Was it your intention when the boys were learning about the history of a specific place and time for the book to read more like a schoolbook?

I really was trying to make their history learning episodes to sound more like a newspaper because in the book they were all the time checking out newspaper offices to find out what date it was and what was happening at that time in the surrounding area. They needed to find out what date it was because they had to jump to another time on December 31st of the year that they were in. This was important to them when they thought that they were going to have to find the wide street in each town to cross which would jump them 100 years ahead in time. This all changed when they made their first jump and went back in time a couple of years more than they were at the beginning. From then on they found a way to bypass the 100 year jump and only jumped 1 year at a time after they got back on schedule, but they still did not know what month of the next year that they would be landing in. They would find a newspaper office to check the latest paper for the date to see how long they had before their next jump and while they were there they would check on what was happening in the surrounding area.


You dedicated this book to all of the people who have lived in Henry County, but you especially dedicated it to Herring. Could you tell us a bit about this gentleman?

The book was dedicated to all those people that had lived in the area of Henry County, Alabama that was known as Beat 5 and dedicated especially to one of the main characters in the book, Herring.

Herring and I grew up together in the area of Beat 5, Henry County, Alabama and he was a great friend. We fished the Big Abbey Creek every summer. We went dove, quail, duck, and other types of game hunting during each hunting season. Herring was a baseball pitcher in school and had a pretty good curve ball. He died in January of 2006.


Have you started to work on the next adventure of the Beat 5 Boys?

Yes I have and the title of it is The Beat 5 Boys Journey Into The Lost World. It will have more science fiction in it than the first book in the series which was In The Adventure of The Swirling Waters.


How many books/short stories have you written?

This was the first full length book that I have written.
 

When did you first realize that you had a desire to write?

I have always liked to write. I wrote poetry while in high school.


Do you ever get to the point where you lose interest in what you are writing? If so, how do you revive your interest in the story?

I really don't lose interest in what I am writing because when I set down to write I really don't know what the next paragraph is going to be. I have the general idea for the whole book after I write a few chapters. For example, I made up the name for the second book, The Beat 5 Boys Journey Into The Lost World, and did not know exactly what it was going to be about. After the first chapter or two I finally got the general idea of what the book would be about.


How do you manage to balance your time between family, friends, and writing?

I do most of my writing at night. A lot of sleepless nights, but I found that is when I do my best writing.


Has your writing opened up any new opportunities for you? Were there any opportunities that you had never considered before?

Not really, I am still new at this. Maybe some will come my way.
 

If you could spend one hour with just one person, who would you choose? Why?

It would probably be former President Bill Clinton because I think that he is one of the smartest people I have ever seen that knows how to apply common sense in solving complex problems and issues.
 

I know that you self-published your book. Do you have any advice for writers who are striving to be published? Would you recommend self-publishing over a regular publisher? Why or why not?

I would recommend self-publishing your own book because you can do it for almost nothing. The average sales for a fiction novel is around $ 4,000 for an author, so you can't invest too much in getting it published or you will not break even. A few novels make a whole lot more than this average but there are thousands and thousands that make a whole lot less than the average. Non-fiction books do a little better than this average but not enough to change my mind on self-publishing if I were to write a non-fiction book. Even if you go with a traditional publisher, you, the author, will still be the one that will have to get your book publicized, so if that is the case, you might as well go the self-publishing route.

If you would like to obtain a copy of The Adventures of the Beat 5 Boys so you can experience Bradley and Herring's escapades, I have provided 2 links to Amazon below. The first link is for a Kindle version of the book, the second for a paperback copy.

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