Author Interview with Bryan Koepke

Today's author interview is with Bryan Koepke the author of the debut thriller Vengeance. 

First off tell us here at The Writers Cabin a little about yourself.

I was born in the great state of Oklahoma in a city named Tulsa sometime during the last century.  I spent the first twenty-years of my career working as an electronics engineering technician and during the last decade had the privilege of being on teams that built, tested, and launched spacecraft from both Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.  Prior to that I worked on F-16 fighter jets, got my FAA Airframe & Powerplant licenses, and later managed to get a private pilot’s license.  These days I work on the financial side of things at an aerospace company.

When I was in my teens I knew I wanted to be a writer and during much of my technical career I gravitated toward documentation and test procedures.   I'm married to a beautiful woman named Ildy, and we have a dog-named Daisy. 

Q: When do you write?  I do the bulk of my writing on weekend mornings from 8:00 a.m. to noon, and a few days a week in the mornings before heading of to work.

Q:  How much do you write a day?  My goal is to get at least 1,000 words down in my manuscript, but on weekends I usually get closer to 2000 – 3000 words a day, and 500 to 1000 is a good amount for mornings before work. There are times on the weekends, when I’m well rested with a head full of ideas, that I’ll sit down and write 10,000 words in one sitting.

Q: How long did it take to write this book, VENGEANCE?  I wrote the first draft in about 5 months.  From there I did multiple revisions and rewrites with the entire process from start to finish taking about two years.

Q: How do you bring characters to life? I start with an excel spreadsheet and build a list of traits, motivations, the physical description, and the character’s history. It seems that all of my characters sort of reveal themselves to me on the page as I write their scenes. They take on a life of their own beyond what I’ve planned for them.

Q: Do you like eBooks?  Do you think they’ll ever completely replace paper books?  I like e-books and have purchased dozens of them myself over the past couple of years. They’re great for trips.  I also like a big heavy hardback book or a paperback.  I hope all types of books endure.  I think when we loose things we as readers and writers limit our freedom. After all freedom is all about choice.

Q: Your current book VENGEANCE is a series. How many more books do you plan to write in the Reece Culver thriller series?  I’m planning on writing a minimum of eight books, but most likely ten to fifteen in this series.

Q: What was your inspiration for the book?  I had written two thrillers before starting this book.  I remember reading a newspaper article about a woman who murdered her husband and made it look like a home invasion. This gave me the initial seed for the story and as I wrote the first draft the story morphed into something completely different with a great deal more depth.  Initially it felt more noir than thriller, but over time it proved itself out as a thriller.

Q: How did you come up with the title VENGEANCE?  Initially the book was titled Not Dead Yet, but after completing it and thinking about the story Vengeance won out as the title.

Q: Are there any themes or topics you plan to include in the series?  My protagonist Reece Culver is a pilot, so there will most likely be flying scenes in many of the books. 

Q: Do you write on the computer or longhand?  I write the bulk of my work on computers, both a laptop and a desktop. I take a ton of notes, and scribble down plot ideas longhand.

Q: Who are your favorite authors?  Ernest Hemingway, CJ Box, the early Stuart Woods books with Stone Barrington, Stephen King, James Salter, Raymond Chandler, and many, many more.

Q: Where do you write?  I do 99% of my writing either in my basement office, or in my favorite chair at a cabin up in the mountains of Colorado. 

Q: What are you working on now?  Books 2 & 3 in the Reece Culver series, and when I have less time a batch of short stories I keep going back to and rewriting. 

Q: Where can we buy VENGEANCE?  It’s available on Amazon Kindle, and in a week or so the 6x9” paperback will be available on Amazon.  The e-book will also become available very shortly on Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Nook, Smashwords, Scribd, Sony, Diesel, Library Direct, Oyster, Baker & Taylor and on my website http://www.bryankoepke.com