Over the years some of the same questions keep coming in…questions about the process of writing, how I got started, how I research new technologies, how I keep a day job. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions from my readers.

Q: How do you find time to write?

A: Whenever there’s an opportunity.  Opening windows to write is directly correlated to the science of squeezing productivity out of every minute of the day.  Often when I am ready to engage the story, the Muse is not.  And too often she appears at the most inopportune times.  So I try to maintain a code of calm rationalization and stick to three simple rules: 1) write every day, 2) if you miss a day, make it up, and 3) don’t miss a day.  On a typical weekday, I wake up at five in the morning, write for an hour or two, make my Europe and east coast calls, see the kids off to school and head into the office.  Then at night I return home, say goodnight to the kids, but I don’t turn on the television; I print out pages and line edit.  Weekends are often make-up days.  And writers don’t take holidays.

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A: My problem is the opposite: too many ideas and experiences in the tech world.  I have writer’s tsunami.  Focus is the primary challenge.  Sometimes in the midst of a plot I can get stuck, but it is more indecisiveness around too many interesting turns than an emptiness of ideas.  I carry a notepad to help me focus.  Sometimes applying Michael Porter’s 5-Forces competitive analysis to a scene helps.  Or I do a character refresh using BCG’s 2×2 matrix (a trick I learned my dear friend Professor Don Sull of the London Business School).

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A: My first goal is to entertain.  If I can entertain the reader, I have a better chance at educating and informing the reader.  But my goal is not to soap-box.  While my books examine the human condition, particularly how we embrace the power of our scientific creations in extreme circumstances, my writing takes a deeper look into the science itself and the management – or mismamangement – of the powerful gifts technology bestows.  I am not anti-technology, in fact, I’m quite the opposite.  My characters face off against some of the most terrifying new technologies developed by mankind, and thus far, man has beat science.  But it’s always a close match, down to the wire.  Perhaps one day I will publish my version of Stephen King’s THE STAND.  Technology has been very, very good to me, and I treat her with respect.  Even it’s bad side.

There is an undercurrent in my work, and that is simply this: Bad technology in good hands beats good technology in bad hands.  But it’s close.  And always it comes down to the last page.

As I write more books, I do find myself diving deeper into the human condition and its relationship with technolopgy.  Lately my books highlight common people in uncommon situations; characters with loves and hates and frailties and festishes and quirks and questions.  Of all the technologies I write about, I find by characters to be the most fascinating technology of all.  People are wired in all kinds of unsuspecting ways, and there is no owner’s manual.

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A: Starting a novel for me is like cracking crude oil.  Many passes through the distillation column are required before yielding a product that ignites.  There are a few trick I’ll employ to get the seed started.  First, I consider a new technology that has the potential to save millions.  In PHARMA, we discovered new  medicines to cure cancer in the Amazon rainforest.  In CARDIAC (KILLER VIRUS), a revoluntionary new heart implant is found to thwart the world’s number one killer after cancer, heart failure.  These accomplishments (based always on fact and research) represent the “good witch.”  Next, I consider what might take that technology to the dark side (“bad witch”), and these forces could derive from corporate strategies in a desparate pharmaceutical company to the well-intended but ambitious agenda of a United States senator.  Then I toss in an ill-suited and ill-prepared protagonist who must save the day against all odds.

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A: I often answer that I enjoy the research more than the writing.  When I was a biochemical engineer early in my career, my favorite work was in the lab: building and breaking and burning things.  The challenge with research for me is curiosity: reseach time cuts into writing time, so balance is always an issue.  I use a number of sources… the internet and libraries and universities…but my favorite research source are the people who work in the science and technology fields I am exploring.  There’s nothing better than getting into a debate with a doctor at the CDC or a day of weapons training with my DEA friends in the anti-terrorist unit in Los Angeles or learning hacker terminology from Silicon Valley security CEOs.  It makes the late nights of line editing all worthwhile.

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A: One mantra you hear from successful people, regardless of their field of expertise, is the old saw “do what you love.”  I enjoy the creation process, and writing certainly fulfills that desire.  But developing patents for new technologies, something I’ve also done, or building companies from scrtach, these too are acts of creation.  So is raising a family and building a community.  The technology references I include fascinate me, so yes, I am extremely interested in how they work, how they can used to help – or hurt – mankind.

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Q: How do you name your characters?

A: Naming characters is tricky, but I try to have fun with that.  I have an attorney friend in San Francisco who could not keep himself from commenting on my first chapter drafts.  So I vowed write him into the book.  He was touched.  Until he learned, after the book was published, that his namesake suffered a brutal murder on Page 5.  I killed him again in my second book, early on, slow and horrific.  Since he is an attorney, nobody complained.

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A: Since I write in the wee hours – at night and in the morning – most of my time I am writing at home.  I travel quite a bit for business.  Air travel these days involves substantial downtime, so I find that I can write quite a bit on the road, in airplnes, waiting in airports, in hotel rooms after dinner meetings.  Sometimes on the weekend iIwill do an early morning coffeeshop with my laptap.  Once I brought my laptop to Burning Man.   What a mistake.

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A: There are calendar days and there are hours spent on a novel.  The question also supposes a clear start and terminal end, and often the writing process is not so linear.  I am often writing and rewriting several books at once.  But one method I do practice is that of the first draft sprint.  I will committ to complete the first draft of a new novel in 3 months, sort of like a product development manager who needs to stick to the roadmap, or a sales directorhitting a quarterly quota.  That draft will be a horrific mess, but the whole snake will have been pulled out of the bag and laid out straight.  From there, I start the editing and refining and the fine art of line-editing.  The time required could be another 3 to 6 months after that.

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