Morning everyone! I’m back with a guest post for you all. This one’s from Jon Biddle, author of Hypnos, talking a bit about how he does research for his writing and the varied life experiences that flavor it. Enjoy!
I think I have the most varied CV in the world. The only thing I left school with as Sixteen year old, was a packet of fags, and an old dog eared copy of Razzle magazine. I did get one O’ level, in Biology, which came into play in later life.
I then spent the next ten years in the army. The Infantry, shooting things and being shot at. I grew up quickly while on the streets of Northern Ireland as a soldier; they were tough, mean and dangerous. It shaped the person I have become in so many ways.
After that, I joined the family business and became a potter. These are the days I miss the most. They were idyllic and perfect. Living amongst the rolling hills of Dorset in the South West of England, nothing could be more amazing. The business grew to where we had to sell up. I became a full-time dad to our very young children, again, some of the best days of my life. My relationship with my now grown-up children is a close bond of which I do not take for granted.
It was during this period; I realised, that the wind blowing between my ears was in fact cognitive thought, what was weird, I was pretty good at it.
So I searched what would be a good job for a thirty-something to do that had meaning and came across my career as an Operating Department Practitioner. I stayed on at university for another four years and became a surgical first assistant and getting a whole heap of certificates which I cant find anymore.
I’ve covered everything in surgery from orthopaedics, which I love, to cardio thoracic, neuro, general surgery, ENT, MaxFax, urology, obs and gynae. I am dual qualified in assisting and anaesthetics, which makes me a rare commodity. I can slot anywhere within the Perioperative setting and be very comfortable.
What has this got to do with researching books?
I have a very broad knowledge of surgery, disease and trauma, drugs, the humanistic interaction between medical professionals and their patients, which are often complex along with trauma and the worst conditions that we as humans have to face. I had coupled along with my military background with law enforcement in Northern Ireland, there’s not much I haven’t seen or done.
I know firsthand what it’s like to lose a patient, I cannot remember any of my patients that left the OR and made a full recovery from their treatment, the dead though? I remember those. All of those, their names, what they looked like. I couple them with levels of high stress, guilt, anger and emotional distress and in some cases, utter heartbreak. I haven’t done CPR on anyone and not broken most of their ribs, I have had my hands, deep inside a patient, around their aorta, trying to stop a patient bleeding to death while helping a surgeon, likewise; I sat and held the hand of a dying man while he told his son how much he loved him on the phone, and how proud he was of him. Sadly, not being able to be by his father’s side in the final moments. The man looked at me square in the face with some form of clarity as he faced his own mortality, he thanked me for being there and that it meant everything to him, and it meant everything to me. I hope that I made up for his son’s absence. It’s these things that stay in my mind, that keeps me focussed, charged and driven to be the best person I might be.
I also can remember the first time that someone tried to kill me, the sound, the energy, the stones being flicked into my eye from the ricocheting bullets, the twenty litre can of water being tossed into the air as 7.62mm rounds slammed into either side of me, I remember I was about to be mortared, and when the first one came into my base, I watched glass almost bend concave slowly as the blast swept through the base until the glass surrendered and smashed to a thousand pieces. Why did I survive while others didn’t? I have no idea. I have many friends that are not with me today, dead from enemy action, or even the biggest killer, the enemy within. These voices I have, as does most of us that have walked that path, I am not immune to the label of complex-PTSD, I won’t affirm to like it, but there it is.
My body has spent most of its life in fight-or-flight mode, something that I am learning slowly to deal with, with the help of a therapist. Every day that I and my brothers make it through is another day we can chalk up to success.
I hope that this transcribes into the narrative of the books I write.
I am an educationalist by nature; I love learning and reading deeper into the psychology of people which really turns me on. How people tick. We’re not all that unique. Humans are humans, and a large proportion and wonderful souls that want nothing but good from this life. The scum bags, villains, and psychos are the people I have a keen interest in, and this behaviour really inspires my writing.
Take this current covid-19 pandemic, people are so predictable in how they behave, this fascinates me and use that core human interaction in my books. My protagonist Alex Brown is especially deft at dealing with human emotions on many levels, I love how she sees the lie coming, and heads the lie off at the pass. These are complex cognitive skills which I have learnt as an empath myself. Daily from my childhood, but that another story.
I hear the term Google Authors. That’s something that I definitely am not.
Jon spends his days smashing out people’s hip and knee joints, and his nights writing medical thrillers.
A veteran and a medical professional who spends 45 hours a week in the OR, Jon brings considerable medical and military/law enforcement expertise to the crime thriller genre, evident by the attention to detail in his six books.
Jon’s writing is dark and eclectic, provoking and deviant. He surrounds himself in the white glow of pureness, with one foot always in the dark. The dark always surrounds us, but Jon has a knack of making his readers ask “Could this happen to me?”
There is nothing too dark for Jon to write about. He has no level, base, or filter, and will get into your head and “scare the living daylights” out of you.
Jon lives in the south-west of England with his childhood sweetheart, Sam, and two Springer Spaniels. With full-time medical responsibilities in his day job, Jon spends 15-20 hours a week writing for his growing online audience. His new medical thriller, The Harvester, was released in 2019 as the first of six books in the Dale Broc series.
Find out more about Jon Biddle, including his new releases and regular short stories, by going to www.jonbiddle.uk and joining the mailing list.
