Interview With J Stewart Willis, Creator of “Fatal Freeway”

J. Stewart Willis grew up in Alexandria, Virginia and went to the United States Army Academy, from which he graduated in 1958 and served for twenty-five yrs in the Army. In the course of that time, he served in Taiwan and afterwards in Vietnam as Signal Officer of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. Through his Military career, he attended graduate college at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, earning an MS and PhD in Physics. He served as a Professor of Physics at the United States Military services Academy for sixteen yrs before retiring from the Army in 1983. He upcoming labored for TRW Inc. as a supervisor working on communications assignments and the Division of Energy’s Nuclear Waste Project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. For the duration of this time, he lived in Rappahannock County, Virginia, the place he has lived ever because. There he served as the elected mayor of Washington, Virginia (frequently referred to as “Minor Washington”) for 9 decades. He at the moment lives in Sperryville, Virginia with Charlie, his greyhound/borzoi cross.

Welcome again, Stewart. For new readers you can come across my preceding interview with J. Stewart Willis on his debut novel, Gestation Seven, at readerviews.com. Nowadays we’re likely to discuss about your newest e-book, Lethal Highway. What is this tale about?

The tale facilities around the personnel at the east coastline division of a key tech firm who are making ready a proposal for a significant contract for a freeway to change the Interstate Highway Method. The contract will likely be worthy of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and probably billions in excess of several years, and will make certain the foreseeable future of the organization, as well as its new east coast vice president. As a outcome there is massive pressure on the proposal manager and his internally aggressive employees to earn the bid. The reserve includes not only the enhancement of the proposal, but also the aggressive and slice-throat actions and interactions of the personnel and their wives.

How did you come up with the notion for this e book?

I try out to produce my guides involving topics or approaches to topics which are not ordinarily dealt with in novels. In my past, I worked for a tech corporation and was associated in the improvement of three proposals. Despite the fact that my experiences creating people proposals were being

constructive and helpful, the notion of a proposal advancement in a additional acrimonious atmosphere seemed to supply the possibility for the progress of a novel. That environment, significantly diverse from my have knowledge, is what I’ve portrayed in Lethal Freeway.

Convey to us about a pair of your a lot more colourful people. What motivates them?

Charlie Hendricks is a newly retired military colonel trying to build himself in marketplace and competing with the a lot more proven staff at the tech firm. He is a male who wishes to be wherever the motion is and is suffering to some extent in the environment of paper pushing.

Linda Hendricks is a female who has been an military wife for twenty years and has endured by her spouse being in Iraq and Afghanistan for a few excursions even though she is raising two sons. In her disappointment with what she sights as a boring life, she has an affair which she comes to regret.

Bella Fortiano is the wife of a very long-time personnel of the tech enterprise. Around the years, by sleeping with the proposal supervisor and providing medication to the manager’s spouse, she has guarded and supported the situation of her husband’s posture in the enterprise. When she discovers Linda Hendricks’s affair, she makes use of it to blackmail her husband’s new competitor.

How do you create your people? Are they influenced by authentic men and women?

Some of the people are loosely based on some of the individuals I realized in the military and in market as a setting up point, but from there I went off with my creativity. Fortunately, I have not actually identified any of them.

Which character do you relate to most and why?

Charlie Hendricks, since I retired from the military and went into market.

What is it about company politics that inspires these imaginative plot lines?

The politics of the book are a tiny extreme, but I have acknowledged manages who had been extremely competitive, together with their wives, in working on friendships with their bosses.

I was intrigued by some of the strategies your people came up with for creating a new freeway process, primarily some of the approaches for guiding and managing traffic working with know-how. Is this the real looking long run?

I believe that the concept of self-driving vehicles will govern the style of the highways of the foreseeable future and ideally, the application involved will permit total manage of the traffic on the highways to improve security.

How intensive was your analysis for this novel, particularly as it relates to making a freeway system?

Typically I reviewed the govt rules involved with procurement. Self driving autos, of training course, receive extensive dialogue in the media which we all go through.

What have you learned considering the fact that composing your 1st guide, Gestation Seven?

I think men and women want stronger characters. Gestation was about a youthful man overcome by instances and surviving in that atmosphere.

Getting an creator these times requires additional than just composing wonderful guides – what are you carrying out to industry on your own and your guide and what is actually been your biggest obstacle?

I have spent an remarkable quantity of income with “professional” marketers with tiny outcome. I do e-book signings, but the affect is modest. I also work Twitter and Fb, but my contacts there are generally other writers with the identical challenges I have. The whole procedure is competitive and hard.

What do you love most about staying a writer?

Hearing somebody say they loved my book.

Do you have a muse? How does he motivate you?

No. I have had suggestions in my mind for many years and am now attempting to place them to paper.

Do you ever knowledge writer’s block? If so, how do you get past it?

No. My guides to day have followed what happens through time. As a consequence I just write what comes about future.

What can you notify us about your creating system?

I have a couple thoughts to create all over and then just sit down and generate linearly to involve these ideas.

What is actually next? Do you have a different challenge in the performs?

I am currently doing work on a e-book entitled “3 Degrees Fahrenheit, and Increasing” established in the calendar year 2087. At the time some of the coastal lowlands of the U.S. are flooded by a mounting sea, people today are shifting inland, and work opportunities are challenging to locate.

Using what you have discovered with two novels underneath your belt, what advice can you give aspiring authors?

Considering the fact that I have not been incredibly thriving so much, I’m unwilling to give guidance. I assume I have penned intriguing books and have gotten fantastic suggestions on them. You will need to get people today to read through your textbooks. With the countless numbers of publications out there that is tough to do.

Do you have a website or weblog (or both equally) wherever audience can study more about you and your books?

My internet site is www.JStewartWillis.com.

How can audience join with you on social media?

On Fb: J Stewart Willis

On Twitter: @jstewartwillis7

Is there nearly anything else you’d like to include?

If you publish, get pleasure from the composing. Be watchful about paying out dollars on advertising. The price tag can take in you alive.