Every now and then, I get questions from readers. In this article, I answer some of those questions.
If you have any questions for me, please leave them in the comments section below, and I will answer them in a future Q&A.
Here goes:
How do you get inspired to write?
My inspiration comes from within. Many years ago, I thought to myself, “I know that life is short. How can I leave something that will leave a mark, and possibly be discovered by someone a hundred or a thousand years in the future?”
Writing a book was my answer. Now that I’ve completed a third, half of another, and started a fifth, it’s an addiction. I am driven to complete what I started, and I want to do it in the best possible way.
Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?
I got the idea while I was on vacation in South Carolina. My wife and I watched a show on the History Channel about pirates, and Blackbeard in particular. It struck me that he had been in the same waters three hundred years before.
During that same week, I learned about how the first settler to the island we were on had his plantation destroyed in an attack by unknown pirates.
I asked the question to myself: What if that was Blackbeard?
Thus, the idea for Blackbeard’s Lost Treasure was born.
What’s your advice for aspiring writers?
Practice, practice, practice. Don’t be afraid of what others will think of your writing. Let it come from the heart. Write with the door closed, and don’t open it to others until you have your first draft complete.
What’s the best thing about being a writer?
I love being able to create worlds and craft characters. My two main characters in Blackbeard’s Lost Treasure, Darwin and Lucas, grow as the story goes on, and by the end, they have a different outlook on life.
Sometimes, as with my murder mystery A Murder in Concord, I like setting an elaborate scene with a dead body dropped in the middle of it. Lucas found himself as the only suspect and took it upon himself to clear his name. To do that, he had to figure out the puzzle for himself during the book while having to run from another character with, um, bad intentions.
For me, the challenge was figuring it out myself on the fly. That was fun.
How do you deal with writer’s block?
Take a shower or go for a drive. I kid you not, most of my best ideas come from those two places.
What are you currently working on?
An action/adventure novel about the search for the Fountain of Youth using the same cast of characters from Blackbeard’s Lost Treasure.