In this last installment of my interview with fellow author and blogger Paul Hair, we discuss some of his books, the illiteracy/dumbing down of our culture, comic books, the author business, and a little more theology.

Be sure to check out Part One, Two, and Three. Also consider reading some of Paul’s work. It’s rare to find any work in the entertainment industry not crafted by people who hate you–why give such people your money? Virtual Pulp has undertaken a quest to find entertainment by people who don’t hate you, and Paul is one of the authors we’ve found.

Enjoy:

HANK: Talk about your writing: what have you done; what are you working on now; what kind of projects do you anticipate taking on long-term?

PAUL: I encourage everyone to visit my Amazon author page. Please buy, read, and tell others about my books. Also, don’t forget to click on my author name here at Virtual Pulp. I’ve published some wonderful flash fiction and short stories here.

The first, major book I was involved in writing was a nonfiction book I co-wrote/ghostwrote with Matt Barber. It’s called Hating Jesus: The American Left’s War on Christianity. The book was published in 2016, but it’s still relevant today. I encourage people to pick it up.

Hating Jesus was successful. But it was also a lot of work because it was nonfiction. Nonfiction means a ton of citations. And that is a massive amount of work—a job that is so big that it could be a separate job onto itself when writing such a book. But it wasn’t. It was a job we undertook ourselves.

So after that, I thought about doing fiction instead. Fiction means no worrying about citations—no worrying that you are quoting people accurately, correctly representing what they mean, or appropriately using sources. It’s so much easier and shorter. And it’s a lot more fun.

The first fiction I published was Mortal Gods: Ignition. This is an anthology of three short stories that takes place in a universe where superhumans exist in a real-world setting. The book shows that this was my first time writing fiction. I’ve learned a lot about the craft since then. But it’s still good and a quick read.

Then it was onto establishing the Appalling Stories series with authors David Dubrow and Ray Zacek. The first and second books in the series were anthologies. The third is a novella. We’re working on a fourth one now, which will be another anthology of short stories. We have a fantastic group of authors (including you) contributing to this one. I believe it has the potential to be the best yet. I’m certainly excited about the story I’m writing. It should be one of the most fun stories I’ve written; an adventure story with a twist.

HANK: That’s right: we both have a story in the anthology! Will it be coming out late this year or early next year? David said something that made me think late in 2019.

PAUL: Late 2019 is our plan, so we hope to have it published soon.

Beyond this, I’m co-writing/ghostwriting two novels with two people. I won’t reveal their names right now but I’m excited about these novels, and will promote them heavily once we’ve published them. Additionally, I’m working on a young adult novel (or novella) where a teenage boy is struggling with coming to terms with his younger sister who has declared herself to be “transgender.” Through the course of the story, he finds out why she has decided to pretend to be a boy, and from there he works to both address that, and protect her as she deals with issues of self-loathing.

Longer term goals include writing more Mortal Gods tales (again, that’s my universe where superhumans exist in a real-world setting—read a few Mortal Gods short stories here at Virtual Pulp), speculative fiction tales, contemporary tales, and more. I don’t have a particular genre that I enjoy.

HANK: I have too many that I enjoy. Pretty much everything except horror, chick-lit, and the sexual deviancy genres. From a practical business standpoint, I need to just pick one and write series in that genre. But there’s just too many kinds of stories I want to tell.

PAUL: I like working in different genres too. And I think we can successfully do it (including writing series of books).

HANK: What inspired you to write prose tales of superheroes?

PAUL: I have tentative plans for superhero tales, but right now I’ve written superhuman tales. What’s the difference? My Mortal Gods superhuman tales take place in a real-world setting. No one dresses up in costumes and fights as a vigilante (unless he wants to be arrested and imprisoned).

As far as why I write prose tales about them: it’s much simpler than a comic book, and prose allows for a more cultured way of telling a tale than a comic book.

If you want to do a comic book, you have to find an artist capable of doing the artwork. That takes time and money. Fine, if you want to do it. But that’s hard to do. People are turning to crowdfunding to try to do their own comic books. Some succeed, others fail. And if you’re taking two or more years to deliver the final comic book (if at all), are you really succeeding? So from that perspective, it doesn’t make sense for me to do a comic book at this time.

