My guest is thriller author, Graham Brown. His debut thriller, BLACK RAIN, has the backdrop of Mayan myth. I can't wait to read it.Graham cracks me up with his view of things. Take a look at his website and read his latest adventure, Hieroglyphic Canyon. I also like his thoughts on writing. I can so relate to his *style*. :-)
People often ask: “What kind of books do you write?” An important question, but I think a more important question for us writers is “What kind of writer are you?”
It’s important because you have to know yourself to know how to get your best work out. I been fortunate enough, even before I was published, to talk with and occasionally hang out with other writers. To my dismay they all seemed so damn organized. I actually made me sick. Word counts, page counts, designated times for writing. Ummm… yeah, I don’t do any of that stuff.
Which begs the question - Am I doing this thing wrong somehow?
I mean, I could do a word count but most likely it would resemble my senior paper from high school which had to be fifteen hundred words and in which I used every possible trick to lengthen every single sentence as much as humanly possible including repeating and repeating and repeating words and phrases. If Lucas had written Star Wars that way it would have started “A, long, long, long , long ,long , loooooong time ago in a galaxy far, far, extremely, very far away…” Nope – word count’s not going to work for me.
Then, I met a couple of writers that only work when they’re really feeling it. “Really Feeling It”? Are you kidding me? Nine times out of ten I don’t “really feel it” until I’ve been working for an hour or so. That first hour of work is like – “ugh, I think I’ve forgotten how to do this.” Followed by - “why do I suck so much.” Followed by – “wait, look, a sentence with some redeeming value – PROGRESS!”
So what kind of writer am I anyway? Well for me, getting going is tough- I don’t mean sitting in the seat – although that can be a problem too. I mean cranking out pages that I think are worthy of all the effort. It just doesn’t start quickly. But once I get going I don’t want to stop.
I guess that means I’m a sprint writer. No that’s not quite right, 100,000 plus words cannot be considered a sprint. A “binge” writer? No – that sounds like it’s involuntary somehow and that I have to throw it all away afterward – thankfully neither of which is generally the case. Okay so here it is – I’m a Freight Train writer. It takes a long time to get up any momentum but once I start going don’t park on the tracks in front of me.
When I’m really working, I end up staying up later and later every night. Which, of course, makes it harder and harder to get up in the morning, but I don’t care- I write until physically can’t go anymore.
With apologies to Gabriel Byrne, it reminds me of the talking Heads song – Life During Wartime. Sleep in the daytime, work in the night time, I might not ever get home…
Now, I’m not recommending this to anyone – in fact I think it’s probably the least healthy style of writing out there. What I am suggesting is find out what works for you – try different things and when you’ve found THE WAY you get your best work done, don’t worry if it’s different from what others are doing, because I guarantee everyone is doing something a little different. And in my opinion, knowing yourself is as important as knowing your characters.
Funny thing is, this was a hard realization to come to. Mostly because my first book, Black Rain, which came out in January of 2010, was a different process. I wrote it over a long period of years, prior to being represented. Prior to having any real deadlines. I wrote that one more like one of those “when I’m feeling it authors.”
My second book, Black Sun, which comes out this August, was a different story (no pun intended). Written on a dead-line, with important people like agents and editors waiting to see it, I tried to do the page count thing, and I did, in a way – at first I fell way behind in my page count, while I thought and considered and backtracked and rearranged, and then, when the train got going, I caught up and passed the page count And it went quickly, and it came out great and it was tighter on the first draft, than my prior book had been on the third or fourth. Guess we’re learning something.
And when it came time to do the revisions – I did them the same way – thinking and jotting down notes for hours and days, while not a keystroke was written. And then, I went into the work mode, pretty much twenty-four/seven for several weeks. I didn’t want to be interrupted by anything, not dinner, not walking the dog, or going out with my wife or our friends.
To quote another line from Life During Wartime – no time for dancing, or lovey dovey, I ain’t got time for that now…
So now I’m working on a third book, I’ve been filling up legal pads with scribbled character notes and dialogue fragments and arrows and abbreviations galore to the point where; if one of these suckers falls into the wrong hands it will probably get me committed as some kind of Uni-bomber like mad man. Doesn’t help that during this phase, shaving and personal hygiene go out the window and that I’m often seen talking to myself in public, working out dialogue, (which is almost always conflict so it seems like I‘m arguing with myself). Truth be told, it’s not a pretty sight, the other day at Starbucks people were scurrying away in all directions to get away from me. The character I was working on was plotting to destroy the world and I think I may have voiced some of his plans to the unsuspecting public. Might have to go to a different Starbucks next time.
But anyway , somehow this works and now the train is starting to move. The nights will soon get longer and the days will get later and the whole thing will pick up speed until hopefully it comes to a roaring finish and I can reflect on another line from Life During Wartime, in which we hear the singer tell us - “I’m burning notebooks, what good are note books, they won’t keep you alive…” No, but then again, they might bring a story to life.
- So tell me about your “weirdest” writing habit? If you dare.
# - # - #
- A Coveted Treasure,
- A Perilous Mission,
- And a Dark Secret That Kills
Covert government operative Danielle Laidlaw leads an expedition into the deepest reaches of the Amazon in search of a legendary Mayan city. Assisted by a renowned university professor and protected by a mercenary named Hawker, her team journeys into the tangled rain forest—unaware that they are replacements for a group that vanished weeks before, and that the treasure they are seeking is no mere artifact but a breakthrough discovery that could transform the world.
Shadowed by a ruthless billionaire, threatened by a violent indigenous tribe, and stalked by an unseen enemy that leaves battered corpses in its wake, the group desperately seeks the connection between the deadly reality of the Mayan legend, the nomadic tribe that haunts them, and the chilling secret buried beneath the ancient ruins.
~*~*~*~
Graham Brown was born in Chicago in 1969. He grew up in Illinois, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, traveling often with his family. Graham earned a degree in Aeronautical Science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona and went on to get a law degree from Arizona State College of Law in Tempe. A former pilot, lawyer and executive at a small health care company, Graham could not escape the allure of the thriller. After writing in his spare time for years he decided to see what he could make of it. Black Rain is the first result, with other novels on the way.
Graham has spent the better part of the last 21 years in the deserts of Arizona and southern California. He currently lives in Tucson, with his wife, Tracey.
