How do you get inspired to write?
First, let me thank you for inviting me to appear on The Ripple Effect. It's an honor to be interviewed, and I'm excited to introduce myself to your readership. Thank you for this opportunity.
I've been inspired to write since story first captivated me as a child. Every night either my father or mother would tell me a story or read me a book before bedtime. I was an only child for the first seven years of my life, and we lived in the quiet town of Vestal, NY. I spent a lot of time hiking in the woods with my dog, Treasure. Reading allowed me to travel around the world and into other galaxies without leaving the safety of our home. Robert Lewis Stevenson was my favorite author, and Treasure Island excited me and spurred my writing career. I wrote books from the age of six—although using the term “books” is a stretch, since they were ten or twenty-page stories with construction paper covers about anthropomorphized animals on adventures.
I remember writing late at night, long after I was supposed to be asleep. My imagination would race as stories came to me, and I'd write so fast I'd rub the skin raw on my fingers. I felt like I was channeling stories, and I ignored grammar and spelling as I tried to record the images appearing behind my eyes. I still feel that way. A writer’s life experience contributes to story invention, but imagination is where we create things that haven't happened, at least to us.
I talked to 100 authors a year, and I always ask them where they think stories come from. Many writers say they are vessels through which the story emerges. There’s a physics theory about the multiverse where every possibility exists at the same time. I feel that applies to stories. At every point, there are millions of different things a character can do, and an author gets to choose the path.
I can tell the difference between a writer and somebody who just has a romanticized vision of what it would be like to have a book published. Nonwriters rarely start their work, and if they do, they don't finish. Natural storytellers write. Even if they never make a dollar and only their immediate friends and family read their stories, they still do it. Writers write because they're compelled to do so.
How do you deal with writer's block?
Writer’s block doesn't exist. Authors may have trouble starting a scene or diving into a book, or they’re struggling through the muddy middle of a novel, but nothing prevents them from writing. I'm blessed to have hundreds of ideas for novels, and although they're not all high-concept ideas, I think they're all interesting. When authors talk about writer’s block, they're not referring to a lack of ideas. It's often that they're stuck in a problem or a character or some other complication within a work in progress. Different fixes exist for individual problems, but the simple answer is to start writing. I believe in outlining, so I have at least a broad idea of what my three or four act structure looks like. It's important for me to know where a story is headed, and how it ends before I begin. Writers can work through their issues on the page. Writer’s block is an excuse not to work.
What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?
I spent 25 years in law enforcement, where my job was to detect and unravel mysteries. As a police officer, I arrested people for everything from obstruction of justice to rape and murder. I was a special agent for over 25 years, and during that time, I dismantled transnational criminal organizations and terrorist networks. Of note, I convicted the world’s most prolific heroin trafficker, made the first narco-terrorism arrest, and arrested an Iranian operative for trying to acquire surface-to-air missiles. I worked at least a dozen significant federal investigations that all could be books. I’m working on a narrative nonfiction manuscript about the first narco terrorism case, because it shows my path from being one of the first people to arrive at the World Trade Center’s North Tower after it collapsed to pushing my agency into counterterrorism, proving nexus between drugs and terror, and then making the first narco terrorism arrest and conviction.
What are you currently working on?
I'm currently writing a nonfiction book, tentatively titled The Write Path, which is a guide for writers on the craft and business of writing. I own Elaine’s Literary Salon, where I've interviewed over 130 authors, and I’ve counseled many more. I've also interviewed dozens of authors and panels, podcasts, and other venues. By sharing lessons from these interviews and the many mistakes that I've made in my career, I hope to help authors get published.
I also have several unpublished manuscripts that I need to revise before resubmitting. I've had traditional publishing contracts for two of them but withdrew them based on the advice of my last agent, who thought they weren't right for my brand. I plan to resubmit them to agents in the next few weeks. I also have a military thriller sequel to my novella, Forsaken. I want to submit that to my current publisher, Severn River Publishing. My next project will be to revise and nonfiction manuscript about the first terrorism case. It reads like a thriller, but it's all true.
When I have everything completed and out the door, I'll turn my attention to an unfinished thriller manuscript that I stopped in 2003 when my brother-in-law died unexpectedly, and I had to take on the role of manager and general manager at my family's restaurant. I read the first chapter the other day, and I loved it. It's funny that after a long period away from something I've written, I come back as a reader, not the writer. I write hundreds of thousands of words every year, and I'd forgotten most of what I'd written. I think it's pretty good, and I'm excited to get that one finished.I'm a planner, and next year, I intend to write two psychological suspense thrillers I’ve loosely outlined. I love starting new projects.
Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?
As I respond to this interview, my most recently published book is The Havana Syndrome. In 2020, I read a declassified FBI report that referred to the Havana syndrome as anomalous health incidents with psychogenic causes. I knew someone affected by it, and I understood enough to know that the report didn't tell the entire story. As a writer, I'm always asking, “what if?” I wondered why the US government would be lying about the causes of the Havana Syndrome.
The plot of my book is completely fictional, but everything I write about the Havana syndrome itself is true. I recently had a book signing at The International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, and during the event three readers introduced themselves to me, all of whom had been stricken by Havana syndrome. They thanked me for shining a spotlight and their situation. The government has treated people who suffered from this as if they were lying or had mental health issues. While there may be a few cases of people manipulating the system to receive disability benefits, most of the cases I've discovered seem to be authentic.