Also, prose is more cultured than a funny book with pictures. I’m not against comic books, but I understand that you can do more from a literate perspective with prose than with a comic book. That’s attractive to me.

Again, I’m not against comic books. I have ideas of what I’d like to do if I ever got the money to do so. But I’m not planning on that right now. I’m enjoying writing prose tales of superhumans; creating the universes and offering a new and exciting vision through prose that no one else is offering.

HANK: Describe the audience you envision for your fiction, past, present and future.

PAUL: Everyone. But to start out, people who are right-of-communist and right-of-satanic are the target audience. Seriously, the mainstream entertainment world isn’t just ignoring this group of people; it has declared war on them.

I’m serious when I say I don’t want to continue supporting them. I imagine others feel the same way.

HANK: Yeah. Me, for one.

PAUL: Going back to my previous comments on theological matters, I’m under no illusion that my works will be read 100 years from now. (I’ll be doing well if I can continue growing the amount of people who are reading them right now.) That’s okay, of course. Everything will eventually pass away. This also means I’m working under the 70% doctrine. I know I’m not going to be the next Shakespeare or literary master. So my goal is to try to publish works that I’m at least 70% satisfied with at a relatively high rate. It makes no sense to try to publish the Perfect Work if it takes forever to publish it. Produce. Get works out there that earn money and create intellectual property. No, I’m not suggesting I become some sort of corporate mill. But I know that I have to earn money to continue writing, and I have to produce stories if I ever want to consider myself an accomplished author.

(Seriously, if one isn’t producing works on a regular basis, and if few people are reading said works, then one isn’t an author; he is effectively a teenage girl who writes in a diary and keeps it under a mattress at night. Both have the same amount of people reading their works.)

HANK: Ouch.

I don’t know if I could stick to the 70% doctrine. It turns out I’m a compulsive editor, revising and rewriting as I go. Even after publishing, sometimes, I go back and tweak.

PAUL: I know what you mean. But for me, it comes down to forcing myself to say something is finished. Yes, there will always be room for improvement. (AARs show us that.) But, again for me, that needs to occur in the next tale. Publishing quality material on a regular basis is a must in my plan.

HANK: Do you have thoughts on the epidemic of illiteracy in our country in recent years?

PAUL: Mass media entertainment has contributed to this. People are simply turning their attention to forms of entertainment that only require passive participation. But I think the aforementioned war on normalcy from the entertainment industry have played a part in this too.

I don’t want to read any of the things that big publishers are producing. I suspect a lot of other people feel this way too. Add in the fact that so many people are now condemning American history and culture, and you have a society that actively is discouraging a lot of people to read. (A lot of fine literature is American. Beyond this, a lot of fine literature can be classified as being part of Western Civilization. And since our betters also condemn Western Civ as well as American culture and history, you have a lot of literature now that people are being told they shouldn’t read.)

Regardless, I spent a better part of a decade writing a lot of nonfiction opinion columns and articles on the decay of culture and society for some pretty well-known websites. That accomplished nothing. So I’ve abandoned that and now am focused on writing fiction instead of complaining. And that’s the best thing one can do when it comes to the state of literacy/illiteracy (or for anything for that matter): do instead of talk.

HANK: Sage advice, for sure.

I appreciate you taking the time for this dialog. Is there anything you’d like to add before we sign off?

PAUL: Buy my books and read my stories here at Virtual Pulp!

Again, I thank Paul for his patience and willingness to answer my questions so candidly. I’m thankful to have men like this out there fighting alongside me in the culture war.

In Part One and Part Two, we’ve talked Christianity, books, and raising kids. In this part of the interview, Paul talks a little about the military and Judgment Day:

HANK: Tell a little about your experiences in Military Intelligence, why you chose that MOS and what effect, if any, it had on your worldview.

