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On The Table Read Magazine, “the best book magazine in the UK“, author Glenn R. Miller shares the inspiration behind his new book, Doorman Wanted, and his creative writing process.
Written by JJ Barnes
I interviewed Glenn R. Miller about his life and career, the story of Doorman Wanted, and his creative writing process.
Tell me a bit about who you are.
I am Glenn R. Miller, author of Doorman Wanted (Koehler Books, March 26, 2024), a book that takes place in New York City’s Upper East Side.
In my professional career, I was primarily involved in corporate video and event production, producing for large national or multinational corporations based in the Twin Cities. Prior to my corporate work, I was a news producer for a CBS affiliate and a unit manager for NBC Studios in Burbank, California.
When did you first WANT to write a book?
Since childhood, I have been a voracious reader, finding the act of reading to be simultaneously stimulating and relaxing. Given my love of the form, I think I had the idea of trying my hand at it since I was a kid. Shortly after college, I took a stab at a few short stories, submitted them to magazines and journals, and got nothing but rejections.
As my professional life became more demanding of both my time and my creativity, I put the evening and weekend writing aside, but always with the hope and intention of returning to it.
Once my wife and I became empty nesters and I began winding down my career, I had more time available to me. I returned to my enjoyment of writing, this time with a firm idea in hand for the framework of Doorman Wanted.
When did you take a step to start writing?
In downtown Minneapolis, there is a wonderful nonprofit writing organization called The Loft Literary Center. I began taking writing classes from the center with the intention of working on and workshopping passages and chapters of the novel that eventually became Doorman Wanted.
The feedback I received from the instructors and fellow students proved to be both encouraging and invaluable. In fact, during one of the evenings in which I was workshopping my opening pages, one of the students asked me a question that helped clarify the solution to a plot element that I had wrestled with for months.
I went home that night, wrote a new opening chapter and reworked the following five chapters. It was that aha moment, those interactions with other writers, that allowed me to finally complete my novel.
How long did it take you to complete your first book from the first idea to release?
Ah, yes… the “how long” question. It took me fourteen years. Whenever I tell someone that, I fully expect them to respond with, “What did you think you were writing, War and [f-ing] Peace?!” Quickly, and, perhaps, over-defensively, I say that, yes, well, I was in the thick of my career and my wife and I were raising two active teenage boys.
I marvel at the tales of Dickens writing A Christmas Carol in six weeks, Kerouac finishing On the Road in three weeks, or Simenon spitting out his Maigret books in a matter of days. But I know writing is not a race and if the activity were to ever have stopped being pleasurable for me, I would have set it aside. But I always enjoyed returning to the world that I had created and to the characters who populated it.
How long did it take you to complete your latest book from the first idea to release?
I am nearly done with the first draft of my second novel, tentatively entitled The New Religion. I have been working on it for eight months. As opposed to Doorman Wanted, this novel feels like it is gushing out. I started it immediately after my publisher purchased Doorman Wanted.
At the end of my first phone conversation with the acquisitions editor, he asked, “Are you working on another novel?” I spluttered, stammered, and finally said, uh, yes, starting tomorrow morning. I had been kicking around the idea for this novel for about a year but, considering how difficult the act of writing a novel can be, I was not going to set fingers to keyboard without a good reason to do so. Selling Doorman Wanted provided that reason.
Who or what inspired you when creating your Protagonist?
My protagonist, Henry Franken, is a confused young man. He inherits a massive estate when his father dies, including an Upper East Side condominium building. In order to hold off the responsibilities of his wealth, he assumes the position of doorman while secretly living in the penthouse as the “absent” building owner.
The book is intended to humorously look at wealth, status, and misperceptions related to both. I wanted to explore the concept of how quickly we humans categorize the individuals around us, and how often we are mistaken in our classifications. My protagonist is far from perfect – he makes the same mistakes that those around him do.
Did you plot Doorman Wanted in advance, or fly by the seat of your pants and write freely?
I know John Irving has been cited as being the type of writer who, when starting a book, has no idea where his characters will take him. It’s worked for him beautifully, but I can’t conceive of that process. Ever since learning the skill back in Miss O’Brien’s 6th grade social studies class, I have been a firm adherent to the practicality of an outline.
For Doorman Wanted, I constructed a very detailed outline, describing characters’ narrative arcs, who contrasted with whom, etc., perhaps to an excessive – and restrictive – degree.
In the novel I am currently working on, I have lightly outlined the chapters, allowing enough air and open space for characters within chapters, allowing them to move about on stage, so to speak. A lighter outline has taken me in some surprising directions while staying true to the overall narrative thrust and themes.
Can you give me a hint about any further books you’re planning to write?
The book I am currently writing, The New Religion (working title), is focused, broadly, on censorship, more narrowly on film censorship during the 1920s. It is intended to reflect current efforts at censorship, most notably in public libraries and school districts. Whereas Doorman Wanted employs a gentle humor, The New Religion is intended to be more cutting. I am hoping to have the first draft completed by May, 2024.
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