We are coming up on September pretty quickly here. School has started, the weather is cooling off, well for now at least, and there is already talk about what we’re going to be for my favorite holiday, Halloween. That means we are roughly 2 months from the release of An Honest Lie volume 2.

There are big things going on with this volume. We know how much you liked the first one so we brought back a few of the authors you loved. We featured C.B. Calsing a few weeks ago. This week we wanted to bring another returning author to the page … say hello to, Eric Trant.

Eric blessed us in An Honest Lie Volume 1 with a tale called Apple Tree. He returns in An Honest Lie Volume 2 with One Small Step, a story about dreams and following through with those dreams. A working writer and business man Eric has a unique perspective on his work, and the craft. When I asked him to give us some advice for aspiring bloggers he said.

I’ve been blogging and hanging around online for over a decade. Blogging is an inspiring process that challenges me not only to write something useful for others, but for myself. It’s a meditative introspection that keeps me analyzing my writing skills, and honing my word-craft. It’s like going to the gym, but instead of lifting weights, I lift words, and I talk about words with other writers both big and small and in the interaction, we all grow stronger.”

Indeed my friend, indeed. You can find his blog at http://diggingwiththeworms.blogspot.com/

Eric Trant: If you’re wondering about the title (of my blog ed.), the worms are my muse. They always have been no eyes or brain but five beating hearts, dozens of them wiggling between my ears.

Open Heart Publishing: Nice approach. I am beginning to think I don’t have a muse, only an obsession. We’ve really enjoyed reading your work. From where do you draw your inspiration?

E.T.: Real life is my inspiration. I dream, listen to other people dream, and then marry that up with reality to generate my stories. I spend a vast amount of time watching people and wondering about their lives.

OHP: Are there any authors, besides yourself, who you enjoy reading?

E.T.: Of course; millions. I am currently reading several books — I usually have three or four books going since I flip-flop between them and stash them in the car, next to the bed, by the couch, in the office. I am reading Charles De Lint, Robert McCammon, Neil Gaiman, Cormac McCarthy, and L.E. Modesitt, Jr. I also enjoy blogging among a close-knit group of online writers, both published and unknown.

OHP: I never take seriously the writer that does not read voraciously. Who would you say is your writing mentor/ hero?

E.T.:Cliché, but I have to go with Stephen King. He understands that readers have only one request: Entertain me. That’s all I want to do. I don’t want to make a statement, though I would like to modify your view of the world, just a little. After King come Bradbury and Vonnegut, followed by Cormac McCarthy, who single-handedly almost strangled my muse with his stylistic prose. When I feel the need for inspiration, I read one of these authors and the worms get to digging and I am back at the blank page with pen in hand, erasing the emptiness.

OHP: I agree with King as a writing Hero. I mean the man is good. On the other end, do you have a writing nemesis?

E.T.: YES! Her name is Raquel Byrnes. She is as yet unpublished, but I am certain she’ll land a multi-novel deal somewhere in her near future, because in the real world, evil triumphs. You can meet her at her blog: http://nitewriter6.blogspot.com/

OHP: Since I read your interview I’ve been reading her blog. She is very talented, but I am certain I don’t know the half of it. Why do you feel the need to write?

E.T.: Everyone has a need to share their stories. If you don’t believe me, look at Facebook or any other social networking website. We all want to be heard. Even non-writers want to somehow expose themselves to the public eye. Nobody wants to howl at the moon alone — we want a pack to howl with us, and like every other writer, I do my howling through my stories.

OHP: You really howled with One Small Step but even the most fantastic story must be supported by some sense of what’s real and One Small Step is pretty fantastic. What was your inspiration for it?

E.T.: We all look up and dream about flying off to the moon and stars. Reaching into that darkness has been the greatest collective dream of all humanity from the time humanity took its first small step, and looking back, we’ll see how rudimentary we really were in today’s “modern” society. There is so much out there still to discover and imagine, but we’re beginning to forget our curiosity. We’re taking our genius for granted. We’re bored with the stars and the moon and we can’t even see them anymore for all the airplanes and city lights and televisions and who needs NASA anyway. That’s what this story is about: what’s still out there. It’s about not quitting when we’re so close to flying off to the stars. It’s about never, never quitting.

OHP: So with so many small press publishers out there, why did you choose to submit your work to An Honest Lie: Delusions of Insignificance?

E.T.: I am a returning author, and so I knew what I was getting into with Open Heart Publishing. The publisher and editors are a rare breed of wonderful. So long as they keep publishing it, I’ll keep submitting my work.

OHP: What do you feel is a delusion of insignificance?

E.T.: Let me give you an example of a significant but deluded individual: Your waiter. Hands down, waiting tables is the worst delusion of insignificance. You are treated as an unimportant beggar-servant to be ordered and belittled, yet you can sicken, disgust, or kill an entire room full of people. That’s sounds harsh, doesn’t it, but that’s the reality, and there’s your delusion. These people are not insignificant. Remember that the next time you figure your tip.

OHP: What is An Honest Lie?

