Rogue's Angels Present: The Moment Between by Gareth Frank

Please welcome Gareth Frank author of The Moment Between

Gareth Frank will be awarding a $50 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

THE MOMENT BETWEEN

by Gareth Frank

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GENRE: Psychological Thriller

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INTERVIEW:

How did you come up with your idea for your novel?

Before I started writing The Moment Between, I spent hours trying to beat ideas out of thin air. That didn't work. Fortunately, there is a better and easier way to come up with ideas.

I think Steven King said it best:  "(The writer's) job isn't to find ideas but to recognize them when they show up."

In fact, the nugget that developed into my novel showed up in the mail. I received a Christmas card that mentioned the death of a friend's brother and alluded to his wife being the murderer. A very strange Christmas card, indeed. I couldn't stop thinking about it. When I called my friend and asked what had happened, I found out that, as they say, fact was stranger than fiction. I used the woman in question to create one of my characters. Some people think I created a monster. The truth is, real monsters are often real people.

If you could be one of the characters from this book, who would it be and why? 

Not the monster, I would be Doctor Hackett Metzger. Although he is a flawed character and has trouble navigating personal relationships, he is also brilliant and well-meaning. On top of that, he and I are skeptics, a quality I admire as long as you are not too rigid. "I wear that badge with honor," Hackett says. "Look it up in the dictionary. A skeptic is someone who asks questions instead of accepting the seemingly obvious. Without skeptics, there would be no progress." 

 Can you give us a sneak peek into this book?

The Moment Betweenis a psychological thriller that brings death to life through the story of Doctor Hackett Metzger, a neurosurgeon still recovering from the passing of his wife when he becomes involved in a medical study of near-death experiences, and falls for a woman with a dangerous past. Hackett, a likable and brilliant doctor, is also a bit of an awkward nerd. He agrees to support the study even though his heart and mind tell him that death is final. Research and life are about to collide.

It is a story about the death of a spouse and the grief that follows. It is a story about recovery and finding your way. It's a story about the danger of falling in love with the absolutely wrong person, but most of all The Moment Betweentakes an authentic look at the mystery of life after death and the equally big mystery — what is consciousness?

In the novel, I try to be faithful to what people report they experience when they survive death as well as the theories people use to explain the phenomenon. I also tackle what I consider to be the central inner conflict of the book. Hackett and the others, whether they are religious, agnostic or atheistic must face a central human conflict of rationality versus mysticism. No matter our faith or lack thereof, the human mind tends to view the world through two very competing lenses and we all color our perceptions based on our beliefs.

Do you belong to a critique group? If so, how does this help or hinder your writing?

John Paine, a great professional editor who taught me a ton about story development, told me that critique groups tend to give the writer more bad advice than good, and are a waste of time. However, I have either been in writing classes or in writer groups continuously for the last seven years and I not only find it helpful to receive feedback, I find that giving others feedback helps to sharpen your own skills. I will say that John's advice is important in one crucial respect. You need to have your own strong sense of direction, and sift through the opinions that you are given. Eat the tasty morsels, don't binge on the whole meal.

Do you outline your books or just start writing?

Most people think that the biggest mystery in writing is developing that initial idea or concept. I think the real mystery is how writers put meat on the bones. I marvel at writers who can think through a whole plot in their head and somehow cobble together an outline with a fully developed story and characters. For me, it is the act of writing that provides the creative platform. I write and rewrite and rewrite ad infinitum. First comes the idea, then the characters and then very slowly I fill in the details of the story and discover where the holes and inconsistencies lie.

What is the best and worst advice you ever received? (regarding writing or publishing)

The best advice is simple — write because you love to. Write and keep writing. Only through lots and lots of practice can you learn the craft. Before I retired, I was a union organizer and spent a lot of time training other organizers. We had a saying that it took 10,000 hours of work to become a professional in any field. I think that is just as true for writers.

I think the worst advice that a developing writer receives is to spend a lot of money learning the craft. Everyone is trying to sell writers something. Writing a good book is difficult, and finding an agent or publisher is harder yet. So instead of making money off of readers, the writing industry is geared to make money off of writers. You can be overwhelmed by editors, writing coaches, cover designers, platform advisors, web site developers, etc. Pretty soon, you will have spent thousands of dollars that you will never recover.

Don't get me wrong. There are lots of people who have plenty of good advice, and there are times when every writer needs professional help. I have taken writing courses. I have paid to attend conferences. I have paid for advice from editors.

Spend on the few things that matter most when it comes to learning the trade. Otherwise, focus on reading and writing.

How do you maintain your creativity?

For me, creativity comes from writing and reading, but there is also a part of it that only happens when you free up your mind and let it wander. I get some of my best ideas on long car rides when my mind has an opportunity to fly wide and far.

Are your plotting bunnies, angels or demons?

Angels, of course, though my plot bunnies don't multiply like real rabbits. When I find ideas, I do latch onto them, and I try to nurture and feed them. The Christmas card I mentioned earlier was the plot bunny for The Moment Between. I obsessed over it for a long time, turning it this way and that to see where it led. Before long, I tied it to my fascination with near-death experiences.