PAUL: Everyone (enlisted, at least; likely officers too) who joins the armed forces takes the ASVAB—the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. What you score on that determines what MOS—Military Occupational Specialties—you’ll be eligible to be considered for. I scored high enough on the ASVAB and there were enough military intelligence slots left for that fiscal year (which was just at the end of FY2004) that I grabbed an all-source intelligence analyst MOS.

I was old when I enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve; late 20s. It was only a few years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. During those three years between the attacks and when I enlisted, I had thought about where I was going in my life (which was nowhere, really). And I thought about all the people (including people much younger than me) who were serving—who were risking their lives and even dying on the battlefield. Those two separate thoughts converged and I concluded, “Why am I not part of the armed forces too?” Thus, I enlisted.

Mind you, joining the Armed Forces goes against pretty much everything that is natural to me. I like to sleep. Some people would describe me as an introvert (others would not). I was not a hard-charging-I-can-conquer-anything person. I’m not big on camping out. I had lived a fairly sedentary lifestyle during the decade or so prior to enlisting. I had not done much traveling prior to enlisting. I had never considered joining the Armed Forces prior to 9/11. And so forth. So that was a massive decision for me. It was life-changing.

As far as how being in military intelligence changed my worldview, I don’t know that that did specifically. It was an interesting and rewarding experience (just going through the arduous process of obtaining a top secret security clearance was an experience). But that didn’t necessarily affect my worldview. Being in the Army Reserve did, though.

Being in the Army Reserve exposed me to more types of people than I had ever had the chance to engage with over extended periods of time. It wasn’t that I didn’t know such people existed, but I didn’t know how to act—to react—to them. I used to think that if one behaved properly and did all that he could to get along with people, then harmony would ensue. I was wrong, of course. That was a learning experience—an unlearning of what society had taught me and still teaches. There will never be harmony on earth because that is not what mankind wants. It goes back to the sinful nature of man. So without going into a lengthy theological explanation for all that, suffice it to say I learned that sometimes you cannot get along with others, that you cannot control others and sometimes (particularly in the Army) you’re just going to have to accept that you will suffer the consequences for others’ bad behavior despite it having nothing to do with you, and that sometimes you just have to fight for what is right.

HANK: I’m glad you shared that. The Army taught me a lot about human nature, too. Also group dynamics. I imagine myself to be an armchair social anthropologist ever since my active duty.

There is no telling what kind of chain-of-command you’ll be dropped into in the military. At best it will be a benevolent dictatorship. At worst…well, a living nightmare that can crush hope more thoroughly than an American female. And speaking of that: how far had the feminist social experimentation gotten by the time you entered the Armed Forces?

PAUL: Interesting comments about chain-of-command. Very true. As far as the feminist social experimentation, it’s like the rest of society. PC controls the armed forces. There is no pushback nor can there be. For to push back against progressivism is to be “hateful” and “wrong.” And so feminism and progressivism advance without opposition.

My military experience also taught me that one should never expect justice, pretty much anywhere in this world. I spent eight years in the Army Reserve as at least half of my own nation backed our enemies in war. Not only have they succeeded in helping our enemies kill troops and defeat us in war, but they’ve been rewarded for it; have convinced others that the U.S. was the bad guy for going to war. There have been no consequences for them and there will be no consequences for them, either.

Working against America and/or to help her enemies is the path to success and prosperity in the 21st Century—whether that path is military, civilian, political, private sector, and even in the Church. Anybody who denies this is part of the problem.

I also learned a lot of humility from my military experience. When I graduated from high school, I thought I was smart—smarter than most. I gradually learned how wrong I was after that, with the capstone being going through Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training. It’s not that I believe I’m stupid, but by the time I went through Initial Entry Training for the Army, I learned there were a lot of people who were either smarter than me in general, or smarter (and better) than me in all things military. You’re not really supposed to admit this. When you admit that you have flaws or aren’t the best at something people beat you over the head with it and use it to say something to the effect of, “See? Even he admits he’s incompetent!” This isn’t what I’m saying, of course. What I’m saying is that (again) my military experience affected my worldview by showing me that I had to rethink my beliefs about myself and others. Just as I learned to see the true negative aspects of others, I also learned to see the true positive aspects of others (and a lot of negative aspects of myself).

