Oakdale Writer Tells His Story

Oakdale resident, Bruce Bethke is a fiction writer and founder of The Friday Challenge, a weekly writing contest. Oakdale Patch reporter Mary Buelow sat down with Bethke to talk about his current projects and past accomplishments.

Oakdale Patch: In your story, In Loving Memory of Newspapers you write about a letterpress you had as a child. Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?

Bruce Bethke: No, I wanted to be a musician. Being a writer was Plan B. I started playing piano at the age of 7, but was bored to tears by the time I reached high school. In college I discovered electronic synthesizers, which I pursued very seriously for a long time. I never really imagined that I would be a writer. But it’s fun; it’s simply just fun for me. 

Oakdale Patch: What was your first writing job?

Bethke: My first writing job was at an electronic music company. They had great instruments and software, but their documentation needed work. I rewrote it and they were very happy with what I did. 

Oakdale Patch: You have published five novels, which did you enjoy writing the most and why?

Bethke: Headcrash, definitely. It was very fun to write.  I wrote that book backwards. I wrote the ending first then went back and figured out what had to happen to set up that ending. I really should do that more often because it really works for me. 

Oakdale Patch: Is there anything that inspires you as a writer?

Bethke: Ideas are everywhere and original ideas are a penny a pound. I see something that strikes me odd, amusing or interesting and I think, what if just one thing about it was different? Then I take that and turn it into something new. 

Oakdale Patch: What do you think are the biggest challenges as a writer?

Bethke: Literally the biggest challenge I have is finding all the time I want to write without shortchanging my family.

Oakdale Patch: Greatest satisfaction?

Bethke: When you write a book, you are asking the reader to take their precious time to read it. So the best thing that comes out of that is having readers enjoy my work. I also get a lot of fan mail from young children and teenagers. It makes me happy just knowing that they are reading! I also ran into Ray Bradbury at a convention. He recognized me and told me he enjoyed one of my stories. That was pretty exciting for me. 

Oakdale Patch: Tell me about The Friday Challenge.

Bethke: The Friday Challenge is not a writer's workshop, we don't charge tuition, require registration, or keep attendance as people drop in and out, and back in again. We don't run courses, work through a textbook, or follow any lesson plans. Rather, The Friday Challenge is, at heart, a motivational methodology. Each Friday we present a new challenge in the form of an idea or a question. Then the writers take up the challenge, run with it, and see where it goes. The next week we compare results, a winner is declared and a new challenge issued.

Oakdale Patch: Tell me about your most recent release, Stupefying Stories: “It Came From The Slushpile.”

Bethke: It’s simply a collection of stories from The Friday Challenge.  A couple years ago my wife and I started a small company, Rampant Loon Press. We wanted to use it to target people who really needed to get to a larger audience.

Oakdale Patch: What are you working on right now?

Bethke: I am always working on a lot of different things, but right now we are concentrating on Stupefying Stories 2, which should be out Oct. 1.