Donald L. Ball
Donald L. Ball considers his service in the US Navy as one of the proudest events in his life, because it furnished him with the opportunity to break free of the microcosm many young people face during their malleable growing years. Jocks hang out with jocks. Musicians hang out with musicians. Nerds hang out with nerds. And so it went, until standing shoulder to shoulder with black guys, white guys, some with college educations, some who barely squeaked in on the IQ tests, tall guys, short guys, guys from all over the country. This obligatory link forged an appreciation of all their combined skills to address one common goal—get the job done.
After his stint in the Navy, and now married to his wife, Bev, he attended San Jose State University where he earned a BA in Music, and continued on into grad school and earned a secondary teaching credential with a philosophy minor—a real money-making decision that was he always adds. Ball considers this foundation an attribute to his writing technique where he cannot simply write “he said/she said” kinds of mysteries, but has to include social comment as well as thoughts to chew on. Subtle of course, but nevertheless more than “here’s what happened, and this is how LE found the perp.”
Unable to find a teaching position after graduation—he once applied for an opening along with about 400 other applicants—he resumed his background in engineering. Not artistically fulfilling, he sang with opera choruses in San Francisco and Oakland, California. As an aside, he didn’t get the teaching job mentioned earlier, but did take solace in knowing there were 399 other losers, also.
His philosophy of mystery writing hinges on two critical items. One is he believes we, as a society, have lost touch with the number one. That means multiplicity has crept into our idea of what represents critical moments in our lives, as if it doesn’t involve multiple acts of rape, murder, or terror, it isn’t worth writing about. He challenges anyone who may be of this mindset to ask themselves how they might feel if just the spouse, or just one child was killed, would it not be of equal import to the families of those victims? His easiest way to make the point is to ask the woman who has just been raped if she feels one-tenth the pain just because there were nine other women who’d fallen prey to the same deviate?
The second in his list of writing tenets concerns location. Years ago, he tired of the “Streets of—” setting. Crime of significance only happens in New York, Chicago, et al. As an avid backpacker in his younger years, he and his wife would travel to rural and remote areas in the California backcountry, and sit and gaze at the idyllic surroundings while he was wondering—in his sick mind of course—what could possibly go wrong?
Every writer must have their own voice, but that does not mean others have not given them a perspective on life in general. For Ball, he follows Cyril Connolly’s philosophy: “Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” Spoken like a true artist destined to live out a life of poverty. The second person to influence Ball is the satirist, Mort Sahl. It was Mort Sahl’s routine on the desensitization of the masses through the media—at the time, film—that swung Ball away from the gratuitous violence arena. Is crime violent? Yes, but does the writer have to describe it in vivid detail? An argument can be made for either side, but Ball made his choice, and opted for the psychological impact rather than the “run for the toilet” strategy.
The third person who had an impact on Ball’s approach to life in general was a gentleman named Commander Mansfield when Ball was in the Navy. Soft spoken, confident, knowledgeable, charismatic, gentle, the antithesis of rude, never spoke down to anyone, were but a few of the traits this three-striper possessed that Ball admired and tried to emulate.
While employed at a multinational electronics firm, Ball was afforded the opportunity to travel to Europe and China. He found learning Mandarin Chinese quite a challenge. When someone asks about his prowess at speaking Chinese, he always says he knows just enough to get his face slapped by an attractive Chinese waitress.
Donald Ball is a member of the Willamette Writers Association of Portland, Oregon, and looks forward to spending an entire weekend each year amongst—writers. It can’t get any better than that.
