Hello again!
My latest interview is with author R. Clint Peters who was kind enough to answer my questions for this interview.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself.
R. Clint Peters: I was born in 1948 in Leavenworth, WA. I guess I had a normal childhood. I enlisted in the US Navy in 1970, and spent 6 years there, with three trips to Vietnam. I started writing poetry in about 1980.
Q: Do you remember the first story you wrote?
R. Clint Peters: The first story I wrote was probably in High School, in perhaps an English class. I do remember my English teacher, Mrs. Ferry, telling me I had writing ability, but I didn’t use it for many years.
Q: Were you inspired by someone or something?
R. Clint Peters: In my younger years, I read a lot of sci-fi books, so perhaps they contributed. And I like the flow of the Tom Clancy novels.
Q: What attracts you to Adventure/Suspense?
R. Clint Peters: I write from things that I know about. I am a computer geek and have utilized some of my experiences to create my books. I know my books are more adventure than thriller, so I have attempted to relate the process of the adventure to the Internet. A few people have told me that they don’t understand what I have written, that the books have been over their heads. And a couple of people said they didn’t understand what I had written, but they really liked what they were reading.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about “The Pendergast series”
R. Clint Peters: The Pendergast series starts with John Pendergast, who had developed a banking security program, early in the computer age. His wife, Jill, was killed in an automobile accident, and he just basically checked out. A group of police officers in the Seattle area have discovered an international group is planning to destroy the banking industry by shifting money around, collecting the interest, and then destroy individual countries. They have enlisted John to help find the group using his expertise on the Internet.
Q: How did you come up with the story for the books?
R. Clint Peters: Actually, I wish I knew how the stories came about. Sometimes, is it simply an idea I came up with in the shower. I had the idea for the third book in the series, the Pendergast Suppositions, almost twenty years ago, but no computer, and I didn’t want to fill spiral notebooks with my musings, similar to Steven King.
Q: Can you tell us something about the main character Oliver Pendergast II?
R. Clint Peters: Oliver Pendergast II, also known as O2, is the younger brother of John. He decided that he wanted to become a SEAL, and had a career in the Navy. Upon retirement from the Navy, O2 joined the Washington State Patrol, eventually working in the Cyber Crimes department.
In the Pendergast Suppositions, O2 has to come face-to-face with his past, and the possibility that he murdered one of his friends.
Q: Is he based on someone you know?
R. Clint Peters: O2 is just another figment of my imagination, although I had a friend when I lived in San Diego who was a SEAL.
Q: I understand you also created a new hero for a new series called Ryce Dalton. Can you tell us something about Ryce and the book he is featured in?
R. Clint Peters: The Ryce Dalton series has two books that are complete, and a third that is in process. Ryce happens to be a former Army Ranger, who retired from his commission when he was injured in a bad jump. The two books of the Ryce Dalton series are The Alaberta Connection, and the Family Connection; I have the third book in progress.
In the Alberta Connection, Ryce is working with the Joint Border Task Force, a group of combined US and Canadian law enforcement officers who are trying to prevent national secrets from crossing the border. Three laptops have been stolen from the Pentagon. Can Ryce prevent the secrets on the laptops from being passed on to some enemies of the US?
Q: You also wrote two poetry books, so what attracts you to poetry, and do you plan to publish more poetry books?
R. Clint Peters: I have no plans for any new poetry books. The ones that were written were the results of some very specific happenings in my life at the time. I had a lot of time on my hands, and mostly nothing to do, so poetry came gushing forth.
Q: Where do you see yourself in a couple of years in relation to writing?
R. Clint Peters: I am constantly coming up with new ideas for my books. The latest is a new character named Klete Wilkins. He is introduced in Welcome to Texas, a Klete Wilkins novel. I have only managed 12,000 words thus far.
Q: Do you have any tips for aspiring writers?
R.Clint Peters: I guess the best tip I have for aspiring writers is to just step over the edge. My first book, the Rendergast Prerogatives, took almost 6 months to write, and it was a disaster. I put it into a self-publishing company, which has done nothing to promote it, except ask me for money. I will not go down that road again.
Q: Which author inspires you?
R. Clint Peters: One of the authors who inspire me is Christopher Paolini. How did he come up with those characters and more importantly, how does he keep them separated in his head? I have a 3″x5″ notebook that is filling with characters and plots.
Q: What is the last book you read?
R. Clint Peters: The last book I read was Inheritance, by Christopher Paolini
Q: Where can people go and read your work?
R. Clint Peters: Several of my books are available on Amazon. I also have a website, where I offer the books not published by PublishAmerica as a PDF file. Or, if someone wants to do a book review, I will give them a PDF file of whichever book they choose, as long as they promise to write a review. I have instructions for writing reviews also available on my website.
Q: Where can people find you on the internet?
R. Clint Peters: My personal website is http://thereallybigbookstore.sharepoint.com, and you can find me on Twitter @RClintPeters.
Below is an excerpt from Pendergast Solutions!
The Pendergast ‘Ranch’ had a very storied beginning. It was a twenty-acre plot several miles up a remote canyon in the panhandle of Idaho. There was a small stream in the canyon, fed from a horseshoe-shaped lake butted up against some pretty high mountains with glaciers. The glaciers provided year round water to the lake.
Three prominent ranchers all thought they owned the lake and the stream. But, surveyors did not have all the modern equipment of today, and a twenty-acre plot had been completely missed. Three fences all met, not surprisingly, in the middle of the plot, but no one owned the land the fences were built on.
A young man, a ‘Back Easter’, had arrived from Boston, and started making inquiries about buying some land. The three ranchers who owned the canyon and surrounding land were not interested in selling any of their land. Their holdings were all about the same size, and each was very suspicious about the ‘Back Easter’; what if he was a member of one of the other families, and intended to combine his purchase with theirs?
One day he overheard a conversation in the cafe that some land was going up for auction the next day, and there had been no interest in the property. No earnest money had been placed on the property, which was unheard of.
Anyone who wanted to bid on the property was required to deposit earnest money into an escrow account. As soon as he heard about the sale, the “Back Easter” rushed to get his earnest money deposited. He had no idea where the property was; it could have been two miles up the side of a mountain. All he wanted was some land.