Joe Clark

INTRODUCING 

JOE CLARK

         

Hi! 

Sounds like being an author is kind of new

for you. I love seeing your voice online.

It is new in this mode. I have been a writer all my 

life and I have written short stories for limited

audiences

Glad you're diving in, now!

You were an engineer?

Yes BSEE in 70 went to work for Western Electric

later MSCS from Johns Hopkins 

A lot of my work was in satellites and satellite

communications

Do you find that you use your analytical math-y

brain in your writing? Or is it a completely 

different skill set?

I do use it sometime overtly

sometimes behind the scenes

I think I'm obsessed with making sure that the

sequence of events is plausible

Very cool. Good for readers looking

to catch something off. You're bulletproof!

In the climactic scene of "Survive" Lisa and Amy

are trying to stop the villain driving a Winnebago 

packed with an A bomb. Lisa wants to cause a 

wreck by stopping her jeep in front of the bad guy.

FBI agent Amy wants a clean shot. Lisa calculates

how far ahead she has to get to give Amy time to 

get out and shoot the guy. Then she says, "You've 

got 2 seconds. If you're not out of the way, you're 

roadkill." Or something to that effect.

Sounds exciting!

And not something just anyone could write!

Thanks for taking the time to chat!

STANDARD TWEEP TATTLER INTERVIEW

1) Where do you live?

Cheverly, Maryland – a small community in the Washington, D.C. suburbs – inside the beltway on the east side.

2) What is the first thing you remember writing?

          I vaguely remember creating birthday cards. I won an essay contest in the 8th grade.

At some point I remember writing a short story that my teacher praised because of the stream-of-consciousness style.

3) Why do you write?

I write because it is natural for me. I am comfortable speaking in front of audiences but I like to put my ideas down on paper. Sometimes I get excited about something I am reading and I have to write down my reactions.

4) Have you published any of your work?

I published a technical paper while I was working on a Masters and I wrote some articles for little publications like an office newsletter. I published my first novel “Survive” in 2016 and followed that about a year later with “The Walshes – the Coming of Eve”.

5) What are you currently writing?

I am in the middle of edit/re-write of “Demented” my third novel.

6) Are you currently querying?

I haven’t queried. Self-publishing is an attractive option and I have never had much success with query letters.

7) Finish this sentence (three lines or less):

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT…

I guess the adrenaline had taken over. I wasn’t feeling the wet and cold. They were out there and I had to wait for them to show. Everything else had been pushed out of my consciousness hours ago.

8) Which activities do you like to participate in, in the Twitter writing community (VSS365, etc.)?

I recently discovered #Vss365. I have written a few pieces and I am hooked on the “Likes”

Other than that I respond to posts from others. I get involved in politics.

9) Do you have any formal training/education for writing?

I think the most important course was a correspondence course offered by The Newspaper Institute of American. It was oriented to writing for newspapers. That was one of the courses I took while I was stationed in Vietnam. Later I took a course in night school but I couldn’t get with the program. A couple of years ago, I took  a course in writing science fiction under the auspices of Writer’s Digest. I think I learned quite a bit from that although I didn’t agree with the teacher on a lot of points.

10) Do the people in your life know that you write?

Yes. The get stuck reading my stuff. “The Walshes” is dedicated to my wife because held my hand through the entire ordeal.

11) Tell me about the people in your life. Family? Pets?

I retired at the end of 2011. That collapsed my social sphere and in a way led to my current novel writing. My wife and I occupy and empty nest with a pair of Lab-Border mixes. When we married we each had 2 kids, and 2 cats. She had 2 dogs, I had 1. We have gone thru a half-dozen dogs and a half-dozen cats over our 30 year marriage.

Her daughter is our oldest child. She and her husband have retired and moved to Delaware. Her baby son starts his junior year this fall. Her daughter is married with kids.

Steve is a cop. He has been on WMATA for the last quarter century. His partner at the time of 9/11 was a bomb sniffing dog named Pasha. He and his current wife, also a cop, have 2 adult sons.

My older daughter is a career army officer. She is a Major on the list from promotion to LTC. Her husband is retired from the army. He received a medical discharge after an encounter with an IED in Afghanistan. They have 2 daughters. The younger on graduates for HS this June and is looking at colleges

My baby daughter is a single mom. Her daughter graduated from HS last June and her son is in his junior year. She is a top level manager in government contracts.

12) Where do you wish your writing to take you?

I can’t answer that one. I wrote “Survive” because I wanted to join a Meetup for writers and they wanted “a couple of chapters”. I didn’t have any so I wrote up 20 K words. They gave me a lot of advice. One thing led to another. When I finished the novel, I decided to publish it for the experience. I picked my second novel because I wanted to confront my qualms about writing sex scenes and I thought it would be a good way to gain some familiarity with a new writing tool I had acquired. You can find the explanation for my current #WIP here http://joeclark-blogger.com/demented/

I have a number of stories started. I have two that I would like to put out serially on Wattpad. But I’m taking things one day at a time.

13) What did you expect when you joined the Twitter writing community? Did it turn out as expected?

I had no idea what I was getting into. 

I just knew that Twitter was a potential venue for marketing my books. My daughter the Major is a Public Affairs specialist with experience in social media so I got some initial help from her. But interacting with my Twitter network is now a big part of my life. I would still like to market my books. I want people to read them. But I really enjoy interacting with others.

14) Where do you write?

Currently, I have taken over the dining room table. In a month or two the weather should be nice enough that I can move outside. I may go back working in my office. I bought a new computer and super display (curved screen with latest in color and resolution) so I could play with Orbiter 16 to help me with the sci-fi/space opera that is roiling in my brain.

15) How much time do you dedicate to writing, weekly?

Nothing dedicated – work when I feel like it but usually get in a couple of hours a day. During this rewrite effort, I’m shooting for a chapter a day – five or six days a week. Thirty five chapter to go (short ones obviously).

16) Do you have other talents?

I was a pretty good mathematician in my younger days. I survived a 40 year career as an engineer. Early on I developed software. Later I found my niche in verification. I’m a decent bicyclist. I have been a bike commuter from time to time. I’ve done some longer distance rides – the biggest one was a 600 mile ride from Bristol, TN to DC in 2008.

And I lettered in track and cross country in HS and college.

I was born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia. The Vietnam War gave me an opportunity to travel the world including an 18 month stay in sunny Vietnam. I completed college and married in 1970 then off to Chicago to begin a 40 year engineering career. I have always been a writer but my early attempts to get my work published were cut short by Judy’s death. I was suddenly a single dad with 2 daughters. Anita and I married a year and a half later. We have been together through thick and thin, poor and rich for the last 33 years. Our four kids are all doing well with adult children of their own. I picked up writing again after retirement. My first novel, “Survive”, was published in 2016. “The Walshes” was published at the end of 2017. I started on my current novel, “Demented” as a NaNoWriMo project in 2018. It should be ready for publication this Fall.

Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/joeclark

GoodReads Author Page: goodreads.com/author/show/15187953.Joe_Clark

Blog:  Clark’s Scribbles or joeclark-blogger.com

Best place to look for info on Joe's books: Joeclark-blogger.com/books/

Joe's current WIP:

http://joeclark-blogger.com/demented/