International Thriller Author
My friend David Morrell’s
book on writing, Lessons From A Lifetime
of Writing, has a most interesting anecdotal story. Morrell wrote First Blood which created a character
you may have heard of - John Rambo. The
story is very much a Greek epic of the reluctant hero being pulled into a
journey. Anyway, he spoke of the comedian Jerry Lewis who decided one day to
teach a class in comedy at the University of Southern California. Of course,
the applications rolled in. It was intended to be a small class. So, to narrow
it down, Lewis asked the simple question of “Why do you want to be a comedian?”
Of the many answers he got back, there was only one right one. It was simply
“Because I have to.” It has to be in
your blood.
David
and I had the great pleasure of doing a USO Tour in the Persian Gulf some time
ago. A USO tour is not a bed of roses. Between transportation and visits at
several bases, most days lasted twenty hours. But the troops truly were
thrilled to have visitors. Many of the soldiers expressed their interests in
writing and hopefully we encouraged that endeavor.
Our
message was an encouragement of writing whether by a novel, short story or
diary. Many of our greatest writers wrote short stories. F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Flannery O’Conner, and Anton Chekhov were some of the many short story writers.
And writing also helps you in your reading. Where one toils over the creation
of an opening sentence, particularly after many re-writes, you learn
appreciation from a Leo Tolstoy.
After your first book is published, you enter a different
world. Why does anyone want to put their soul on the line? Don’t look at the
reviews. Ronald Reagan was happy to get fifty-point-seven percent of the votes.
And it was called a landslide. A friend who took the liberty of being
particularly harsh on one of my books was told by me in speaking about the book
that “you do realize that you are speaking about my child?” These books are our children. I can take it. A
reviewer’s constructive criticism is always welcome. However, one Amazon
reviewer who gave me three stars gave To
Kill A Mockingbird two stars. I guess that is a very high compliment, but
those looking at Amazon would not know what high company I was in. But writing
has to provide the thrill of putting together a tight and elusive plot that
makes a turn at the end that the reader doesn’t see coming. It is the challenge
of building a character that has you in tears as the character struggles with
some conflict. Once the manuscript is finished, it just begins. Edits,
re-edits, spelling checks, marketing, social media, and much more. But it has
such a reward.
I was in a local store with my wife and as we were leaving
the owner stopped me. She asked if I was the one who wrote this novel. I said
yes, I did.
She said that her father
who had just died of cancer went through months of painful chemotherapy. “The
only thing that took his mind off of all of that was reading your book.”
Jerry Lewis was right. You just got to do it.
Anderson Harp is the author of international thrillers that
have been compared to “Tom Clancy at his finest!” (New York Times bestselling
author James Rollins). His military experience informs his fiction, earning him
high praise (“authentic … exciting … timely … believable” (New York Times
bestselling author David Morrell, creator of John Rambo). Anderson’s “breakneck
pacing” and suspense satisfy “even the most demanding reader” (New York Times
bestselling author Douglas Preston). His fans rave that his “keenly insightful
military thriller compares to Robert Ludlum’s trilogy about CIA assassin Jason
Bourne” (www.militarywriters.com).
Anderson has served the United States Marine Corps in many
capacities, from artillery to teaching mountain warfare and arctic survival.
Harp’s military work has taken him from the Arctic Circle and Fort Greely,
Alaska, (where a typical day reaches 44 below zero), to the Persian Gulf,
Central America, Europe, South Korea, and the Pentagon. As an officer in the
Marine Corps Reserve, he was mobilized for Operation Enduring Freedom and
served with MarCent’s Crisis Action Team. He has attended the Iowa Writers
Workshop’s Summer Festival on many occasions and has a Masters in
Fine Arts in Literary Fiction. He has also taught writing at workshops and
published works in the medical field.
Anderson was the spearhead for the International Thriller
Writer’s acclaimed “Operation Thriller.” Harp chaired and participated in the
first USO author’s tour in its seventy-year history, which took fellow thriller
writers and Anderson to meet troops in Iraq and Kuwait. He also was a member of
the 2012 Operation Thriller Tour with tourmates Michael Connelly, Brad Meltzer,
Joseph Finder and Kathy Antrim. He is one of only two authors in the
history of the USO to attend multiple tours. All of the Operation Thrillers to
date have gone into hazardous duty locations to include the Persian Gulf and
other undisclosed locations.
Much like his fictional hero Parker, Anderson is a pilot,
has skied in Aspen, Kitzbuhel, and Killington, run marathons, climbed Mount
Fuji, scuba-dived wrecks, and hunted in South America. He was a national-level
runner in college at American University.
Harp lives in Columbus, Georgia, home of Fort Benning. He
and his wife, Jane have four children.
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I really enjoyed this post and the information you shared with us. Anxious to read your new book.
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