Q: You had quite the career, from attending HLS to practicing civil litigation to teaching law to being a Special Assistant State’s Attorney. What inspired you to begin writing fiction?

In a nutshell, Scott Turow’s ONE L. Though nonfiction, this book had the keen observations a novelist would make. I experienced pretty much what Turow experienced but I didn’t write about it. He also proved lawyers could be worthy novelists. I started writing a beginner’s novel, BROKEN LOVE BEADS. In my capacity as Director of the Media Law Program at John Marshall Law School (now UIC-School of Law), I invited  him to do a presentation about his experience as a lawyer and also becoming a bestseller novelist. He accepted and meeting him motivated me to keep writing though my beginner’s novel remains unpublished and lies interred under a stack of papers and boxes.

Q: How did your time at law school and in the professional world prepare you for what you now do as a novelist?

They left my earlier right-brained youth of creativity and intuition undeveloped so that I craved writing to regain those attributes. But once I started being more creative and intuitive in my writing,  I was grateful that law school and the professional world prepared me for the important role played by the left-brained attributes of attention to detail, logic, analytical reasoning, and a work ethic.  Those attributes are especially helpful when it comes to the editing phase. These seemingly prosaic qualities keep novelists moving ahead after the honeymoon wears off. It takes a whole brain working together with complementary attributes to make a novelist over the long haul.

Q: You’ve published two books and are currently working on the third. Did you know this would be a trilogy when you wrote the first book? How far ahead did you plan character and plot arcs?

I had no idea I was aiming for a trilogy when I started out. I just wanted to write one acceptable novel. In writing my beginner’s unpublished novel, BROKEN LOVE BEADS, I tried to outline the whole novel in advance with logic and precision. The result? Undeveloped characters and a cookie-cutter story crammed into a rigid  outline. Now, I view the process like riding a subway with no particular endpoint in mind, except for the next stop. Once I get there I pause and select the next station I might want to transfer to. I let the characters and plot arcs develop one step at a time. 

Q: What was the publishing process like? Did you go through querying agents and publishers? How long did it take from final manuscript to finished copy?

The publishing process was a rejection-survival boot camp. It toughens the novelistic spirit if you survive it. Yes, I went through the querying process. I think I contacted about 100 agents for my first published novel, THE MITHRAS CONSPIRACY . The responses, over about a year, ranged from many non-responses, quite a few written declinations, often with some positive comments, and a few where the agent wanted the full manuscript but then declined, usually without a reason, So, I went the independent route and had it edited by Girl Friday Publications and published by Lido Press  For my second novel, AMERICAN CONSPIRACY, I decided again to have Lido Press publish it and Girl Friday Publications do the editing, after only seven declinations by agents. Taking it from final manuscript to finished copy was easy. After I did the best I could on both novels, Girl Friday Publications took it over and did the professional editing, the proofreading, and the copyediting. Girl Friday Publications finished up in about a month with each novel.

Q: What is your writing process like? How do you outline, when do you like to write, and do you have any rituals you subscribe to?

I don’t outline a novel anymore before I write it. It takes away the fun and creative surprise. I prefer writing in the mornings when I’m the freshest and my mind is yet uncluttered with daily trivia. After I finish a scene or larger segment I prefer going to my coffee shop for a cappuccino while I daydream the next steps and doodle them with pen and paper. My ritual, less obsessive lately, is that I start every new scene or segment with a clean copy of stationery from the University of Luxembourg where I once participated in a seminar. It’s my version of a rabbit’s foot.

Q: What has been the most fun or surprising thing about writing novels? What has been the most difficult?

The most surprising and fun thing is the joy when the creative flow unpredictively arrives and the writing comes as close as it can to what you want to express. The most difficult thing is dealing with the business side of writing.

Q: Do you have a favorite character or plot point that you knew very early on would be important to include? Where there any darlings you had to kill in your writing process?

In THE MITHRAS CONSPIRACY and AMERICAN CONSPIRACY there were no foreseen plot points I was working toward more than one scene ahead. But for this third novel in the trilogy I’m working on I have a dramatic climax that I’m aiming for. I never expected that to happen. I’m always killing darlings and almost always it’s because they are personal experiences I cherish but which have little or nothing to do with the flow of the novel. That’s one reason BROKEN LOVE BEADS never worked out. Too many recent personal experiences that didn’t have time to marinate with the creative process.

Q: Have you ever had to deal with writer’s block? Were there any places in your writing that you got stumped?

This may be heresy, but I don’t believe in writer’s block once the first sentence is written. Thereafter, what seems like writer’s block is a temporarily stumped subconscious that needs time to work out the issue even when you don’t think you’re working because you’re not sitting in your chair typing away. A writer’s subconscious never stops working and is never blocked permanently. True, the subconscious may sometimes tell you to ditch a work in progress. But that’s not writer’s block. That’s a writer’s enlightenment making him or her free to undertake a new project. I found a good tip given by Ernest Hemingway: always stop for the day in the middle of a scene. That way it’s easier to resume the next day.

Q: What advice do you have for those who have an idea for a novel but are too intimidated to start out?

Pretend you’re writing a diary no one will ever see. It’s socially permissible, despite the social media era, to have an unpublished thought! Once the novel is finished you have done more than “start out.” All that’s left is whether to leave it in a closet or publish it. Often that’s a question of your tolerance for rejection. Write for yourself and write the kind of novels you like to read. That’s the most important thing.