So you want to write a novel … Part 2

Posted: November 14, 2014 in Writing
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I felt compelled to expand on my last post – So you want to write a novel – because I’m passionate about doing what I really want to do in life and I’ve also received a great deal of feedback from many of you that apparently liked what I had to say the first time.

I’m a self-motivated, highly-motivated individual. I’ve always had a strong desire to do something when I put my mind to it, but as I’ve found, it takes help to not only start something, but to finish. I wasn’t always good at finishing.

Fresh out of college with a finance degree, I got a job as a stockbroker. The handbook of the day was “Think and Grow Rich” by Carnegie Mellon. He talked about getting that burning, white-hot desire for money. Honestly, I was a little put off by that. I’m not an overly materialistic person. I’m more interested in doing, in memories, in adventure. An extra thousand dollars in my savings account is nice, but I’m not going to work through the night for it. I will work through the night to finish something that satisfies me. For something that I will be able to carry around for the rest of my life.

Part of my motivation comes from being shy. Many times in my life I didn’t step up for what I wanted. And I regretted it. As I’ve learned, I only regret things I didn’t try. Because I’ll never know what would have happened if I asked.

Part of the apprehension that comes with writing is that you feel like you’re putting your inner thoughts on paper and asking people if they like it. It’s hard. It’s soul bearing. You feel absolutely naked in front of strangers. Very few people are natural writers, so the rest of us need help. We need feedback so that we can learn. Start slow. I employed professional editing services to give me constructive feedback and help me build up momentum. I never felt like I was being judged.

Most importantly, learn to be yourself. Speak your mind. The great writer and writing coach David Morrell (creator of Rambo) pleaded with us at ThrillerFest to do this. What you feel will come across in your words. If you’re honest…

No matter how I slice it, with my age, I’m half way through the movie. So I want to make the second half count. When I wanted to be a musician I played and practiced and worked hard and had a great time and career with some very great friends. When I wanted my pilot’s license, I did the same. Now that I circle back to the one thing I’ve done all my life – writing – I want to write and publish books. I want to give back to the collective that’s given me so much fun in my life. Books, adventure, vision, introspection.

I will drag my broken body across the finish line to complete what I started.

Find your motivation and you’ll discover it’s not as hard as you think.

Thank you all!
p.s. Today’s my birthday so I’m allowed a little soap box time 🙂

The Ancient Alaskan…

Posted: November 13, 2014 in Writing
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I just dig stories like this. For writers it can sound a little cliche. The northern ice melts, something scary is uncovered and suddenly there’s a problem.
But what I like about this story is that it’s real. Ancient infant remains found at a particularly well preserved burial site. Here’s where the writer in me comes out. What if the discovery also found an ancient relic or object that seems out of place or out of time? As if its symbol was tied to another culture on the other side of the planet and only showed up in history some several thousand years later?
What if we were able to extract DNA from this innocent child to find some new discovery in ourselves? What if it unleashed a terrible virus and no one in our time had immunity?
I know, this is not some super original idea. But I have this habit of having to tie everything back to something that actually could happen. I have always been a big fan of sci-fi and fantasy, but these days I need something a little more real. I need discoveries like this to keep it honest.
And who knows? Maybe the scientists did uncover something out of the ordinary and haven’t told us about it. Perhaps they’re already in the adventure of a lifetime. The Ancient Alaskan…
Check it out:
The Ancient Alaskan

So you want to write a novel…

Posted: November 12, 2014 in Writing
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Just had to share this story.
My Clark Kent impression of a day job is as a Sr. software engineer in the healthcare industry. A few years ago I was out of town at this huge and fantastic children’s hospital where we were deploying our product. At the time I was eagerly writing as much as I could, pounding away at the keyboard on my way to finishing my first 90K word novel Genetic Impulse.

I was in a Starbuck’s (yeah, inside the hospital – like I said, it was huge), and I overheard one of the executive administrator’s talking to the clerk. The lady behind the counter was asking him if he’d finish writing his book yet.
My ears perked up. Someone else writing? Awesome! I have to eavesdrop on this conversation.
The administrator replied “I haven’t actually finished it yet. Well, I haven’t actually started, but I do have all these ideas. And they’re going to be a smash. I can’t wait to be a successful writer and get out of this place.”
I almost choked from laughing. Really? He hadn’t written a word yet and here he was, ready to rub his colleagues noses in the fact that he was a writing super star. And he hadn’t written one word.

