We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Larry Enmon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Larry, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I’d worked in law enforcement and national security jobs for thirty-seven years before I took up writing. I had a million stories, but my ability to present them was lacking. I needed to learn to become a better creative writer. I wish I’d read more books on writing and joined a writer’s group sooner. The number one thing I wish I’d done is start writing earlier. The more writing you do, the better writer you become. While I had the time, I was slow to take up the craft. Looking back, that was a mistake..

Larry, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I had the best job in the world. The government taught me how to drive fast, shoot machine guns, and unarmed self-defense. I traveled the U.S. and world, stayed in the best hotels, and ate at the best restaurants. I was a U.S. Secret Service agent.

But my story started years before that. I received a degree in Law Enforcement & Police Science and worked for the Houston Police Department in patrol and undercover vice for six years. I happen to have an application in progress with the Secret Service on the day President Reagan was shot in Washington in March 1981. Because of the shooting, the Secret Service hired an additional two hundred agents that year, and I was one.

During my twenty-year career, I traveled to places with the President, Vice President, and foreign dignitaries while history was being made. And I was introduced to the shadowy world of national security. While working in the Secret Service field office in Dallas, I was assigned as the liaison agent to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. I was there on 911 when the towers fell. Due to the nature of my work, the Secret Service, FBI, and CIA granted me insanely high SCI clearances, thereby exposing me to inside knowledge thriller writers only dream of. It was at that point that I decided to start writing.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I’ve always loved to read. I read the classics and everything assigned in school, but my favorites have always been mysteries and thrillers. I devoured everyone I could find. But when I eventually got “into the business,” I was disappointed. The people writing the books had seldom done the work, and their ignorance showed by their obvious mistakes. I realized there was a niche for writers who’d actually performed the jobs they were writing about.

The most rewarding aspect of my writing is telling a story with as much accuracy to detail as possible, and making it a page turner. I’ve written six such books and have four more in various stages of production.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

As a law enforcement officer, I did a lot of writing. I had learned creative writing in college, but that’s not what official police reports demanded. In official reports, there is no creativity. Facts, just the facts, are all they want. Repeating details is encouraged in official writing. Whatever you submit becomes an official record forever. It must be a work that a prosecutor can convict a suspect with and send them to prison, so I must be right the first time.

This is the lesson I had to unlearn, and it took me years for my stories to stop sounding like dry police reports. I wrote and relearned creative writing for ten years before being published.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: larryenmonbooks
• Twitter: @LarryEnmon
• Other: Instagram: @LarryEnmon

  Web: larry-enmon.com