{"id":1155,"date":"2012-05-20T17:20:54","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T00:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lindacollison.com\/blog\/?p=1155"},"modified":"2012-05-20T17:20:54","modified_gmt":"2012-05-21T00:20:54","slug":"william-c-hammond-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/william-c-hammond-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"William C. Hammond; an interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“Constellation is going into battle,\u201d Truxtun went on.\u00a0 \u201cDo not doubt it.\u00a0 She won\u2019t be ready for sea by March as Mr. McHenry would have it, but by summer, yes.\u00a0 When she is ready, I intend to steer her into harm\u2019s way, as Captain Jones so aptly put it.\u00a0 But before I do, I have serious need of a commissioned officer skilled in naval gunnery\u2026 Will you, Mr. Cutler?\u00a0 Will you accept an officer\u2019s commission and do me the honor of fighting alongside me against our nation\u2019s enemies?\u201d\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

from The Power and the Glory\u00a0 by William C. Hammond III.<\/a>\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Bill Hammond writes historical nautical fiction from a distinctly American perspective.\u00a0 A Matter of Honor<\/a> <\/em>tells the story of young Richard Cutler from Massachusetts, who ships out with John Paul Jones to avenge the death of his brother Will, flogged to death aboard one of His Majesty\u2019s ships.\u00a0 In the award-winning For Love of Country<\/em>,<\/a> the family ship Eagle<\/em> is captured and Richard is sent to negotiate a ransom for his brother Caleb and his mates.\u00a0 The Power and the Glory<\/em> <\/a>has Cutler serving on USS Constellation<\/em> during the Quasi-War with France.\u00a0 In the fourth book, A Call to Arms<\/a>, <\/em>to be released this fall by Naval Institute Press, Capt. Richard Cutler takes command of USS Portsmouth<\/em> in the First Barbary War.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrepare to rake her, starboard guns!\u201d John Dent cried from above.\u00a0 That call to arms brought everyone back to the task at hand.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The change of course had placed the Frenchman in a dangerous position. Constellation, seizing advantage of her opponent\u2019s vulnerability, ranged ahead of L\u2019Insurgente under spanker, topsails, and jib.\u00a0 Truxtun ordered her braces and helm swung over and bore down on an enemy that had apparently realized the mistake and was now struggling desperately to present her broadside.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Constellation tore across L\u2019Insurgente\u2019s bow.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAs your guns bear\u2026fire!\u201d Richard shouted. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hammond delivers a hefty helping of history in all of his novels and he does so with convincing detail.\u00a0 There is plenty of nautical action, yet there is plenty of plot and character development on land as well.\u00a0 The people he writes about — both historical figures and fictional characters — are well imagined.\u00a0 His female characters have thoughts and feelings that are deeper and they act more realistically than those complacent wives, doxies and conniving mistresses that populate the nautical novels of some well-known authors of the genre.<\/p>\n

Bill and I have been corresponding by email.\u00a0 He is very supportive of other authors and is enthusiastic about the genre of historical nautical fiction in general.\u00a0\u00a0 I recently had the pleasure of chatting with him on the telephone.<\/p>\n

Bill, can you describe your path to writing. Or \u2013 which came first for you? Your love of ships and the sea — or your love of history? How did you combine the two?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I would have to say that my love of ships and the sea came first because I grew up fifty feet from the ocean on Cape Ann, Massachusetts.\u00a0 I learned to sail on a 9-foot plywood Turnabout when I was eight, and I started fishing twenty-five lobster traps off the coast at age eleven.\u00a0 You learn a lot about the sea doing those things.\u00a0 But my love of history began early on as well, perhaps because I lived near history-rich Boston.\u00a0 I majored in British and American history in college, and I have been a self-proclaimed student of history ever since.\u00a0 How did I combine the two interests?\u00a0 I knew I wanted to when I began working at Little, Brown and reading the Forester novels it publishes.\u00a0 But I did it, I suppose, the same way that many authors write about their passion.\u00a0 By writing.\u00a0 Every day.\u00a0 No exceptions, barring a family emergency or a business necessity<\/p>\n

I believe you credit your mother and grandmother with instilling in you at a young age,\u00a0 the love of reading.\u00a0 Which books and authors have in some way influenced your writing career?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both my mother and grandmother instilled in me the love of reading, but so did my father and especially my uncle.\u00a0 Lance was a professor of English at Yale and a very flamboyant teacher of eighteenth and nineteenth British literature.\u00a0\u00a0 His classes were always among the most popular among students, and if you talked to him for just a moment, you\u2019d understand why. But the books that launched me into the wondrous world of words were The Call of the Wild<\/strong> and Sea Wolf<\/strong> by Jack London, and Billy Budd<\/strong> by Herman Melville.\u00a0 I also became enthralled with the books of Edward R. Snow.\u00a0 His tales of the mysteries and legends of the Boston Harbor Islands kept me enthralled for hours and hungry for more.<\/p>\n

