Wick Downing

Bio

Wick Downing, three-time winner of the Colorado Author's League Top Hand Award for fiction, lives in Denver.

Interview

Teenreads.com writer Audrey Marie Danielson was fortunate enough to chat with award-winning author Wick Downing about his recently published novel, LEONARDO'S HAND. Read on to learn about the author's inspiration behind this fantastical tale, the research that went into the book, his favorite authors, and much more.

Teenreads: There's a lot going on in your novel LEONARDO'S HAND. Thirteen-year-old Nard is physically challenged; he has no parents; he's living in an unstable foster home; and he is a brilliant young inventor who ends up wrestling with moral issues. What do you consider the most important issue in this book?

WD: Overcoming loneliness is the theme I like the best, because it ties the others together. In many of us, loneliness is frozen into our being and holds us up like a statue. We're afraid to let the statue melt, because then it would turn into a puddle and soak into the ground. So a meltdown is confused with dying or disappearing.

That was Nard's big hurdle. He refused to believe in his own genius and wanted to use Vinci cheaply and selfishly. To do good things with his genius, or the Hand, would connect him with people as well as the past. That scared him because he was so used to loneliness. But Julie and Anna got close enough to warm him up, as did Mack and even Farley. He finally surrendered to the meltdown and didn't disappear at all. He got filled up instead with all those things money can't buy.

Something similar happened to Julie, who had to let go of her anger and pride in order to trust.

Teenreads: What gave you the idea to use Leonardo da Vinci's hand as the catalyst?

WD: Da Vinci was an incredible human who lusted after knowledge of a particular kind. Not encyclopedic facts, but a deep understanding of the principles of nature and existence. He was also deeply spiritual, filled with a reverence for life, which he believed to be a gift from God. But he wasn't doctrinal in his religious beliefs. He didn't buy into any religious dogma. For example, he taught himself anatomy by dissecting corpses. This was in the 1400s, and opening up and examining bodies in those days outraged the church. He literally risked death as a heretic to learn.

His hand worked into the story as catalyst, perhaps, but I'd better confess that it just happened. I didn't suddenly have this great idea. I just got lucky.

Teenreads: How much research did you have to do on hang gliding to be able to write this and make the contest and the invention of the flycycle plausible?

WD: A lot, but none of it was work. I should have acknowledged a whole host of people, but forgot to. Most of them I barely knew, or never met. This question is a great reminder for me to get in touch with them and thank them for their help.

The United States Hang Gliding Association is located in Colorado Springs, 70 miles from where I live in Denver. They publish a magazine called Hang Gliding. I spent a day with them and got some back issues, which took me to web pages on companies that make hang gliders. I bought and read a great book by Dennis Pagen called HANG GLIDING FLYING SKILLS. I've also done a lot cycling and have even raced a little, having been introduced to the sport by a son who was competitive as a racer. I used to ride a bicycle to work, 8 miles away, which was far enough to get gamey --- and think.

There was also the reported experience of the Condor and the Daedalus to draw from: the flying bicycles that made it across the English Channel and from Greece to an island in the Aegean sea.

But I've never been up in a hang glider. Maybe someday.

Teenreads: How emotionally involved did you get with Nard?

WD: He became very real to me. I would have cried at his funeral, even though when he did some of the rotten things he did, I wanted to kill him. But I liked him a lot. He never felt sorry for himself, wasn't all puffed up over himself because of his intelligence, and had a basic decency that was nice.

Teenreads: Is Nard based on a real person or is he completely fictional?

WD: He's based on every kid I've ever known, including me, which means he's completely fictional. He's a composite, all welded together into one lump, and that one lump is different from all of them. It's something that happens to writers. When a character comes to life, the paradox is it's truly fictional, even though it may have been based on one real person, or be bits and pieces of several.

Teenreads: Is LEONARDO'S HAND your first novel for young people and what made you decide to write it?

WD: It's my first under the name Wick Downing, but I have another one under my given name of Warwick Downing. The title of that one is KID CURRY'S LAST RIDE. 

I got the idea for a disembodied hand when my kids were small enough to be entertained by Walter Quickerwalkie. Walter was my hand, tilted up on its fingers, walking toward them and scampering up an arm and pinching them on the nose. It probably gave them nightmares, even though they laughed at the time.

Teenreads: How old were you when you decided to become a writer?

WD: There weren't very many things I was good at as a kid, but writing was one of them. I won a short story contest in the 10th grade. But I didn't really decide to become a writer until losing a job I had as an Assistant U. S. Attorney in Colorado because of politics. I was a Democrat, but a Republican administration came into power. So I announced to the world that I was a writer, even though I'd never published anything. That, I think, is what you have to do, if you want to get serious about it.

