Interview with SMoss, the author of Arborea

Today is my day on the Tour with @bookwormnjkinny for this incredible book.

SMoss is the pen name of the American author and brand guru Stanley Moss (b. 1948). He founded The Club of Venice, a private conversation on brands and branding, serves as brand guru for Gottschalk+Ash of Zürich and is Travel Editor of Lucire, a New Zealand-based fashion magazine. Moss has visited India numerous times, voyages which provided the research for his published fictional works, “Hitman In Delhi“, “The Hacker“, “HACK IS BACK,” and “Arborea“, all available from Amazon. He’s also penned Books 1 and 2 of “The Captain Blackpool Trilogy“, historical novels about a secret agent working during the Napoleonic Wars. He’s the author of “Nuclear Brands“, “What Is A Brand?” and “What Did You Just Say?” – three nonfiction titles concerned with the brand discipline

Connect with the Author

In a chat with Mru's Books and Review the author reveals his obsession with writing, the secret behind the characters in his book and some eye-openers about editing a book. 

What inspired you to write this book?

For many years, hoteliers in New Delhi regaled me with tales from their experiences running boutique properties. I always thought there might be a novel to write but could never connect it with the western world. Then one night I had a dream: that the entry to a luxury resort in the California redwood forest turned out to be via an elevator hidden in the trunk of a tree. From that portal I imagined all the rest of Arborea, and let it be run by a couple modeled on my very dear Indian friends.

What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?

I usually research while authoring the entire manuscript. I do both ongoing visual and text research, building a library of images and fragments to use as I proceed. For example, Arborea has a huge variety of pictures which include California nature shots, cruise ship rescue boats, evening wear by Anne Demullemeester and how to rig a camp tent.

How long on average does it take you to write a book?

It varies. Every book is different. Arborea was written during the pandemic, in self-isolation and took six months. Another book I wrote in the 1990s, revised it and published it the early 2000s. Once I wrote a novel in my twenties, resurrected it, rewrote it and published it forty years later, in my 60s. So, six months, ten years, forty years. Totally variable.

Does writing energize you or exhaust you or is it a spiritual experience?

Kind of all of the above. There’s a definite endorphin rush while writing, but writing takes a lot out of you: after an extended session I definitely need a rest. After the fact one always has an epiphany. For me the spiritual revelation comes in re-treading what I wrote, when I find myself asking, “Where ever did that come from?”

About the book - Can you tell us something about this book that isn’t in the blurb? 

I can tell you that a lot of the details about how billionaires live and think are taken from fact. I was working with a circle of super-entitled ultra-wealthy people for a couple years and was able to observe them firsthand, what their expectations are, what their self-concepts are, the way they routinely travel, how they see the world. I can’t mention names, but they live in a conceptual bubble, a private reality of their own. Fitzgerald was right: the rich are truly different from you and me.

What does the title of your story mean?  

I wanted a name for the resort that sounded like the forest. The word arbor means “tree”, so the name suggests a place where the redwoods grow. There’s also a real place, a tiny village of the same name, population about 4000 people, on the west coast of the island of Sardinia, where I have never been, which has no meaning relative to the subject matter.

Were any of the characters inspired by a real person? If so, who?

Now you’re asking me to reveal trade secrets! It’s true that the owner couple are based on hotelier friends of mine in New Delhi. Other characters were visualized from people I’ve known or met, but I prefer to keep those names to myself. Sometimes I put an invented or borrowed personality into a body I’ve met. But let’s allow this part of the writer’s craft to remain a mystery. It’s the reader who creates the final picture.

What is the one thing you would give up to become a better writer?

That’s not a trade I’d enter into. I think the joy of becoming a better writer is the time spent achieving it. I wouldn’t surrender the time it’s taken to get this far. I am a much better writer now than I was yesterday. And I wouldn’t give up yesterday to get to today any sooner.

How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

It certainly gave me greater confidence in my abilities as a writer. I had a terrible editor assigned by the publisher, who tried to change every interesting verbal construct I made into a cliché. I spent most of my time restoring what I had originally written, jockeying over the art of wordsmithing. Once it was over and I’d signed off on the manuscript it really taught me to be my own governor when it came to writing. It helped me to understand that sometimes an editor is not the ultimate authority, and to hold to my own intentions and inclinations.

What is the most difficult part of the writing process for a romance novel?

Arborea is my second romance novel. Commercial romance novels hold to some very definite conventions in character arcs, plotting, and simple expectations. You can either write a cookie cutter kind of book, or try to bend the model. In my first, The Crimson Garter, I held to convention. Today, my own preference is to step away from the expected and try and craft something new. The challenge is to stay away from precedent. That may be the acid test, but it also may affect sales and demand, since the presumption is that the market wants more of what it has seen before. That’s why there is a romance genre to begin with.

Do you read other romance novels? Which one is your favorite?

I can never get beyond the first 5-10 pages of a conventional airport news stand romance novel. I read enough to get the flavor of them, perhaps thumb through the last chapter to be sure I got the idea. But no, I mostly re-read the classics these days. I find the heavy hitters who have survived the test of time are my best teachers. Joyce, Austen, Hemingway. They weren’t writing genre fiction in the interest of generating sales; they were more focused on craft and nuance. That interests me more. So I don’t really have a favorite.

Do you plan to continue writing in the future?

Of course! Writing is a compulsive act. An addiction. An obsession. As soon as I write the words ‘The End’ I’m hungry to start the next.

Thank you to the author and NJKinny for this wonderful opportunity to  interview. And Best Wishes for your future writing and books from all the raders at Mru's Books and Reviews.

Happy Reading!!