Next stop in the #Writing_Process #Blog_Tour
Next stop in the Writing Process Blog Tour Mystery author, Jerry Last invited me to participate in a unique blog tour on writing. I’ve known Jerry for a few decades. We are both biochemists involved in lung research. But, only three years ago, I discovered that he was the author of a series of murder mysteries, most of which occurred in South America. I’m currently reading his latest, “The Origin of Murder” that takes place in the Galapagos. You can visit his website http://rogerandsuzannemysteries.blogs... to learn about his books, his writing process and other interests. You can also visit other authors on this tour by following links to them in each of the blogs. I hope you enjoy it.
To continue the tour, I have answered the four questions that each author is asked.
What are you working on?
As a busy academic scientist, much of my time is spent writing non-fiction. Or, at least, it’s supposed to be. Currently, I’m working on two manuscripts. One is about a protein in cancer cells that is involved in metastasis. That is one focus of the work in my lab. Another is about alterations of a protein in epilepsy that may contribute to seizures. That work is from my assistance to a colleague in Ferrara, Italy. Both of these may someday be written about in posts on my blog, which is mostly science for non-scientists.
I’m still in the planning stages for my second novel. As my first, it will be a murder mystery based in the world of science that is investigated by the team of Steve Jude and Cindy Firestone. Finding something of interest in the world of scientists to which non-scientists can relate is not difficult, as science affects everyone’s life. Finding something common to the careers of scientists and non-scientists to make the theme of a whole book is not so easy. In my first novel PoisonousScience , the theme familiar to everyone is competition in an era of diminishing resources. I haven’t decided the main theme yet for the second novel, but one of the ideas I’m toying with involves a false accusation of cheating, which destroys the career of a scientist.
How does your work differ from others of its genre?There are countless murder mystery novels. There are countless novels about academia. There are even several popular novels about murders that occur in academia. What is different about mine? Well in the words of the only review of eighteen on Amazon for Poisonous Science that wasn’t four or five stars, it “is too true to read it as a fiction- with the understanding that murders were to dramatize the story.” While, I certainly hope nobody starts murdering scientists in retaliation for an unfair review, I’m fairly certain that revenge of some sort has crossed the mind of everyone, scientist or non-scientist who feels that they have been the victim of injustice. But, at the same time, I put some humor into many of the situations in my stories because my outlook on life is to look adversity in the face and then break into laughter at the absurdity of it all.
Why do you write what you do?I’ve loved reading mystery novels and thought about writing one for many years before I began to write the first one. This delay wasn’t only due to being busy with writing scientific article for work, but also having to write in a style that is almost the complete opposite to the style I’ve been using for four decades.
But, I had a story I wanted to tell. Increasing competition for limited resources is so damaging to scientists and their staffs, and the limits on fixing the problem are so frustrating that it just might just make someone, more imbalanced than any real scientist I know, seek the ultimate form of revenge. So, I found the time to write my first novel. Having enjoyed the process, I will certainly find time to write more. Basically, my goal is to have fun combining two things I love to do, solving murder mysteries and informing the public about science and science policy.
How does your writing process work?Whether it’s science or fiction, I find that having an outline is essential at the beginning. In science writing, sticking with the outline is fairly easy, as the readers will be looking for the information to be presented in a fairly standard sequence and format. In fiction writing, I found it helps in getting started, but that as the intricacies of the story develop, the outline serves more as a general direction to which to return rather than an actual roadmap.
I begin each chapter of a novel with a goal of where I want my characters to reach. Obviously, for some of the characters, the goal they reach at the end of a chapter is only an intermediate in their journey and it may be in their thinking rather than reaching a physical location.
The progress in solving the crime was written from the perspective of Steven Thomas Jude, an FBI agent. As a former forensic pathologist, Steve obtained training in the scientific method. So, although Steve was never a laboratory scientist like many of the victims and suspects, his methods were clearly scientific.
Some of the chapters in my first novel contained the thoughts of the murderer. Those were fun to write. I actually thought about having the murderer be the narrator for the whole book, but then I decided to have the murderer become progressively detached from reality.
Because my goal is to make the scientist’s world understandable by non-scientists, I asked my wife, a librarian, originally trained in art, to read each chapter. Once, the whole story was complete, I asked a third grade teacher to give me feedback, particularly about what didn’t make sense to her.
My writing mostly occurs when I can avoid distractions. So, most of it is done late at night at home or while traveling on Amtrak between Merced, CA and Los Angeles. When I write dialog, I find it best to then read it out loud. To avoid getting thrown off the train, dialog is strictly written at home.
On with the tourNow let me introduce the next two authors on this tour, Judith Cranswick (http://www.judithcranswick.co.uk) and Ben Starling (https://www.facebook.com/authorbenstarling). They will be posting about their writing process around June 21st.
Judith is a British crime writer who writes standalone psychological suspense novels and the Fiona Mason Mysteries. Fiona Mason is a tour manager for a coach company and each novel is set in a different country. Judith’s love of travel is reflected in nearly all her novels as even her latest edgy suspense novel is partially set against a backdrop of the wonderful wildlife of the amazing Galapagos Islands.
Ben Starling is passionate about marine conservation and boxing, both central themes in his upcoming novel. He is currently Writer in Residence for Mirthquake Ltd., a production company that advocates for ocean health and welfare. Most recently, he has participated in protests at the Japanese Embassy in London against the dolphin slaughter in Taiji. Ben graduated from Oxford University with a Master of Arts and M Phil. He is Oxford’s only ever Quintuple Blue (varsity champion five years running), was Captain of the university boxing team, and coached and boxed competitively until about five years ago. He was born in the USA but has lived in the UK since childhood. Ben’s upcoming novel is planned for release in 2015.
