We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gene Masters a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Gene, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your creative career?
I am retired after about a fifty-year career as an engineer. I was always prudent with money, and, barring a major catastrophe, my wife Ruth and I are able to live comfortably. In short, I never planned, or expected, to make a living as a novelist – which is what I’ve become since I retired.
When I was of college age, this country was still doing what we and many countries still do: every male over eighteen was required to register with the selective service. But back then, every eligible male had to serve two years of active duty in the military. (For better or worse, that is no longer the case in the U.S.) You could receive a deferment to attend college, but that only postponed the inevitable until after graduation. Of course, if you dropped out of college, or failed to maintain your grades – into the service you went!
When I enrolled at Notre Dame to study mechanical engineering, I knew I was in for a tough time. I was an honor student in high school, but so were plenty of my fellow freshmen. I did okay with math and science, but my real strengths had always been in the arts, history, and literature. But I figured I could make it as an engineering student at ND if I buckled down. For extra insurance against getting drafted out of college, I joined the NROTC – Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps. You still had to serve those two years after graduation, but I would, at least, do my active duty as a naval officer.
I did manage to graduate with my BSME, and was then commissioned as an Ensign in the Navy. My first duty station was aboard a troop transport, which promptly deployed from San Diego to the Western Pacific. While deployed there, I became fascinated with submarines. We had just started the nuclear submarine fleet, but at that time, most of the subs in service were still diesel-electric. I volunteered for subs, went to submarine school, and was then assigned to a diesel submarine, the USS Angler (SS240). I was blessed to serve with some of the finest people in the fleet. I earned my “dolphins,” that is, qualified in submarines, aboard Angler. In the process, I sucked up tons of information about the diesel-electric submarines that, to my way of thinking, won the war in the Pacific. After three years on active duty, I left the service and began my professional career as an engineer.
I won’t bore everybody right now with my engineering career over the next few decades. Suffice it to say that I had a varied business career with quite a few fits and starts. On the way, I earned advanced degrees in both business and engineering, and eventually retired after nineteen years as part owner of a successful engineering consulting firm.
Engineers are required to write reports. Mine were valued because people, other than engineers, could read them, and make sense of them. This skill lent itself to the writing of winning proposals as a consultant. Some of my proposals and reports may have been really boring, but they were well written! My dissertation, for example, was all about stormwater collection and treatment. Not exactly the kind of reading to perk up your day, but it was grammatically correct, well-organized, and beautifully printed on 100% rag paper!
I was eventually to learn that an adventure into writing fiction was a whole other thing altogether.
Gene, 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?
I retired from Florida to East Tennessee with my wife, Ruth, and two cats in 2009. I know, that’s a move in the opposite geographical direction from what most retirees do, but the grandkids were here. Used to staying constantly busy, I decided to try my hand at something other than technical treatises. I was always an avid reader, especially of military thrillers, and mystery stories, and envisioned myself as possibly another Tom Clancy or John D. MacDonald. Good luck, right?
I was quickly disillusioned when I tried my hand at a few short stories. Who knew writing fiction would be so tough? Or that editing and proofreading would be so extremely difficult?
About that time, I got a call from Notre Dame that someone who knew me from my service aboard the USS Angler, remembered that I was an ND grad, and was trying to contact me. I found out that my old boat (yes, submarines are “boats,” not “ships”) was holding a reunion, and would I be interested? I was indeed! At that reunion, I became reintroduced to my old shipmates after decades of noncontact.
About that same time, I was forming the narrative of my first novel in my head. It was what eventually would become “Silent Warriors: Submarine Warfare in the Pacific,” At the reunion, I touched base with one of my old shipmates, Lt. Cdr.Tom Burke, and asked if he would edit and proofread my novel as I wrote it. Tom agreed, and I started to write. A year-and-a-half later, with Tom’s invaluable help, I had a manuscript. (Shortly thereafter Tom passed away, the victim of a freak accident.) After they said they were interested, I submitted it to a publisher who published marine military fiction. They held the manuscript for eighteen months, and then informed me that they had decided to no longer publish non-fiction.
I’m up in years, and decided at that juncture that looking around for an agent, finding someone to represent me, and get me a deal with a publishing house, would be a real trial; besides, I knew that self-publishing with Amazon was relatively easy and inexpensive. Or so I thought. It was definitely inexpensive, but not so easy; the text had to be formatted in a certain way, and I needed a cover design – again, formatted just so. Besides, I knew my 700+ page manuscript most probably had to be edited, and given a final proofread. Something I had learned from running a business: someone out there, most probably, provided just such a service.
I filtered my way through a number of trolls, listened to a number of proposals, and finally hooked up with an outfit named Escarpment Press, now out of South Carolina, run by down-to-earth entrepreneur named Joe Perrone, Jr. Joe was the real deal: a former sportswriter, who had himself written and published both fiction and non-fiction. Joe read my manuscript, and agreed to take it on as a project for a reasonable price. Then he worked my tail off. Between edits, cutting swaths through my immortal prose, and proofreading over and over again, we finally had a finished product I could be proud of. He designed a cover for me, and formatted the whole business to Amazon’s specifications. Once I had a proof copy in my hands, he set up a marketing campaign for me on Amazon as well. That and more: Escarpment Press was with me all the way. He insisted I get a web page up and running: www.genemasters.net, and get a presence on social media.