Here I was, scratching out time during the day, during the night, during lunch, wherever I could to continue getting better and more importantly, getting it done.

It is not an easy process. And as I’ve heard and learned, you have to love the process. You have to love writing. You have to love editing. You have to love networking and social media. You have to learn to take the bullets when someone doesn’t like or appreciate your effort. And if you do all that, you will have accomplished something the executive at the Starbuck’s probably never will. You’ll be a writer with a completed manuscript in your back pocket. And no one can take that away.

The takeaway? Don’t be that guy. Don’t be the smart mouth who never finished what he started. Or didn’t start. It’s taken me a while to get my daily groove on and light up the laptop screen with my best effort. So please, find your writing groove and don’t be that guy.

The real Avatar

Posted: November 7, 2014 in Writing
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So this posted science news I found was a little creepy. At first. The gist of it is that scientists were able to transmit signals from one person, port them over the internet and into the brain of another person and control the other person’s hand – within a split second of sending the signal.
I immediately began thinking of the implications and ramifications of work like this. Imagine using this kind of technology to murder someone through someone else’s body. I know, it’s not the first time this kind of idea has been spawned. But now there’s actual science behind it. It’s not complete science fiction.
Then I started to think about the movie Avatar. This would pretty much do most of it. You could create a biologic “shell” and live vicariously through it (somewhat). But that’s pretty far off. I’m more of a what-can-happen-in-the-next-few-days-or-months kind of guy.
And what of the scientists that created this amazing experiment? What might other unworthy powers want from them? A dying rich recluse…a desperate government that hatches a nefarious plan to take down a rival?
Oh, you could spin a million ideas around this. And like I said, it’s not science fiction any more. It’s science fact.

Check it out:
Direct brain interface between humans

Science in Thrillers Part 2

Posted: November 5, 2014 in Science and Technology, Writing
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Continuing with the thought about science and technology in thrillers, I will admit that I like to stretch mine just a little bit. Sometimes it may be the basis for a whole new business empire or just touch on something that could be extended and become reality. I am a huge science fiction fan, but I try to steer clear of getting too far out there.
So my book Genetic Impulse (which is not yet published) bends on the subject of something I watched on the Discovery Channel a few years ago. In the show, I watched a scientist run a fossil through a chemical process and actually come away with soft tissue. More incredibly, it was the fossil of a T-Rex!
Check it out: Discovery – Dinosaur DNA

So I thought, this is cool, but where could this research lead us? What can we get from it? Dr. Schweitzer made an incredible discovery, but the part that falls short is the fact that the soft-tissue does not contain DNA. So put away your Jurassic Park annual pass. That won’t be happening any time soon. Still, it was amazing.

What I took from this is the idea that you could perform this type of analysis on other fossils. In fact, why don’t we do this on human fossils? In my book, my fictional Dr. Susan Chang does do this on ancient human fossils and comes away with DNA (simply because it’s not nearly as old as T-Rex. No matter how you slice it, it’d be a one in infinity chance to find DNA that can last more than a million years.) Her discovery maps an interesting path from human ancestors to modern humans. What happens next will be delivered when the book comes out. But see how this one discovery can lead to something more interesting?

I equate it to the Jurassic Park simplification of ideas. Michael Crichton was brilliant with his ideas. Hey, let’s take a mosquito and drape it in amber, then extract it millions of years later and joila! we have dinosaurs! But what made this fun is that for the average person like you and me, it was enough to be believable. And that’s the trick.

I like to make my leaps a little more connected, a little more fact-based. But that’s me. I need to know it could really happen. Now if only I could have the same commercial success as Crichton…

Science in Thrillers

Posted: November 3, 2014 in Writing
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The rapid world of evolving science and technology has made great fuel for us as mystery and thriller writers. We’ve bridged the gap between what was once considered far reaching science fiction and good thriller fiction. Science and technology can help us produce new bad guys, new bad events and intricate ways to put our heroes and heroines in danger. As well as unique ways to get them out. All it takes is a little digging and some creative thought.

