Interview with Walter Horsting

Walter Horsting, author of Mild Mannered Men is back to tell us how his fascinating life became scenes in his novel. Check out my review and the giveaway HERE.

Jodi: You’ve had many professional chapters in your life. What led you to the author of

thrillers chapter of your life?

Walter:

Professional Chapters

I started my musical career as a sound engineer, and owner of the concert touring

sound company WAH Sound , from 1971-1984 and I engineered three-thousand live

events.

I became very burned out by age twenty-nine and started building advanced automated

auditoriums as CEO of now WAH Systems, from 1984 to 1996. My hometown is the

State Capitol and led to my Multimedia Systems integration for dozens of Public

Hearing Rooms for the State of California, Local Government, and Fortune 500.

I closed WAH Systems in 1996 and grew into a nation VP of Business Development for

leading integration firms, National and Global Scope.

What led me to be an Author

By age 13 I read all the Ian Fleming Novels and found at age 14, my mother’s teaching

sabbatical had me in Rome my 9th grade. I start writing Three Mild Mannered Men on

the American Airlines flight to NYC.

Our sponsor Rosana Pistolese's brothers were in publishing, one for the Democratic

Press and the other for the Communist Press. At a dinner party at the Pistolese's Home,

the conversation at the table came around to young Walter. I told the adults about my spy caper I had started writing, and her brother, Francesco Pistolese, an editor with the Democratic paper, declared I must write a comic strip for his newspaper.

The paper hired an artist to illustrate the comic strip. I storyboarded six months of the

comic strip, wrote the script, and did the stick figure action for each frame and bubble

dialog. The following Spring the comic strip was ready to press. I wanted a Sean

Connery-looking lead, and the artist depicted an obvious American-looking spy. It was

not my vision, and I rejected publishing the comic strip at age 15. My family was

stunned that I had the backbone to turn down the publication. It became one of the

"What-Could-Have-Been" moments in my life. I had this itch I could not scratch until I

published Mild Mannered Men.

Check out more about the comic strip HERE 

Jodi: Was the writing of Mild Mannered Men influenced by any authors/books/real life

events?

Walter: Mild Mannered Men, draws from my background of building governmental command

centers, hearing rooms, and network operation centers gave me a grounding of my

canvas. Many of my real life experiences are part of my book.

Driving into downtown San Francisco while installing a new marketing center for

Citibank in their new headquarters tower; I was timing the lights on Bush Street

descent into the Financial District a jogger blindly ran in front of me forcing me into

swearing into a spin just missing him.

I was returning late night on Highway 5 from Los Angeles, on an empty section of a

long steep grade, I came upon a forty-foot I beam blocking both North lanes, while

going 85 mph. There was no time to stop, and I couldn’t avoid it, so I tried to swerve

the car to get the beam between the wheels of my Honda Accord, forty-feet later, I

emerged in the now slow lane going 85.

My belt clip of my cellular phone was unable to keep my phone from falling to the

ground and breaking into pieces.

All those incidents are in my book.

My novel opens on Felton Empire Grade Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which I

knew as I drove it to visit my mother. It gave me the inspiration to use Yes’ “Owner of

the Lonely Heart” as my big screen soundtrack. I licensed the lyrics for the book and

the song for the audio book.

Jodi: Tell us more about the soundtrack for Mild Mannered Men.

Walter: I was thinking of making Mild Mannered Men into a movie or a year episode on

NetFlix/Prime and I thought a soundtrack would help the package sell.

I started in the music industry at age 14, at the Piper Club in Rome working with English

Bands. When I returned to the US, I started managing bands at 15, learned the guitar at

16, played in bands, went to SF State to study music. I started writing songs and most

of the lyrics I used in the soundtrack come from my writing in the 1968 to 1972 era. Although I like all the songs, if I had to choose a favorite it would be "The Rain Will Wash Away the Blood".

Jodi: you have such a deep-seeded background in music, will you have soundtracks for future books?

Walter: My autobiography, Rocker to Mocker, will have a background of music from some of

3,000 concerts. I plan a short stories series about the dark mirror reflection of Mild Mannered Men called Wild Wicked Women. I have ten songs on the site for this work.

Jodi: Your novel takes place over a time span of just four days. I’m curious, why did you decide on such a brief timeline?

Walter: I like the pacing of North by Northwest, its urgency and motion.

Jodi: Now that you mention it, I can definitely see similar propulsion in both works. Mild Mannered Men hinges on one mistake. Have you ever had a mistake that

changed your life?

Walter: Many times, I have made choices. When I refused to publish my comic strip in Italy, not to mention two previous marriages

Jodi: But you've definitely moved past those choices and went on to make some great decisions, like a writing career. Speaking of your writing career, what’s next?

Walter: I am in the middle of writing my autobiography Rocker to Mocker.

Jodi: You sound like an incredibly busy writer. Thanks for taking the time to share your plans with us.