I interviewed Rupert Ramsgate at his house, Kitty Key, in the Florida Keys. It was a hot Summer afternoon, so we sat indoors in Rupert’s study, as the odd cat wandered in and out.
Kitty Key is a house set back from the ocean facing a mangrove area, with an idyllic back yard with all manner of rustic Keys features.
This interview is the first part of a much longer conversation, the other two parts of which will be published later.
I: So, who are you really?
R: I am a Brit who spends part of this time in the USA and part of the time in England. I have family in both places. Basically, at some point I tested the truth of the old showbiz saying “Go West young man”.
I have a day job, which I would like to abandon, but first I have to monetize my writing. I am getting close to what old-fashioned people would term “retirement age”, but I dislike the idea of retirement intensely. It implies sitting around waiting for The End, which I have no intention of doing.
I: Is Rupert Ramsgate your real name?
R: It is, but I also write other forms of fiction under other names.
I: Names?
R: Yes.
I: So you have multiple alter egos?
R: You could say that. Actually, I have 20 pen names already lined up for possible future use.
I: Isn’t that a bit excessive?
R: Not really. Pulp Authors in the 1960s used to regularly use multiple aliases. Richard Kadrey has a hilarious series of spoofs of author names in his pulp novel covers re-imagined series. The spoof author names he invented are all hilarious, but the original ones that authors used in the 1960s were also hilarious.
Lots of authors who you would think were very respectable wrote pulp fiction, pulp erotica or porn novels on the side. Often they were journalists doing it to make extra money as they raised families. There are some adults today whose college tuition was paid for by erotica or porn. Other pulp authors were sci-fi novelists trying to earn money from writing while working on their Big Artistic Book. Sometimes, you do what you have to do in order to free yourself for more interesting projects.
Chris Offutt wrote about his late father’s secret careers as a pulp and porn writer in his memoir My Father The Pornographer. It is worth reading.
I: So, apparently you have a very good friend named Belem Knight. Who is Belem Knight?
R: Ah. Mr. Knight is my alter ego.
I: Don’t you forget who you are at any point in time?
R: <laughs> It might happen some day. Hopefully when it happens, I will be so rich it won’t matter.
I: So what is the relationship between you and Belem Knight?
R: Belem is my smut and filth alter ego. Rupert creates long-form novels. Belem writes the novellas, short stories and other assorted smut. We discuss what goes where, so to speak. I specialize in ethereal and futuristic erotica, albeit with some fairly naughty content. Belem will write about all manner of down and dirty, and his writings are mostly naughty from start to finish. You could not possibly mistake a Belem Knight story for anything remotely…shall we say, vanilla.
I: So what can we expect from Rupert Ramsgate the ethereal erotic fiction author?
R: Well, I am currently creating two book series. The one that I am furthest advanced on is a sextalogy…
I: Is that a cunning play on words?
R: Well yes, but there is a method to the madness. The book series started life as a sketch of a couple of chapters. Then I realized I had a book. Then it became two books, then three, then four, then five, then six. Six books is a sextalogy. So there we are.
And…there is also a prequel, so technically it is…what do you call 7 books? I give up at that point. Oh yeah, it’s a heptalogy. I think. May I will just call it a pentalogy, even though there might be 7 books. Douglas Adams described The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy as a trilogy, but there were actually five books. It has been done.
I: Are you really going to have a series with seven books? That’s a lot.
R: I need to put my lawyer hat on. While I currently think there will be seven books, who knows what will happen when I get to the later books? I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that I might run out of steam. There’s nothing worse than repeating yourself, although I would note that lots of authors have done quite well writing essentially the same book year after year. Formulaic writing can be profitable and entertaining.
So the final number of books could be anything from 3 upwards. I know I can crank out at least 3 books with already-mostly-written material. After that, I cannot say for sure. If I lose interest, that might be it. If the masses demand more, I could be persuaded…am I straddling the fence well enough for you?
I: There is another book series isn’t there?
R: I am part way through developing a futuristic novel series set in California in the 2030s and 2040s. That is completely different. And it has taken a back seat to the sextalogy. But I am really excited about that series. I already have some strong characters that I think will anchor the book. The setting is post Global Warming, after the United States has split into three federations, and a pandemic has wiped out a lot of the population. There is a plot twist there that I am not about to reveal. Of course I started this 4 years ago before anybody had heard of Coronavirus, so now I have more source material to work with about what happens in a pandemic.
I: So how would you respond if somebody asks “what is the sextalogy about?”
R: The subject matter is wide-ranging. It covers mermaids, sirens, some mythology, ocean adventures, and the characters are all searchers.
I: Mermaids?
R: Yes, but not the sort of Disney mermaids that we are all used to. These are adult sirens. The Sirens used to sit on rocks and lure sailors to their demise. They weren’t nicey-nicey little girls with tails gliding about under the water and riding on seahorses. The sirens in this book series are attractive people with charisma, sexuality, and, in some cases, a dark side or a hidden side. There are also several characters who I would describe as broken – people who have suffered trauma. There are one or two surprises in the characters.
I: So this is an entirely fantasy series?
R: Yes and no. Some of the ideas are fantasy, but the settings and the superficial aspects of the stories are realistic. I did have to invent a whole series of places, but they are based in reality.
I: Is any of this based on your personal experiences?
R: Only to a very limited degree. I have vacationed in Crete, which is where I decided to put the imaginary location. However, I am not a mermaid, and I cannot be a siren because I am the wrong sex, so most of the book series is me having attacks of imagination and writing it down. Fortunately, I have a well-developed imagination.
Put it this way…I’m not like Alfred Hitchcock, making cameo appearances in my own creations.
