5 QUESTIONS FOR AUTHOR JOHN LOCKE

In Donovan Creed, author John Locke has created a character you'd love to sit down with and share a drink--unless you bring your hot girlfriend.  Creed is an ex-CIA agent who moonlights as a hit man and loves the women.  If you like succinct, fast-moving thrillers with violent plot twists and razor sharp dialogue, then John Locke is the author for you.  He has three Donovan Creed novels out and is working on a fourth.  As of this post his latest thriller, Saving Rachel, is currently #15 on the Kindle Bestseller List.  That's an amazing feat for a guy who used be an insurance salesman, a rock & roll singer and a private investor.  Really, I'm not making this up.  In his spare time he's working on a formula to turn ocean water into draft beer. Okay that I made up.  I want to thank John for taking the time to play 5 questions with me.

1.      You're a successful businessman, who's owned an insurance company and became a private investor, yet you've been a Rock-n-Roll singer and a successful fiction writer.  How do you go from such a dry business career to flourishing as an artist?  And how did you contain all those creative juices for so long?

I love stories. Love reading them, love telling them, and always wanted to write some. But I’m one of those guys who “never got around” to writing a novel because I was too busy building my insurance company. I wasn’t frustrated creatively in the insurance business because I taught training and marketing seminars, wrote and gave speeches, self-published numerous marketing manuals, and two non-fiction books of the “How To” nature. After selling the company, I had more free time and NO creative outlet, a combination that generated the motive force for my becoming a novelist.

2.      If you had to choose between one of these careers, which would you want to do the rest of your life?

It would depend on which one I was best at. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a successful Rock-n-Roll singer? Haha.

3.      Good point.   What percentage of your workday is dedicated to writing?

None.

      And a lot.

 Sometimes I go six months without writing a word. Other times, like this past Thursday and Friday, I wrote for eight and fourteen hours, respectively. In other words, I never sit down at my computer with the thought, “I’m going to write 500 words today.” That might be a smarter way to write, but for me, it would remove the element of fun. Instead, I write scenes, and/or transitions between scenes. I write the entire scene or the transition, or both—but it never comes down to a daily commitment. When the scene is in my head, completely worked out, I park it there until I have to put it on paper. Usually if a scene makes me laugh out loud, or gnaws at me in some other way, it’s ready to write.

       4. Where did you come up with the idea for your Donovan Creed character?

Creed was easy! He’s the man every guy wants to be, and every woman wants to fix. Everything beyond that premise is situational, but reinforces what each gender wants from him. For example, Creed is tough (guy) but has a tender side (woman). He’s irreverent (guy) with redeeming qualities that pop up when you least expect them (woman). He has relationships with hookers (guy) but he’s unfulfilled, and yearning for something he can’t quite put his finger on (woman).  Above all, Creed is unpredictable. If I do my job right as an author, you’re not sure how he’s going to react to a given situation, or what he’s going to say—but after he does or says it, you think “Ah, of course!"

5.      With the changes digital technology has had on the publishing industry, where do you think the majority of readers will be finding your novels in 5 years?

I’m a 100% believer in the electronic book medium. It offers more than a level playing field for self-published authors—it gives us a game that is actually stacked in our favor! Readers are just starting to learn that ebooks can be created and sold at a profit for 99 cents. And this is going to make them re-think their buying options, and their attitudes toward value. If you and I can electronically publish a book for 99 cents and still make a profit, and the giants in the business like James Patterson, John Grisham, Stephen King and Dean Koontz have to charge $9.95 for their ebooks, the onus is no longer on Gary Ponzo and John Locke to prove our books are just as good as theirs. It’s on them to prove their books are TEN TIMES better than ours! And Gary, in a game like that, I like our chances!