After Don Bentley failed to sell his second novel during his service in the U.S. 当他在德国驻扎的时候，他去了趟邮局图书馆. 当他拿起一本奇幻小说时, he had no idea it would lead him to Seton Hill and help kickstart his writing career.

本特利一直都知道他想成为一名作家. He remembers making up alternative plotlines to the predictable A-Team episodes he watched as a kid.

他也知道自己从小就想参军, with previous generations of his family serving in World War II and Vietnam. 

“这两者并不是分开的，”他说. “我一直想服务，我一直想成为一名作家.”

Bentley has created a career path for himself that allowed him to pursue both of these interests and, 在西顿·希尔的通俗小说写作项目的帮助下, is now proudly able to say that he writes military/espionage thrillers full-time. 

While still in the service Bentley took a disciplined approach to his writing, getting up around 4 a.m. 为了赶在规定的体能训练之前写作. He even completed a novel while he was deployed in Afghanistan as an Apache helicopter pilot, adjusting his writing schedule as needed to accommodate both the demands of his job and his dedication to his craft.

“这是我的一部分，我是一个作家，”他说. “这只是一个问题——你什么时候有时间写作?”

他的前两本书给他找了代理，但都卖不出去. 在拒绝信堆积起来之后，他不知道为什么, 他在考虑放弃写作. 

He had been considering that didn’t have the right tools in his toolkit with his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering. When he was in Germany on his last duty assignment, he took a trip to the post library. 拿起一本玛丽亚五世的书. 斯奈德, 刚刚登上《澳门十大博彩娱乐平台网址》畅销书排行榜的人, he noticed that her undergraduate degree was in meteorology yet she had found success as a writer of fantasy and science fiction. Out of the blue, he decided to email her to see if she had any advice to offer him. 

She said she had faced similar struggles in her journey and recommended the Writing Popular Fiction program at Seton Hill as it had made the difference for her.

It took awhile for Bentley to get to a place where he could enroll in the program. 离开军队后, he worked as a special agent for the FBI and was a member of the Dallas Office Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team. After the FBI, Don worked for companies that developed technology for the U.S. 特种部队. 

当他准备回学校的时候, the Post-9/11 GI Bill® and the Yellow Ribbon GI Education Enhancement Program allowed him to earn his master’s degree practically for free.

一旦被澳门金沙博彩娱乐平台录取, 宾利得以与斯奈德重新取得联系, who has served as a mentor and lecturer for the program since graduating in 2007. 他遇到了长期的批评伙伴, 约翰迪克森, 学到了很多关于写类型小说的知识, and completed the program’s mandatory thesis project – his third novel.

“It took awhile for my writing to catch up to the stories I wanted to tell,宾利说. 西顿·希尔参与了这个过程.”

But his third novel didn’t sell either and had Bentley questioning once again if he wanted to be a writer. 现在回头看, Bentley knows that the third novel – and his Seton Hill education – was a turning point.

“第三部小说是我的主角的第一部小说, 马特·德雷克, 出现,宾利说.  “很多东西塑造了他——我写他的方式, 他的声音是怎样的——来自于我从评论伙伴那里得到的反馈, 同学们, 还有我在澳门金沙博彩娱乐平台的顾问们.”

他为自己的第四部小说做了一些关于马特·德雷克的决定, such as choosing to write in the first person and to incorporate some of the dark humor he encountered during his time in the military. He also chose to give his character a job in the lesser-written Defense Intelligence Agency and was able to put his experience with recruiting sources in the FBI into the story.

有一次他把注意力转移到他的第四部小说上, 没有批准, 他的写作事业迅速发展起来. That fourth novel landed him a two-book deal in 2018; 没有批准, 哪一部是在2020年上映的, became his first published novel and the first book in his 马特·德雷克 series.

“At the end of the editorial call when I turned in the second book in my 马特·德雷克 series, 外来者, 我的编辑说, ‘嘿, 你也有兴趣在克兰西的世界里写作吗?’”宾利说. “这完全出乎我的意料，我完全没有预料到.”

什么宾利的编辑, 汤姆·科尔根, 告诉他的是很多人都能写一本书, 但是，由于第二本书的最后期限增加了，作家们可能会遇到麻烦, 压力与期望.

“我很幸运，我通过了‘你能不能写第二本书’的测试?就像在我之前写《澳门十大博彩娱乐平台网址》的那个人一样, 迈克·马登, 决定他不想再写了. Shortly after that I got on the ‘write a book every five months’ schedule. 我会写一本自己的书，然后再写一本克兰西的书. It was crazy but it actually helps you as a writer because you have to get really disciplined about your process and you start to get a lot more efficient about how you write.”

Bentley is now a New York Times bestselling author who has since published eight novels – with more to come.

“It was a rough two-and-a-half years that I would never want to do again, but it was excellent training as a writer and it got my name out there more,宾利说. “If you discount the three books of mine that never sold and the 17 years it took to write them, 我几乎是一夜成名.”

本特利建议写手们遵循“快速失败”的创业格言.”

“大多数人不会卖掉他们的第一、第二或第三本书. As writers, there’s an appropriate amount of sulking that has to take place,他说. “I could have sold my fourth book quicker if I would have done less sulking and just sat down and wrote it and wrote a better book. 你很难放弃一本你确信会畅销的小说.”

“我已经非常擅长失败，即使在我的(非写作)职业生涯中也是如此. 失败是一种挫折，但它不是永久的. “有价值的事情来之不易. It's the people who are willing to keep showing up that succeed in writing and in life.”

宾利也认为自己很成功?

“I get to do what I’ve always wanted to do for a living and to write in the series that made me want to write in this genre to begin with, 对此我很高兴,他说. 

Bentley is now faced with a new challenge – he has more opportunities than he has the ability to write at the moment. 在2023年出版三本书后，他计划放慢脚步. 他已经退出了小杰克·瑞安. series for the time being and will be the second person to take on Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series since the author’s death.