Interview with Author Richard Spillman and a Giveaway!

Welcome to Readers Write to Know! I asked you, my readers, what questions they would ask their favorite authors if given the chance, and the authors visiting my blog answered them! This week, I am so happy to bring you author Richard Spillman. I have always pondered the question, What if Lazarus didn’t die after Jesus resurrected him?” Richard took that question, mashed it together with inspiration from a run-in with ISIS, and wrote a novel! How intriguing is that? I hope you enjoy his interview as much as I did. AND — he’s giving away an ebook of his latest release! See below how you can enter to win a copy!

Tell us a little bit about yourself: Richard Spillman is a retired Computer Scientist who typically writes Christian non-fiction (Do What Jesus Did is available on Amazon) as well as a Christian blog (spillmanrichard.com). His latest passion, however, is Christian fiction. His first novel, TheAwakened, will be released on October 1. The story asks the question: “What if Lazarus didn’t die a second time?” He was led to write it after avoiding being kidnapped by ISIS in the Philippines and then receiving death threats (to behead him in standard ISIS fashion) during the rest of his missionary service there. Besides the blog he is active web at spillmanauthor.com, on Facebook at bit.ly/spillmanauthor, on twitter (https://twitter.com/awakenedtrilogy) and instagram (http://ink361.com/app/users/ig-3176880720/spillmanrichard/photos) where you can see pictures from his missionary travels around the world.

How do you push past the fear of your writing being average and be bold enough to sell it to a publisher)?  The answer is I push. I have moments of self-doubt as I’m sure most writers have but I do not let them take over. In a way, I close my eyes, grit my teeth and send it out. Right now my editor has the second book in my trilogy and some days I wonder how much she is going to hate it.  But at those times I tell myself that when I finish making the changes she will ask for the book will be better.

Tell us about your current release: It’s called The Awakened published by Mountain Brook Ink and released on 10/1/18. I started it by asking the question: “If Lazarus didn’t die a second time what would he be up to today?”  This is the result:  Everyone dies once. But what if a chosen few were raised from the dead? 

Two thousand years ago Jesus resurrected his friend, Lazarus, who founded a secret organization: SOAR. Since then Jesus has added to the resurrected—The Awakened—to aid Lazarus in SOAR’s battle against Satan’s slaves, the UnVeilers. The threat is escalating. The UnVeilers have stepped up their attacks on mankind through a charming leader and a devastating series of bombings in Dubai and Tel Aviv. 

But the invasion doesn’t stop with international terrorism. The UnVeilers are searching for a secret that Jesus embedded in Lazarus’ journal that not even Lazarus knows—and it will determine the fate of mankind. After a failed cyber-attack against SOAR’s computers, Lazarus and his team of experts must find the secret before the UnVeilers do. What clue is he overlooking that could turn the tide of this ageless conflict? 

The souls fighting with Lazarus are weary, but the war against evil is far from won. Can Lazarus and his team set aside their longing for heaven and put a stop to these satanic attacks before it’s too late?

Do you have your plotline and character development already laid out before you begin writing a book, or do they develop as you write?   When I sit down to start I know two things: (1) The beginning of the book, and (2) the ending of the book. The rest of the process is to find a way to link (1) with (2). Most of the time I end up with scenes that I never imagined until I sat down to write them but they ended up necessary to connect the beginning with the end. I surprise myself and it’s kind of fun.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers? Three things: (1) read a lot, (2) write a lot, and (3) go to book conferences. The first two isolate you while the third allows you to get to know other authors, hear their stories, and benefit from what they have done.

What made you take the plunge and finally do it? I always wanted to write a novel but I also wanted to teach at the university level. I selected Computer Science and Engineering as my field and went on to get a Ph.D. in the subject. That is a field that is constantly changing and as a professor you are expected not only to keep up but to publish as well. So I did all that and had no time for writing a novel. As soon as I retired I started my novel.

Do you have pre-determined length in mind when you first begin a book? I shoot for 90,000 to 100,000 words. That being said The Awakened came in at 130,000+ so I had to do some serious cutting. It was a lot of work but I managed to get it down to 96,000 words and while it was difficult to cut so much I had to admit that in the end the book was much better.

What is your inspiration for writing?  For The Awakened, it started with a run in I had with ISIS while on a short term mission in the Philippines. It’s a long story but they found out I was there working in some remote churches and they got the phone numbers of our team. As soon as I arrived they started to call and tell me to stop or they would hunt me down and kill me. I didn’t stop but when I got home I wanted to explore the nature of the evil I was exposed to, so I came up with The Awakened which is a story of a major conflict between good and evil.

Find Richard online:

Website: http://spillmanauthor.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/136973920372866/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spillmanrichard/

Find Richard’s latest release online:

Richard is giving away an ebook of his latest release. You can enter with the Rafflecopter here: