MWSA Interview with RJ MacDonald

Date of interview: 6 November 2019

RJ MacDonald is an award-winning part-time author. He grew up in a small coastal fishing village on the east coast of Scotland. At fourteen he crossed the Atlantic to California and attended Cate School before studying both military history and social science at the University of California at Berkeley, where his visiting dissertation professor was Stephen Ambrose (Band of Brothers). After graduating with a double major, he enlisted in the US Marines as a reservist. Boot camp went well for the first five days until the drill instructors read his personnel file and discovered not only a, "Berkeley hippy freak infiltrating their Marine Corps," but also one with an accent, "You speak funny private, are you Russian?"

Meritoriously promoted to sergeant, he served in a helicopter support squadron at NAS Miramar and as an expert marksman and marksmanship instructor before returning to Scotland to complete two masters degrees and joining the Royal Air Force Reserves- "You speak funny sir, are you Canadian?" Parachute qualified with jump-wings from Holland, the Czech Republic and US Special Operations Command Europe, he deployed in as an operational intelligence officer with a RAF Puma helicopter detachment to Baghdad during the war in Iraq, and then again to Cyprus during the conflict in Libya.

Now a director within a small research company, he also serves on a Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) volunteer crew tasked with a 24/7 all-weather maritime search and rescue role in some of the world's roughest seas. He lives with his wife, three children and a very cute but equally stupid cocker spaniel, in the East Neuk of Fife, where he grew up. A member of the Historical Novel Society and Military Writers Society of America, he can often be found tapping away on his laptop while waiting for various after-school clubs to finish.

MWSA: Would you recommend MWSA membership to other authors?

RJ MacDonald: Absolutely. It not only gives authors, especially new authors, a platform to share their work, but it also gives them the opportunity to be reviewed and to win a respected award. Reviews and awards are gold dust to a new author. As I'm sure other writers can attest, once you've put the work into writing a book, and then being lucky enough to have it published, you sort of sit back and ask yourself 'now what?'. Having a friendly, approachable, resource like MWSA helps you focus your efforts in marketing your book, and in giving your work credibility- essential in today's crowded market.

MWSA: We don't often come across someone who has served in both the US Marines and the Royal Air Force, how did that happen?

RJ MacDonald: It is pretty rare, I've never met anyone who has joined the military on both sides of the Atlantic. I came from a military family, my mother's side of the family were from the Northwest Highlands, and had served in the Seaforth Highlanders, Cameron Highlanders and Scots Guards, I guess I just inherited that military service gene. I moved to California as a teenager, and after university I still wanted to serve, but had a full-time job, so I enlisted in the US Marines as a reservist. The DIs had a field day with me once they discovered my Berkeley background and Scottish accent. They made me 'music private' and I had to periodically march up and down the squadbay playing air bagpipes! The funny thing was, when we graduated, the Marine band droned into a Scottish bagpipe tune, I mean they really sounded like bagpipes. I stood there rock solid in my Dress Blues with the most gigantic lump in my throat and silent tears running down my cheeks. A coincidence? I'll never know, but I'll also never forget it.

I returned to Scotland 'just for a year' to do a master's degree, which somehow turned into staying forever. I was commissioned into the RAF Reserves in 2005 and although I obviously couldn't wear any US Marine insignia, I did have basic US jumpwings, which I was allowed to wear on my British camouflage uniform. That always raised a few eyebrows at inspections! Nowadays I serve on a volunteer lifeboat crew, and as we're not a military organisation, I can, and do wear, both my US Marines and RAF medals with pride during Remembrance Day services.

MWSA: Your debut novel, A Distant Field, is set during WWI. Did your prior service influence your storyline?

RJ MacDonald: To a degree, yes. WWI still resonates throughout Scotland. Not a single town escaped the death toll, and WWI memorials dot every village and glen. But my time and service in America had also made me aware of the service of Americans during the war, especially before America actually officially entered the war in 1917. American volunteers could be found in British, Canadian and French forces in large numbers, including those who volunteered to fight in the Scottish regiments (there was even a Scots-American Highlanders regiment- the 236th Maclean Kilties of America). I decided early on my main characters would be two Scots-American brothers who volunteer to serve in the Seaforth Highlanders, but I needed a reason for them to join, and to be in Britain, so I placed them on board the RMS Lusitania when it was torpedoed in 1915. The story just seemed to flow from that point onwards to the battlefield.

MWSA: What writing projects are you working on these days?

RJ MacDonald: I've got two projects I'm working on right now.

I'm finishing the sequel to A Distant Field, named The Chosen Heroes. It finds the main characters fighting alongside Australians and New Zealanders in the bloody battlefields of Gallipoli. It's classic backs-to-the-sea fighting. The allies had landed in Turkey trying to knock it out of the war, but instead found themselves hemmed into beachheads and being attacked by Jihad-sworn Turkish soldiers. It was a horrifying campaign, a real infantryman's fight against waves of attacking Turks with little support and truly dreadful leadership at the top. The allies eventually evacuated the remaining troops when their position became untenable. The campaign became a text-book study on how not to do amphibious landings, lessons that were studied not only by the US Marines prior to the WWII Pacific Campaigns, but also by the allies prior to D-Day and by the American forces in Korea prior to Inchon.

The second project I'm working on is a murder-mystery set against the backdrop of a lifeboat crew- The Brotherhood of the Sea. It's just something I've been toying with for awhile with a view to the British market. The volunteer lifeboat crews around the UK and Ireland are well known, respected and supported, and murder mysteries are always popular, so why not try to combine the two? It's very, very different from writing historical military fiction, so we'll just have to see how it goes.

MWSA: Do you have any top tips for fellow writers?

RJ MacDonald: Hey, I'm still trying to figure it all out myself! Probably the most obvious- just keep writing. I do it part-time, but I always try to write something each week, sometimes I manage chapters, sometimes only paragraphs, but just keep at it. Find yourself a good publisher. I was lucky and found one in Los Angeles that specialized in military novels- Warriors Publishing Group, headed up by Julia Dye and her husband, Dale Dye, who many might know as a Holywood military adviser and actor, but is also an award-winning writer. Julia's my editor and I can tell you now, if you've forgotten your English grammar (i.e. comma splices...), she'll remind you of it, frequently! And have fun with it. Writing leads you and your reader into another world for days on end, what an amazing gift.

MWSA: Any last advice?

RJ MacDonald: Network and embrace social media. I did the latter kicking and screaming, but now have a website (www.rjmacdonald.scot), Amazon and Goodreads profiles, a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/rjmacdonald.scot), have managed somehow to have gathered a dozen glowing reviews for A Distant Field, have published articles, and have even been lucky enough to have won a trio of awards, including a gold medal from MWSA.