Books

I am a research fanatic and a voracious reader. I read almost everything, Sci-Fi, historical fiction, biographies of important/political figures, and a ton of scientific material, depending on the topic on which I am about to write. For Trinity 3.11 I had to almost become a nuclear scientist, at least to understand the half-life of radionuclides, spent nuclear fuel and its uses/hazards, and exactly how power is generated using the different fuel mixtures currently in use.

Writing ‘I Am Lazarus,’ I felt compelled to understand what life might have been like for my characters. The pain of their deaths, the surprise of both their resurrections by Jesus and discovering their immortality, and then the burden of living forever, never telling anyone, never having children, never sure if what they were doing was the right thing. I also felt it necessary to add in conflict, which is inherent in human nature, and the specter of their potential death at the hands of their enemies.

‘Bottom Feeder’ was fun to write, given the location and the topic. As a child and young teen, I camped with my family at the exact location where my Bottom Feeder started chomping on humanity. I explain the genesis of the story in the “About” page, which I hope you’ve already read. If you’ve ever wondered about how authors plan their characters, here is how I created mine in Bottom Feeder:

• Andrew – Based on my father, George. He was in the Navy in WWII and told some fun stories. He was a blue-collar worker his entire professional career. He loved to hunt, fish, and tinker with things.
• Clint – I based on my best friend, Rick Ware. I met Rick in 1984 when I was a TV journalist, and he was the Public Information Officer for the Shreveport Police Department. I’d see him at crime/accident scenes all the time and we just became friends. Rick went on to the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office and eventually became Chief Deputy of the Bossier City Marshal’s Office and then Marshal when the elected Marshal died in a car crash.
• Jerry – Jerry was a really fun character to create. Jerry Thompson was a real man, and a great friend to Rick and I. Jerry was known as “Chief” given his USAF career which was exactly as I described in the Bottom Feeder. He was also one of the first SCUBA diving instructors I ever had and was a genuinely awesome man to have known. He’d get a kick out of the fact that I inserted a ton of his crazy personality into the character of Jerry.
• Colin – Colin is me. He will reappear in the next two books, and I am planning a Young Adult spin-off series for him.
• Diane Chase – Diane is a combination of all the crazy reporters I have worked with throughout my journalism and Public Information Officer careers. After hearing me give a synopsis of the book, a friend, Manda Morris, remarked, “So, you don’t have any women characters in this book?” Which took me by surprise and made me go back and recreate many scenes so that I could add a new female character, a driven, professional reporter, who gets the story, no matter what gets in her way. I like her character, and you will see her again in the next two Bottom Feeder books.