I am pleased to Welcome Mark Aberdeen the current Spotlight Author for Rave Reviews Book Club. He is on tour, and I am fortunate to have him stop by my place. If you would like to follow his tour you can go HERE to check the other stops. So Mark with no more delay tell us about your writing process.
Mark’s Writing Process – Patent Pending
By Mark Aberdeen
Writing isn’t my full-time job. In my day job I manage a bunch of engineers for a telecommunication’s company and it blocks off a good portion of my week. I also have a wife, house, three dogs, obligations and a honey-do list with a never-ending list of home repairs that need to be done. When I come up with a story idea, it can be very annoying. First, my characters don’t know how to shut up and go away. They nag me until I write it down. Let’s be clear, I’m not literally hearing voices, but there are stories that need to be told, and I’m the appointed one to tell them. It’s a responsibility I take very seriously and one I don’t take on lightly. It’s an obligation.
I know once I settle down to write, I have a difficult time stopping. My wife becomes temporarily widowed, my dogs bark at me as if I were a stranger entering our home, I stop for bathroom and coffee breaks, I’ve slept with my face in my keyboard, I’ve had to delete a thousand pages of the letter E, I emerge from my office, not unlike a groundhog on February 2nd jumping at shadows and clutching a manuscript in grubby, coffee-stained fist, desperate for a shower, human contact, vitamin D production from sunlight and new eyeglass prescription. My creative process takes no prisoners. I use the rest of the year to recover from it and convince my wife not to spend the insurance money. My process isn’t for everyone, but the point of it is a writer can’t write without doing the work. Some talk about writing, or think about writing, or contemplate writing; they have terrific ideas, but there’s no substitute for putting words to paper, or pixels to screens, or whatever the kids are doing these days. A writer writes…patent pending.
Knight and Dex
Excerpt
Snow settled over New London and covered the alley with a chilly blanket, which normally gave me a moment’s pause to reflect. I might have thought about tranquility, but there was nothing tranquil in the roundhouse kick I took to the face. Steam rose from crimson splatter as my blood hit the freshly fallen snow.
Minx’s claws flashed. I jumped back and narrowly avoided being torn open at the belly.
It was difficult to wax poetic while someone was doing their best to kill me.
Welcome to my life.
I swung my left fist. My intention wasn’t to connect with Minx’s jaw but to buy a precious second. The parry worked well enough and gave me the moment I needed to draw the pulse pistol from under my coat. I bellowed a triumphant, “Ha!”
My moment of glory was short-lived. Another kick connected with my right hand. The blow jarred the weapon loose, and it sailed into a snow bank. Powdery snow swallowed it whole. The thing about being unarmed, it felt a bit like being naked in a crowd. No way to cover my ass.
I gripped my stinging hand. “Shit.”
A powerful arm, furry and itchy and stiff as a crowbar, hooked me around the neck. Minx had gotten behind me, and the momentum of her attack tore my feet from the ground. I cartwheeled, forcing her to detach and spring back, but I landed face-down in a heap. The snow with all its apparent fluffiness did nothing to cushion my fall. The impact rattled my bones and lights danced across my vision, swirling in loopy rings.
All I needed was another concussion.
Strong hands grabbed me by the collar and belt. My stomach lurched as I was torn from the relative comfort of the ground and flipped onto my back like a flapjack. Minx pounced on top of me and pinned my arms to my sides with her powerful thighs. Normally, I approved of such positions, but she wasn’t Pink Panther, and this wasn’t foreplay. I feared she would crunch me like a walnut in a nutcracker. I gasped for precious air.
To any observer, it would appear as if I were unprepared for this fight. That observer would have been correct. I’d seen her running down the sidewalk and duck into this alley. She was up to something, and I’d interrupted her. Evidence suggested it was something she didn’t want the cops to know about. While my intent was to have a friendly chat with her, she’d decided to take our exchange in a different direction.
Minx had a reputation in underworld circles as an effective messenger. Our not-so-cozy encounter fell within the realm of her typical delivery method. While I didn’t feel like she took sadistic glee in her work, I thought she took pride in a job well done. I, on the other hand, found the work environment hostile, and already I was drawing up a complaint to her HR department.
Purchase Mark Aberdeen’s Dex Series here:
Dex Territory (Dex Territory Series Book 1)
TWB Press: http://www.twbpress.com/dexterritory.html
Amazon Link: http://amzn.com/B00R1JZVIE
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dex-territory-mark-aberdeen/1120906076?ean=9781936991860
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/dex-territory
Follow Mark Aberdeen
Website: http://www.markaberdeen.blogspot.com/
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Mark-Aberdeen
Twitter handle: @Mark_Aberdeen
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dexterritorybook