Your primary character, Richard Cutler, is my idea of an American hero. Yet he is very human, and not infallible. What was your inspiration for this character?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I knew early on that I wanted my protagonist to have a simple but strong name. “Richard Cutler,” when it came to me, seemed just right. As to his character, I wanted to imbue him with those human traits I most admire – a sense of honor and duty, yes, but also a realistic sense of self and the world around him, a sense of humility, and above all, a sense of humor. That the name \u201cRichard Cutler\u201d came to me during a Sunday sermon added to its perceived suitability. I never have thanked the priest for the inspiration. I\u2019m not sure she\u2019d understand.<\/p>\n

Your books are historical fiction, yet they are soundly rooted in fact and have been vetted by experts. How have you managed to acquire such a grasp of naval history \u2013 and history in general?<\/strong><\/p>\n

By reading, mostly.\u00a0 <\/strong>Before I started writing chapter one of A Matter of Honor<\/strong>, I invested three years in historical research.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how many books I read, but certainly more than a hundred titles, fiction and non-fiction.\u00a0 Most of these titles do not have a Kindle edition!\u00a0 <\/strong>A number of them describe the intricacies of sailing a square-rigged vessel, so much of what I learned in those books applies to all the books in my series.\u00a0 I have sailed all my life and I have been aboard several square-riggers, but I have never sailed on one. .Naval history has a special appeal to me because as a boy my dream was to attend the Naval Academy \u2013 until a football injury ended that dream.\u00a0 So perhaps in doing all this I am living out my fantasies.<\/p>\n

I’m struck by the way you bring setting alive. In so many scenes I get the sense that you have literally been there and are writing from memory. As a writer I want to know, how do you do this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for me to answer that question, although I am pleased beyond measure by your observation.\u00a0 I am well traveled, and I have been to many of the locations I write about.\u00a0 But certainly not all of them.\u00a0 For example, I have never been to any of the West Indian islands that are prominently featured in these novels. But I have bought travel books of these islands, and I have studied a great deal about their customs, and their plants and wild life, and their physical terrain.\u00a0 The Internet, of course, is a great source not only for information, but also for photographs of key locations.\u00a0 Plus, Victoria and I honeymooned in the Virgin Islands, and my parents retired in the Florida Keys.\u00a0 So add it all up and I have a pretty good sense of tropical comings and goings.<\/p>\n

Have there been any one-of-a-kind experiences that have changed your life or inspired you to become a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not really.\u00a0 Coming from a literary family, and having friends who read books both for pleasure and to appeal to the opposite sex (this was the era when having a paperback copy of A Separate<\/em> Peace<\/em> or The Catcher In The Rye<\/em> strategically placed upon one\u2019s person was the height of preppy fashion), I grew up thinking that nothing in life could be more satisfying than creating a story that people enjoyed reading and found worthy.\u00a0 Fifty years later I still feel that way.<\/p>\n

Describe a perfect day in the life of Bill Hammond.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything else I do during the day \u2013 ghost writing, copy editing, consulting with other authors \u2013 keys off the two to five hours I devote early each morning to my own writing and the editing of my writing.\u00a0 So a perfect day is almost any day when I feel good about what I wrote or edited during the morning watch.<\/p>\n

Where is the Cutler Family Chronicles taking us? Can you give us a hint as to what we have to look forward to in future books?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had originally planned to write seven novels in the series, ending with the Second Barbary War.\u00a0 But nothing of real historical significance happened during that war, and ending the series there could be anti-climatic.\u00a0 So now I am planning to end the series with Book VI, which will be set during the dynamic and sweeping War of 1812.\u00a0 Book V, which I am working on now, profiles the events leading up to that war.\u00a0 It also profiles a world turning upside down and crashing down upon the Cutler family, both in a geopolitical sense and in a very personal sense.\u00a0 Several readers have suggested I continue the series with a prequel, going back to the arrival of the Cutler family in Massachusetts in the early 1760s.\u00a0 It\u2019s an intriguing notion, but I don\u2019t know what will become of it at this point.<\/p>\n

Do you have any advice for novelists in general, and historical novelists in particular?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Writing is a very tough business these days, both for authors and for publishers. Not many people are making much money doing it.\u00a0 So an aspiring novelist must write his or her passion, and then be prepared to let the chips fall where they may.\u00a0 As for historical novelists, remember that people often read historical fiction as an entertaining way to learn history.\u00a0 So both the general historical trends as depicted in your novel, as well as the facts and terminology associated with those trends, need to be correct.\u00a0 But never forget that what you are writing is fiction, and that it\u2019s the story line that is providing the entertainment.\u00a0 And finally, keep in mind that there is no right or wrong way to approach writing.\u00a0 Your way is the right way. You just need to do it consistently, every day, seven days a week, during whatever time slot you can manage.\u00a0 As the great writer Somerset Maugham once quipped: \u201cThere are three rules for writing a novel \u2013 but nobody knows what they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The award-winning For Love of Country, recognized by the Military Writers Society of America.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Available for pre-order<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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