Fascinating Authors

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?

Author: I  read Ayn Rand’s powerful novel, Atlas Shrugged, while in High School shortly after the work was published, and was so struck by it that I’ve re-read the book every couple of years ever since. Her novel ends with the heroes coming back from their self-imposed exile to begin the rebuilding of a shattered world.

However,  I recognized that the conditions in the world today were the same as those Ms. Rand wrote about fifty years ago. Terrorism, tyranny, and the decline of the human spirit are facts of life recognized in every country in the world in one way or another.  and SANCTION was born as a novel depicting those conditions.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How long did the book take you from start to finish?

Author: It took me about ten years because I wrote it in bits and pieces. Sometimes I scratched complete chapters out that just didn’t sit right. Sometimes I just stopped writing for a year or more. I actually finished half the book in about six months just before publishing it.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What surprised you the most about the book writing process?

Author: Basically, the writing part wasn’t that difficult. The technical part of the publishing process surprised me though, then the necessity of doing my own marketing. I wrote a ten-part article about that entitled So You’ve Written A Book. Now What? to help new writers understand what they’re getting into and how to get through it. It’s been re-published many times by magazines world-wide. It’s available free to anyone who writes me and asks for it.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?

Author: My goal in writing SANCTION was to help people see and understand what’s really happening in our world today, and Why, through an international mystery setting. So far, I’ve had a lot of readers write me with comments such as, “Is this what’s really going on? This is frightening?” Hopefully, that means their eyes have opened and they’re beginning to understand.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What projects are you currently working on?

Author: I’ve written a second international mystery, Evil For Evil, and it’s now ready for an agent and publisher. A third novel, COP, has about thirty-five chapters written, and then there are five or six more ideas already being developed in the computer. They are all basically in the genre of mysteries that encompass things that are taking place in today’s world, frightening things we see and read in our daily news.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?

Author: I retired early a few years ago and started writing, so I guess my main “job” today is doing just that – writing.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?

Author: A lot of my knowledge of people, places and world events come from either things I’ve been through or that I’ve watched take place in our daily news from around the world. Other things I’ve researched through reading, talking with various people or using the Internet.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How did you come up with your title?

Author: It came from Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged. The main character of her story, John Galt,  says at one point, “The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it,” and the theme of her book revolves around that idea. It became the working theme of my own book, SANCTION. We so easily give away our own rights and then whimper about where they’ve gone when it’s too late. My second book, Evil For Evil, follows in that idea.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What books have influenced you the most?

Author: Without a doubt, Atlas Shrugged.  I’ve re-read it every few years ever since I was in High School.  It’s probably second after the Bible.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Tell us a little bit about your book.

Author:  SANCTION sets out a plot for total domination of the world by an unknown group of very powerful men. Can the world leaders resist this powerful force? As the war of good vs. evil rages, Sanction intensely narrates the lives of some of the powerful men on both sides of the battle. Computer hacking, missile attacks, cold-blooded murder and pure evil haunt the world as The Plan progresses.

SANCTION is a story of a world in chaos; a world that is being driven to an unknown end—with the acquiescence of the majority of the people. There are some who are trying to fight to reclaim the spirit of the world, but can they actually combat the powers that are trying to take over? Can people give away the control of their lives, then retake that control? What can be important enough in a world that has been given away to cause people to fight to take it back?

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What did you do to prepare for writing your book?

Author:  I’ve always been an avid reader, from news to biographies to mysteries, and the things I’ve watched and read about since my teen years have set me up with the ideas I’m trying to put on paper now.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How did you develop your idea for this book?

Author:  I mainly just watched the daily news from around the world and tried to determine what was causing the chaos and terrorism. The story came about with a bit of a fertile imagination trying to put the news events into an understandable framework.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What can we look forward to in your next book?

Author:  My goal now is to continue to write international mysteries with a lot of reflection into what is happening in the world today and why. My next book, Evil For Evil, takes on the subject of a powerful vigilante group working to wipe out major evil influences in the world and what happens when regular citizens begin to copy them. Then COP, my third novel, is about the daily life of a police detective in Washington, D.C., who is trying to live his own personal life while struggling to live The Job following a terrorist through the city.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Thank you for taking the time to be part of this interview!

To learn more about the book and Author, please visit – http://www.jimmagwood.com/