Frank’s top tip for authors: Base your novel on something you know and your personal experience and get your facts right. Then make sure it is interesting and flows from scene to scene. Make it realistic and possible. Your characters are not supermen.
Frank Spencer is a retired organisation psychologist. He has a Masters Degree in Organisational Psychology and has implemented change strategies in many of Australia’s leading organisations. He has worked with world leaders in organisation development and pioneered a remuneration system based on role rather than job which can also function as a change strategy. His system is licensed to the Australian Institute of Management and Frank manages remuneration structure projects on their behalf. This is his debut novel.
AUTHOR INSIGHT
Why do you write? I read a lot and have always been credited with a fertile imagination. I can read something and see a story in it. For example the Japanese fortified islands in the Solomons and the practice of pirates dropping captive girls on deserted islands then coming back to hunt them down. These two things could come together to make a story.
Have you always wanted to be a writer? If not what made you want to write? Basically yes. I used to make up bedtime stories for my two boys. Also I had seen the likely basis for a novel on a major consulting assignment. When I retired I had the time to develop it. Also in my consulting I have developed operating manuals and proposals. These have to be clear and understandable.
What was your toughest obstacle to becoming published? Feeling I had a book worth publishing. One that people would enjoy reading. One of my ex consulting colleagues had a book published but I found it heavy going. I made several starts on my book before I was satisfied.
What’s the best aspect of your writing life? The creativity ie The research and putting together a plot line then feeling it coming together as in a movie. Also working out character relationships and the dialogue between the characters. The best praise I have received is “I couldn’t put it down.”
—the worst? Thinking it through step by step. Becoming discouraged with the tedium of typing it up. Feeling it isn’t coming together smoothly.
What would you do differently if you were starting out writing your first novel again? Probably nothing. I attended a course at the University of the New Age and read some texts on novel writing. Also I have started on a new novel, I have developed the plot line and done the research. I can now run the novel in my mind.
What do you wish you’d been told before you set out to become an author? How difficult and time consuming the process of publishing is.
What’s the best advice you were ever given? Find a good publisher and good editor.
A Secret Life
by Frank Spencer
First there was Bond. Then Jason Bourne.
Now meet Richard Sinclair. Richard Sinclair is a successful consultant and a recognised authority in his field but he has a secret. He is trained in mixed martial arts and is deadly in his craft.
On a consulting assignment, Richard uncovers a well hidden but extensive drug operation within a division of a client company. He is targeted by the people running the operation and his friend from National Service days, who is also highly skilled in mixed martial arts, comes to his aid. Then the Calabrian Mafia, who the division is supplying, enter the fight. Richard must seek refuge on an Island in the Whitsundays. Here he must use his skills and what allies he can find to seek refuge from their unknown enemy – who appears to possess unlimited resources, many soldiers and a fierce determination to kill them all.
The book is available here.
In Their Own Write 