Please also like my author page on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/peroxideman
To continue the tour, I have answered the four questions that each author is asked.
What are you working on?
As a busy academic scientist, much of my time is spent writing non-fiction. Or, at least, it’s supposed to be. Currently, I’m working on two manuscripts. One is about a protein in cancer cells that is involved in metastasis. That is one focus of the work in my lab. Another is about alterations of a protein in epilepsy that may contribute to seizures. That work is from my assistance to a colleague in Ferrara, Italy. Both of these may someday be written about in posts on my blog, which is mostly science for non-scientists.
I’m still in the planning stages for my second novel. As my first, it will be a murder mystery based in the world of science that is investigated by the team of Steve Jude and Cindy Firestone. Finding something of interest in the world of scientists to which non-scientists can relate is not difficult, as science affects everyone’s life. Finding something common to the careers of scientists and non-scientists to make the theme of a whole book is not so easy. In my first novel PoisonousScience , the theme familiar to everyone is competition in an era of diminishing resources. I haven’t decided the main theme yet for the second novel, but one of the ideas I’m toying with involves a false accusation of cheating, which destroys the career of a scientist.
How does your work differ from others of its genre?There are countless murder mystery novels. There are countless novels about academia. There are even several popular novels about murders that occur in academia. What is different about mine? Well in the words of the only review of eighteen on Amazon for Poisonous Science that wasn’t four or five stars, it “is too true to read it as a fiction- with the understanding that murders were to dramatize the story.” While, I certainly hope nobody starts murdering scientists in retaliation for an unfair review, I’m fairly certain that revenge of some sort has crossed the mind of everyone, scientist or non-scientist who feels that they have been the victim of injustice. But, at the same time, I put some humor into many of the situations in my stories because my outlook on life is to look adversity in the face and then break into laughter at the absurdity of it all.
Why do you write what you do?I’ve loved reading mystery novels and thought about writing one for many years before I began to write the first one. This delay wasn’t only due to being busy with writing scientific article for work, but also having to write in a style that is almost the complete opposite to the style I’ve been using for four decades.
But, I had a story I wanted to tell. Increasing competition for limited resources is so damaging to scientists and their staffs, and the limits on fixing the problem are so frustrating that it just might just make someone, more imbalanced than any real scientist I know, seek the ultimate form of revenge. So, I found the time to write my first novel. Having enjoyed the process, I will certainly find time to write more. Basically, my goal is to have fun combining two things I love to do, solving murder mysteries and informing the public about science and science policy.
How does your writing process work?Whether it’s science or fiction, I find that having an outline is essential at the beginning. In science writing, sticking with the outline is fairly easy, as the readers will be looking for the information to be presented in a fairly standard sequence and format. In fiction writing, I found it helps in getting started, but that as the intricacies of the story develop, the outline serves more as a general direction to which to return rather than an actual roadmap.
I begin each chapter of a novel with a goal of where I want my characters to reach. Obviously, for some of the characters, the goal they reach at the end of a chapter is only an intermediate in their journey and it may be in their thinking rather than reaching a physical location.
The progress in solving the crime was written from the perspective of Steven Thomas Jude, an FBI agent. As a former forensic pathologist, Steve obtained training in the scientific method. So, although Steve was never a laboratory scientist like many of the victims and suspects, his methods were clearly scientific.
Some of the chapters in my first novel contained the thoughts of the murderer. Those were fun to write. I actually thought about having the murderer be the narrator for the whole book, but then I decided to have the murderer become progressively detached from reality.
Because my goal is to make the scientist’s world understandable by non-scientists, I asked my wife, a librarian, originally trained in art, to read each chapter. Once, the whole story was complete, I asked a third grade teacher to give me feedback, particularly about what didn’t make sense to her.
My writing mostly occurs when I can avoid distractions. So, most of it is done late at night at home or while traveling on Amtrak between Merced, CA and Los Angeles. When I write dialog, I find it best to then read it out loud. To avoid getting thrown off the train, dialog is strictly written at home.
On with the tourNow let me introduce the next two authors on this tour, Judith Cranswick (http://www.judithcranswick.co.uk) and Ben Starling (https://www.facebook.com/authorbenstarling). They will be posting about their writing process around June 21st.
Judith is a British crime writer who writes standalone psychological suspense novels and the Fiona Mason Mysteries. Fiona Mason is a tour manager for a coach company and each novel is set in a different country. Judith’s love of travel is reflected in nearly all her novels as even her latest edgy suspense novel is partially set against a backdrop of the wonderful wildlife of the amazing Galapagos Islands.
Ben Starling is passionate about marine conservation and boxing, both central themes in his upcoming novel. He is currently Writer in Residence for Mirthquake Ltd., a production company that advocates for ocean health and welfare. Most recently, he has participated in protests at the Japanese Embassy in London against the dolphin slaughter in Taiji. Ben graduated from Oxford University with a Master of Arts and M Phil. He is Oxford’s only ever Quintuple Blue (varsity champion five years running), was Captain of the university boxing team, and coached and boxed competitively until about five years ago. He was born in the USA but has lived in the UK since childhood. Ben’s upcoming novel is planned for release in 2015.
Please also like my author page on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/peroxideman
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