Frequently Asked Questions

Without doubt it was a brilliant, albeit eccentric, author named Patricia Anthony.  I had the great good fortune of meeting Patricia when I signed up for a fiction writing class at SMU in Dallas.  Patricia was the class instructor.  Over the course of the semester, Patricia went out of her way to compliment my works, my style and writing voice.  I learned a ton from her during my time in class, but Patricia continued to stay in touch afterwards as well.  She served as a mentor right up until she grew quite ill and died way too young.  My favorite of her books was called Flanders.   

It starts very early in my story telling because I want to make sure I get my facts right the first time.  I do research on-line, I interview specialists, I read, I watch You Tube videos, and travel the world via Google Earth.  Sometimes, you have to be a bit creative and ask for help from friends who are in a position to help.  For instance, I knew I was going to have a scene where firefighters were responding to a particularly dangerous fire.  My boss at the time, her husband was a firefighter.  She arranged a visit for me at his station.  While there, the chief dropped by and asked who I was and what I was doing. When I told him I was doing research for a book, he sat down and spent time with me, too.  And then, it happened.  The alarm sounded.  The chief asked me, "Want to ride with us?"  And, of course, I did.  I learned so much in the next hour when it came time to write that scene, it practically wrote itself.  This sort of thing has happened a lot, including interviews with former FBI Special Agents in Charge, with a Secret Service Agent, and a former American Airlines pilot, among many others. 

My stories tend to be big, sweeping, visually interesting stories with deep character studies who carry the events forward.  And in all but one, I use multiple POV characters which allows me the opportunity to jump from one setting to another.  They also tend to be a lot of fun to write because I get to meet so many characters and see how they interact with each other.  And as described earlier, I write in 3rd Person, Intimate POV.  

The only story that stayed in one POV was my book, SEVEN EAGLES HOUSE.  The protagonist in that book is Ransom Dunn, a member of The International League of Exception Skeptics, or TILES for short, whose job it is to show Faith Healers for the liars and frauds they are.  And Ransom does so in spectacularly controversial ways.  One day, while on his next mission to expose a fraud, he comes across someone who actually appears to be the real thing.  Now, what does a man who has spent his adult lifetime proving healers/shaman/mystics, for the frauds they are, what does he do when he cannot?  

In this story, Ransom was such a strong character, and the story itself was really more of an intimate exploration of a spiritual awakening of sorts, that I kept the whole story in Ransom's POV.  His story is one of my favorites.