Directed energy weapons—radio frequency, microwave, or ultrasonic—are the likely cause of Havana Syndrome. The former Soviet Union used microwave weapons against our embassy in Moscow, so we know they have the technology and the willingness to use it. The United States has continued to research directed energy weapons as well. Back in the 1990s, the US had three classified programs—Hello, Goodbye, and Good Night—that used high-energy directed energy weapons. Hello disoriented targets by disrupting their cognitive processes. Goodbye used microwaves to dispel crowds, and Goodbye was an assassination tool. I believe directed energy weapons cause what's known as Havana syndrome.
My next book, The Khorasan Retribution will launch on September 9, 2025, and will probably be out before this interview is published. That book deals with an Afghan foreign service national who worked with the FBI at the US Embassy in Kabul. He's left behind when the US withdraws, and when his family is killed, he blames the United States. It's a book about vengeance, and it deals with both the opioid crisis and new tools terrorists could use to spread terror.
What kind of research did you do for this novel?
I recently wrote a novel with a strong historical plotline set in 46 BC Egypt. For that manuscript, I read 26 books before I even started and then had to research continuously as I wrote. No matter how much I prepare for a historical novel, the second I begin writing, I realize I know little about that era. It's the little details that get you.
Research can also be an avoidance technique. Writers are curious by nature, and studying any topic, whether it’s a new scientific technique or the history of a foreign land, can be fascinating. There’s no end to it if you go deep enough. I’ve known writers who research for years before they begin writing. That’s a problem.
Sometimes it’s easier to write if you know less. That’s why it’s difficult for experts in any field to give quick responses to questions. They know so much. It’s hard to distill the basics without either becoming too technical or too in-depth in the response. Sometimes, it’s easier to communicate an idea with less knowledge. Research is the same way. While it’s great to know a lot about the topic in my book, I can’t put everything in the story when I finally write. I might read an entire book on a subject and only inform a few lines of my story. The cost-benefit analysis must be considered. How much time do I want to spend researching versus writing?
The technique I found that works for me is to give myself two weeks to research before the beginning of a book. Then I research as I go. Often, I’ll have a research tool, like Perplexity AI, open on my desktop so I can quickly access it. If I don’t find the answer immediately, I just put a placeholder in my manuscript and keep going. If I stopped every time I didn’t know something, I’d never get through a page. And each distraction sets me back not only the time to research, but at least another 10 minutes to return to a flow state—even if that’s possible. I found it better to just finish a scene and then go back and fill in the missing facts later.
I think the balance of research in writing is a challenge for every author. My recommendation is to decide how much you want to write in your lifetime and then look at the actual analytics of where you’re spending your time. I’ve done this on a micro level with my daily life by breaking each hour into 15-minute increments and then spending a week recording what I’m doing. I was shocked to realize how much time I spent on social media, watching silly videos, and checking email. All that eats into my productivity.
In general, what emotions do you usually wish to elicit with your writing?
Fear. I write many subgenres of thrillers, all intended to get the reader’s heart racing. I love it when readers tell me they couldn’t catch their breath, or they stayed up all night reading one of my books. Unlike horror, my protagonists seek to defeat evil, not revel in it. My stories are about individuals overcoming horrific odds to succeed. While fear and suspense pervade the stories, in the end, the human spirit prevails. Mostly. People get angry when I kill off their favorite characters, but characters need to be vulnerable for the reader to know anything can happen. My message in the end is to fight against evil in all its forms and never give up.
Best advice on writing you’ve ever received?
I’ve interviewed over one hundred authors, read dozens of craft books, and listened to many writing podcasts. I've internalized wonderful writing advice, and most of it was extremely valuable. A writer needs to learn both the craft and the business of writing.
It's interesting how the same writing advice expressed in different ways can resonate better. At the beginning of my career, I struggled with the convergence of character arcs and plot resolution. In Jessica Brody’s book, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, she talks about a character’s wants versus needs. A character thinks they want something, which is what motivates them, but they really need to change something else. That simple explanation helped me grasp the concept.
The best piece of writing advice I've heard is to just write. If Malcolm Gladwell's requirement of 10,000 hours of focused practice to master a discipline is accurate, then that translates to about 1 million words for a writer. The more I write, the better I become, which means when I finish a book, I'm a better writer than when I started it. Many new writers talk about wanting to write in the future, but real storytellers write. The only way to improve is to develop a consistent writing practice.
What is the weirdest/wildest topic or fact that you've had to research or uncovered in your research?
My unpublished manuscript, The Relic, deals with a new discovery in Egypt and a historical timeline and in 46 BC. I had to research ancient Egyptian technology, and I discovered we don't understand most of what they possessed. History disappears quickly through wars, natural disasters, and a lack of documentation.
Ancient Egyptians from thousands of years ago were more advanced than any civilization until modern times. For example, the Egyptians could cut stones to such accuracy that we can only match it with modern machinery. Their ability to move massive rocks is still unexplained. Even the purpose of the pyramids is contentious, with convincing theories they manufactured chemicals or generated power.
Can you tell us a two-sentence horror story?
I wrote a seven-word mystery for a contest a few years ago, and it could be considered horror. My entry was: He gasped his last breath. She smiled.
What else would you want readers to know about you? Where can readers find you online?
I spent 25 years in law-enforcement and most of my career chasing terrorists around the world. I also write gritty thrillers and suspense, so readers who don’t know me assume I’m an extremely serious person. I can be goofy too, and I mostly watch comedies for entertainment. My favorite sitcoms are Seinfeld, Frasier, Cheers, Modern Family, and The Office, and my favorite movie is Meet the Parents.
Readers can find my work on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online bookstores. I'm also in some physical bookstores and libraries. I have author pages on BookBub, Goodreads, and Amazon. Readers can also purchase my latest work directly from Severn River Publishing. The best place to find me is at https://jeffreyjameshiggins.com. I answer emails through that website, or readers can contact me at jeffrey@jeffreyjameshiggins.com.
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