Guy Morris interview

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

A little introduction:

Guy Morris has been a successful businessman, thought leader, adventurer, inventor, and published composer. During college, Guy was influenced by men of the Renaissance who were fluent in business, science, politics and the arts, a balance of views reflected in his writing. After growing up on the streets, Guy earned grad school scholarships for his innovative macroeconomic modeling, and won numerous innovation awards throughout his career. With three degrees and thirty-six years of executive-level experience in energy & high tech firms, Guy's thrillers blur the fine line between fact and fiction with a healthy sardonic wit.

When did your love of books begin?

The first book that consumed me as a boy was the book Swiss Family Robinson. I loved the mystery, the adventure and the discovery.  I even attempted to write my own short story, which of course was highly derivative, but my first attempt at writing. I was perhaps ten. I rediscovered reading in college where I was introduced to the classics and my favorites quickly became Conan Doyle, and Mark Twain.  

When did you start to have the wish to become an author?

During my thirties, when I was a divorced, single dad of a voracious young reader.  With lots of spare time after his bedtime, I began to write short adventure stories to read with my son.  I started to think about what I wanted to do after I finished my career.  While my career left little time to read, when I did read, I always gravitated to thrillers. Michael Crichton, James Rollins, Raymond Khoury, Steve Berry, David Baldacci and my favorite, Dan Brown.  Thrillers took me to new places, introduced me to new technologies and prompted me to consider all that I knew about politics, technology and other areas to ask simple questions: What if this goes wrong?

How have you found the process for becoming an author?

For most of my life, writing is what I did very late at night to wind down from a stressful work day. A transition from right brain to left brain.  Books for my son were never polished, never went to an editor or an agent. Becoming a full time author came In stages.

 

The first step for me to become an author was to discover what I wanted to write about. Fortunately, my love of research into a variety of topics from global politics, US, economics, technology, scripture and prophecy, history, archaeology combined to inspire great ideas for books. From there, it forms into a set of themes and a premise.  I love to explore the intersection of technology, politics and religion as consistent themes in my thrillers to not only increase the tension, but to ask insightful, timely questions about the days in which we live.  

 

After I retired from a 16+ hour workday, I got serious.  After a decade researching the history, mythology, folklore, and geography, I finished the Curse of Cortes. During the US domestic and global turmoil of 2019 and 2020, I wrote SWARM to capture that shared anxiety into a pulse-pounding thrill ride.  

 

To sharpen my skills and invest in my own talent and writing potential, I hired an expensive developmental editor from Simon Shuster and then encouraged her to rip me up with plans to stitch back together.  Wow. She took me at my word. With notes on nearly every page plus 44 pages of other guidance, it was a humble, and immensely helpful experience. After absorbing those lessons and making those changes, I followed up Master Class from several top rated authors, including Patterson, Baldacci and Brown.

 

Then I stumbled. After over 100 failed agent queries, my spouse and beta readers encouraged me to self-publish. The first book SWARM was a finalist on the IAN Book of the Year. The second, Curse of Cortes, was listed on the BookTrib Favorite 25 of 2021. Both recommended by Kirkus, an achievement for any author.

 

Now, I am learning to market and promote. For authors in the Seattle area, I started Author Event Network to collectively take other authors to events, festivals, fairs to sell and sign books.

What would you say to those wanting to become an author?

Find your love, find your passion, find your voice and don’t let go of those priorities. Keep writing, even for yourself to develop your voice and skills.  Invest in your writing career with developmental editors, writing critique groups or classes. If you fail to get an agent, hire your own editors and designers. Invest in your book if you want readers to invest in you. And above all, abolish any notion that writing is a quick, easy or stress free way to make a living. Writing has to be an obsession, a gift you can’t neglect.

Tell us about your book/books:

Guy debuted as an indie author in 2021 with two thrillers inspired by true stories and deeply researched for authenticity.  .

 

SWARM, the first of a series of AI-espionage-prophecy thrillers.  Inspired by a true story of a program that escaped the Lawrence Livermore lab at Sandia and still lose today. After I discovered the story and reversed engineered the design, the FBI to paid me a visit. It was a top-secret screw up. Yes, it escaped. Add to that amazing story, I weave selective insights regarding the true cyber and AI war building between US, China and Russia. Then I paint a backdrop filled with pollical tension of election meddling and Russian kompromat over the White House.  I introduce an incredible global cast of characters with a flawed MC. When the mysterious program decodes end-time prophecy, it sets in motion a series of cascading events that takes our MC on what Kirkus called “A grandly indulgent, globe-trotting narrative in the Dan Brown/Iris Johansen style.”

 

The Curse of Cortes, also the first in a series of adventures diving into historical mysteries, archaeology and lost civilizations. Indiana Jones meets Goonies for grownups, with a splash of Stephen King. It took me over a decade of research to discover an actual link between the plunder of Henry Morgan, where 30 tons, three ships and 450 souls disappeared, yet Morgan survived. In drunken, haunted debauchery, Morgan burned his log books to keep the world from learning the truth of why he abandoned a billion dollar plunder. The modern day epic adventure lays out the connection between Morgan, an island conquered by his uncle Edward, a Spanish Inquisition massacre and the origins of the Mayan creation myth. Curse of Cortes has action, mystery, romance, humor and paranormal in what BookTrib called, “Indiana Jones” Meets “The Da Vinci Code” in This Spectacular Adventure Across Central America” BookTrib listed the Curse of Cortes on their 25 Favorites of 2021. 

 

Coming Summer 2022: The Last Ark - Secrets of Qumran will be next in the SNO Chronicles series started by SWARM.  The Last Ark will weave threads of politics, technology and prophecy into a post-Ukraine global thriller. Key themes will be a former president under criminal indictment who seeks asylum in Moscow to run for re-election, alongside a Russian scheme behind the SolarWinds hack to create a series of untraceable AI platform sabotage as retaliation for US support in Ukraine.  Finally, our MC goes on an insane search for the missing AI named SLVIA only to discover the second copper scroll with directions to the Ark of Testimony built by Moses, and the Ethiopian Ark, stained with blood and sold on the black market which serves as a prop for a corrupt peace deal between Arabia and Israel.

What do you love about the writing/reading community?

I’ve neglected social media until recently, writing three books in three years. However, I recently become more engaged. The aspect of the community that delighted me the most was the common practice of mutual support.  The #writerslift to get as many authors as many followers as possible, and buy each other’s books.  Amazing. Social media is not my strength. Help from the community to build followers was a welcome surprise.  I haven’t yet seen how the reading community engages to support the writing community, but I’m sure I will discover that as well the more I learn to engage and use the tools. 

If you could say anything to your readers what would it be?

I respect the reader.  I love to read, and value the time commitment. As an author, I spend months and years researching topics that I distill into the sprinkles of history, insights, tech fact made easy to understand or revelations that make my thrillers thought provoking. In doing so, I try to create characters that reflect multiple sides of an issue through the views of various characters. I invite thought and discussion. While my books and themes dance at the edge of our cultural anxieties, asking tough questions with no simple answers, the characters on this journey are warm, intelligent, humorous, compassionate and relatable.  In fact, every professional review has noted the level of character development as unusual for a thriller, not just for the MC, but other key characters.

Where can people connect with you?

Website: www.guymorrisbooks.com

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/guymorrisbooks

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGi3JinUp6w24dJmDVq3ZKg

Email: guy@guymorrisbooks.com