Sometimes, plot bunnies might be ideas for a novel, but my inner self settles on a short story and there is nothing I can do about it. One of my short stories, Kansas 1875, published by the Eunoia Review, was like that. It's a story about a man, his pig and a drought. I love the story, and my wife has urged me over and over again to turn it into a novel, but there it sits, complete in my mind with no way to change it.

What expertise did you bring to your writing?

I think that the only expertise that a writer needs to start with is being a creative storyteller. Everything else follows from there. I wouldn't go so far as Somerset Maugham who said  — "If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write." I think that you do have to learn the craft of writing: building sentences, using similes and metaphors, how to use or artfully abuse the rules of grammar, etc., but everything starts with a good sense of storytelling.

You also need to know your subject matter, even if you haven't lived it. Tom Clancey wasn't a submarine captain before he wrote Hunt for Red October, but he was a good researcher. I spent a lot of time researching near-death experiences, neuroscience, savantism and even physics to write The Moment Between. For me, research is one of the most enjoyable things about writing.

What or who inspired you to start writing?

Retirement inspired me to start writing. A little more than seven years ago, I was sitting at work, totally stressed out. Not because I had a bad job, I liked my job. Stress is just in my nature and it caused me to reach a turning point. I decided to retire. Then people started asking me what I was going to do in retirement, and I started stressing out over that. I didn't really know. I wasn't going to travel more, because my wife was still working. I could ride my bike more, run more, read more, but none of those felt like a real answer. I had long nursed an idea for a novel, so I decided to write it, not exactly the most original idea. I read somewhere that 200 million Americans want to publish a book — 200 million! I didn't know about the daunting numbers back then, but I had known tons of people who had expressed an interest in writing a book, and practically none who had done so. Why? Because when you get down to it, it really is way too much work. You have to be really good or a little masochistic to succeed. I will admit to the latter.

To give myself a little insurance policy that might stop me from giving up in a week or two, I began telling people with a bright, self-confident smile: "I'm going to write a novel." People would smile back, and I could almost hear them say — sure you are.

As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?

I am almost finished with my third novel, though I am sure that I will still be editing and re-writing for months. Although it will be similar in style to The Moment Between, I have added a dollop of magic realism to give the story an extra kick.

Torn Skin(working title) is the story of Jonny Pirpal, a punkrockin, freight train hoppin loner with a history of ego and anger issues. Back in the nineties, he achieved rock and roll fame but his world fell apart and he lost everything in a single day. Syierra Antalek is a mystic who quite literally saves the lives of strangers, but couldn't protect her own family. After years of dedicating herself to others, she, too, has become a lonely traveler. Their paths cross as Jonny's history is about to catch up with him.

One of the things that I have genuinely enjoyed about writing Torn Skinhas been the opportunity to write lyrics to Jonny's songs, both as a young punk rocker and an older vagrant. The title, Torn Skin,comes from one of his punk rock songs and also relates to his problems with love and the scar above his right eye.

BLURB:

After four years of mourning, Doctor Hackett Metzger is determined to stop letting his wife's death control his life. He is finally beginning to live again, but his recovery leads to an unexpected fight for his own survival and startling revelations about what happens to all of us in The Moment Between.

Hackett, a brilliant neurologist, is a skeptic. He doesn't believe he will one day be reunited with Jean, or dwell with God in heaven. What he does believe is that he should have seen the warning signs of her heart attack; he should have saved her. He also cannot accept the possibility that his clinical study of near death experiences could prove the existence of a conscious afterlife. When Hackett falls for the mother of a patient, grief finally begins to fade. But he has no idea his new love is hiding her dangerous past. Will Hackett's damaged spirit endure another heartbreak?

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EXCERPT:

In those first months, he tortured himself with the notion that Jean’s voice had been real. He was sure that she had been present while he tried to save her. He prayed that she lived on in death, hoped that even as he failed, she had a soft landing on the other side. Her voice became his torture.

And so he understood death as he never had before. He understood grieving and pain. He understood what it meant to miss someone and to know that he would never see that person again. He understood loneliness. Most of all he understood the foolish and painful illusion that life might somehow continue. There was no voice. Jean had not talked to him from beyond. He had tortured himself from within. She was dead. He had learned to accept that cold hard reality. Anger had settled into the dark hole that was his memory of that day, poisoning his spirit. For weeks he stayed home from work, for months the blackness held him captive, until slowly he emerged into the world once more. His sanity hinged on his acceptance that Jean’s voice had been an illusion. Death was just death.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Gareth Frank is a former union organizer and administrator. He received a Master's Degree at the University of Wisconsin and later studied at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The Moment Between is his first published novel. His short stories have been published in various journals and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize as well as the Silver Pen Write Well Award.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GarethFrankAuthor

https://www.amazon.com/Moment-Between-Gareth-J-Frank/dp/1732294208

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

Gareth Frank will be awarding a $50 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f2906