What are the odds? Cape Fear native Jason Mott has had both of his novels – one just out, the other a 2013 release – picked up for the screen, an accomplishment that established authors would envy.

Mott’s debut novel, “The Returned,” published in August 2013, climbed The New York Times bestseller list and has been published in 13 languages (and counting). It was purchased by Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B, in association with ABC, and used as the basis of the television series Resurrection. The series began last March and kicked off season two Sept. 28.

The second of Mott’s novels, “The Wonder of All Things,” hit book shelves this month. Lionsgate has acquired screen rights to the book and promises a feature film that, according to Deadline Hollywood, “will be a collision between real-world reaction and supernatural events that are not
easily explained.”

Both of Mott’s novels center on small-town communities whose residents’ lives are suddenly made more complex by supernatural events that have both wonderful and troubling consequences.

And both stories were born, Mott said in a recent interview, from his own small-town upbringing in Bolton, North Carolina – where he still lives – and his strong sense of family.

“I only write about things that are honest and true,” Mott said. “I pattern book characters after people I know.”

Mott has no ready answers as to his success in getting two novels published by Harlequin MIRA in a publishing landscape that is experiencing seismic shifts and in finding that both novels had legs to carry them on screen. And he is emphatic that he wrote neither book with an eye to a film adaptation.

“I had no thought beyond publication with ‘The Returned.’ The TV people saw something they thought they could transfer [to a TV series],” he said.

Nor did he write with film in mind when penning “Wonder,” Mott said.

“This [concept] was an idea in my head that, after ‘The Returned,’ I pitched to my editor,” he explained. “She liked it; it went well. Like ‘The Returned,’ it has a patina of the supernatural, but it’s a family trying to figure out what to do, trying to build a new family. And the film people liked the family element.”

Mott had five earlier manuscripts in a drawer and a raft of rejection letters for “The Returned” when it caught the attention of an editor at Harlequin’s MIRA imprint.

Naturally, he pitched his second book to the same editor.

Was it easier to sell her on that second book?

“It’s still a very competitive market, and you have to work hard to pitch [a manuscript] to an agent, editor or publisher,” he replied. “They will listen to you [because of that first book], but it’s a harsh environment to work in.”

What about those five manuscripts in his drawer; will any of them see life as a book?

“They’re terrible books, but I might go back to them occasionally for a scene or a character. I look for diamonds in the rough,” he said.

There is nothing easy about any phase of authorship, starting with the first draft of a novel, Mott said.

“Your brain is not designed to tell a story of over 90,000 words, which is the average book length. I work from an outline, but everyone has to find their own pattern,” he said, adding that he tries to self-critique as he works. “You know [the story is] bad when you get bored with it.”

To maintain the integrity of his ongoing writing craft, Mott says he remains insulated from news about his books.

“I don’t read reviews or look at sales numbers,” he said. “If my agent tells me to put reviews on my Facebook page, I copy and paste them without reading them, so I can stay focused on my writing.”

That doesn’t mean he’s not  involved in promoting his books. His current book tour for “The Wonder of All Things” that brought him to the Wilmington Barnes & Noble on Sept. 30 takes him all over North Carolina as well as to Kansas, Oregon, San Francisco, Seattle, Arizona, St. Louis and the Chicago area. And that’s just between Sept. 20 and Nov. 12.

But the tour schedule was even more ambitious for “The Returned,” Mott said.

“As a debut author, there’s more promotion. You’ll appear at any bookstore, anywhere. For ‘The Returned,’ the tour was exhausting,” he said. “This one is a bit more measured; now I can pick and choose a bit. But in travel, you don’t see anything but the inside of the hotel, the inside of the taxi and the interview space.

“I got no pizza in Chicago, no cheesesteak in Philly. Once I forgot what city I was in and had to ask the taxi driver.”

Unlike some of today’s aspiring book authors, Mott had success with the traditional publication path involving an agent and a publishing house.

“For a period of time, I considered self publishing, but I wanted to go the traditional route because there’s more supporting structure. Self publishing involves a lot of self promotion. The traditional process, even though it requires promotional efforts, gives you more time to write. I spend the majority of my time working on new projects, and I’ve gotten good at writing on the go — in the airport, for instance.”

The writer, who earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in fiction and an master of fine arts degree in poetry from University of North Carolina Wilmington, said his first interest was fiction. He still occasionally writes poetry, saying it is a good way to let his brain decompress.

And although he is not involved in converting his books into screenplays, he would like to get into screenwriting at some point.

Mott declined to discuss what he’s working on at present, other than to say that the world of his third project is different from those he created in “The Returned” and “The Wonder of All Things.”

“The first two focused on family,” he said. “My focus now is on friendship and the family we make.”