Independent author Christopher Tait has written and self-published five novels and three short story collections. He has also written and directed six short films, some of which have played at festivals in and around Philadelphia. His short plays have also been performed at festivals by local theater companies.
Tait is a graduate of Father Judge High School and Holy Family University. He lives in Northeast Philadelphia with his wife, Freda, and their retired racing greyhounds Izzy, Hazel, and Truman.
Three Days in West Chester book summary
High school junior and drummer Derek Mooney isn’t sure what to expect when he becomes the only student from his school to earn a spot on a prestigious band made up of the top high school musicians in Philadelphia. Over a three-day rehearsal period at a school in West Chester, PA, he’ll have to deal with a conductor who takes an instant dislike to him, fellow musicians who don’t think he belongs there, a crush on a bandmate that he knows he can never be with, and a homemade spaghetti and meatball dinner that violently disagrees with him.
He will also play the best he’s ever played, make friends with students from a rival school, and fall in love with someone he’d never truly noticed before. All of this will happen when he spends Three Days in West Chester. Available on Amazon in print and eBook format.
Why do you write in the genre(s) that you do?
Some of my favorite books and films are about coming of age when you’re a teenager or in your early twenties. I’ve written in other genres before, but my mind always goes back to those days when you’re young and trying to find your voice and your place in the world.
Books by S.E. Hinton and Robert Cormier along with films by John Hughes and Richard Linklater have informed my sense of how stories like that can be told in an original and compelling way. So, I try to emulate those works when I’m creating my own stories.
Do you keep a notebook of ideas?
Not a physical notebook. I do have several Word documents on my computer devoted specifically to notes, ideas, and outlines for possible shorts stories and novels. I actually have two full synopses for novels that I hope to write one day.
What are your thoughts on typewriters?
I haven’t used one in over 20 years, and even then, it was an electric typewriter. I’ve never used one of the truly old-school manual ones.
How do you name your characters?
Coming up with character names is one of my least favorite parts of writing. For this novel, I did something that made naming my characters easier: I took character names from one of my favorite films about music (The Commitments), and I mixed and matched them.
If Hollywood bought the rights to your book, would you want it to be turned into a movie or series?
It would have to be a series. Far too much would need to be cut out for it to be a movie.
Who is your dream audiobook narrator?
For this book, I’d go with Miles Teller. His performance as an obsessed drummer in Damien Chazelle’s brilliant Whiplash makes him the perfect candidate for understanding this novel and for giving it the justice it’s due.
How many words or pages do you typically write in one writing session?
I usually shoot for 1,000 words each time I sit down to write. Some days are easier than others to achieve that goal.
For this novel, I found that my most creatively potent time was writing late Friday night/early Saturday morning. I could sometimes bang out 3,000 or even 4,000 words all at once. Also Sunday afternoons (later on, after I’m back from food shopping) saw me hit over 2,000 in one sitting several times.
Do you have any writing rituals?
Saving continuously. I’ve lost whole nights of writing following a glitch of some sort and now I compulsively save my work as I go along. I also still print out my writing and edit on paper with a red pen and use the same proofreading symbols and methods I learned in high school and college.
What are your passions/obsessions outside of writing?
Greyhounds, filmmaking, plays, music, and barbecuing.
Is there a book that somebody gave to you that helped you pave the way to becoming a writer, or is there a book on writing that you recommend all writers read?
In seventh grade, we read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton in our English class, and it completely blew me away. I’d never identified with a narrator/main character more than I did Ponyboy Curtis. He seemed a lot like me: an intellectual living in a working-class neighborhood whose friends were a lot tougher than him.
It spoke to me in a way no other book had before and showed me that voices like Ponyboy’s (or Hinton’s) had a place within literature. That emboldened me to finally start writing out all the stories I had in my head.
I would also recommend that aspiring writers check out On Writing by Stephen King. It’s a nice memoir about his life as a writer as well as a good instructional guide on how to get started writing a story. I love his notion of “writing with the door closed” while writing the first draft of your story.
Have you ever mentored another writer with their writing?
Not mentored, but I have been in some writing groups where I feel like I’ve helped other writers, and they’ve helped me.
Is there an idea that a non-writer has pitched to you that you have considered writing?
No, but I did pitch my services as a writer once. In the mid-60s, my mom went to Europe with her high school’s band, and they performed in a few different countries. They even performed in front of the Pope. They also went to Monaco and performed in front of Princess Grace.
My mom still keeps in touch with many of her friends that were on that trip with her, and I’ve offered a few times to write up an oral history of their trip, since it was a momentous occasion and should be preserved in history. The offer hasn’t been accepted yet but it’s still on the table, as far as I’m concerned.
Are you a big reader? Do you own a large collection of books, or are you more of a borrower?
The bookshelf in our house is stacked. We even have books stored in totes due to overflow. I also have a Barnes & Noble Nook which is chock full of books I still need to read on there.
Have you ever gone away to work on a piece of writing? If not, where would you go if you could?
Having a full-time job and a mortgage to pay makes it difficult to go away for an extended period of time to write, but if I ever had the opportunity, I’d probably go to one of the Jersey shore towns or even New York City to write.
I don’t think I could do that “go into the woods and live deliberately” thing; I’d need to be around people and be where there’s life. That’s what gets my creative juices flowing.
What is an annoying thing that a non-writer has assumed about writers or the act of writing?
Anyone can write.
True. I mean, Paris Hilton (of all people) made it onto the New York Times bestseller list, so that’s proof that anyone can put out a book.
But I’ve known many people who’ve started their first novels but never finished them, so the actual act of completing a novel is much harder to see through to the end than most people think. They think that you can just sit down and bang out an entire novel in one sitting, when in all truth, it’s a lot of work spread out over weeks, months and even years. It requires a special type of dedication that you either have or you don’t.
How do you measure the success of your writing career?
If I’m ultimately happy with the finished product that I put out. Selling tons of copies of a book I wrote but didn’t particularly like would feel hollow. I need to be satisfied with the final product in order to feel some level of success. And if you’re not satisfied with your own book, how can you expect other people to be satisfied with it?
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Check out my review of Tait’s YA novel, Take the Long Way, here!
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