Teenreads: How did you establish your writing style? Has it changed much over the years?

WD: Writing styles aren't established, exactly. They are dictated largely by what you write. There are some writers who are immediately recognizable, just as there are painters and composers whose work can be identified without names. But not many. I don't think I'm one of them.

Having said that, I know my writing has changed because I can see a difference. I believe it's better now in that it's not as convoluted. I don't try to do too much, which makes it a bit cleaner and easier to follow. But it still has a long way to go.

Teenreads: Who were some of your favorite authors when you were young? Did any one author influence your decision to become a writer?

WD: By "young," I mean through high school. I liked everything by Mark Twain, the short stories of Ernest Hemingway and Willa Cather, and novels by Agatha Christie and Leslie Charteris. Rafael Sabatini's CAPTAIN BLOOD and SCARAMOUCHE; THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL by Baroness Orczy; THE THREE MUSKETEERS and THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK by Alexandre Dumas were also favorites. Also Li'l Abner by Al Capp. I don't think any one author influenced my decision to become a writer. Can't blame that on anyone else.

Teenreads: As an adult, do you prefer fiction or nonfiction?

WD: It depends on my mood. I read much more fiction but can become totally captivated in nonfiction, which I read mainly as research. Histories like KILLER ANGEL and ACROSS THE WIDE MISSOURI pull the reader along like good novels, as do many biographies.

Teenreads: Do you have a favorite contemporary children's or young adult author that you especially admire?

WD: Yes. J. K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series. I love them.

Teenreads: What is your writing day like?

WD: I'm in front of the computer usually before seven in the morning, stop for breakfast about a quarter after eight and work from nine until one or two in the afternoon. Often I'll come back around four and occasionally will work in the evenings. Sundays I like to go to church --- Unitarian --- and Mondays, if the weather is okay, I'll go for a hike or a bike ride or play a game of golf. Usually the weather is okay.

Teenreads: What is the most difficult aspect of writing for you?

WD: Being between books. There's a special kind of despair I endure. Also, starting a new book. It seems to take me forever to get a story headed down the right path.

Teenreads: What do you like best about writing?

WD: Those occasions, rare, when time disappears and you are totally immersed in a scene or story. You become God. Also, being published. I like seeing my name in print.

Teenreads: How long does it take you to finish a novel?

WD: That depends on the problems encountered. I've had nine novels published now, and it's taken anywhere from nine months to nine years. Most of them take more than a year, but I'm usually working on more than one book at a time.

Teenreads: Did you encounter any difficulties getting your first book published?

WD: I had a terrible time. My first book published was the sixth one I'd written. I finally got an agent, which made the difference for me. He's still with me, although not as an agent for young reader books.

Writing is not natural for me. I'm not Stephen King. I love it, but it isn't easy. I don't see what's wrong with a book for a long time and usually have to have someone point it out. And I have a terrible time throwing out stuff I think is wonderful but which doesn't fit, usually because it belongs in another story. The same with trimming back characters that pull the story off on a tangent or assume an importance that takes away from the point of it.

Teenreads: Did becoming an award-winning author change your life in any way?

WD: Not really. I hoped it would, but it didn't. The awards were nice but they weren't big outside of Colorado, and Colorado is not the big-time.

Teenreads: Do you plan on another young adult or children's book?

WD: Definitely. In fact, my agent has one now that I hope will get picked up by someone. Houghton Mifflin again, if I get lucky.

I like the market. I like the diversity. It's huge. Also, kids have imaginations and sensibilities that adults seem to lose. I wonder sometimes if there aren't variations of Alzheimer's that afflict people's minds as they get older, causing them to lose such things.

Teenreads: What are you currently working on?

WD: Presently, I'm in despair. I've recently finished a book for kids and a book for adults, and both are with agents.

But I'm thinking about a nonfiction book that would have a lot to do with the death penalty. I was a prosecutor for much of my legal life but have come to believe that the death penalty is wrong. I may write that one next.

Teenreads: What advice would you give to an aspiring young writer?

WD: Read. Decide what genre you really enjoy reading and concentrate on writing for that genre.
   
Then write. Every day. Make yourself do it. Don't wait for the muse.
   
Enter writing contests. Also, show your stuff to teachers and anyone else who will look at it. Listen carefully to what they say without arguing about it and ask questions until you understand their point. You don't need to agree with a criticism, but you do need to understand it.
   
When you're ready --- and you'll probably know when that is --- get an agent.

   --- Interviewed by Audrey Marie Danielson

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