I don’t think I ever stopped writing. I fell in love with fiction when I was in middle school because it was a way that I could express my dark side imagination without getting in legal trouble. I have written a number of short stories over the years since but never seriously thought about publishing until about 5 years ago.

There was never an a-ha moment, so to speak that made me decide to be a writer. I went from writing short stories that let me get my imagination and frustrations, to writing a political leaning blog and then progressed into writing a novella and now my first novel. It seemed like a natural progression since my novel is an action-packed spy thriller with political undertones.

I really believe that the inspiration behind starting writing was to find a way to vent my imagination, at least I think that is where it started. Over time, I have grow as a writer – before writing my book, I used to run a political and current affairs blog that focused on issues related to Pakistan. Since then, I have written a number of unpublished short stories and a novella. Agency Rules – Never an Easy Day at the Office is a culmination of all the work, knowledge and information into one fast-paced, action-packed story. It’s a great read for anyone who reads spy/espionage thrillers.

I first got the idea for the book about 6 years ago. I tried many different flavors of how the story should come together in terms of flow and structure, but it never really worked for me until I switched gears and let more of myself into the writing. I am extremely pro-Army and pro-Pakistan – it will always be home to me.
Agency Rules – Never an Easy Day at the Office takes you behind the headlines into the events that created today’s Pakistan. It is a tough look at a nation in conflict from the eyes of a young man, Kamal Khan, who is looking for his own identity and place in society. Kamal is raised in privilege, but leaves it all behind as a man to serve his nation. Once in that environment, finds himself embroiled in a complex narrative that shifts with the fiery speeches of their anointed political and religious leaders.

There are a number of motivations behind my story. First, and probably the most important motivation, was to share the Pakistan that I know with the world. The narrative that has become commonplace about my country is that it is a failed state with many players in the power corridor, but that is not all that Pakistan is. My Pakistan is a country that struggles with inept governments more interested in themselves rather than the people who elected them. It is a country whose people are extremely talented and patriotic but unable to take advantage of any opportunities because the country is run like a fiefdom rather than a nation. It is a country in search of its identity, much like Kamal, that is trapped amidst power plays from internal and external forces.

Secondly, I grew up reading spy thrillers filled with the exploits of CIA, MI6 and KGB agents. While reading all of these stories, I always wondered why no one had ever written about Pakistan’s intelligence services, the ISI, and the challenges they face everyday. Geopolitically, Pakistan is host to numerous intelligence agencies working within its borders, a public secret here and the ISI holds it’s own against all of them. Its routinely demonized by foreign nations, and much of that is because it is so good at what it does.

The backdrop of terrorism does make telling the story easier, but to paint the mosaic of the complexities I had to move backwards to the 1990s so that the reader could understand what happened to create the image of the country as it is today. It’s also a little bit of what I wish had happened rather than what really has happened. In my story, as in real life in fact, the people of Pakistan are the underdog against so many powerful forces, it’s a miracle we still exist. That we do is testament to our resilience as a nation, no matter what you read in the international press.

I hope that, as a reader, you will experience that Pakistan that I fell in love with when I moved home from the United States after 25 years. You will feel your heart wrench with Kamal’s when he is stationed in Karachi, Peshawar and buried deep inside the terrorist camps. And, hopefully, you will cheer him on, because he is the Pakistani that you don’t see in the media – smart, driven and motivated to do good for his family, fellow citizens and country.

Of course! I was born in Pakistan, raised and educated in the United States and moved back almost 17 years ago. The Pakistan that I found was one that was broken, beaten and abused. It was not the Pakistan that I had visited during my summer vacations from school. I poured a great deal of myself and the people that I encounter on a daily basis into the story, took from the headlines in the domestic and international media and crafted a story that helps readers understand what brought Pakistan to where it is today.

The country is not a terrorist state, as the Western media would like to portray it. It’s a country that is struggling to survive, with a citizenry that is confused about what course the nation they love has taken. Sure, we have differing opinions on what that course should be, but it seems that people judge Pakistan based on the 1% they see broadcast in the media, not the 99% that is struggling to survive.

