Recently, Writer's Break had the honor of speaking with NC-based crime-fiction and thriller novelist J.D. Rhoades, author of the highly praised, action-packed Jack Keller series, including The Devil's Right Hand (St. Martin's Minotaur, 2005), Good Day in Hell (2006), and most recently, Safe and Sound (2007). His newest novel, Breaking Cover, is a standalone title slated to hit bookstores in July 2008.

In this interview, Rhoades, also a practicing attorney, discusses his writing habits, misconceptions aspiring writers commonly have, and the work ethics that have led him toward four published titles.

WB: Why did you decide to become a novelist?

Mental illness. Oh, you want more detail?

Well, I was writing a weekly column for my local newspaper. It's won a couple of press awards, and folks seemed to like it, so some people were telling me, "you know, you ought to write a novel." I looked around at some of the stuff being published and I thought "hey, how hard can it be?" Those words, by the way have gotten me in more trouble than any others in my life, including "can I buy you a drink?"

WB: What were you doing previously?

I was, and still am, a practicing attorney in a small town in North Carolina.

WB: What formal training did you have before becoming a novelist?

Well, I went to college, took a few creative writing courses. I don't know if I remember any of that today or whether it had any effect on my writing. Everything else I just sort of picked up by reading, thinking about what I liked in what I read and what I didn't like.

WB: What's a typical writing day like for you?

Well, I still have a day job, so usually, I work at that all day, come home, eat dinner, maybe watch "the Daily Show," then fire up the laptop and work on what's been percolating in the back of my head all day. I usually spend a couple of hours at that, sometimes more.

WB: Do you adhere to a writing schedule? Shoot for a specific daily page or word count?

I'll generally try for about a thousand words a day. Most times I make it, sometimes I don't, sometimes, I'll get to a stopping place and realize I've written twice my goal.

WB: How long does it typically take for you to complete the first draft of a novel?

About six months. I tend to write slowly, and revise as I go, so the second draft is easier for me than for some folks I know.

WB: What inspired you to write your latest novel, Safe And Sound?

Well, like most of my work, there's no one single "inspiration." A lot of incidents come together to form the kernel of the plot, so to speak.

The book is the third installment in the Jack Keller series, about a bail bondsman/bounty hunter in Southeastern North Carolina. This time, Jack takes a break from his usual job of tracking down and returning bail jumpers to help out his girlfriend Marie, an ex-cop who's now trying to make it as a private investigator.

Marie's first case is trying to locate a child who's been kidnapped as part of a custody case by her father. The father's a member of the Army's secretive Delta Force, so Marie thinks Jack, who's ex-military, might be some help in dealing with the Army. Problem is, Jack's got some issues with the military himself, since he's a veteran of the first Gulf War who watched his entire unit wiped out by so-called "friendly fire."

As always happens where Jack's involved, there's more to the person he's after than meets the eye, and he and Marie are quickly in over their heads and dealing with a truly nasty character named DeGroot, a South African mercenary who has his own reasons for wanting to find the missing dad.

So, inspirations: As an attorney, I've had some experience with parental kidnapping cases. Delta is headquartered at Fort Bragg, just down the road from where I live, and a colleague of mine had all sorts for problems in a civil case where one of the parties was a member of Delta and could never be located for court, depositions and the like-the Army was reluctant to even acknowledge his existence, much less his whereabouts. An ex-law partner of mine had a case where a client who was in Special Forces went missing and was later found dead under mysterious circumstances.

The character of DeGroot was inspired by a story I read about an American mercenary who did time in an Afghan jail for setting up his own "interrogation facility" in the Afghan hills, supposedly without official sanction, though he says differently. And so on.

None of these situations are copied exactly in the book. I just sort of took the general concepts and ran with them.

WB: What would you say is the "best" and "worst" aspects of this job?

Best: Getting to travel around and meet and hang out with other writers who I admire.

Worst: Sitting down and facing the terror of the blank page, especially when writing the middle section of the book.

WB: Who are some of your favorite authors?

Irish crime writer Ken Bruen is amazing. Elmore Leonard is a big inspiration, as is Stephen Hunter. I'm an enormous fanboy for Laura Lippman and my homegirl Margaret Maron.

WB: How do you market yourself and your books?

I maintain a pretty broad presence on the Web, with a blog at http://jdrhoades.blogspot.com, and contributions to lots of others. Other than that, I do the usual: signings, conferences and the like. I'm also a big proponent of what my friend Joe Konrath calls the "drive-by" signing: dropping into a bookstore, finding out if they have your book, then meeting the manager and offering to sign stock.

I can't stress enough the importance of meeting bookstore owners and managers. They're the people who'll hand-sell your book to potential buyers. And the vast majority of them love books, or they wouldn't be in the business at all, so they're fun to meet and hang out with.

WB: What would you like to do if you weren't a novelist?

Throw myself off a bridge. Seriously, I was a miserable bastard before I started writing again. I can't imagine quitting.

WB: How did you acquire an agent?

The usual way: looking up agent names and what they were interested in, from sources like Writer's Market and various places on the Web. Then sending query letters (this is what the book's about, this is the audience I think will like it, etc). After dozens of rejections, including a lot of "It's good but not for me's, I finally found someone who I clicked with.

One hint on query letters: There are any number of books that'll set out the standard query letter format, so agents see hundreds of the same thing every day until they're so bored their eyes cross. Don't be afraid to be yourself. But stay professional… don't send letters written in purple crayon or on pink paper. But let the style be as natural as you can.

WB: What skills would you say one needs to possess in order to be a successful novelist?

Well, as far as skills go, I'd say the ability to write clearly and concisely, the ability to look at your own work cold-bloodedly and see what can stay and what has to go, and the ability to listen to the way people actually talk and interact. One of the cool things about this job is that you can eavesdrop on people and call it research. But as important as skills, I think, are certain traits of personality. Thick skin is a big one. And above all, empathy, even for the less empathetic characters.

WB: What are your greatest challenges as a novelist?

Forcing myself to sit down and write, every day, even when I'm tired and burned out and just want to sit in front of the TV and veg out.

WB: What are some misconceptions you believe aspiring novelists have?

You will probably not get rich with your first book. Your publisher will most likely not hold a huge launch party for the release of your first book. In fact, you will have to put a lot of your own time and money into promotion, because publisher's promotional budgets are shrinking.

WB: Are there any books on writing that you recommend?

Most books on writing leave me cold. I haven't finished most of the ones I've gotten. I've never understood why anyone would buy a book on how to write a bestseller that's written by someone who's never written a bestseller.

All that said, Lawrence Block's Telling Lies for Fun and Profit is a winner. Stephen King's On Writing is part autobiography, part instruction book, and has loads of practical advice. There's an article that you can probably Google for on the Web called "Easy On The Hooptedoodle" by Elmore Leonard that I pull out and read every few months. It's got some of the best tips I've ever read on writing clearly and interestingly.

WB: What advice would you give aspiring writers?

Don't give up. Keep writing, keep submitting. Write something every day, and do at least one thing every day that advances you towards getting published: submit something, make a contact, write a query letter.

WB: What can fans expect from you next?

The next book is called Breaking Cover. It's a standalone based around the premise that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean everybody's not out to get you.

WB: Do you have a favorite quote?

Hundreds. But one of my favorites is by Elvis Costello: "I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused."

Breaking Cover releases July 10th. To learn more about Rhoades and his titles, visit www.jdrhoades.com.