Colin Dodds and Watershed

Get to know Colin Dodds, White Ash contributor and author of the dystopian thriller Watershed.

As a previous writer for White Ash, we know that you've published both poetry and fiction. Can you tell us how you began writing
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  I started very early. My first memory of writing was age seven or eight--a Godzilla-   with-a-heart-of-gold type thing. I was in class, where I’d usually occupy myself with   anything but schoolwork. But writing that story was a strong, distinct experience. It     did something to me. I filed it away right then and held on to it. 

  Your book, Watershed, is a dystopian thriller about a pregnant woman and       her suitors in the future. How did you come up with the idea behind the book?

​  I’ve written some cynical misadventures in the past, and I wanted the center of the     action to be something a little warmer and human. Protecting a child fit that bill.

 
Can you tell us a bit more about the plot?

The plot takes about 350 pages to unfold, and the book isn’t really that expensive. So I’ll stick with the blurb, and let the book do the rest:
Brave young men and women hiding from wireless signals, prostitutes in parachutes and the ceremonial re-destruction of the World Trade Center. The future's about to be born, but who will change the diapers? WATERSHED is the story of a troubled, pregnant woman, and the two men—a snake dealer with a sideline in secret messages and a billionaire living under a false name—who vie for her. As their struggle takes them through a near-future America of anti-technology enclaves and illegal hospitals, where stockbrokers moonlight as assassins, nurses procure obscure pleasures, a deeper and deadlier mystery emerges...
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At White Ash we love to see strong female protagonists. Your protagonist is a strong woman who is also troubled—and pregnant. How did you come to the conclusion that your protagonist should be pregnant?

Life has a way of drifting along—you try things out, push here and fall back there. And the opening of the book has the three characters sort of drifting in their own ways. Raquel’s pregnancy puts a clock on everything. It forces action. It makes her more vulnerable, but also more decisive. She is a troubled character when the book opens. But the pregnancy forces her to try to see past that.

Watershed makes use of a lot of controversial topics. How did you decide to reference the events of 9/11 and how did you make sure your references were respectful of the original event?

They sold a 9/11 cheese board. Imagine a loved one of yours was killed, and somebody made a cheese board to commemorate it. The scum have built a 9/11 museum that charges $24 a head ($18 for veterans!) to look at the very best wreckage from that mass slaughter. I don’t even want to get into what’s in the gift shop. I don’t even want to get into the wars, and how they worked out for everyone. Compared with a response that ranges from tacky and ghoulish to more or less unthinkable, I have to admit that I lack the imagination and the force of will to be even close to noticeably disrespectful of that event. I can’t keep up with the real pros. So I didn’t worry too much about that.

The reviews of your book make it clear that this is a very unique read. One from IndieReader Reviews even points out an instance in which a man "gets off on being locked in a coffin with a bag full of cats." How do you find the balance between provoking and relatable?

The range of human desires and experiences is wide. If you can imagine something, someone’s probably tried it. The bag of cats just came to me one night when I was falling asleep, and our cat jumped on my back. The kind of shaky pressure of each paw on the muscles of my back felt nice. And then the cat jumped off. I started thinking of ways to replicate that, and mentally sketched out a coffin you could fill with cats with a face hole on the bottom and a pair of thin but tough sheets that would allow for that pressure while protecting the person below from claws, urine and so on.
And then I thought of who would build such a thing, who would deliver and remove the cats and so on. Before too long I had a cool scene that told the reader a lot about one of the characters, while they had a conversation that moved the story along.
With a little imagination and empathy, you can make the strangest and most perverse scenario relatable.

Is there anything you'd like readers to know before they pick up Watershed?

It’s a great read. Friends and strangers tell me as much. And here are what the reviewers have had to say, a month away from WATERSHED’s pub date: 
 “(R)eaders will never be quite sure what lurks around the next corner… An appealing mix of adventure and contemplation.” -Kirkus Reviews 

“(T)he world of WATERSHED is a vibrant one, packed to the gills with absurd and yet oddly-believable detail – everything from a September 11th memorial service that involves a full-scale recreation of the original terrorist attack, to a man who gets off on being locked in a coffin with a bag full of cats... Dodds manages to make all this and more seem not just possible, but vivid and tangible too.... It’s the real deal…a strong contender to be one of the most interesting books you’ll read this year.” -IndieReader Reviews (4.7/5 Stars) 

"The masterfully dystopian WATERSHED unpacks the future of a modern America that, while spectacular, nobody was expecting… It’s a future that, as Leonard Cohen sang, is murder. The revelations of prose in WATERSHED makes that murder enjoyable… one of the few things worth believing in.” -Two Thirds North

Watershed is currently available on Kindle. Is it available anywhere else?

You can get cheaper versions of the e-book and the paperback here, for a little while and a paperback will be available all over the place (B&N and so on) by mid-May. 

Many of our readers at White Ash are also writers. Do you have any advice for them regarding finishing and publishing work?

Finishing is tough. I’ve seen a lot of people not finish a lot of books. There are two immediate reasons I see for not finishing: Either you stay obsessed and can’t call the book done, or you get exhausted with the subject before you can do the work justice. It’s a question of timing, of threading the needle and wrapping things up after obsession has passed but before exhaustion can make me lazy about the details. Know your own feelings as the work progresses. Then either clear your calendar and hurry up, or take a break, as needed. If you’re obsessed for 5 years or 5 months, then that’s how long the book takes. It’s not an exact science. Just be honest with yourself and try to have a sense of that going in.  
Publishing is a whole other question. And whether you’re trying to get in with a big house or going it alone, there are better authorities than I. Regardless of how you go, it will be hard. You will be rejected and resisted. So you need to believe in your book in a fire-and-brimstone way. You have to put in the heart and work in order to walk that dubious and crappy path to its end.  

We look forward to seeing more work from you! Are you planning on writing or publishing more books in the future?

I finished a book about the communications department in the Tower of Babel not too long ago. Right now, an agent is pitching it hither and yon, and I’m placing some chapters of it as short stories here and there. Also, I just wrapped up a short cycle of poems last week. So I’m well and truly exhausted. But I may send that one around soon. 

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