I: So…is there a title?
R: The series has a title. I even have a working cover. It is called Books of Loukas. Loukas is the imaginary town that I invented where the core characters live, and many of the events happen.
I: So this fantasy area…is it sort of like your version of Middle Earth?
R: Well, I certainly wouldn’t even begin to compare myself with Tolkien. He invented an entire language, as well as an entire world. My invention level is nowhere near that scale. But if you are going to write a novel series part based on fantasy, the locations ought to be part-fantasy also.
I: So when will this series start to be published?
R: Good question. I have book 1 completed, almost. I had it completely written 2 years ago, but then I did something that I now realize was a mistake.
I: Which was?
R: I sent the first draft out to friends to read. Then I read a quote by Terry Pratchett where he said “the first draft is simply you telling yourself the story. The second draft has to be you telling the story to your audience”.
Asking friends to review it was definitely a mistake. Friends find it difficult to be honest. The most honest friend flat-out refused to review it. When I asked her why, she said “I don’t want to potentially ruin our friendship”. However, I did get some useful feedback.
I currently have a work list of 60 changes that I already know have to be made. Some of them are little stuff, items like “change that paragraph, fix that inconsistency”. Some of them are structural.
I: What are the structural issues?
R: Right now, the first draft is too slow at the beginning. I know that people have trouble getting into it. I am going to address that in a somewhat unique way.
I: Which is…
R: Ah, that would be telling.
I also had a main character with something missing. Sometimes you have an intuition while writing that something is not yet “there” in terms of what it could be, but you don’t know why. You just know that there is more to come. This character had something missing, when I reviewed the book, I realized that the character was not fully drawn, so to speak.
So I have work to do to solidify the second draft. Then I can think about the publishing stuff like professional editing, covers and promotion.
I already decided that the novels will not have a cliched cover. You know, the young guy with six-pack abs and the model in a bikini with medium sized fake boobies. My novel characters are nearly all in their 40s and 50s, some of them are in their 60s. Those kinds of covers would not suit this book series. They are so…cliched, and they would clash with the entire storyline. The cover should hint at the subject matter, not deceive.
The working cover for book 1 features a picture of a lady friend of ours. She just turned 50, but she is proof that age is just a number. She lent the image for use on the cover. It is tasteful but suggestive, and it fits with the main character of book 1.
I will get a pro cover done, but I do not want to get into a tussle with some publishing maven saying “Rupert, we really need fashion models on the front to sell it”.
I: It sounds like you intend to self-publish.
R: I will, unless somebody in the publishing world makes me an offer that I would be a fool to refuse, which is not going to happen. I lack the patience and the time to hawk my book around publishers. Plus, we all know that many great works of literature were rejected, some dozens of times, by conventional publishers.
I: Why do you think that is?
R: Publishers, a lot of the time, are assessing a book against what they think the audience knows and likes. That is sort of a status quo worldview. It stifles innovation. The greatest products were not created by asking current customers what they wanted. A team of people went off and thought outside the box.
I: Do you really think this could be a great work of literature?
R: I doubt it. Sometimes a novel is rejected 50 times because it really isn’t very good.
I am primarily a non-fiction writer who is learning how to write fiction. If I turn out to be good at this, it will be a pleasant surprise. If I turn out to be mediocre, there is always non-fiction writing. I think I have something to say, and a slightly different way of saying it. But I will find out if people are receptive.
I: What are your expectations for the books?
R: None whatsoever.
I: Really?
R: I honestly have no idea how this book series will be received. It might sell 50 copies. It might sell 1000. It might sell 100,000. I am a creative writer. I write for myself, primarily. If I have an appreciative audience, so much the better. But I don’t need to sell books to survive, so I will write what I like to write.
I grew up initially seeking affirmation from others, and mostly not getting it, so I do not need people telling me how wonderful my writing is. If they start doing that, I usually start to get worried.
I: Why?
R: Excessive flattery from strangers makes me wonder what they want.
I: So when can we expect the first Book Of Loukas?
R: How long is a piece of string? <laughs>. Seriously, I do not know. “When it is ready to be published” is the glib answer.
I am a believer in the observation (which I think came from Leonardo da Vinci) that works of art are never completed, they are abandoned. At some point I am going to say “this is done, out into the world it goes”. Eventually the child has to leave home. You have to push it out of the door and move on.
The hopeful answer is this coming Winter. But I do want to have the second and third books in final draft form before I publish book 1. That way, if book 1, amazingly, sells like gangbusters and the masses are demanding book 2, I can, after the style of the British TV show Blue Peter, say “ah, it just so happens that here is something I prepared earlier”, and publish book 2.
I: Where are you with all the books?
R: Book 1 is in second draft. Book 2 is 30% written. Book 3 is 40% written. Book 4 onwards is still mostly sketches. The prequel is sketches. Actually, now I look in Scrivener…I guess i need to get my arse in gear, as they say in England.
I: How big are these novels going to be?
R: Book 1 looks like about 80,000 words. Book 2 is 90,000. I think the books will all be about that length. I am not a terse writer. I also do not manage to pack 3 sentences into 1 like Thomas Pynchon. But I will be getting the scissors out if there is any waffle.
I: So these are full novels.
R: Absolutely. There might be one or two novellas issued as break-outs from the books. I am considering that for promotional purposes.
I: What do you hope readers will feel as they read the books?
R: I hope that they will feel some identification with one or more of the characters. I wanted the book series to re-awaken a sense of wonder in the reader, and make them think about things on a bigger scale.
And if they end up running off to the bedroom after reading the naughty parts, so much the better.