I’ll tell you my process and you’ll be able to gather the quality control from that. I start with freeform writing just to get the ideas down on paper and see how the story works once it’s transferred from my imagination to the paper. The freeform writing is put away for a few days, while I think about the story and jot notes on scraps of paper. Then, I bring it all together with a storyboard and character sketches. This is where the actual writing starts.

From here, I start writing. I am very protective of the writing for the first 5 or six chapters and then it goes to friends and family members for a read-through to see if the story clicks with them. I stop writing at 50% and put together a beta read team that reads the first half of the novel to see what I am missing and if they see the story forming. It also goes to a developmental editor. She has volumes of experience both as a teacher and as an editor, having edited manuscripts and screenplays, so I trust her opinion when she says it works.

When the novel is finished, I pass it to three editors – a developmental editor, a story line editor and a proof editor. Each comes back with excellent feedback on the things that need to be improved, examined and corrected. The novel is revised until I am happy with it, no matter how many rounds of editing it takes.

My favorites are Fredrick Forsyth, Tom Clancy, Helen MacInnes, Alistair McLean and John le Carre. These are the bricks that laid the foundations of today’s modern spy thriller and they teach authors from their books and writing.

I do have to be honest and admit that I watched a lot, and I mean a lot, of spy movies and TV shows. It helps to understand how a story plays out on screen to know the level of realism and environment that has to be brought to a story on paper. When you don’t have the visual to count on, the author has to paint the picture in the reader’s mind. I hope that I have been able to achieve that with my debut novel.

I think both are needed in today’s publishing world. The big traditional publishers are too busy looking for the next bestseller to see the emerging author with a great voice and story. The hoops that writers must jump through to get a publisher’s attention just make the whole process much harder and keeps great stories from coming into the market.

Having said that, I also don’t agree that everyone should self-publish. There is a level of work that must be put into crafting a great story for the reader. You need to have a great editor that disagrees with you. You need to have people that read your chapters and turn around to ask questions where they see holes. You need to put in the effort to get the story right, otherwise you make the self-publishing look inferior, which it is not.

Again, writing is never an easy road when you want to do it right. There are no shortcuts to a great story.

Well, I have owned a marketing company called the emagine group for the past 10 years, so part of my life is wrapped up in making that company grow and continue to generate profit. I take a lot of time out for family and friends, otherwise I would go crazy. Beyond that, it’s travel, reading, movies and sports. I am a huge football fan, both European and American. I used to play but now I have to settle with watching and screaming at the TV when my Arsenal don’t play well.

The greatest influencers on my life have been Charles Dickens and John Steinbeck. I can still pick up any of the books written by these two writers and find something new, something that impacts me differently. The impact? It's real life. Simple and easy to understand, but they teach morals and values that most people don't have today. We need to get back to those morals and values.

Next? We’ll we have the global launch for Agency Rules – Never an Easy Day at the Office on the 16th of January. That’s when Amazon will get the e-book. Paperbacks will be available in bookstores and on Amazon in February from what I understand. I’ll probably spend a few months supporting and promoting the book.

At the same time, I have already started to craft the characters for the 2nd installment of Agency Rules. I know the story line but I need to create the characters and scenes that will play out on the pages of the next book. You can keep up with Agency Rules and Kamal Khan on the website at http://agencyrules.com.

I also write for a few marketing blogs that cater specifically to authors and book marketing. Being a marketer by profession, I have learned how to translate the commercial aspects of marketing, brand building and buzz generation into the publishing world and hopefully, gotten it right.

People inspire me. From the fruit seller in the market to the shopkeeper fighting to support his family. From the policeman that has justified his petty theft to the soldier that gives his life in defense of the country he loves and everyone in between. I try not to focus on a single person for inspiration because they disappoint you when you learn more about them and how they got to where they are. But if you focus on the people around you, you find more inspiration in them than you will in any single person.