After a slow start, Silent Warriors took off. It became, and remains, my best seller. It was made into an audiobook, narrated by Bill Bird, a former DJ out of Sacramento. The audiobook also took off, and continues to sell well.
Escarpment Press then saw me through six more novels; each more or less successful (you don’t hit a home run, I learned, every time at bat). My latest work is the Rich Vitalli Mystery Series: three novels so far: The Dry Cleaner, True Believers, and Bobby Doyle is Missing.
My novels, in order of their publication, are as follows:
Silent Warriors: Submarine Warfare in the Pacific
Operation Exodus
The Laconia Incident
The Wounds of Jonas Clark
The Dry Cleaner
True Believers
Bobby Doyle is Missing
All are available as ebooks or in paperback from Amazon and as ebooks from other outlets; Silent Warriors and The Laconia Incident are also available in hardcover from Amazon; Silent Warriors, Operation Exodus, and The Laconia Incident are available as audiobooks from Audible. An audiobook of The Wounds of Jonas Clark is in the works.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
In my professional life, I was fired three times. The first time really wasn’t my fault; I was set up for failure by a boss that more or less got stuck with me, and did everything he could to replace me. Eventually he succeeded. I found myself out of work, with a wife and two kids (one a newborn), in Cincinnati, Ohio. I went into a purple funk. Then Ruth said to me “I’m glad they fired you. That job made you miserable, and I’m happy you’re out of there. You’ll find something better. You’ll see.” And she was right. I quickly found a job with a good company that switched me from straight engineering into Quality Assurance. When that company was bought out, the new owners moved us to Tampa, Florida, and we thought we’d died and gone to heaven. Then that company decided I would make a great plant manager in Western Kentucky.
Ruth is a talented creative artist, working in painting, ceramics, printmaking, and photography. She had built a following in Tampa, and didn’t want to move – especially not to Kentucky. Unable to see my way past a great job and an excellent salary, I prevailed, and moved the four of us north. Bad move. Ruth made the best of it, but was miserable. This time I got myself fired, and we moved back to Tampa.
I found an engineering job in a fertilizer plant. But I made less money, so Ruth began teaching Art in a private Catholic Girl’s high school. We managed, and we were all much happier. That was, of course, until the company that owned the plant I worked in declared bankruptcy. A new owner came in, and I was reassigned to a job in the plant as a production manager. I hated it, and decided it was time for another career change. I went back to school at night to study Environmental Engineering. While still in school, I began to consult on the side. Lo and behold, an environmental engineering consulting company I had done some subbing for, asked me to come aboard full time. And so I did.
Eventually armed with a Masters in Environmental Engineering, I left that first firm to join another. It turned out to be badly managed, so I went in with yet another consulting company interested in opening an office in Tampa. About that time, I figured I would be more valuable as a consultant if I pursued a Doctorate. My new employer promised to support me in that effort. About six months into the doctoral program, however, the firm decided that I couldn’t both study, and pull my weight for the company. So, they fired me. Go figure. By then, my kids had both graduated from college, and Ruth was still teaching.
One of my fellow students was toying with the idea of starting her own environmental engineering firm. She asked me for some advice on the matter, and soon we decided to become partners. Our plan was for me to finish my doctorate, and work part time, while she would back off on the studying, and get work for the firm. Nineteen years later, I retired from that same firm.
And now, I think, we are back from where we started, with me retired, and writing novels!
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
My wife Ruth, I believe, is a very talented artist. And it’s not just me that says as much. She has, during our married life, entered shows and contests, and has won a good many of them. She has sold her work to private individuals and corporations, and her paintings and photographs hang in many private collections and public spaces. But she has never been able to support herself from the sale of her artwork alone.
Throughout history, the most talented of artists have been dependent on wealthy patrons – connoisseurs who can afford to commission artwork, and who have plenty of money to spend on art. There are very few wealthy patrons floating around in modern times, but they do exist. And they tend to buy the artwork of those artists with the best press agents. Indeed, there are also those investors who see value in a particular artist’s work, and will make a name for that artist just by adding his works to their collections. But those artists are the lucky few. Most just work away, have a few successes, and never really get noticed.
Why some artists get rich, while others with as much or more talent go unnoticed, is no mystery: there just aren’t that many wealthy patrons out there. What the public can do, however, is attend local art shows and exhibitions. Many of them feature some quite affordable artwork. If you see something you like, and can afford it, by all means buy it!
But where books are concerned, the public can easily do something to the artist. Individuals may not be able to afford to buy a work of fine art, but the average reader can easily afford an ebook or a paperback. But please remember that the writers that are promoting their books on radio and television, usually have major publishing houses backing them up. Indeed, most of those books currently being promoted by their celebrity authors are actually ghost-written.
Indie authors like myself are out there, and while many of those books may not be worth anyone’s time, there are also many hidden gems that go unnoticed. I would urge anyone to look for books on Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and other outlets, that peak their interest. Investigate an appealing genre, pick out a book that sounds interesting, and give that author a try. If you are disappointed, move on, and find another. If you enjoyed the book, try something else that author wrote. And, please, please, take time to write and post a review of the books you like. Reviews are the life blood of the indie author.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.genemasters.nmet
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100038492650022
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/gene-masters-784464170/
- Twitter: twitter.com/masters_gene