We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful T.o. Paine. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with T.O. below.

Alright, T.O. thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

We all know words are powerful. My parents embraced this fact and used two simple phrases that made my journey as an author possible. I believe the first phrase may have been handed down to my father from his. My grandfather was a butcher. My father always told me, on any job, to always “pack the bacon.” Because bacon is heavy, it takes more effort to carry it. He repeated this to me many times throughout my life. In context, he was pushing me to always take on the harder work and finish it. Writing a novel is difficult, but I always knew if I “packed the bacon,” I could do it. I could do almost anything. Similarly, my mother never let me off the hook for hard work in the kindest way possible. Whenever I wanted to quit working on something — whenever I decided it was too hard — she would say, “Okay. Just do the best you can.” I, of course, hadn’t done the best I could to finish at that point, and in attempting to do so, I always ended
up finishing whatever I’d started. I’ve written and published four novels so far, with a fifth coming out in March 2025. I packed the bacon and did the best I could to finish each one of them.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I fully embraces my passions and take them to the extreme. In the early 2000s, my fascination with endurance sports led me to later complete an IRONMAN, cycle hundreds of miles through the rugged mountains of Colorado, and run a marathon in all 50 U.S. states. My extreme passion for writing thriller suspense novels is no different. Since 2016, I’ve written eight novels and published five. Recently, I fulfilled my dream of becoming a full-time author. My deep love for psychological and crime thrillers challenges my mind the same way the endurance sports challenge my body. From an early age, I was drawn to fiction writing and computers. While I nearly pursued an English degree out of high school, I chose to obtain a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science instead. Two decades later, I returned to school to earn a master’s in Information Systems, then fell back on my true love of writing. My technical experience found its way into my TechnoThriller, The Delusion. My experience growing up in a rural area of Idaho found its way into The Excursion, a “trapped in a cabin with a killer” novel. The Teaching, my first published novel, contains the setting and ceremonies from the four years I spent living in a cult. It’s incredibly rewarding to fictionalize times in my life in the form of fast-paced, thrilling novels.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I began writing novels seriously in 2016. I finished the first one early in 2017 and self-published it on Amazon. I thought I would sell thousands of copies and become wealthy over night. That did not happen. I didn’t know it at the time, but people were publishing two to three thousand books a day. Now, it’s over four thousand. An individual publishing a book on Amazon with no marketing or connections is like spitting in the ocean. It makes no waves. I quickly switched to searching for an agent and began writing my next novel. Three years, eight writer’s conferences, three new novels, and nearly two hundred rejections from agents later, I decided to do my own marketing and self-publish once again. This time, I did everything I could to make a splash in the ocean. I improved my craft and quality of writing tenfold. I utilized advertising on Amazon, Facebook, and BookBub. I engaged with readers before releasing my books and entered multiple contests. In late 2023, my third novel, The Excursion, was a finalist in the Readers’ Favorite Thriller contest. I was honored to travel to Miami and accept the award on stage. It was a dream come true. Had I not kept writing after self-publishing my first novel, it would never have happened. Had I not failed to get an agent and reverted back to self-publishing for my later novels, it would never have happened. Had I quit, I wouldn’t have the blessed life I have today.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I am an avid endurance athlete. I have spent many hours “in the saddle” on my road cycle, climbing thousands of feet in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. In 2016, I completed an IRONMAN triathlon, and I plan to do another in 2025. Not the quickest athlete in the field, the IRONMAN took me roughly fourteen hours to finish the two-mile swim, one-hundred and twenty-mile bike ride, and the standard 26.2-mile marathon. Crossing the finish line was one of the best moments of my life, but there is another. In February 2024, I finished running fifty marathons in fifty states. That was a major accomplishment, but the most rewarding part was seeing one of my readers on the course. After years of improving my skills as a thriller suspense novelist, one of my readers came to my fiftieth marathon to cheer me on. I’ll never forget that. Reading an entire book is a commitment, so I greatly appreciate it when anyone takes the time to read one of mine. I write for the readers in hopes of giving them a chill, a laugh, and a new way of seeing things through the eyes of one of my characters. The most rewarding aspect of being an author is when a reader loves what I’ve written.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://topaine.com/bio
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t.o.paine
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/topaineauthor
• Twitter: https://x.com/topaine