Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Wayne Stinnett. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Wayne, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the decision of whether to donate a percentage of sales to an organization or cause – we’d love to hear the backstory of how you thought through this.

I’ve always been a firm believer in paying it forward. After publishing the second novel in what is now a 24-volume series, I asked my wife for subject recommendations for the third book. That evening, a story came on the news about a veteran who was going through some really hard times, due to a blemish on his record. He’d followed orders, yet somehow been dishonorably discharged for doing so. Being a civilian my wife asked why and I explained that the oath all enlisted military swear contains wording that they will obey all lawful orders given by their superiors. Then I had to explain the difference between a lawful order and an unlawful one. She asked how an 18-year-old kid, fresh out of high school was supposed to know the difference if she didn’t. So, we decided to use that as a theme since my protagonist is a retired Marine. The son of a friend who’d been discharged under other than honorable conditions (one step down from a dishonorable discharge) helped create the character which actually bore his name. My wife also suggested I donate a portion of the book’s earnings to a veteran’s charity. So, when Fallen Pride was released in the spring of 2014, half the royalties were initially donated to Wounded Warriors. Later, we decided that all the royalties could go even farther with a smaller charity. Eventually we found SUDS, which at the time was Soldiers Undertaking Disabled Scuba, something I could really get behind. The organization has grown and is now called Servicemembers Undertaking Disabled Sports, as they have expanded to not just working with Soldiers, but Marines, Airmen, and Sailors of both sexes, and they’ve come out of the water for kayaking, hiking, mountain biking, and whatever other sport a group of disabled veterans would like to do. Over the years, we’ve donated almost six figures to these veteran’s charities. I think the book’s done pretty well.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’m almost 64 years old and have worked in a succession of jobs, careers, and industries all my life, never finding my true calling. I’m a Marine Corps veteran, as is my protagonist, but nothing high-speed and low-drag, like Jesse I was in Motor T–a truck driver, who delivered ammunition to artillery units. After the Corps, I worked in construction, when work was available, and commercial fishing and other odd jobs when it wasn’t. I’ve also worked as a divemaster in the Florida Keys and Cozumel, Mexico. I worked as a deckhand on a freighter for a short while, a taxi driver, construction manager, and finally, 13 years as an over-the-road truck driver. I’ve been a reader all my life and years ago, when I was a young teen, I locked onto a particular kind of fiction and have read nothing else since then–South Florida thriller and mystery novels by authors who knew the area. It’s where I grew up and was infinitely familiar with. Then a long dead dream of being a writer was rekindled one day, when my wife found a partially finished, hand-written chapter for a short story I’d written in the late 1980s. It took me four months to expand that short story into a novel and by the time I finished, I knew I couldn’t stop if I tried, so I started writing a second novel before the ink had dried on the first. Then a third. Then a prequel to the first three. By then, my writing income had eclipsed my trucking income and I quite my job. My wife was a teacher and locked into a contract, but she quit a year later. We’ve both been happily unemployed for over eight years.
These days, I write five days a week, for as long as it takes to add 1,000 or more words to a manuscript. At a minimum of 5,000 words per week, not counting holiday weeks or vacations, it takes me anywhere from ten to twelve weeks to write a novel. I don’t believe in writer’s block. I’m a Marine, and I believe in self-discipline, tenacity, and pushing through any barrier.
Hiring the top professionals in the industry, I turn a manuscript over to my editor when it’s finished, always on time, and then start the next one, as the previous one goes through editors, proofreaders, formatters, and cover designers. I just approve their work and it goes on to the next person. I’ve been writing and publishing at least three novels a year for the last nine years. My editor is booked at least three months in advance and I have slots reserved through the end of 2023 for her to edit three more novels. So, I have to schedule everything and be punctual about delivery.
In late 2020, a monkey wrench landed amidst my well-planned schedule. A good friend and fellow author got sick and died of cancer just days after his diagnosis. After several weeks, his wife contacted me and said that Ed had left an unfinished manuscript on his computer that he’d told her only needed about “eight more days” of writing. She asked if I would finish it for him. After giving it some thought and talking it over with my wife, I agreed. Ed wrote like I do–no outline, no notes, and no guideposts. Just an idea, that he, unfortunately, didn’t convey to anyone. But I’d read all of Ed Robinson’s Trawler Trash series and knew the character well. Still, it took me from Thanksgiving to the spring of 2021 to finish Cayo Costa Breeze. I had my team do the editing, covers, and formatting for Ed’s wife, Kim, and they all worked pro bono, even teaching Kim the basics of book advertising so she could keep his legacy alive. I tried very hard to match Ed’s writing style and to date, nobody has indicated the correct spot where Ed’s writing ended and mine began. In fact, the only indication that I had a hand in writing it was in the Afterword. Eight days turned into a four-month campaign, as I continued to write my own books, but mission accomplished. This is the kind of paying it forward, I was talking about. Had the tables been turned, I know without a doubt that Ed would have done the same.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

