Please help me welcome Matthew Horn to my blog today. Matthew is the writer of a suspense book and also a proud new father.
1. Can you tell us a little about yourself? I live in a small town in north central Indiana. I work as a Financial Officer for our small family company, Modern Materials, Inc. I am married and my wife and I are expecting our first child here in the next few weeks. Even considering the pregnancy we are both very active people. My wife is an avid runner and I enjoy playing basketball and tennis. I also love water activities like skiing, wakeboarding, swimming, etc. My favorite hobby is reading. I take a book almost everywhere I go. (Matthew be came the father of a beautiful baby girl who he calls an angel the end of Jan)
2. When you were a child did you have a favourite book or books? I remember that until I hit high school I always thought reading was something teachers forced their students to do. My father introduced me to Clive Cussler and I read all through the entire Dirk Pitt series. I loved them all the way from Pacific Vortex to Valhalla Rising which was the newest one at the time. I also really lovedThe Chronicles of Narnia but I never really sat down and read all of them until just after college. (I loved the Chronicles of Narnia)
3. Do you have a favourite Genre to both read and right write? If "Heroes" could be a genre, that would be mine. I love any book with a solid hero. John Wayne, James Bond, Dirk Pitt, whether its a mystery or a fantasy it doesn't change much for me. The first work I ever wrote was a fantasy novel called Heroism. However, my first published book The Good Fight is a contemporary thriller/suspense novel.
4. Did you have favourite authors growing up who have influenced you? I don't feel very qualified to say this but I have always wanted to write like and have been influenced by C.S. Lewis. I want my books to have a wonderful story line but at the same time have a very solid message that readers can take with them long after they've put down my book. That is what I hope readers will get when they read The Good Fight. I want them to ask certain questions of themselves and hopefully get a message of hope and strength that carries on.
5. When did you know you wanted to be an author? I had my first desire to write back in college. I had been reading Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy and just decided that if he could write so could I. I quickly found out why he could write and I quit the project. Several years after college I found myself reading a fantasy novel by Terry Brooks and again thought I would try my hand. This time however, I wrote a five page outline before even writing the first word of the story. The next thing I knew I had a 600 plus page epic on my hands. Ever since then I've considered writing a hobby and I think that whether or not I get anything published ever again I will probably be writing as long as I can.
6. How did you go about becoming an author? My mother has a Master's Degree in English and I learned as I came up through school how to write. I was not good at it mind you, but she forced me to know many of the basic rules. I put this knowledge to work in writing my first work. I spent hours putting together an outline that explained nearly everything I could think of starting from the character that would be my hero and expanding out from there ie. his friends, family, hometown, enemies, the world he lived in etc. It took a long time, but I found that once I had that built up and a general storyline in my head that it wasn't that hard to take him from the beginning to the end. I will say though, that several times I felt that I had boxed my own hero into a corner that I didn't know how to liberate him from. At these times it's often helpful to take a break and let the ideas come to you.
2. When you were a child did you have a favourite book or books? I remember that until I hit high school I always thought reading was something teachers forced their students to do. My father introduced me to Clive Cussler and I read all through the entire Dirk Pitt series. I loved them all the way from Pacific Vortex to Valhalla Rising which was the newest one at the time. I also really lovedThe Chronicles of Narnia but I never really sat down and read all of them until just after college. (I loved the Chronicles of Narnia)
3. Do you have a favourite Genre to both read and right write? If "Heroes" could be a genre, that would be mine. I love any book with a solid hero. John Wayne, James Bond, Dirk Pitt, whether its a mystery or a fantasy it doesn't change much for me. The first work I ever wrote was a fantasy novel called Heroism. However, my first published book The Good Fight is a contemporary thriller/suspense novel.
4. Did you have favourite authors growing up who have influenced you? I don't feel very qualified to say this but I have always wanted to write like and have been influenced by C.S. Lewis. I want my books to have a wonderful story line but at the same time have a very solid message that readers can take with them long after they've put down my book. That is what I hope readers will get when they read The Good Fight. I want them to ask certain questions of themselves and hopefully get a message of hope and strength that carries on.
5. When did you know you wanted to be an author? I had my first desire to write back in college. I had been reading Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy and just decided that if he could write so could I. I quickly found out why he could write and I quit the project. Several years after college I found myself reading a fantasy novel by Terry Brooks and again thought I would try my hand. This time however, I wrote a five page outline before even writing the first word of the story. The next thing I knew I had a 600 plus page epic on my hands. Ever since then I've considered writing a hobby and I think that whether or not I get anything published ever again I will probably be writing as long as I can.
