My "Fragger Sparks" books have an imaginary hero who fights his battles in the far future. Today, I heard a real hero at church.
His name is Dr. Charlie Clements, and he's Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
He's a hero for two reasons. One, as a pilot during Vietnam, he flew 50 missions before deciding that the war was immoral and refused to fly any more. Two, he became a doctor and devoted his effort to saving lives and preventing genocide in Latin America and other countries. He's been at it ever since the 70's. Now, there's a life of devotion and heroism!
Well, back to the badass side of town - I'm close to 14,000 words on the first draft of the next book in the "Fragger Sparks" science fiction series - The Blood of Fragger Sparks.
I'm often asked how I plot out my novels. My answer is, as always, I don't. I'm what's called an "intuitive" writer; that is, I have no idea where I'm going when I start a book. That's both terrifying and exhilarating!
You have to trust that you'll find the way in the end - and, I imagine, it's a lot more fun than fully plotting a book. I don't know because as hard as I've tried, I simply can't write a plot out! It seems to me that it would save me a lot of time and heartache, but, hey, you have to accept the gift you've been given and make the most of it.
Sometimes, the intuitive approach doesn't work out. I once threw out 90,000 words of a novel because I realized it was 90,000 words of crap. It was painful, but it was also the best move I ever made as a writer.
As a matter of fact, it made me a writer! I received a strange sense of freedom, knowing that I wasn't chained to whatever I put on the page! As W. Somerset Maugham said, a writer has to have a "piece of ice" in his heart toward his writing; in other words, sooner or later, you have to be able to cast an objective eye on what you've put on the page!
Hey, if you'd like some free ebooks this month, you can go to one of my publishers, Synergebooks.com at http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.synergebooks.com%2F&h=aa3b797646535a5e4f077e70a12a6baf.
As always, if you'd like to get in on the Fragger Sparks action, you can find the print versions at Amazon and at Booklocker.com. Ebook versions can be found on Fictionwise.com and similar epublishers. The titles are:
The First Misadventure of Fragger Sparks, A Ranger Leads the Way
The Second Misadventure of Fragger Sparks, A Ranger Loses His Way
The Third Misadventure of Fragger Sparks, A Ranger Paves the Way
And don't forget the first book I ever wrote - American Job (as in the Biblical character). It's also called The Relentless Pursuit of Everett Pick).
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