"Writer on Board!" – Guest Post by Arnaldo Lopez Jr., author of 'Chickenhawk'
The bus jerks to a halt at almost every
stop on its way to the subway station, ruining not just the prose that I’m
working on but the spell under which I’m writing. Real life intrudes every 400
feet or so as I write while I commute.
It’s
a two hour commute each way to and from work every day, altogether a four hour
window of opportunity in which to collaborate with my muse as to the content of
my rough (very rough) draft. A writer can’t be too choosy as to when and where
to drop the seeds of their creativity, if and when the opportunity arises it
should be seized and, as with the poor dumb rube throwing his money away at the
fixed carnival game of chance, taken advantage of.
And
so it is that I carry my unwieldy papers (no laptop for me!) onto the bus ride
to the subway station, balancing the entire lot on my lap and praying that I do
not spill my morning coffee onto the whole shebang! I write and I write,
pausing only for the occasional sip of java or to disembark before settling
again onto the next leg of my commuting/writing journey, taking pains to avoid
the angry glares of the seniors or pregnant women who would most assuredly take
my seat and thus profoundly disturb the chemical and visceral churning out of
words in which I am deeply and wholly involved.
And
when I finally reach my destination, I pack my words and worlds away and
proceed humbly to my real world source of salary and benefits, grateful that I
have a good job and yet resentful that it would so rudely intrude upon the
kinetic interaction between myself and my sometimes elusive muse.
The
next eight hours pass as they always do, a worker bee-like existence,
performing required duties by rote until the workday ends and brings me back to
my commute, my trains, my bus, my writing.
////////////////////////////////////////////
Title: Chickenhawk
Genre: Thriller
Author: Arnaldo Lopez Jr.
Publisher: Koehler Books/Café Con Leche books
Purchase on Amazon
About the Book:
Chickenhawk is an urban crime fiction novel that showcases New York City’s diversity, as well as the dark side of race relations, politics, sexuality, illness, madness, and infidelity. Eddie Ramos and Tommy Cucitti are Manhattan North Homicide detectives after a serial killer that manages to stay below their radar while the body count keeps climbing in a city that’s turning into a powder keg.
About the Author:
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.
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