Today’s interview is with G.M. Nair, a comedy writer with a degree in Aerospace Engineering.
LQ: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
GN: I’m G.M. Nair, and despite possessing advanced degrees in Aerospace Engineering, I’ve written comedy for the stage and screen. Last year I decided to take the leap into the highly unlucrative field of self-publishing and am the author of the Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire sci-fi/mystery/comedy series.
I currently live in New York City, if you can call that living!
LQ: What does your writing process look like?
GN: I usually – and I wouldn’t recommend this – start with a title and work from there. I use the title as a springboard to develop interesting or wacky plots to stick my characters into. Once I’ve got a general idea of what’s going to happen, I create an outline or beat sheet of all the specific ideas and plot points I need to hit.
Then I just start writing a vomit draft, which just purely puts the words on the page with little regard to if they make perfect sense or not. After that’s done, I let it sit for up to a month, then aggressively redraft over and over until all the details and writing are tight enough to my liking, and the jokes still sound funny. Then it’s just a matter sending it out to beta-readers, incorporating their feedback, and sending it out to a professional editor.
LQ: What was your favorite book to write so far?
GN: Honestly, my second (latest) book The One-Hundred Percent Solution was the most fun to write. The original Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire took over 4 years to write as I hashed out the characters and concepts, and towards the end, I started getting tired of it. With all that heavy lifting out of the way, the sequel was a much cleaner and quicker write.
Who is your favorite character to write about?
GN: Stephanie Dyer is always fun to write in order to figure out how to slide in stupid jokes without them feeling too cartoonish (even though I may not always succeed), but I find I have the most fun with Rex Calhoun who is basically just an angrier caricaturized version of Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon.
Who are your favorite authors? Have any of them influenced your work?
GN: Douglas Adams is both the reason for and bane of my existence. I loved the guy. I loved his books and they obviously played a very large part in influencing me as a tween and/or teen, so I’d be remiss to say that he wasn’t a big inspiration for my work. But at the same time, I’m incredibly wary of being compared to him, because he left such massive shoes to fill. Literally. The guy was like 6’5” or something.
Beyond the specter of Adams, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke basically defined science fiction for me, and Jonathan Hickman and Chip Zdarsky – two writers for Marvel comics – pretty much influence my taste for post-modern big picture narratives and zany absurdist comedy.
LQ: How are you doing during the current pandemic?
GN: Eh, as good as I can be, I suppose. Staying at home, playing a lot of video games, writing. I think I’m pretty lucky since a lot of writers can’t feel productive during this time (understandably so). So I try to keep myself busy.
LQ: What are you currently working on?
GN: I’m on the verge of releasing The One-Hundred Percent Solution, which comes out April 15th, so all my energy is focused on that. But afterward? I was thinking of taking a little break from Duckett & Dyer and writing up a non-comedic YA Sci-Fi book I’ve been mulling for a while.
LQ: Anything else you would like to share?
GN: The candy PEZ – as in PEZ dispensers – is an abbreviation of PfeffErminZ, which is German for peppermint. Do what you want with that information.