Today we’re talking to Gary Avants, a teacher and a big Sci-Fi fan who writes time travelling science fiction under the pen name G. P. Avants.

Born and raised in Southern California, he started his working life creating inspirational commercials. After a few years he became a teacher and hasn’t looked back for the last twenty five years.

Firstly, I’d like to thank you for joining me for this conversation.

You’re the third author and teacher I’ve interviewed. Why do you think there seems to be a link between the two?

Being a teacher I have found that people’s lives ignite your story ideas. I have to learn so many student’s names over the course of a school year. I often take mental notes of some of the creative names I hear and the often interesting spelling of ordinary ones.

I work in a course that encourages students to tell their life stories and develop ideas for communicating their future careers. In the process of this comes reading about all the things and people that inspire them. As teachers we try to open up a rich world of hopes, doubts, dreams, and challenges for our students. In the process how can that not influence us a writers? 

Tell me a bit about your writing process.

I like to plan things out with a basic outline, that gives the creative craziness room to work. I’m an organised pantser, if there’s such a think. I believe that if you give your creativity organisation you become efficient. Being organised keeps you from going through lag times when you don’t want to write, and the creative part flows into the dull boring parts so it’s more fun, in theory. 

My writing routine usually involves early mornings before the everyone gets up. I also allocate an hour after school and a couple hours on the weekend. I have an office at home where I do most of my writing, but I also write on car rides, coffee shops, or wherever I can find a place to sit.

Technology these days makes this all possible, but I always joked that I should have been born in Medieval times because I am a poetic knight at heart. However, my handwriting is hard to read (my brain thinks faster then my hand can write). So being able to type, save, send ideas, and save them with technology has been a blessing.

The biggest writing challenge for me is time. I am not your typical introversive writer. I am very extrovert and love being with people. I feel guilty writing because I feel like I am neglecting people, yet on the other hand could write all day if I had the chance. So getting the balance between the two is an ongoing challenge.    

What’s your favourite part of the writing process?

The creative flow of writing is the favourite part of the process. I love to catch ideas from all the sources around me (visual, music, dialog, etc) and turn them into stories, poems, pros, etc.

Do you have any advice for new writers?

My advice for new writers are to get their ideas out of your head they anyway you can. Read! That alone gives you all the aspects of writing and the processes that go into it. Then, find your own style and develop your own ideas. I like to rotate between fiction and non-fiction selections to give both sides of the brain some stimulation. 

So tell me about you novel, Chronolocity: Vol I A Fistful of Chronotons.

It is a sci-fi / historical fiction that puts the fate of history in the hands of an uncertain twelve-year-old inventor Levy Roarke. He is unwittingly draw into a temporal war and has to decide which group of time travellers is seeking the best possible course for the future of mankind. This possible reboot of history is forcing everyone who inhabits our timeline to become a manager of the time they have. The choices Levy makes as he cautiously  interacts with key people from history (in their impressionable childhood forms) can have widespread ramifications. As Levy comes to discover, no matter how this story turns out, no one will ever look at history the same. 

When is it released?

Chronolocity is available online at my site on www.chronolocityhq.com and on Amazon in a few weeks. I hope to find those who love the see a new original sci-fi series arise. With so many recycled stories or remakes, isn’t it time to see stories for fans from fans? Help us make history by being reading the book, follow us on WordPress, and support others through our podcast on Podbean. You can also contact us at forbearproductions@gmail.com. With so much negativity in fandom lately, we want to connect with those who want to just enjoy their favourite fandom and keep positively good stuff coming. We will soon be launching #freefandomforever and would love to have you be a part of this fandom movement.

Thank you Gary. It just leaves me to wish you good luck with your book and your many other enterprises.

If you enjoyed this interview then why not follow my blog. I’ll be posting more interviews soon. If you’re an author, or you’ve just got an interesting story to tell and you’d like to be interviewed, just drop me a line on contact@gjstevens.com