Corey Lynn Fayman is the author of Gillespie Field Groove: A Rolly Waters Mystery, which is a part of the award-winning A Rolly Waters Mystery Series. Fayman has a knack for writing in the mystery and crime-fiction genres and can blend his stories within his books seamlessly.
A native of San Diego, California, he prides himself on making a career out of avoiding sunlight. Fayman was previously a keyboard player for local bands, a sound designer for the world-famous Old Globe Theatre, and an interactive designer for organizations both corporate and sundry. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing from UCLA and an M.A. in Educational Technology from SDSU. He has taught at a multitude of colleges and universities in Southern California.
Today, he still resides in San Diego with his wife, and still successfully avoids the sunlight.
If you could spend time with any of the characters in Gillespie Field Groove: A Rolly Waters Mystery, who would it be and why?
I’m sure I’d get along with Rolly, both of us being musicians. I’m a keyboard player and Rolly was inspired by a number of guitar players I’ve worked with. Then again, he’d probably drive me crazy sometimes, just like all of them did. Bonnie Hammond is based on a real policewoman I once knew. She was an interesting combination of cop toughness and tolerance, a bit enigmatic, so her complexities interest me. A new character I introduced in this book is Lou Brendon, who owns a vintage record shop and has an encyclopedic knowledge of blues and folk music. I’m sure he and I could find a lot to talk about.
Gillespie Field Groove: A Rolly Waters Mystery is a compelling read. What was one of the challenges you faced while writing it, and conversely, what was one of your successes?
When I started the book I only had the basic hook, which was that it would start at a Jimi Hendrix concert in San Diego in 1969 and that many years later Rolly Waters would be hired to find a “lost” Hendrix Stratocaster guitar. As I got into the writing, the plot seemed to gravitate towards characters’ backstories about financial duplicity and sexual harassment in the music business. The challenge was in letting those stories have their space while still concentrating on the central mystery—where is the guitar and who is its rightful owner? I didn’t want to sound polemical or preachy about the sexual harassment part of the story or that I was jumping on some #MeToo bandwagon. I think I found a solution that both addresses the issue and provides some great plot twists.
When it comes to writing, what was the best advice you have ever been given by someone, and why was it so helpful to you?
It’s a very simple one, from my friend G.M. Ford, author of the Leo Waterman series, who passed away a couple of years ago. Anytime someone in our writer group started getting too high-minded about our “process” and “approach” to writing, he’d remind us in his irascible way that there was only one sure way to get your book written. “Butts in seats,” by which he meant you can ponder your book as much as you want, but if you don’t sit down every day and start typing there’s never going to be a book.
Writing a series is very different than writing a standalone book. What is it about writing a series that your find so compelling?
The key thing about writing a series, of course, is that you have a defined set of characters you can use again and again. In the Rolly Waters series it’s Rolly, his mother, his drummer Moogus, and police detective Bonnie Hammond who are always part of the story, with another set of semi-regular secondary characters mixed in as I need them. But each book introduces a new set of characters that are specific to Rolly’s current case. I can go anywhere with those characters while the regular characters have to stay true to their previous incarnations. I develop the regular characters more slowly, over the course of the books, dribbling out bits of information and backstory. I’m getting to know them along the way just like the reader does.
Let’s switch gears for a minute. When you finish a new book what is your favorite way to celebrate?
The thing I’ve learned after writing several books is that they’re never really “finished”. I do three or four drafts before I send a book off to an editor. There’s a fair amount of writing left after the editor adds their notes. Then there’s the copyediting. And the proofs from the publisher. That said, I do feel a great sense of accomplishment when I send off that last draft to my editor and another when I get through the editor’s notes and the publisher takes over. I might go out to dinner with my wife or celebrate with a wee dram of high-end Scotch whisky.
Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSDL3GGS
