R. A. “Doc” Correa was raised in Los Angeles, California in the 1950s and 1960s. He entered the US Army in 1970 and retired from the military in 1993. During that time he served as a battlefield medic, LRRP, surgical tech, scout section leader, LRS assistant team leader, team leader and training/ops NCO in a LRSD. In 1999 he graduated from Colorado Technical University with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. He then worked as a systems and applications test engineer, test lead, and test manager from 1998 to 2009.

Richard Correa currently resides in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. He’s had a number of poems published in various publications, and recently, he released his first novel, RAPIER, a SciFi adventure. The story is set in the late twenty fourth century shortly after the genetics war.

You can find Richard Correa on Facebook and on Twitter
Author page on Amazon
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What motivates you to write and how did you get started?

What motivates me to write is I have stories to tell. Many of the stories are inspired by chats with a dear friend from Australia, we would do ‘story time’ and she’d be the main character. Kind of role playing. Other stories are about things I’ve read about, new tech that I believe will make people less free if not used properly. A few are just ideas that have been bouncing around in my head.

As far as getting started goes, that’s where I look like an unguided missile. I took creative writing in high school for an easy grade. I was in varsity football and had to keep my GPA up. I wrote short stories and poems in the class and even had a couple published in a hippy magazine. Then I just stopped writing. Was busy soldering, then making a living. A few years back I met a veteran at the Denver VA and found we were both still hurting over our experiences. That inspired my first award winning poem, Faces. I wrote a number more, four of which have been published in poetry anthologies. Two have won awards. That was kind of a surprise.

All of the above led to Rapier and my current works in progress.

What’s most rewarding about writing?

For me two things. The first is to tell a tale others enjoy. The second, which I wasn’t expecting, was the rush of holding a book in my hands that I wrote.

What’s your favorite genre and why?

Probably SciFi though I’m also a big fan of fantasy and history. I’m probably the only person you know that has read The United States Navy in World War Two, The Rise and Decline of the Roman Empire, Achtung Panzer, Japanese Destroyer Captain and a ton more. I think I kept Bantam Books in business in the 1960s.

Where do your characters come from?

Lots of different places. Kathy Masters is a blending of my friend from Australia and my wife. Commodore Black is a little of me, a couple of a Green Berets I knew and the real dread pirate Roberts. Yes Princess Bride fans, there was a real dread pirate Roberts, and his is an incredible story.

Who is an author who inspires you and why?

Robert Heinlien. He could take anything and weave an amazing tale from it. And often he ‘taught’ you things without you knowing it. Starship Troopers is the best example of that. Many view the book as a treatise on why a constitutional republic is superior to a communist society. BTW, the movies, in my opinion, have very little to do with his story. I call the movies young Nazis go to space. If you get the time read Starship Troopers. Another great story of his is Stranger in a Strange Land. I also highly recommend The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

What do you look for in other people’s books?

I look for the author to create a story, a world, that takes my breath away and I look forward to getting lost in it.

What are you writing now?

I’m afraid my tendency to be an unguided missile has me currently working on three books and a freebie story. There’s Razor, the sequel to Rapier. The Young Kathy Masters Chronicles (working title), the story of Kathy Masters teenage years living in the ‘dead lands’ of Australia. Then there’s Sophie (working title). It’s about a young woman that becomes a vampire to reunite her family who were killed by the French when they marched on Rome to depose the Spanish pope, Rodrigo Borgia. It mostly takes place in modern Japan, with flashbacks to renaissance Italy, North America and other places. The freebie story is a Rapier story focusing on the conflict between Kathy Masters and Commodore Black as the Commodore integrates their adopted daughter, Cindy, into the Rapier’s crew.

What kind of book would you like to be known for?

The kind of book that people want to read over and over.

What has writing taught you about yourself?

That I can tell a good story, but when it comes to writing the English language I’m dumber than a fence post.

How has your life experience influenced your writing?

I think my military experience shows in the fight scenes. My older brother’s stories about his time in the navy influence the books ship scenes. My love of the different sciences influenced the worlds and creatures. And my years of reading SciFi made it easy to toss science under the bus when it got in the way of the story.

What encouraging advice can you offer new writers?

The only real advice I have is just write it. Don’t worry about what others think, what has to be fixed or anything else, just write it.