E.T.: An honest lie is something you tell because it is either somewhat true, or based entirely on unverifiable speculation. For instance, describing your height wearing boots. For instance, claiming you are a wonderful lover. One is based on a half-truth. The other, if given a chance to prove or disprove, becomes a moot point, as the speculative nature of the Honest Lie has now served its purpose.

OHP: We are always looking for amazing pieces of work, besides short stories what other writing endeavors are you currently engaged in?

E.T.: I am working on my fifth novel, with working title The Gladiator’s Son. I’ll have to change the title because I have absolutely no gladiators. The hookline is this: “On the isolated slopes of the western Andes, a soldier awakens an earthly Andean spirit that attacks his unborn child, and is cast into a dreamlike battle to save his son thousands of miles away.” This spring I revised last fall’s novel and wrote and revised a novella, not to mention two or three short stories. I started a new novel early this summer and have been working on it for about three months. The current piece is still very much in the draft stage, but if it maintains its shape on final revision — which most of my novels don’t — then it will embed a strong father-son element into a horror-fantasy mold.

OHP: Besides writing, what other sorts of deviant behavior do you happen to enjoy?

E.T.: My deviance meter is low these days. I’m building my family and tapping on the door of my forties. I know that’s boring. Writers are supposed to live in South America, or own a chateau in France and spend their evenings in clubs writing fabulous prose over bottle after bottle of wine between long lines of cocaine. At the very least, I need to be a raging alcoholic who eats Zoloft like Tic-Tacs. I’ll admit that I like dark beer. I am German-Irish. What else is there but dark beer? Other than that, I lead a quiet life and try to focus on my home and family.

OHP: My deviance meter is … well, let us say I am more the drunken cliché of a writer; most famous after life. I accept it. Tell us about your family.

E.T.: I have a son and daughter who both inspire me to remain young and enthusiastic and blindly hopeful. We are expecting a son soon who will, according to my older son, “Break stuff.” I’m sure he is correct. We also have two dogs, a Corgi and a Pomeranian. The Pom sits in my lap as I write in the dark hours of the morning. The Corgi sleeps it off until about mid-morning, when he moves from under the bed to the couch.

OHP: It’s been great getting to know you and we look forward to working with you in the future. For now let’s give our readers something to think about. What do you feel about the following quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge?”

E.T.: I agree completely. Education has a way of dumbing you down to the level of whoever wrote the book. Some of the best things I’ve learned are not from reading or learning about the subject, but by doing and learning as I go. Writing is the obvious example, but I would lump on top of that woodworking, computer programming, math, and raising a family.

OHP: Have you ever contemplated becoming involved in a revolution?

E.T.: The US is in the middle of a revolution. It is being fought at the polls, and the latest shot was fired in November of 2008. We’re all part of this revolution, and if you are not, then you need to pick up your weapon — your voter ID — and use it.

OHP: Where do you believe humanity is headed as a whole?

E.T.: In the U.S., most of them are headed to Texas. The rest of the world is headed East, I think, toward China. The ones who don’t make it to China will likely get lost in Europe while trying to figure out what the heck a Euro is and how to exchange it for a Chinese yuan.

OHP: In your opinion, which is the more important discovery of humankind… plumbing or the written word?

E.T.: A combination of both, actually. One gives you the means to accomplish your personal business in private. The other gives you something with which to wipe.

OHP: According to Anatole France “To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.” In your opinion what do you believe is worth dying for? What do you believe is worth living for?

E.T.: Right now, I would die for a dark beer, preferably an Irish Black-n-Tan, well-poured. I wouldn’t die for the idea of a dark beer, though. There’s a difference between dying for the idea and living to enjoy the result. I hope I made my point.

OHP: Mark Twain once said that “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” What do you believe he meant by that?

E.T.: Twain meant that you’d better be able to see what is not there. Often it is the absence of a thing that makes it important. Seeing the world only in literal terms limits the scope of your vision so much that you might as well keep looking at your feet and walking where they tell you to walk. Twain never walked that way.

OHP: Most people have two stories for doing anything… a plausible excuse and the real reason. Why do you really write?

E.T.: On one hand, I write because I must. It’s an obsession and a passion. But really, I have nothing better to do.

Eric Trant earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 1994, and is the son of a librarian and English teacher, who shared with him her love of reading, writing, and above all, storytelling. Each morning he rises well before the Texas dawn, and in the quiet writes thousands of words. He is self-taught.

Raised during his formative years in the East Texas Piney Woods, and then later in a small town on the Texas Gulf Coast, Eric maintains an avid fascination with outdoor living. Eric’s blended perspective of rural, small-town, and city lifestyles is at the heart of his stories, often leading the reader deep into the woods where as a child, he and his brother discovered so many wonders. He now lives near Dallas, Texas, where he continues to explore the world around him.

He holds a U.S. patent for a statistical outlier algorithm, and has received numerous technical recognitions as a semiconductor engineer. His most-prized award is a simple plaque reading Anyone can be a Father, but it takes someone special to be a Daddy. This plaque sits on his desk, in front of the embossed US patent.

Eric’s professional career covers a broad range of experience, including over twenty years of writing. As a freelance writer, he has dozens of short stories and five novels to his credit.