Sling: Eric, your novels have been best sellers and on the top of everyone's reading list, how was the beginning author struggle, what kept you going, when did you know you arrived?

EJD: It’s all about dedication to the craft, as it is with any other occupation. Basically, you have to ask yourself: is this an occupation you like? Can you deal with the solitude and the deadlines? It’s a learning process, for all writers--newbies and the ones who have been around for a while. They learn that writing is one part, but selling to the unknown and unseen is the larger part in the end. You have hits and misses and learn from the latter and hopefully you continue to better yourself bit by bit. It’s not a relaxing occupation. It’s not an idiot’s occupation. It feels like being in finals week in university over and over again. Each book is starting over with a new blank page to taunt you, and with each effort you feel like you’ve arrived at a brand new semester, but you need the prior knowledge to keep on keeping on. It’s rewarding, but it’s not fun; you feel good after each achievement, but it’s not a barrel of monkeys. If there is a struggle, that struggle never ends. It’s about the start of the career, in my opinion. How do you see it? What’s your approach? What was important to me was getting a better understanding of the craft, and long before I considered trying to publish any work I enrolled in writing classes at UCLA. Being an author is a journey into both the unpredictable and the unknown. Not for fame. Definitely not for fortune. I simply enjoyed creating characters and stories. The entire career is a journey, its duration different for all involved. If you enjoy doing what you’re doing, that is more than enough to keep you going.

Sling: There have been many changes in the way authors publish and promote their books, especially with the decline of big publishing houses. What advice do you have to offer to those embarking on their own writing career?  What should they pay close attention to?

EJD: My advice now is the same as it was then. You have to study the market, the ever changing market, see what’s available and learn how to use it to promote yourself. But you have to have a product that is sellable before all of that. Many skip that part. They want to pass go and collect without going around the board. People need to focus as much on the craft as they do on trying to sell. If you skip the former you might have a short shelf life, if you make it the (these days, metaphorical) shelf at all.

Now it seems that a much heavier load has been placed on the writer to promote and remain active on social media, to maintain websites, which can distract many from their work. Actor/director Juney Smith once told me while we were working on a production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, “If you’re watching television all day, you’re watching other people work.” Well, if you’re on social media all day, you’re watching other people avoid work. Writing is writing is writing. 

Sling: Starting out as a writer you joined the IBWA (International Black Writers and Artists), through this membership you received scholarships to writing workshops. Do you feel being part of the IBWA assisted in your development as a writer? Do you feel that as a community we should all be an activate member of writing organizations?

EJD: Joining IBWA gave me the confidence I needed to make the transition from software engineer and entered a world I admired and respected, but knew nothing about. Novels were both magic and magical to me, and they still are. To start with nothing but a thought, an idea, and to solidify it with words, to have it become coherent and give suspense, or thrill, or mystify, that’s amazing. We work alone as writers, that’s just part of the creative process, be it in a small room, cafe, or in the attic. But we all need to confer with others sometimes, to share and get direction from those who have a great eye for both storytelling and the craft. We need to read to keep the brain active and we need to live life as well. Without IBWA, my life—so far as my career—might have taken a different direction. Each writer, as an individual, is different. You have to see the individual first. We’re not part of a collective. It’s more about what the writer needs at that moment, his or her temperament during that part of his or her journey. Some need company, others a shot of jack and coke.

Sling: In June of 2000 you embarked on a book tour to Paris, where you celebrated the French publication of Milk in My Coffee (Cafe Noisette) how were you received by your French fans?

EJD: That tour was amazing. It was my first time away from American soil and my first time being called an American. I was over there for the release of the French version of Milk in My Coffee. It was a small tour, as Paris isn’t that large but the tour was tremendous. I was struggling to get interviews in the US, but in France I was on their version of Oprah. I was the American no one knew, but everyone wanted to meet. They thought that I was part French, since my first and middle names, for them, are French. And I loved the way they spoke my name.

