Arnaldo
Lopez Jr. has been employed by New York City Transit for twenty-eight years and
was formerly employed as a dispatcher with the NYPD. Mr. Lopez is also a speaker and trainer,
speaking on subjects as diverse as terrorism and customer service. He created the civilian counter-terrorism
training program currently in use by New York City Transit and many other major
public transportation agencies around the country.
As
well as writing, Mr. Lopez is an artist and photographer, having sold several
of his works over the years. As a writer
he’s sold articles to Railway Age magazine, The Daily News magazine, Homeland
Defense Journal, and Reptile & Amphibian magazine; scripts to Little Archie
and Personality Comics; and short stories to Neo-Opsis magazine, Lost Souls
e-zine, Nth Online magazine, Blood Moon magazine, and various other Sci-Fi
and/or horror newsletters and fanzines.
He was also editor of Offworld, a small science fiction magazine that was
once chosen as a "Best Bet" by Sci-Fi television. Chickenhawk is his first novel.
Questionnaire:
Thanks
for letting us interrogate you! Can you
give us a go-for-the-gut answer as to why you wanted to be an author?
I
love to write and I really, really want to see complete strangers reading and
enjoying my work. I also hope to make some money at it!
Tell
us (we won’t tell promise!) is it all it’s cracked up to be? I mean what are the perks and what are the demands?
Yes
it is! I love the idea of having created something that others enjoy. The perks
range from being recognized on the subway to being asked to speak at an event.
The demands include everyone asking you to give them advice on their writing or
constantly asking you when your next book is coming out.
Which
route did you take – traditional or self-published – and can you give us the
nitty gritty low down on what’s that like?
Self-publishing
with Café Con Leche books (a subsidiary of Koehler Books) was a pleasure!
Leticia Gomez was very helpful and supportive throughout the entire process.
Tell
us for real what your family feels about you spending so much time getting your
book written, polished, edited, formatted, published, what have you?
Unfortunately
my family does feel forgotten and neglected when I’m in writing, polishing,
etc. mode. They feel like 2nd class citizens in their own home! I
just hope that I can make it up to them someday.
Are your plants actually still alive?
I
love plants and at one time I had a mini-jungle growing in my enclosed porch! But
when I get immersed in my writing the poor things are usually the first to
suffer, and right now I just have legions of brown, crunchy things decorating
that room.
In
writing your book, how did you deal with the phone ringing, your family needing
dinner or your boss calling you saying you’re late?
Actually,
depending on the importance of the interruption I would just stop whatever I
was working on and deal with it. Sometimes those interruptions turn out to be
good news or something I can use in one of my stories.
What
was the craziest or insane thing that happened to you in the book publishing
process?
Well,
I had a potential publisher tell me to change the ethnicity of my main
protagonist because she insisted that most people identify Puerto Ricans as
criminals rather than police officers…
How
about the social networks? Which ones do
you believe help and which ones do you wish you could avoid?
I
believe that the old standbys of Facebook and Twitter help. I’d like to avoid
Instagram and a couple of others that I can’t think of now.
Book
sales. Don’t you just love them (or lack
of?)? How are you making the sales
happen for you?
Promotion
and marketing are extremely important in creating demand for or boosting book
sales, and that’s what I’m doing!
What
is one thing you’d like to jump on the rooftop and scream about?
My
runaway bestseller being made into a movie!
Okay,
too much sugar for you today! Here’s a
nice cup of Chamomile tea and come on over and sit under the cabana and watch
the waves roll in. Now…can you tell us
what you love about being a published author and how all those things above
doesn’t matter because it’s all part of the whole scheme of things and you
wouldn’t have it any other way?
I
love seeing my hard work in print. I love holding the culmination of all my
research, time and effort in my sweaty, little hands!
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