FAQs

When is the next Middle Falls book coming out? 

First, a little backstory. When I wrote The Unusual Second Life of Thomas Weaver, I believed it to be a standalone story - one and done. About three-quarters of the way through that manuscript a voice started echoing in the back of my head. That was disconcerting, as it was the voice of Michael Hollister, the evil antagonist from the book. I wanted nothing to do with Michael. I had his fate planned, and I was happy to be done with him. 

He was not done with me. He would not quit talking to me, telling me there was more to his story than I had already told. Finally, I relented. When I finished the Thomas Weaver manuscript I added these fateful words: Coming Soon - The Redemption of Michael Hollister. 

The Middle Falls series grew from there. I thought it was complete when it was a trilogy. I announced I was completely done with it after six books. The next thing I knew, there were twelve Middle Falls books out. How did that happen? 

That number currently stands at thirteen books with The Stubborn Lives of Hart Tanner. I have now given up on declaring the Middle Falls series dead and over. Like my protagonists, it keeps starting again and again. 

At the same time, I have a number of stories I want to tell that aren’t in the Middle Falls Universe. So, I will write those stories, but will always come back to Middle Falls. It is my favorite town in the world and I love spending time there. 

Are there more Alex Hawk Time Travel Adventure books coming?

As with Middle Falls, I am learning that I am not good at saying I am completely done with a series. There are currently five Alex Hawk books. Will there be six? There will, but they won’t be released at the same breakneck pace I have released the first five books, where they were all published in less than a calendar year. 

Where do your ideas come from?

They come from my life. Every single book in the Middle Falls series started with an event from my real life. Veronica McAllister is my oldest sister Terri. Cassandra Collins is my middle sister Lana. They have both passed on and these stories were my way of honoring them and spending time with their memory. 

The trip that Nathaniel Moon’s mother makes across America in his book echoes a trip I have made on several occasions. 

I don’t actually know anyone who has stepped through a shimmering door in their basement like Alex Hawk did, but after I devoured Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Vernes’ books as a young reader, it felt like they became a part of my life, too. 

I think as writers, we need to live a life full of experiences. I think I’ve done that. Now I just let those experiences filter through my own perspective and flow out my fingers and onto the page. 

Are you and Dawn still married? Still  in love?

This is part and parcel of writing three books about your love life. A lot of people become invested in how we are doing.

We are ten years into our happily ever after now. Still married. Still in love. She is still putting up with me. 

After a thirty-year wait, we are finally living the life together we dreamed of when we first fell in love. 

How do you write your books so fast? 

This question always makes me smile. Yes, I publish five or six books every year, where many authors only publish one. I smile, though, because I know if I really buckled down and focused, I could publish at least three or four more. 

I write at least 2,000 words every day, seven days a week while I’m writing a book. Then, I take a few days or a week off and start the next one. That may sound like a lot, but I write about 1,200 words per hour or a little better, so that’s really only two hours of writing each day.

The rest of my time is dedicated to letting the next sections of my book arrive in my brain, and fiddling around with all the business aspects that come with being an indie author in this part of the twenty-first century. 

Do you plot your books in advance?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Short answer: No. 

Slightly longer answer: I am what people call a pantser (because I write by the seat of my pants) or an organic writer. That means that I usually have an opening image in mind when I sit down to write a book and not much more. I knew Alex Hawk saw a door in his basement, and I kind of knew I wanted him to run into primitive, instead of more advanced people, but everything else was in shadow. The curtain only gets pulled back as I write the scenes. I call it writing to the end of my headlights. I write what I see, then take a break until more ideas pour in. By  the end of the book, I’ve only ever seen a few thousand words ahead of me, but I’ve still arrived at a satisfying destination. 

What’s next? 

As I mentioned, I’ll keep adding to the stories of Middle Falls and Alex Hawk. The very next thing, though, is a trilogy of books about a character I have in mind called Kradak the Champion. It’s a sword-and-sorcery epic very much in the vein of Conan the Barbarian, but with a sense of humor. In fact, I think of it as Galaxy Quest meets Conan if that gives you an idea. It will have a lot of action and a lot of humor.

I also see an adoptive family of plus-powered individuals (think enhanced, but not super abilities) who travel from small town to small town, seeking justice for those too powerless to find it on their own. I don’t know when I’ll get to this one, but I can see the characters very clearly, which is always a good start.