’ve also published a number of short stories. Did this book offer any unique challenges?
Correct. I had another short fantasy novel published a few year ago called Tales of the Nowhere & Neverwhen. It was about a little fairy named Wisp the Wayfinder who didn’t know her purpose in life and her growth to find out what she really was, beyond a ball of bobbing light in a flower field. The premise of the book was good, but I didn’t edit or flesh it out nearly as well as it should have been. It needs to be rewritten top to bottom, but I’ve long since moved on to other books, so Wisp will likely remain as a learning experience and not a resurrected project.
Harold offered the unique challenge that I wanted to create a series out of this with an expanding plot and characters, so I had to do a lot of brainstorming to figure out what would that look like for Harold and his evolving dream powers.
I had the joy of reading Harold before most as an early draft in our writing group. How do you feel like writing or critique groups help authors improve their craft?
Absolutely. Being able to bounce ideas and drafts off other people also invested in the craft is essential to most writing endeavors, especially in the beginning when you are learning how to write. I actually wrote a big, big fantasy novel over 20 years ago called A Faerie’s Tale that might have been well over 150,000 words. I don’t even remember now how long it was, but some of those ideas later leaked into Wisp the Wayfinder. Anyway, my point is that I was overly ambitious and overly confident in my skill at that time, when I really should have slowed the roll and started small instead of jumping into something so huge. I didn’t ask for much help when writing that book, other than my brother. I can look back on A Faerie’s Tale and admire many of the ideas, but it was far, far from good quality prose.
What is your writing kryptonite?
When real world drama and problems overwhelm me, it tends to sever my creativity. And I hate that. If I wrote for four hours a day, every day, no matter health problems or pandemics or a bad night’s sleep, I would be neck deep in Harold sequels and all kinds of other projects I haven’t even imagined yet. I’ve always been somewhat jealous of those writers who have an endless stream of output that never seems to stop.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who are working on their first book?
Yes. Drink more coffee. Hahaha. But seriously, I would start small. Write short stories first. Get into either an in person or online group and share your material. Get feedback. Critique the work of others. I was involved with an online critique group for many years called Critters.org. It is still active and there are many others online that do the same thing. Join a group, share your ideas, and learn how to write and edit from people who have more experience than you. And keep reading.
Harold and the Dreadful Dreams is available now. What are you working on next?
The sequels! I have the rough draft of Harold & the Grumpy Pumpkins completed; a Halloween horror story. It is half again longer than Book One, and I have the tentative outline for Book 3 in the works as well. Because artwork is of such importance to these little stories, I will also have to start drawing sketches soon, above and beyond what is already inserted into the rough draft.