was the easiest, because there is a lot of me in
Joe.
Sylvia Plath) but let the reader know that you have
those arrows in your quiver (excuse the cliché).
What are your other hobbies besides writing
perfect thrillers/mysteries?
Can you share with us readers on plans for new
novels, if any?
I enjoy wood working, although I have not had time
to build anything lately, and I have rescued dogs in
the past, but with the travelling that I’ve been
doing, I’ll hold off on that for a while as well.
Right now I am working on a three book arc for
Max Rupert, The Guise of Another being the first of
the three. After that, I have a plan for a story for
Boady Sanden (the attorney in The Life We Bury). I
also have a plan to do a sequel for The Life We
Bury.
What is your advice to those wanting to
become writers?
Where can readers find you and your books
online?
My advice is learn the craft. No matter how
talented a writer may be, there is never a point
where he or she should feel that they have finished
learning. Even the most talented athlete still trains
and gets advice from a coach. I see so many
writers who think that once they have a good idea
for a story that they can just write that down and
have a novel. I think to myself that I should be able
to take any simple tale—say Jack and Jill went up
the hill—and, through craftsmanship, write a
suspenseful tale full of rich language. Once a writer
can do that, then they can tackle that wonderful
plot idea.
What three things would you say writers should
mostly focus on when creating their novels?
Characters: Make them complex. Everyone has a
history and that history dictates who we are and
what we think. Characters should have that
complexity as well.
Plot: Understand the three-act arc. Understand the
elements of plot that Joseph Campbell wrote about
(see also Chris Vogler). These elements have
been forged over ions of storytelling. Writers do
much of this intuitively already, but if they
understand what they are doing and why, they can
expand upon their story.
Language: Make it fresh. Every now and again I’ll
come across a line so well written that I’ll close the
book and just think about the sentence (usually
wishing that I’d come up with it). A book does not
need to be rife with this brilliance (we can’t all be
You can find my books just about everywhere
online, Amazon, B&N, KOBO, BAM.