Surprising Things from my life I put in my novels

It’s one of those things – you just can’t avoid putting yourself in the novels.

It’s a fact – most of my protagonists come from my childhood home of Newport, Rhode Island.

At some point in one of my novels, you’re going to run into a reference to fried clams, stuffies, awful-awfuls, the Viking Tower, Old Stone Bank, etc.

We write what we know, and what interests us.

My lifelong exploration of martial arts sometimes makes its way into my novels.

All of my protagonists are left handed (surprise!). Like me.

Most of them have blue eyes, like me.

None of my protagonists are tall.

The car I owned once is in one novel.

Two of the pistols I own are in one novel. A rifle I own is in another. A veritable list of “wish I had’s” populates my novels.

My interests in trains turned out to give me the information I needed to bridge from one plot point to another in one novel.

My childhood interest in paleontology was useful in one novel.

My interest in ichthyology was crucial to another, as was my dread fear of the abyss.

I had one summer of singing lessons once. That ended up as an event in one of my protagonist’s life.

I never stop learning. That little fact ends up being a facet of most of my protagonists.

Two of my protagonists do kotekitai, “body conditioning” in Karate. I do too. That doesn’t mean weightlifting, but rather, banging your hands, arms and feet into things to toughen them up. You literally can make them so dense that you can dent metal punching it.

There are other things from my life that surface in my protagonists. It’s like Salem’s Lot, where Stephen King casts himself as the protagonist.

Have any of my classmates from school or college ended up in my novels? No.

Family members? No.

Pets? Absolutely. And right now I’m still missing one of my cats so desperately the next novel I write will feature a Russian Blue cat that meows like Godzilla.

Anything else?

Yes, but some things need to stay private.

Anything I should probably put in my novels?

Yes – a lot of people tend to take my ideas and run off with them. I’m not going to give details, but I’m constantly being told to stop giving ideas away. Other people get successful off of them.

I should probably include that in a novel.