Hi all, thank you for having me.
First of all, I would like to apologize for possible shoddy grammar since this won't pass through proofreading service.
1. What have you written? (genre, titles, topics). Anything you want us to know about your book (s).
Writing was a constant for a long time; for the last 15 years I have been working as a journalist in Croatia (Croatia is a country in Eastern Europe). But on the literary side, I wrote my first novel last year - Loud Evolution, and now Louder Than War, a sort of an expansion pack. Loud Evolution and Louder Than War are action novels, maybe thrillers - the recurring themes are dissatisfaction with the world, violence, good old action and quite a bit of science.
The books reflect the world we are seeing for the last 50 years; a strange mix of great leaps forward and terrible state of humankind.
2. Why did you write it? / Why do you write?
I can't say why I write. Some people have the urge to tell stories, to be read, I don't. I write, probably, because it is fun. And is a lot easier than digging ditches...
Loud Evolution was written, well, to be honest, because I was reading The Sigma Protocol by Ludlum and thought it wasn't all that much. And I was joking with my friend that I could write something like that without much trouble. So I did! Of course, I think that Ludlum is/was a little bit more successful than me, but hey, I'm still young.
No really, Loud Evolution was a sort of an experiment, to see how I'm handling one continuous story. Louder Than War is just keeping a promise I made that I would expand the Loud Evolution universe with free stuff. And I try to keep my promises.
3. Can you briefly describe your process? How do you get a book from idea to finished?
Since I've been writing for a long time, the process is mostly automated and not all that complex. I find a topic I like and then I don't write. It all comes down to thinking about it, seeing pictures of it in my head, shifting it around, and when I have something that I'm happy with, I put it on "paper".
When I'm almost at the end, I give the manuscript to people I know and let them ask questions - for every question I don't have an answer, I know that something isn't right. If I have an answer ready, it's good - it might not be something that other people like, but since I wrote it and I have an explanation why, that means I'm happy with it.
4. Your books have a high level of violence so ...
“The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles."
― Mahatma Gandhi
Do you agree?
Well, quotations are great. But we often don't look at them in historical content they were made in. Sometimes they translate poorly into modern times.
But this one is probably eternal. I paints a nice picture of humanity's problems.
5. And on non-violence
“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”
― Thomas Edison
Do you feel your characters are using gratuitous violence, that violence follows them because they are violent men?
I, myself, am a child of violence. I was born and raised in Balkans and we do have panache for conflict. When I was a kid I went through war, people I knew died or came back broken.
But the whole world is a very violent place - we have waged wars as long as we can remember, we have revolutions left and right. Violence is what makes humankind, well, humankind. I'm not saying I like that, but it's the world we live in.
My characters are often thrown in violent spots - they are operatives who go and do stuff that would probably get others killed. But they thrive on violence, at least my main character, Thomas Loud. He is extremely angry at the world in general, but the bigger problem is that he is angry at himself. And as most of the human race, he vents his frustrations out.
6. You are self-published. How was that process for you?
It was a learning process - especially since I'm from Balkans and getting entry to iBookstore was an adventure that lasted for almost eight months (most of that time was spent on getting the ITIN). Not something I would say I wanted to do, but it was necessary; now I mostly know what I did wrong, what should have been done differently... But it wasn't a bad experience, I would recommend it to anyone.
I'm currently working with publisher from Ankara (Turkey) on translating and publishing Loud Evolution in Turkey, and there will probably be a Croatian version soon.
7. "Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it." - Albert Einstein
What was the hardest thing about writing action?
Duration of the action itself. Since my main character has a civilian background, I never wanted him to be portrayed as a super human. That is why he often gets his butt kicked or is in need of rescuing.
Action movies taught us that fights last for hours, weapons have unlimited ammo, people can survive incredible amount of damage, I didn't want any of that. So there was a fear of missing the public expectations what action is, or has to be.
8. When you write do you visualise the action like a movie and write what you see or how do you create the action scenes?
I mostly visualize. And from time to time I get a flash of something cool that I just want to get into the story. So, I mix all that together and a new chapter falls out
I couldn't do that with non-action genres, that would require a different approach.
9. How much research do you do for your books? When do you do the research - before or during writing or both?
I read a lot of non-fictional books and popular science magazines (BBC Focus, New Scientist...) so I have a solid foundation of things I would like to write about. Since I was trying to get as much real world technology into my books, I looked for things that are in military use, or are in prototype phase... There are things I just made up; well, I believe those things could be built, they are based on a real world concepts, but I'm not sure if they would work.
And since I've met lots of interesting people, some with incredible amount of knowledge about specific subject (journalism does that to a man), I usually check with them. If they say I'm being silly, I usually drop it.
10. If a movie was made of your books, who would you like to play the lead character?
Hm, not sure. I joked that I know who I don't want in my movie - Shia LaBouf and Justin Long
In reality, I think I wouldn't care much about that because I would be to busy telling everybody that they're doing a movie off my book!
