Author Interview: 4 Questions about Andrew Crusoe’s Hawaiian Travel Memoir

Craving travel adventure? Check out Andrew Crusoe!

Thanks to the Internet, I’ve made some wonderful friendships with other writers; I count Andrew Crusoe as one of them. Back in 2015, I even had the pleasure of meeting him in-person. (Scroll down for proof!)

When we first met, we were both primarily travel bloggers. Now, we are both book authors and speakers. It’s been fun to see how our lives and our writing have evolved!

Andrew’s latest book project is a memoir about his life on Hawaii called Ten Thousand Hours in Paradise. I really enjoyed it! In addition to following Andrew’s personal journey, readers learn about Hawaiian culture, language, customs, food, and all the unique characters he meets along the way. Andrew lets us in on his emotional journey as well, which kept me eagerly turning pages right up until the end!

Since the 3rd installment of Andrew’s trilogy is about to be released, I’ve invited him over for another one of my 4 Question Author Interviews. I hope you enjoy it! 

1. Tell me about Ten Thousand Hours in Paradise. What made you decide to write a memoir?

I love this question. The funny part about it all is, the word “memoir” didn’t even enter into my mind until after I’d finished writing the first draft. I just wanted to share how Hawai’i, aka. the Big Island, completely changed my life. Only after I’d finished did I realize that, technically, I’d just written a memoir. And the best part was yet to come.

2. Was it always going to be a trilogy?

That’s another element that I didn’t plan. My first draft was around 750 pages, which is more than twice the length of any book that I’d released up to that point. I considered how much work it would be to edit a book of that length and polish it to the level I desired. (I’m a perfectionist with my books, often reading them multiple times, out loud, to see how they sound, before I publish.)

I reflected on this dilemma for months as I read it for the first time. At one point, I even broke it up into 6 parts, until it hit me: since I’d lived in 3 different places, the story lent itself most naturally to 3 volumes: Arrival, Tribulations, and Reckoning.

3. What did you learn from writing about your life? Were there any surprises?

At first, it took some adjustment. Being the main character and also the author can be a strange experience, almost like lucid dreaming. It would have been trivially easy to sweep my mistakes under the rug and fall into self-aggrandizement.

But as tempting as it was to leave out some embarrassing moments, they added to the story and painted the most accurate picture of my time work-trading and exploring the Big Island. It was also a fun opportunity to share some behind-the-scenes aspects of when I was writing my Tropical Sci-Fi novel, The Island on the Edge of Forever.

It’s quite easy to succumb to fantasy when talking about the island, but I wanted to go deeper than that. I wanted, as much as possible, to show the full picture, the full reality of living on the Big Island, an island so large that all of the other Hawaiian Islands could fit inside of it. As I wrote, I realized that this goal fired me up the most, so I ran with it.

I think the most surprising part came when I saw patterns that I hadn’t noticed before, things that only clicked together when I was editing Volume 3: Reckoning, which comes out November 29th, 2019. I won’t spoil anything, suffice to say that thoughts DO become things, especially on the islands. Also, I noticed that certain things were foreshadowed months before they actually happened, like doing the 10-day silent Vipassana course. That felt pre-destined.

4. What can readers expect from you in the future?

Honestly, this will be my 3rd book release in 12 months, so I’m going to be taking some time to reflect on how I want to move forward. I have an idea for another Tropical Sci-Fi book, something that’s more sophisticated, and frankly, weird, than anything I’ve done before, but I’m not putting any timeline on that project quite yet.

In the short-term, I’m going to be focused on marketing, really taking intelligent steps to get these books in front of the people who will benefit most from them. Who knows, maybe I’ll finally figure out a Facebook ad that’s worth it! But my mailing list continues to be my favorite way to remind people that I exist (as well as give free stuff away).

In fact, I give the first 4 chapters of the trilogy away for free in EPUB & gorgeous PDF to everyone who signs up for my monthly mailing list. About once a month, I spend an ungodly amount of time crafting a few paragraphs that will delight you. I know people have a million places to turn to for entertainment these days, so I work hard to rise to the top and provide something inspiring and of quality. It’s called the Crusoe Mailinglist, and you can subscribe and unsubscribe anytime on this page: http://bit.ly/THELOOP

Thanks so much, Tui, for having me here today. Considering that we originally connected through our travel blogs, it feels perfect to be interviewed by you about this book about my Hawaii travels. Since my first blog focused on travel, I feel that my career has come full circle, and I can’t wait to see the bright things the future has in store for both of us :)

Learn more about Andrew Crusoe:

BIO: Andrew Crusoe is an author, podcaster, and speaker. His first novel, The Truth Beyond the Sky, gained attention for successfully predicting gravity waves, years before they were proven by LIGO in 2016. Plus, it’s a really fun tropically-inspired Sci-Fi adventure that still manages to have a high average rating after all these years.

He also has a Patreon, where, for the cost of a cheap cup of coffee per month, you can get early chapters of upcoming books for free, and even unreleased photography from his True Hawaii adventure. http://bit.ly/growjoy

He also lives on Instagram way more than he should: http://bit.ly/alohacrusoe

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