HANK: Ahh, humility. My best two-mile run ever was a 10:25…but that wasn’t even the best time in my platoon.

PAUL: I know what you mean. There are a lot of people with a lot of athletic ability. And many of them choose to do something other than professional sports. There are some exceptionally talented individuals in the Armed Forces.

So, to sum up how my military experience affected my worldview, it altered how I interacted with fellow human beings, altered how I perceived justice (the world is full of injustice), and altered how I view my fellow human beings. And it taught me a lot of humility.

HANK: Do you believe justice is even possible, at this stage, under human leadership?

PAUL: I don’t know. I certainly don’t expect to get it or witness it. So that either makes me an unwarranted cynic or I’m being realistic.

HANK: What is it that makes you tick, now?

PAUL: Judgment Day. As I get older, the day of my death inevitably grows nearer. So I am thinking a lot more about the day when I stand before God and He judges me.

This has made me reevaluate what it means to be a Christian. God sent His only Son Jesus to earth, born of the Virgin Mary as fully God and fully Man. He lived a sinless life, was crucified and died for our sins, and rose in the eternal defeat of said sin. He paid the price so we do not have to experience eternal damnation.

Christ’s death and resurrection is the only source of salvation. We cannot earn it. We have to have faith in His death and resurrection if we want salvation. Yet the Bible also says faith without works is dead. So I’ve been meditating on that a lot lately. What have I been doing in my life to show that I am a follower of Christ? Is my life showing that my faith is not dead?

So I think about that every day—pretty much all day. And when you consider that—when you consider that one day you will be judged to spend eternity in Heaven or eternity in Hell, pretty much everything else becomes meaningless.

Thus, many things that used to mean a lot to me no longer do.

HANK: You said a lot, right there. When we stand before the Creator of the Universe, we will not be judged by the ever-shifting goalposts of the world’s moral relativism, but by a righteous God who does not change. What we do in this life has eternal consequences, and only a fool stores his treasure where moth and rust destroy. When Jesus returns, I want to be busy doing my Father’s work

PAUL: Exactly.

HANK: How would you assess the entertainment industry in the current year; and fiction publishing in particular?

PAUL: If one is right-of-communist; right-of-satanic, the entertainment industry hates you. And anyone who pays a decent amount of attention to the entertainment industry should have this figured out by now. If one hasn’t figured it out, there is something wrong with him. And there’s nothing anyone will be able to do to change this fact.

This is not necessarily a depressing thing. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be. This is an opportunity for authors (like me!) to take advantage and to provide quality entertainment to a large group of people.

So as the fiction publishing industry ramps up its hatred of everyone who refuses to fully embrace evil, I’m not wasting my time complaining about it. I welcome it! I welcome the self-destruction and I am creating new tales for people to read and enjoy.

HANK: That is such a simple, and wise, strategy. I need to do the same, while we still have the ability to get anything published that does not conform to The Lie.

PAUL: That’s a good point. It really is a race against time.

HANK: Is there anything currently being published that you enjoy?

PAUL: No. And that goes back to what I wrote above. The publishing industry—book publishing, comic book publishing, and so forth—just hate my guts by way of hating what I believe. Why would I want to support them? Why would I want to fund them and thus fund their war on me?

Plus, I have plenty of better things to do.

HANK: I can’t argue with your logic, though I am always on the lookout for a good book that doesn’t sucker-punch me with the obligatory leftist messaging. And there is almost no escape from it. You can find books by a “conservative” (whatever that means) author, and you’re just as likely to wade through feminist and LGBT-pandering as you would have to when reading books written by their SJW competition. Read something by a “Christian” author—it will be seasoned with worldly rationalizations dressed up in spiritual semantics to scratch the itching ears of their Churchian audience. Find any author that rejects some aspect of The Narrative, and you will discover any number of other cultural Marxist messages sprinkled throughout.

I say “almost no escape from it” because Virtual Pulp authors are an exception. There might be other exceptions out there, and I’m always hoping to find some.

PAUL: That’s one of the things that drew me to Virtual Pulp. If we don’t become the innovators, no one else will.

TO BE CONTINUED…