SpotLight on YOUR Novel: John DeDakis

John DeDakis is an editor and writer on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.” John began his journalism career by getting tear gassed while covering an anti-Vietnam War riot for a campus radio station while still a student at UW-Madison in 1970. During his award-winning, 40-year career in journalism (21 years at CNN), John has been a White House Correspondent, interviewed such luminaries as Alfred Hitchcock, and taught journalism and writing at American University in Washington, D.C. and Regent University in Virginia. His mystery-suspense novel Fast Track (set in Wisconsin) is the first book in the Lark Chadwick series. A native of La Crosse, Wisconsin, John now lives in Washington, D.C. John and I discuss the process of writing a novel, getting published and self marketing your finished product. Like life, writing a novel has ups and downs, pros and cons, happy and sad moments. Also, much like life, you learn a lot about yourself, the people you write about and even the characters you make up in tour own head. Very much like life, it is not an easy undertaking, it is always evolving, or at least it should be, and you might not recognize the end product from the original plan.