They had no idea that racism existed in America. They spoke about it like it had been wiped away. All they knew was what they had seen on television. I had to take a breath and gently correct them. I wonder what they are thinking now, close to two decades later.

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Anyway, I had an interview with a woman from Africa who was outraged that I was referred to as African-American, since she thought that all Black Americans calling themselves Africans was blasphemy. That was the only awkward moment. She was professional and her opinion was respected, although her angle threw me for a loop. I’d never had anyone of color look at me that way. I think she resented me, the book, its theme, and because she looked like she could pass for a cousin was sent to interview me.

I went to Paris as a celebrity, as an American writer, and I was simply referred to as an American writer for the duration, and the experience was awesome. Their respect for literature and their interpretation of materials both fiction and nonfiction remain unparalleled.

Sling: Along with your novels you have contributed short stories to several anthologies; the last I read was “Cafe Piel” in Got to Be Real: Four Original Love Stories. You even contributed to Black Silk: A Collection of African American Erotica (Warner Books). Do you find it a challenge to go from 300 pages to 30?

EJD: I started with short stories, then screenplays, and soon moved to writing novels. You recognize the type of story you’re doing and use the craft to make it happen. For example, what I covered in a few pages of The Education of Nia Simone Bijou could have easily been expanded to the length of a novel, but that wasn't the intent for that piece. I did a sci-fi short that was only 500 words or so back in the day. A story’s length all depends on the objective.

Sling: Along with your contemporary romance novels and short stories, you authored a six series graphic novel for Marvel Enterprises featuring Storm (X-Men) and the Black Panther. Plus the crime novels (Gideon Series) following the dangerous adventure of a professional assassin. How do you keep these intriguing characters separate in your head? Has there ever been a time they clashed within your imagination?

EJD: They’ve never really clashed. I guess you can say it’s like playing baseball, finishing up, then going to the sandlot to shoot hoops. They’re both sports, but they are different and each game has its own rules, but for each you have to flex the same muscles, only in different ways. It’s the same for the genres. At the core of all sports, there is training. Same for the writing. I took classes for romance, mystery, short story, novel writing, took seminars where they talked about writing eight hours a day for three or four days. You have to show up. You have to do the work. When someone hasn’t trained, you can tell. They tire. It becomes too hard because you don’t have the tools you need. The foundation is the training and enables you to transition from one genre and lend something to the other. I love doing a blur the genre lines, but I need to know how to do each separately for the mix to be effective.

​Sling: In 1998 you developed a screenplay "Cappuccino," which made its debut during the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles (directed by Craig Ross, Jr.)  Since then, have you been approached to write a screenplay for another of your novels? If you could choose one of your novels to be on the big screen, which would it be?

EJD: The (forced) relationship between literature and Hollywood amazes me. Maybe because once you enter that arena, you as a writer, well the writer of the novel, are basically paid to go away. They throw money at you, you throw them your book, and as you drive away you hope the money isn’t counterfeit. There are a lot of Hollywood horror stories. I backed away from screenplays and stuck to writing novels as a way to remove myself from that machine, yet I am thrown back in that direction all the time. It says a lot about America and what we see as validation; it’s like a novel itself will never quite be enough. I think every writer wants their books to sell like crazy because people simply love to read and enjoy what came from the author’s heart, as we’ve seen with Harry Potter and 50 Shades of Grey. I know how it goes.

I’ve had talks, some awesome lunches, but never made it over the hump. Signing a contact is a marriage and you have to be careful whom you marry, because one bad contract can leave you ruined while someone else profits from your intellectual property. Better not to sign than have many sleepless nights. As for which novel would I love to be able to buy a ticket for, grab some popcorn and Raisinets and watch on the big screen? Hard call. I’d prefer A Wanted Woman anything Gideon, An Accidental Affair, or Drive Me Crazy. Then there’s Thieves’ Paradise, but Sister Sister, Naughty or Nice, or Friends and Lovers would be just as fun. I’ll let you decide.

Each novel has its own personality and my nose remains too close to the tree to see the forest.