6. How did you go about becoming an author? My mother has a Master's Degree in English and I learned as I came up through school how to write. I was not good at it mind you, but she forced me to know many of the basic rules. I put this knowledge to work in writing my first work. I spent hours putting together an outline that explained nearly everything I could think of starting from the character that would be my hero and expanding out from there ie. his friends, family, hometown, enemies, the world he lived in etc. It took a long time, but I found that once I had that built up and a general storyline in my head that it wasn't that hard to take him from the beginning to the end. I will say though, that several times I felt that I had boxed my own hero into a corner that I didn't know how to liberate him from. At these times it's often helpful to take a break and let the ideas come to you.
7. If you were not a writer what would you like to be? Thankfully, I love my current job. I have always been interested in how money works. I have a BS in Management from Purdue University and I am the Chief Financial Officer of our small family company. I consider myself blessed to love both my job as a CFO and as a writer. However, until writing starts paying the bills I won't be able to commit to it full time. I am hoping that one day I'll sell enough books that I can turn to writing full time.
8. Outside reading and writing what do you like to do? As I mentioned earlier, I try to keep active. Currently I attend the Blue Dragon School of Taekwando twice a week and am involved in the Peru Indiana Church Basketball Association and we play twice a week. We live on a lake so in the summer we love to swim and ski as much as possible. I also am very close with my family as we work together and go to church together so most of the time you'll find us as a group at a family meal or function.
9. Do you have a place you love to visit or would love to visit? I have never been to Europe and my wife and I have always wanted to visit Norway. She grew up sailing with the girl scouts and something about the rich history of the Norsemen has always been attractive to us. We are currently planning a trip to Oslo but with our first child on the way I'm not sure when it will happen.
10. If you could have a meal with 3 living people who would you choose and why? I would love to have dinner with Clint Eastwood, Bill Russel, and Max Lucado. Each one has a lifetime of experience in different fields but have so much to offer. Wisdom always comes with age and if each one would let me ask questions over the course of a single meal I think the knowledge I could glean could change the course of a man's life.
8. Outside reading and writing what do you like to do? As I mentioned earlier, I try to keep active. Currently I attend the Blue Dragon School of Taekwando twice a week and am involved in the Peru Indiana Church Basketball Association and we play twice a week. We live on a lake so in the summer we love to swim and ski as much as possible. I also am very close with my family as we work together and go to church together so most of the time you'll find us as a group at a family meal or function.
9. Do you have a place you love to visit or would love to visit? I have never been to Europe and my wife and I have always wanted to visit Norway. She grew up sailing with the girl scouts and something about the rich history of the Norsemen has always been attractive to us. We are currently planning a trip to Oslo but with our first child on the way I'm not sure when it will happen.
10. If you could have a meal with 3 living people who would you choose and why? I would love to have dinner with Clint Eastwood, Bill Russel, and Max Lucado. Each one has a lifetime of experience in different fields but have so much to offer. Wisdom always comes with age and if each one would let me ask questions over the course of a single meal I think the knowledge I could glean could change the course of a man's life.
Finally can you tell us about your current books and/or any that will
be coming out soon. Also where we can find you on the web. The Good Fight is about a young homeless boy named Jeff who gets caught up in a fight between some street thugs and a vigilante. The vigilante saves Jeff's life and he uses the experience to focus his life and get himself together. 16 years later he has the chance to save the vigilante's life and learns the man's identity. He ends up becoming the vigilante's reluctant protege but soon discovers the hero is not who he had hoped. He ends up facing a choice and has to decide what course his life will take. Of course his decision will not only affect him but also his job, his girlfriend, and Chicago's criminal underworld.
I currently working on the editing of the sequel Nothing Good is Free. I expect it's release will be sometime late this year. You can find information about myself and my other works at www.matthewrhorn.com. I am also on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Anobii, and several Yahoo books groups like ACFW.
Thanks so much for having me. You have a great site and I hope to get a chance to come back and speak with you when the sequel comes out. Thanks again!
Thanks again for your time and agreeing to be on my blog.
can you please also send a headshot and covers of any books you want plugged.
Check out my new book, The Good Fight, online: www.matthewrhorn.com
2 comments:
I have family ancestry from Norway; I'd love to go there too - might have to be in the Norwegian 'summer' though. :-)
Thanks for introducing Matthew to us. The novel sounds great.
marianne dot wanham at gmail dot com
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