Strike Force Behind The Book: strikeforce.mp3 Writers Roundtable Interview With Dale Brown ATARI ACT OF WAR: DIRECT ACTION LINKS Dale Brown Interview With: Peter Anthony Holder When a former pilot turns his hand to thrillers you can take their authenticity for granted. His writing is exceptional and the dialogue, plots and characters are first-class... far too good to be missed.' --Sunday Mirror ‘Dale Brown is a superb storyteller’ --WASHINGTON POST ‘Dale Brown is the best military adventure writer in the country’ --CLIVE CUSSLER

Little By Little
by Dale Brown, 2007

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT TheBigFiveOh.com Blog @ Yahoo.Com, 01/11/08

I'm on the last battle scene in the new novel, "Shadow Command." It's exciting to be so close to being finished, but strangely it's a downer too. Thinking of new ideas to put in the book is exciting. Yes, I want to finish the sucker, but twisting and turning the plot over and over again in my head is a real turn-on.

Maybe it's part of that "afraid to finish" syndrome common to many authors: when you make a decision about a plot and put it down on paper, it's made. You have to live with it. If you guessed wrong or wasn't bold enough in your statement, you can't take it back, at least not right away.

That's the thing about being an author: creating worlds. You can't be afraid of whatever is rattling around in your head. It's there, and it needs to be expressed. Whether it's appropriate for a military techno-thriller novel is another question. But the emotions and images all need to be released in one form or another.

That's the essence of being an author. I believe all of us have emotions, forces, energy within us that need to be expressed. Authors do it in words. We create a universe and express our deepet desires, fears, hopes, and passions in words. Sounds a little archaic, but it works. It's the same as painters doing it on canvas with paints or pencils, or musicians doing it with sounds made with prehistoric instruments and eons-old squiggly marks on paper.

My manuscript is delayed for reasons I'll share with you later, when they're under control. Suffice it to say that things have happened over the past 9 months that took a lot of that inner-world energy away and channeled it in a different, outworldly direction. Fixes are in place so hopefully it won't happen again. But I have energy that others need and can benefit from, and I'll use it where and when I see fit.

But there is excitement even in adversity. A challenge arises, and a decision is made and a course charted. Is it the right course? What will happen? What will you do? What will others think? All that doesn't matter. You take whatever happens and deal with it the best you can. You're in a position to make a decision and take a hand in charting the future--GREAT! Take it! You're in charge? BE IN CHARGE! Afraid you're not really in charge? Doesn't matter. Take charge and you may actually find that you were supposed to be in charge from the beginning.

Amazing what a few glasses of red wine will do for you. It will make you realize, in the middle of a tremendous battle scene in your twentieth novel in a 20-year writing career, that you have broken your New Year's oath to blog every day.

For the record, I opened an an 8 year-old bottle of Silver Oak Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. My wife is on an overnight trip to the Bay area, and my son is (hopefully) in bed. I rarely drink alone, but in realizing I needed to do a blog entry, in the midst of finishing another novel, I somehow decided to have some wine and do a blog and comment on the biz. Weird.

The only thing more exciting than realizing I'll finish the novel this weekend is getting ideas down on paper for the next book. Cool. Maybe that's the Silver Oak talking. If so, talk to me, baby! I know the hot tub will have something to say too.

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