Welcome to BookView Interview, a conversation series where BookView talks to authors.

Recently, we talked to Rob Lockett, a full time English Teacher working in NSW, Australia and an internationally selling author. He has recently released his fantastic supernatural thriller, Resurrection: A Supernatural Downfall (read the review here)

Rob is a full time English Teacher working in NSW, Australia. He is currently in his tenth year teaching English and is an internationally selling author. Rob currently lives in Sydney with his wife Chivonne, daughter Harper and their dog Otis.

Rob has recently published his first novel Resurrection, which is available on Amazon, Google books, Kobo, Dymocks and Booktopia. You can also find the book trailer on Youtube.

As to one of the reasons behind this inspiration to write, Rob has stated “I decided to finally put my money where my mouth is and start publishing my creative works as a way of encouraging students to do likewise. I find writing a deeply cathartic and immersive experience, allowing us all to explore what it really means to be human.”

Rob also finds writing about himself in the third person to be very self-serving and operating under the guise of shameless self-promotion. In spite of this, he lists a number of inspirations for his writing, including:

Bret Easton Ellis ( American Psycho, Less than Zero)

Chuck Paluhniuk (Fight Club, Choke, Damned)

Stephen King

Margaret Atwood

Harper Lee

Joseph Conrad

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Shakespeare (that hack from Stratford Upon Avon)

Christopher Marlowe – The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Herman Hesse- Stepponwolf

He has a few other works in the pipeline including a YA fantasy series, developing the second novel titled The Way of the Guardians, A children’s detective series starring Harper L as a younger Nancy Drew, A traditional crime thriller (at Chivonne’s request) titled This Dark Business.

Rob has also composed a number of feature blogs, based on a range of topics including book reviews, educational discursive essays, tv show reviews, real estate issues and low carb recipes. These can be found at: Lockdawg.wordpress.com or reviews at Goodreads.com

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20162665.Rob_Lockett

Twitter:Roblockett4@twitter.com

Facebook:www.facebook.com/rob.lockett

Website:lockdawg.wordpress.com

Do you find writing therapeutic?

Writing can be immensely cathartic and has been a healthy way to allow pent -up emotions to spill onto a page, or in my case, a laptop. This novel in particular has been a way of venting frustrations for me during a dark time in my life. The writers that I have met online are unanimous in their agreement that fiction writing as well as being rewarding is also a healthy outlet or a very cheap type of therapy. I find that there in an inherent beauty even to the darkest writing, take for example, Edgar Allan Poe.

What’s the most difficult thing about writing a novel?

For me, the most challenging part of writing a novel is the marketing of it. It’s been a very steep learning curve and I feel that I have probably learnt more from failure than success in that regard. Other challenges I’ve faced lie in how to use research properly, knowing how to ground your writing with reality while also stretching people’s imaginations at the same time. It’s definitely a balancing act.

How often you read?

I read every day, and I try to encourage my students to read every day. The amount varies: Some days I’ll read for a few hours, some days are fifteen minutes. There are multiple benefits to reading every day: It builds our knowledge and vocabulary, it stretches our imagination (Important for people on lockdown), gives us insight into important ideas and values, but also I find it helps people sleep.

What are your favorite books?

I love classic science fiction and dark, dramatic tragedies. That being said I also appreciate a good comedy, Some of my top books include 1984, Animal farm, Brave New World,Dune, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Pillars of the Earth, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Fight Club, Salem’s lot, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Dark Tower series. Some of the authors of the books listed have also had a heavy influence on my writing style.

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

The most difficult part of the artistic process is to allow my brain to relax in the healthy space of alpha and beta brain waves, allowing the conscious and subconscious to work in harmony. When this happens, this is writing gold and I am often amazed at what the subconscious mind will produce onto a page. I find I have to re-read over the passage and ask “ What did I write again?”. Sometimes the results are astonishing.

Tell us a little about how this story first came to be. Did it start with an image, a voice, a concept, a dilemma or something else?

The story for Resurrection as I mentioned earlier was first conceived during a dark time in my life. I had lost someone close, was living overseas and doing a job I didn’t enjoy. I had a terrible and violent dream that I ended up composing as the first chapter and used some characters inspired by real life. There are also some events in real life that inspired the opening chapters, however for those that know me, these turn very quickly into fiction as we delve into further darkness and epic events that lead to civil war. There are also historical events that have inspired the latter half of the novel, especially the Branch Davidian Cult led by David Koresh in the preamble to the Waco, Texas tragedy.

Which scene or chapter in the book is your favorite? Why?

One of my favourite chapters in Resurrection is called the Gatherer and it’s a part of the novel where a key character has to go through a rite of passage to join the cult. In other words, I have to describe what a demonic acid trip could look like. At the time I was teaching a year 11 class and they gave me the initial idea and asked me to write it over the weekend. It was a fun weekend to say the least and I feel I exhausted my knowledge of stylistic devices, along with most of my vocabulary.

What do you hope readers will take away from this story?

Like all writers of fiction, I genuinely hope that readers can enjoy what I hope is a good yarn. There are moments in the novel that show the classic showdown between good and evil, but there are also a number of moments throughout that may have readers questioning a number of things about their world.

Another major theme of the novel relates to what our inner voice, our subconscious and what our id may be telling us. Most of the time and hopefully, this is a healthy voice but what happens if it isn’t? Some reviewers have pointed out that the Dark Passenger in the novel is an allegory for depression and anxiety and so I’m hoping that readers who may have experienced this might see this like I do: something to conquer on the path to wellbeing.

Resurrection is available at:

Most amazon outlets including: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08693BMQ4

Google books, Kobo, Dymocks, booktopia

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20162665.Rob_Lockett

Twitter:Roblockett4@twitter.com

Facebook:www.facebook.com/rob.lockett

Website:lockdawg.wordpress.com

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