Sunday, February 28, 2016

Harry Wegley ♦ A Voice in the Wilderness

Hi, Harry, it’s a pleasure to welcome you back to Whispers in Purple. I’m excited to get a bit more acquainted with you, so here are a few questions for you.

I’m always curious about my fellow writers’ quirks and habits. I’m sure we all have some. I’d love to hear some of yours. For example: Do you have a favorite writing location away from your home office? Do you listen to music as you write? Why/why not? If yes, what kind of music do you prefer?

My favorite place to write is sitting on a warm, sunny beach with a handful of mechanical pencils and a spiral notebook. My most favorite beaches are on Maui. Unfortunately, I only get to write there every three or four years. The beaches in the Olympic National Park are a good summertime substitute. I occasionally listen to music while writing. For romantic scenes, my characters often find an old love song that becomes theirs—Unchained Melody, Billy Joel and JS Bach’s This Night—and I listen with them as I write. Sometimes, for the action scenes, I listen to theme music. Unlike the romantic music, the music for action scenes has to be instrumental or I can’t focus.

Outside of your computer, name some essential items you must have in order to write?

Two things—sunshine and coffee. Since my wife and I live near Seattle, coffee isn’t a problem. It’s everywhere. However, for eight months of the year, sunshine is highly problematical. People with full-blown SAD can have a complete meltdown during a Seattle winter. I’m not that bad, and I’ve found that a $15, full-spectrum grow light shining down on my work area tricks my body sufficiently to get through the gloomy months. But, when we get a string of sunny days, my writing productivity goes up by a factor of 5 or more.

When folks find out we’re writers, we sometimes hear “Oh, I always wanted to write a book.” What advice do you offer them?

Based on my experience, I tell them, before starting that first novel, take some time to learn the craft of novel writing. I wrote my first novel, then took a novel writing class where my story was critiqued by the class and the instructor. That was, in a single word, brutal! I rewrote the story after taking the class, then rewrote it again after joining ACFW and passing the story through the big ACFW critique group. It won a contract 18 months after I wrote that first awful draft.

What is your idea of good marketing techniques?

Hire an expert who has some media contacts and pay them to do it. If I can’t afford to pay to have my marketing done, then I pay a lesser amount to have an expert guide me through the process. My problem is that I dislike, intensely, many of the mandatory marketing tasks. Therefore, they drain so much of my energy that I will fail, utterly, if I try to do it on my own. I enjoy talking with readers, sharing about my stories, and discussing the craft of writing. But, all the rest … my mind balks at even thinking about it.

Now, about your book:vitw-complete-final--cover-3570-2550-090115coverspine_pe_half

  • Title: Voice in the Wilderness

  • Publisher: Trinity Press International

  • Release Date: Officially February 26, 2016

  • Genre: Political Thriller (with romance)

  • Stand-alone or series: Book 1 in the Against All Enemies series – a 3-book series releasing across the year, 2016

  • Target Audience: Both men and women 25+, but it’s playing best to the 40+ audience. The thorough integration of the romantic and thriller threads seems to have accomplished what I hoped for. Both men and women love the story and the characters.


Back cover blurb & buy links:

What if your blog could save the nation, but posting to it might cost your life?

Two extraordinary people …


As catastrophes drive the US into martial law, all eyes are on America, waiting to see what emerges. KC Banning, network specialist, discovers President Hannan’s tyrannical plans and is branded a terrorist, sending her fleeing the Beltway to find her childhood soulmate and protector, Brock Daniels. Brock, a writer and man of faith, gives CPR to a dying nation through his blog, which is read by military members still loyal to the Constitution. But starting a grassroots insurgency while reconciling KC’s and Brock’s broken relationship proves difficult. When Hannan sends Special Forces to kill Brock and KC, starting a war in the Central Oregon desert, reconciliation, like staying alive, might be impossible.

born for a time such as this.


Set in Washington DC and near Crooked River Ranch in the Central Oregon desert, Voice in the Wilderness, Book 1 of the Against All Enemies Series, is a political thriller, with romance, about two people who must decide if they’re willing to sacrifice their lives to prevent the USA from becoming the Dystopian States of America.

View the Book Trailer:


Author Bio:

harry-crop198-563H. L. (Harry) Wegley served 7 years in the USAF as an Intelligence Analyst and a Weather Officer. After leaving the military he worked for nearly 12 years as a research scientist in atmospheric physics at a national lab where he earned an advanced degree in Computer Science, then developed distributed computing systems for Boeing for more than 2 decades.

Since retiring in 2008 he has attended several novel-writing workshops, seminars, and conferences and published several contracted books, including a devotional work and a series of novels. He is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Oregon Christian Writers, and Christian Author Network.

Harry lives in the greater Seattle area with his wife of 48 years. When they are not enjoying grandkids, participating in church ministries, hiking the Olympic Peninsula beaches or occasionally traveling to snorkel tropical waters, H. L. writes inspirational thriller/suspense novels and continues to study the craft of writing fiction.

For an extra treat, here's a link too a great YouTube video interview with Harry. http://bit.ly/1oRuHIX

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