Dana Haynes' Breaking Point

My guest today is Dana Haynes. Dana is the author of two thriller novels from Minotaur Books, CRASHERS, 2011, and BREAKING POINT, 2012. CRASHERS was named best mystery by a Northwest Author from Friends of Mystery. He is working on two more thrillers for Minotaur, featuring Daria Gibron, an ex-spy and a character from CRASHERS. He lives in Portland with mystery novelist Katy King and their cat, Glamour. 

Welcome to my little corner of cyberspace, Dana. With spring just around the corner, it’s a perfect day to talk writing. So let's get started!

Anne - Tell us a something about yourself that you would normally only share with close friends.

Dana - A great deal of my writing influence comes, not from great literature, but from comic books and comic strips. I wasn’t just a nerd collector -- OK, I am that, too -- but I also studied both media. The great continuity strips of the past involved writers who could take three panels, maybe 20 words, and move their plot or character development forward. That’s amazing storytelling. I often think Twitter, with its embarrassing riches of 140 characters, is for wimps.

Anne - What one or two lines best sums you up as an author?

Dana - My butt is in the chair, my fingers wrapped around the pencil. I write every day. I came up in weekly newspapers, which is the ultimate boot camp for writers. We didn’t have “writers block,” we had unemployment.

Consequently, I take fiction writing as a job, and I show up for my job every single day. It’s the only way to roll.

Anne – Great advice. I love that line about not having writers block or unemployment followed! Tell us about your most recent release.

Dana - BREAKING POINT: En route to a conference, three NTSB experts are aboard a twin-turboprop plane when it crashes into a thickly forested mountainside. But the crash isn’t an accident and the experts weren’t the target. Soon the “Crashers” are literally dropped in the middle of an investigation that neither starts nor ends with one plane crash, but stretches from Spain to Montana, and to the darkest corners of power in Washington, D.C. 

Anne - I often write while sitting in my car. Parked. In my driveway! I call it my “cone of silence”. My very own writer’s cocoon, if you will. Do you have a unique place to write? Tell us about it. 

Dana - I like writing in coffee shops, but I also have written really great passages in airport terminals, in the waiting room of car service centers and on mass transit. In short: Anywhere with noise and visual stimulation. This comes out of my background, spending 20 years in Oregon newspaper newsrooms, where the constant din is part and parcel of the writing experience.

Anne - How long does it take you to write a book?

Dana - It takes me about 90 days to craft a decent first draft and another three to five months to clean it up and turn it into something fit for human consumption.

Anne – LOL! Great line. So many readers think writers get it down perfectly in the first draft. Few realize writing is re-writing. Thanks for dropping by, Dana. One final question before you go. Where can readers find you online?

Dana – At my website and on Facebook.

Readers, as always, your comments are welcome and appreciated. Become a follower to ensure you receive every author interview, announcement and/or blog post. Stay tuned for the Spring 2012 Mystery We Write Blog tour April 16-28. Check out the usual suspects HERE, and take a look at the slideshow in the top right corner of my blog for author pics and book giveaways. Until next time, happy reading! J

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