A graduate of the University of Southern California, he worked as a screenwriter in Los Angeles for several years before moving to Japan in 2018.

Along with his wife, he created the blog As Seen In Japan  which features pictures and stories from everyday life in Japan, including animal cafes, funny mascots, and interesting convenience store items. You can find them on Twitter and Instagram @SeenJapan. 

Hello Gregg

Me – It looks like you have a lot of fun in Japan. 

Which aspect of the writing process do you enjoy the most? And why?

Gregg -There is one specific moment during the planning process: after I’ve spent a month or two making notes for a new idea, figuring out the characters and general series of events, I start on an outline, which can take months to complete. I do a full outline in the form you’re used to from school (with Roman numerals and all that) that can balloon to dozens of pages. It’ll have every chapter and scene, beat by beat, along with snippets of dialogue and some detailed descriptions that sometimes end up getting used in the final product. It can be tiresome, and sometimes I just want to get to writing, but I make sure to spend the necessary time on it so that once I’m writing, I have the outline to refer to. That way, I don’t need to stop and think; I just look at the outline and write what it tells me to write.

But there is ALWAYS a moment, as I’m doing that outline, where everything changes, where I look at the concept in a new way, or think of a brand-new twist to introduce, something that really upends and complicates the narrative, and I go, “Oh! THAT’s what the story is about!” Suddenly, something one-dimensional has become multi-faceted, layered, and complex, not just an idea I enjoy, but something I’m truly excited about, because I stumbled upon it by accident. I know eventually I’ll fall out of love with it (I generally don’t pick up my books and read them again after they’re done), but that moment when I finally figure out that extra dimension is what I live for.

Me – I admire how much planning and outlining you do for your stories. I am a pantser, but also love that ‘aha’ moment.

What distracts you when you are in writing flow? Is there anything you do to counter this?

Gregg -My wife and I live in a very small Japanese apartment, and she’s home sometimes while I write; there’s nowhere private for me to go. I have to deal with construction noise, people coming to the door, texts & emails coming in, and all of that. When I was younger, I hated interruptions, because I thought I might lose some magic that I’d gotten hold of and that my art was ever so important. But now writing is my career, and I treat my books the same way I treat the blogs I write for money: this is a job, and sometimes you get interrupted while you’re at work. No one’s job is important enough to snap at people for interrupting you or act all gloomy the rest of the day because you’re frustrated about what you’re working on. I sit down for an hour a day, do my work on my current novel, and then I close that file and get on with the other stuff on my to-do list. I don’t complain about the process to my wife or let my art interfere with our relationship, because in the end, it’s just going to become a book that I keep in a drawer.

Me – That’s a strong attitude to total distractions, and interesting that you see your books as work and something to put in a drawer when they are finished.

What part of the story pushes itself into your imagination first? Story premise, character, setting, plot, ending?

Gregg- I always have an image in my head of what the book is, something far away and poorly defined, but that I can see and easily imagine. I know exactly how I want to feel at those key moments of the story, and the work comes in trying to create something that matches that image in my head. Of course, it’s impossible to match that initial image, but knowing it’s there gives me a constellation to focus on. I don’t have to ask myself whether I like or dislike something in the book – everything is either correct or incorrect. If I read a passage and it’s incorrect, I rewrite it. Eventually, I’m able to read through the entire book and accept that I can’t get it any closer to what I’d imagined, and that’s when I stop.

Me – It is always a task to reproduce into words what you have imagined, but I can see how the correct or incorrect viewpoint may work. A good writing tip for those who struggle with rewriting.

How do you decide which story to write next?

Gregg - “Troublemakers” actually taught me an important lesson in this regard. I had really enjoyed writing my previous book, “Murder, She Vaped: The Ironic T-Shirt Caper,” and so when I finished it, I immediately started on a sequel. But then, a few months later, I got really excited about “Troublemakers” and knew I needed to do it, so I put the other book aside and ended up never picking it up again. That taught me that I needed to wait and let the next idea present itself, so after “Troublemakers,” I didn’t start anything new. I jotted down notes for some things over the first couple months of 2020 and waited. Then, sure enough, at the end of February, an idea took hold of me and I knew that was the next thing, which will become my new novel. There would have been no point in starting something before then, because I would have just abandoned it after getting so excited about this. From now on, I’ll let the ideas tell me when it’s time to write them. 

Me – There are many writers who swear by the once you’ve finished one book start the next, but I can appreciate the wait to see what fights for the prime spot in your story queue idea.

Which one of your stories reflects your life experiences the most?

Gregg - I like to write about people who, on the surface, are nothing like me: a middle-aged right-wing talk radio host, a young woman in her 20s in Echo Park, and three middle schoolers in South Central Los Angeles. What I enjoy about that is discovering what about them is like me, ultimately coming to a place where I can see the world through their eyes. No matter what character I’m writing, during the time I’m writing their dialogue, that’s me. I definitely pull all sorts of details from my memories and things I see, but the part I enjoy the most is crafting someone unique. Derek Severs is not like me, but he’s not like other talk show hosts, either. And while I don’t share much in common with the “Troublemakers” kids, they don’t have much in common with most middle school students, and that’s what makes them fun to write.