As I said, I don’t outline. I call my style “discovery writing” since I’m discovering the plot of the story in the same way the reader does. Well, that is, if the reader reads only 1,000 words a day, five days a week. Among indie authors, I’m known as a “pantser” as opposed to a “plotter.” Nobody has yet to explain to me why these two writing styles happen, but every writer falls into one or the other. When I write, I start with a blank screen and the only thing I know about the book I want to write is where it will take place. But even that isn’t written in stone. Book two was supposed to take place in Key West and Cozumel, but ended up in Cuba. I don’t know anything about the story, the plot, what characters will be included–not even what the next sentence will be. So, when I’m writing the story, it seems that my mind is directly connected to the keyboard. Why does one read to the end of a book? To see what happens, of course. Which is exactly why I continue to write. With each novel, I search until I find those elusive two words–The End.
But it never ends there. The story continues in the next book with a new location, new characters and a new challenge for my protagonist. My goal, is to find the end of his story. Only I know I never will. That task will fall to whomever my wife asks to finish my last manuscript.
In the meantime, my life is all about telling the journey of another man through his life. When my stories started, he was 37 and now he is pushing 60, a few years behind me.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

The eleven months from June 2013 until May 2014, was one of the busiest periods of my life. The company I worked for had a contract with Michelin tires in Lexington, South Carolina. We were a flatbed company and my job was to haul three to five tires from their plant to the big open-pit mines out west. Why’s a big truck needed to haul three to five tires? They were really big tires. The dump trucks in these mines haul 30 or more tons of ore at a time and the tires are up to twelve feet tall, four feet wide, and weigh up to 12,000 pounds each. Our company specialized in over-dimensional cargo. Since oversized loads could only be moved during daylight hours, that left me with anywhere from ten to fourteen hours a day of downtime and I only sleep six.
I wrote that first novel almost entirely in the sleeper of the truck during my down time. It would take three to five days to get from South Carolina to the mines in the Rocky Mountains and another three to five days to get back, usually a two-week turnaround with two days off at home. I didn’t write when I was home, there was a lot of other work to do around the house or in our vegetable garden.
Finally, in October 2013, the first book was published, and I was hooked. When the second book was published, I started making up to $1,000 a month with my side gig and I devised a plan to get off the road. I’d use the extra income to outfit a woodworking shop and build furniture and cabinets for a living. My dad was a carpentar and I learned a lot from him when I was a kid.
When the third book was published in April 2014, I realized my side hustle was doing better than my day job and far better than building cabinets. So, I devised a plan to quit. We’ve all dreamed about it. Johnny Paycheck wrote a song about it, Take This Job and Shove It. My plan was to quit my job on July 4, Independence Day. I was going to hire a limo to take me to the truck yard. A limo in a truck yard is bound to draw curiosity, and I intended to just sit in the back seat until the boss man came out. Then, I was going to buzz the window down, hand him my keys, and say, “I’m needed elsewhere.” Then buzz the window and drive away. I’d even toyed with the idea of hiring a black helicopter to hover just above the limo.
Alas, the boss man had other ideas and on May 14, when I returned from a run, he pushed the wrong buttons and I preempted my plan by just handing him the keys with a smile on my face. I told him he could even give my tools, CB radio, and expensive mattress to the next driver. I’ll never forget the look on his face. He couldn’t figure out why I was so happy.
I was halfway through writing the prequel to the first three books at the time, and a month after it was published, in August 2014, my single month royalty payment for that side hustle was greater than my best six months as a trucker.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WayneStinnettAuthor
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/waynestinnett
• Other: https://www.downislandpublishing.com

Image Credits
Jordan Stinnett