When historian Gwen Hoffman first meets time traveler Mike Garvin, an ex-Special Forces weapons sergeant, back from ancient Gaul where he was embedded as a centurion in Julius Caesar's elite 10th Legion, she is more than a little put off. Scarred and dangerous-looking, the man appears more thug than time traveler. Yet he is the person TimeWarp, Inc. is sending back in time to protect Jeshua bar Yosef (Christ) from twenty-first century assassins; the man Gwen was assigned to prepare for life in first-century Galilee. Gwen, of course, has no idea she and Garvin will become lovers. Nor does she realize she herself will end up in Roman Palestine, where she will not only meet Jesus but face danger alongside Mike in the adventure of a lifetime...
"TimeWarp, Inc." by Cotton E. Davis
Price: $5.99
ISBN: 9781927454374
Release Date: August 6, 2012
1. If you could work with any other author, who would it be and why?
I'd have to pick the historical novelist Cecelia Holland. Not only are her novels evocative and historically accurate, but her characters, male and female, ring true. The first novel of hers I read was The Death of Attila, about a surprisingly avuncular Attila the Hun (the so-called Scourge of God) and his warriors, one of whom she humanized to the point I shed tears for him at the novel's end. I really admire the woman.
2. What would be a typical working day for you? When and where do you write?
There is nothing typical, or even organized, about my catch-as-catch-can life. Basically, I've pretty much Forrest Gumped my way through the entire thing. I usually rise between 4-30 and 5:00 a.m. every morning, not from design but because I wake and can't go back to sleep. Some days, I go into my office and write between 7:00 and 9:00, but often I don't make it in there until early afternoon or even at night. I retired about ten years ago, which allows me the luxury of being so undisciplined.
3. What is the hardest part of the writing for you?
I'd have to say the research. Once I get an idea for a project, I immediately want to begin writing. Researching a subject slows me down, and I often find myself writing and researching at the same time.
4. When and why did you first start writing?
Decades ago, I got a reporter's job on a small weekly newspaper in Missouri. There, I discovered I liked writing, but wasn't crazy about the reporting part. Years later, while managing a restaurant in Washington, D.C., I started reading a lot of fiction and thought I'd like to try writing it. The constraint of earning a living prevented that, but the desire to pen a novel stayed with me until I retired.
5. How did you come up with the idea for your book?
The process sort of evolved in bits and pieces. The basic idea of an agnostic time traveler going back in time and meeting Christ hit me at work one day from out of the blue. The satellite ideas that added bricks and mortar to the story came to me at different times: walking down the street in lower Manhattan, taking the plotting suggestion of a former green beret intelligence officer, recalling a young woman who would later become the basis for a character.
I have an episodic memory, which gives me access to a lifetime of such memories to draw from.
6. Are you a big reader? If so, what are you reading now? Yes and no. I go through periods where I read almost voraciously. At other times, my focus is elsewhere. I remember a time, that lasted nearly a year, during which I read fantasy novels exclusively. There was another period in which I was enthralled by gangster fiction and non-. I've always liked historical novels. History is easier to remember, at least for me, if it comes at you couched in interesting characters. Right now, I'm reading a bit of women's fiction titled Eliza by Joyce Proell.
7. Do you have any advice for other aspiring writers? It would be presumptuous for me to advise anyone on anything. Well, on second thought, I might tell an aspiring writer not to write like I do, unless of course it works for them.
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