We were lucky to catch up with David Poyer recently and have shared our conversation below.

David, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

The biggest risk I’ve ever taken was in striking out as a writer. In the late 1970s I was a surface line naval officer, leading a team that trained new-construction crews at Fleet Training Center, Norfolk. I had great folks under me and was doing what I considered important work. Unfortunately my CO at the time was a man I’d previously clashed with in a previous assignment, when I’d simply been carrying out to orders of my then-commanding officer.

I’d also been shaken by a divorce that came out of the blue after a long deployment to the Mediterranean. That too had left me questioning whether I was making the right choice: Planning to stay in the Navy until retirement, then becoming a writer.

But, meanwhile, I’d published a couple of squibs in the local paper and an article in a local magazine. For years, I’d been noting down ideas for short stories and novels. But a local editor strongly advised me not to resign. I had some talent, but I’d never make it as a writer, she told me.

I could have stayed in, and perhaps tried writing on the side, but that seemed half hearted. As an experiment, I bought a typewriter and a desk, both of which I still own, and wrote a novel. It was an experiment, to see if I could write 50,000 words and have them make sense. When I completed it, it seemed to me to be a reasonable effort. Probably not publishable, but reasonable! And I felt I could do even better with more practice, and perhaps some reverse engineering of novels by writers I admired.

Finally I submitted the resignation. As I walked out after laying it on the CO’s secretary’s desk, I felt the world change. I’d no longer have the security of a paycheck, a retirement package, or health care. I’d have to succeed in what everyone was telling me was a very tough choice of career. All I had was just barely enough self confidence to try, and a sense that this was what I’d been meant to do, all along, since the day my mother had told me where books come from. “Writers write them,” she’d said, and I’d known then what I was meant to do.

“Follow your dreams” is a cliche. And I’ve seen enough in the 40 years following that risky decision to know that nine out of ten aspiring writers do not make a living wage. I was very fortunate to work in a genre, and at a time, when a novelist could make a living. And that is even more difficult today, with far more intense competition from self-published “authors” and even AI-generated work, as well as dwindling interest in literature, literacy, and culture. Perhaps I too would be as negative to a young writer as my editor was to me back then. But all I can really say is, if you have a dream, and are willing to give everything up to follow it . . . what else are we given a life for?

David, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hi, my name is David Poyer. I go by Dave or David or DC, depending on where and how you met me. I’m primarily a novelist, though I’ve done many others things in the past – doughnut machine cleaner, naval officer, technical writer, submarine design engineer, defense analyst, then a long spell just writing books. Also taught for creative writing at the university level for sixteen years. And most recently, done some playwriting. My last books were THE ACADEMY (St. Martin’s/Macmillan) and WRITING IN THE AGE OF AI (Northampton House Press).

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Certainly the biggest pivot was leaving a secure, successful career track as a naval officer for what was even back then a marginal and uncertain business: freelance writing. I was helped by a succession of true SOBs as commanding officers, and a divorce that shattered all my expectations of where my life was headed and how I was conducting it..

Fed up at last, I submitted my letter and began writing. I’d always intended to write, but up until then had planned to do so after a full career in the US Navy. But I pretty quickly began selling both regional magazine articles and then short stories, and then novellas, and then novels, and then series of novels. I also rejoined the Navy as a reserve officer, and completed a thirty-year career there as well.

Maybe the bottom line is something like: recognize early what you really want to do. And turn what looks at first like a setback or a downturn or a disaster into a chance to reforge yourself.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I don’t want to sound mystical, but now and then I do get downloads from somewhere else. Call it a muse. Looking back over my work, the several series, the fifty-some novels and plays and numerous short stories, I do sense a common thread. I call it the search for authentic or trustworthy guidance. No book or religion or philosophy has ever seemed to me to contain a true compass, even if certain corrections are made. Most seem designed to benefit a particular group to maintain control over others. My characters search for what is true, what is best, and what is fair, sometimes for themselves, but more often for others. Eventually, some fail; others succeed; others are condemned to the eternal search.

I believe everyone needs a chance and everyone deserves respect.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.poyer.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidPoyerBooks/
• Other: https://www.northampton-house.com