I was watching an episode of Castle the other night (yeah, a little soft on the thriller side of things, but hey, Stana Katic is uh, nice to watch), and they blend in some great little technical gifts that make the week’s premise fun. In this episode, the bad guy was using pictures of house keys to go back and ‘print’ them using a 3-D printer. Ingenious… I loved it. I’m sure criminals have already done this and the idea made its way to the show, but for the average joe, it makes the episode interesting. (At some point we’ll probably all have key fobs and chips like cars do to defend against such a tactic, but for now it is a little scary…)

But the point is, I find this kind of science or technology, and it’s not science fiction – it’s science fact, in a great many shows and movies today. I think it really helps open up the challenges our characters will face in their adventures.
What kind of tech trend can you use as a nefarious device in your book?

Quest for killer cover art

Posted: November 2, 2014 in Writing
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In my search for the right kind of cover art for my book, The Carrington Event, I’ve perused some websites that I like and some that I don’t. Well, many that I don’t. It’s tough to find someone to help deliver your vision or something that falls within your particular taste.
Here’s one I actually like. Found out later that they’ve also done work for my friend Joanna Penn. So they can’t be all that bad 🙂
CreativeIndieCovers

If you’re in for a bit of adventure, try hosting a design contest. 99designs has an amazing collection of authors vying to win your business. The hardest part with this approach is wording the ‘design brief’. The artists use this to work on your cover. But it’s probably a good idea anyway, because it’ll help you put down in words what you want. You’ll have to take the time to describe it the way you see it. So get crackin’ and let me know if you have any other good places or ideas to generate cover art that sucks readers in like a vacuum.

Writing prompt visuals

Posted: October 31, 2014 in Writing
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Ever have one of those days when you just need a writing prompt? Perhaps for a specific scene or entire book?
I stumbled upon this great collection of pre-made book covers – looking for a place to do the cover art for my next manuscript The Carrington Event. Looking at the fantastic art, it made me think of all sorts of new ideas, not just for new books, but even for individual scenes.
Now I’m certainly not saying you should steal any of these ideas, just use them to get a kick start for that next page. It’s amazing what a creative piece of art can do for your brain.
And who knows, you must just find a great company to do the cover art for your next book.
Check it out:
The Cover Collection

Lee Child

Posted: October 30, 2014 in Writing
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Lee Child’s character Jack Reacher is unbelievably successful. So much so that little Tom Cruise wanted to play the six foot five inch unstoppable juggernaut against evil.
It was great meeting Lee. His ultra candidness was refreshing. It’s like meeting the Simon Cowell of the book business. I found it completely invigorating.
Funny note: He was very obliging for an autograph in my FaceOff book – written by many of the authors that are members of ITW (International Thrill Writers) and present at the conference – I joked with him an apology that I wasn’t a beautiful woman putting my arm around him. He smiled and said “yes. that would have been much better.”
So blunt. Unapologetic, but yet it’s funny. It doesn’t feel crass when he says it. It is what it is. And I could appreciate his humor and wit.
Lee Child
Lee_ChildMe and Lee

Robert Dugoni – My Sister’s Grave

Posted: October 29, 2014 in Writing
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So proud of Robert Dugoni. As I sat and listened to him teach us at ThrillerFest this last July, I knew he was already a bestseller, but to see him hit #1 on Amazon, I am extremely happy for him. What he was teaching us was so clear and easy even I could understand it. Like I’ve confessed in an earlier post, after one of his classes, I ran up to my room in the Conference hotel and started shaking my latest manuscript around with the new found knowledge. And it was fun!
I’ve already signed up for next year’s ThrillerFest, with the added bonus of volunteering to help the organization, and can hardly wait to sit in one of his classes again.
Some people teach and some people do, but he does both. I’ve already purchased my copy and have it queued up to read after my current book. But I can hardly wait. It has consistently gotten 4.5 stars out of almost a thousand reviews.
Found this nice interview with him talking about My Sister’s Grave.
Check it out.
Robert Dugoni – My Sister’s Grave

Just a little proof that’s he’s on #1. At least at the time of this post. I’m hoping it continues for such a great guy.
Check it out:
Amazon Best Seller List

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