I am asked all the time two of the biggest questions I believe every author gets on a regular basis. The two questions are:

 1. How did you get started writing?  What drove you into it?

 2. Where do you get your ideas?

What got me into writing was my interest in reading.  I really love to read.   I will read anything that crosses my path.  I even read the labels on cans and boxes, (usually when I am eating a snack I put together out of one of those cans or boxes,) the old newspaper, whatever is handy.  My wife of fifty years thinks the book is actually an appendage grown out of my hand.

I spent twenty years in the US Navy doing all sorts of things and that included a lot of long cruises and deployments.   I always brought a couple of big boxes onboard before we left for any extended time. (I really wish we had eBooks back then!) 

All of this reading,  especially the poorly written stuff,  (There is a lot of that on the market,)   convinced me that I could write better books than they could.  I spent a lot of time in Vietnam as a special operator.  I dearly love action/adventure books and so many of the mass-market fiction is sad.  So one day I sat down and started writing an Adventure Series based partially on my time in Vietnam, and partially on a very vivid imagination.  

The series, called "The Long Journey Home",  first book named "The Journey Begins" will be out on eBooks later this month.  The second book named "On The Pacific Rim,” also comes out this month (March) on eBooks.  The story line is an Apocalyptic tale about most of the world dying,  and a young man,  a US Navy SEAL,  stationed in Djibouti,  who survives and wants to go home,  to Jacksonville,  Florida. You can't be much further from Jacksonville than Djibouti.

Brad,  the hero,  cannot fly a plane, nor can he swim across the Atlantic Ocean; so he turns to his other choice and takes a US Navy Patrol Boat, actually, a 'Gunboat' and takes off up the African Coast,  down around India,  across to Burma,  and down the Siamese Peninsula.  Once around Singapore he starts north again.  When he gets off the Russian Coast,  in the Bearing Straits,  it is only sixty miles across to Alaska,  where he will drop down the coast to California,  Oregon,  or Washington and get rid of the boat.  Then he will travel across country to Jacksonville.

Early on, he finds out that not everyone is dead as he thought.  Roughly  ten percent of the population has survived.  In Shanghai alone, that would be over a million people left.

Naturally, of the survivors, some are nice people.  The kind you would not mind having as your next-door neighbor.  The rest though,  are the other kind.  Really bad guys.   With all of the world's weapons lying around, and no law enforcement, the bad guys are in charge. Women and children replace money as the currency of the day. 

The first book gets Brad,  and the survivors whyo join him as his crew,  as far as Singapore.  The second book gets them through the troubled country of Vietnam.  The series will take several books to get him to the US. I am nearly finished with the third book "Hong Kong Trade Off" and it will be released later this year.

You can see how I got into this writing business.  I like to tell stories and grew up in the Deep South, Georgia, amongst farmers who told stories as entertainment since most didn't have electricty, let alone TV or Radio. Once you get started, it is addictive!  

As to where do I get my ideas?  Well, in twenty  years in the Navy,  along with another stint working for DOD,  several more years working as a Field Engineer for an International Electronics Firm,  a while as a College Professor,  also such jobs as;  a Police Officer,  Shoe Salesman,  Computer Engineer,  a Bartender,  an AOL Engineer, Vice President of a Computer Company,  and just about anything else you can think of.  I have a lot of experience to draw on.  I even spent a summer working on a garbage truck.

Currently I have two books out. The first one is "Bad Odds" " a story of survival,  combat,  and escape in the Vietnam War Zone.

The second book,  "The Dead Wars" is about a soldier killed on the first page of the book.  He has to learn how to survive as a ghost, then finds out there are two kinds of ghosts. Those nice people,  who are waiting to go to the light; and the Others,  the bad people who are going to the darkness.  The Others are trying to take over the community of the good people, hence the title "The Dead Wars."  The book is full of humor,  has a love story,  action scenes,  and a bit of the strange. 

I have more books coming out this month but I will talk about some of that later.