Me – It is funny that however different from us our characters are , there is always something of the author lingering inside them.

What is the strangest observation from the real world that has made it into one of your books?

Gregg -When I was very young, we were only allowed to watch certain channels in our house. I saw the Disney Channel and Sesame Street and Saturday morning cartoons, but that was it. On weekends, my mom would watch a lot of public television, sometimes just leaving the TV tuned to that channel even when she wasn’t in the room. Back then, PBS was where they showed a lot of British shows – Masterpiece Theatre, Rumpole, Jeeves & Wooster, Miss Marple, Poirot, and a lot of old British sitcoms. Between Sesame Street and all those English shows, I grew up with a little bit of a warped sense of what life would be like. I genuinely thought most people on Earth lived in quaint villages and spent their time gardening and drinking tea. Once I was six or seven and going to school, I found out through friends about all the other TV that was out there, and my worldview expanded considerably.

So, I thought, what if you tried to engineer this in a child? What if you WANTED your kids to grow up thinking old British TV was how life worked? That was how I came up with the character of Byron in “Troublemakers.” His mother wants him to be fancy and polite like an Englishman, so she only lets him watch PBS, forces him to drink tea, and urges him and his brother to read Charles Dickens. It’s a pretty off-the-wall idea, but it comes from my real life.

Me – He is a wonderful character and I’m surprised he comes from a real life experience.

Why did you decide to write for middle grade children?

Gregg - Originally, I had the idea for “Troublemakers” as a TV show. I’ve seen a lot of kids’ shows, and pretty much all of them feature happy two-parent families that love spending time with one another, and the kids always have such a great time at school with their loyal friends, which doesn’t match my experience at all. I hated being a kid; I hated going to school; I had very few friends, and they did not stick by me through thick and thin; my family absolutely did not get along like the people on TV. When I was a kid, there were no shows for people like me – other than “Wings” and “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” I don’t remember watching any shows that displayed family dynamics I could relate to. I wanted to make a show for kids that reflected the world as I knew it, where the kids aren’t happy being kids, aren’t nice and sweet, don’t like going to school, and don’t have white collar dads and homemaker mothers and suburban houses. I have a notes document on my computer where I jot down ideas, and I wrote down “TV idea: Troublemakers – It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia or Workaholics set at a middle school.” Then I forgot all about it for a couple years.

By 2019, I was living in Japan, and I read a book I thought was fantastic. I thought to myself, “Man, if I were still in Hollywood, I would totally try to make a TV show out of this.” Then it occurred to me that since I was no longer in Hollywood, why not go the other direction? Why not take one of my old TV or film ideas and turn it into a book? I went through my notes and saw the logline for “Troublemakers,” and I just knew it would work. I don’t read middle grade books, and I think that worked in my favor, because I wasn’t influenced by what most authors are doing. I wrote what I would have wanted to read when I was 12, and I think I’m more proud of this book than anything I’ve ever written.

Me – I love how you wrote this with your middle grade self in mind. I think that is another great writing tip.

Which has been more challenging – writing for adults or writing for middle grade?

Gregg - Unfortunately, they ended up being the same thing, and by that, I mean that while “Troublemakers” is a middle grade book, based on what I’ve seen, the majority of my readers are still adults. This is probably for a few reasons: adults are likely to have Kindle Unlimited, where my books can be read for free; kids of that age don’t shop online for books, and don’t usually ask for them at Christmas; thanks to Harry Potter, many adults are eager to try books for this age range; families don’t read books aloud as much as they used to; and most importantly, sixth graders in America have way too much homework and are too busy reading the books they’re assigned in school to have time to read for fun. I’d love to fix this last problem, because I know that when I was in middle school, I didn’t like most of the stuff we read in school. I wrote “Troublemakers” because it’s the type of book I wished a teacher had given me in sixth grade.

Me – My middle grade books has also been read by more adults than children, but I designed it to be enjoyed by an adult reading it aloud as well as a child reading it to themselves. I think it’s hard to get a middle grade book to the audience it is meant for especially when school visits and book readings in libraries are not possible.

Do you have a writing tip for other writers who wish to tackle a middle grade book?

Gregg -Respect your readers’ intelligence. Kids spend so much time getting talked down to, they don’t need it from you. Instead of writing young people the way they sound to you as an adult, try to remember that they don’t see themselves that way. They can handle complexity and don’t need easy answers. Also, you should know going in that Middle Grade does not sell anywhere near as well as Children’s or Young Adult, so be prepared to work for those readers. Nobody told me.

Me – Thank you. I do think if you are writing as a job you do need to take into consideration how easy it is to reach the desired audience.

Thank you so much for your fun, interesting and detailed answers, it’s been a pleasure chatting to you.

If you wish to learn more about Gregg and his writing, please visit-



https://www.greggmaxwellparker.com

https://www.asseeninjapan.com

https://twitter.com/SeenJapan

https://www.instagram.com/seenjapan/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16335550.Gregg_Maxwell_Parker