From college football to creating baby products, this best-selling Texas novelist has traveled a unique path.

An email from Amazon Prime started my relationship with Chad Zunker. Apparently, one of the lesser-known benefits of Prime membership is First Reads, a program that offers customers early access to new books across popular genres for free. Each month, I peruse the list of offerings and read the descriptions and reviews before making my selection. One of the books listed was called “The Tracker.”  Not only was it written by a fellow Texan, there seemed to be a little John Grisham feel to the description as well, so I decided to give it a try. I was hooked. Three books later, I reached out to Chad requesting an interview, and he graciously accepted.

Twenty years.  10 unpublished novels.  Over 1,000 rejection letters.  You say your story is one of incredible perseverance or complete insanity. As we have this conversation, you are a best-selling author on Amazon, and your latest book (The Wife You Know) has just been released. Thanks to you, I was able to read an advance copy and loved it.  How’s that going?

It’s an exciting week! The funny thing about writing is you work for a whole year, followed by a two-to-three-week exciting window where the book is released, things are happening, people are posting, things like our conversation are going on…and then you get to crawl back into your cave and do it all over again. I’m definitely trying to enjoy this little sweet spot.

You are the first author I’ve read since Grisham that will hold my interest all the way through a novel. On your website, you mention it was a Grisham book that helped you realize a novel could actually be fun. Was that what started you down this path?

A couple of things happened at the same time. I really went to college (University of Texas) majoring in journalism, but hoping to play professional football. Once I got there and saw how good those guys really were (and that I was a skinny eighteen-year-old freshman walk-on wide receiver, barely 165 pounds soaking wet), I started thinking, “What else do I like to do?” This all happened about the same time I was reading and enjoying Grisham, so I thought, “I could do this…I could be a famous writer!” Little did I know.

Did you ever follow the journalism path?

I never really wanted to be a journalist, but I had to pick something, and I’m good at writing. As I got closer to the end (of school), I realized I really didn’t like journalistic writing. I preferred creative writing. The question then became, “How can I stay in Austin, try to become a novelist, and just work? Surely within a couple of years it will all come together.” I guess I always had this creative bent, but my early childhood was just sports, sports, sports. I’ve also always had this built-in self confidence that I could do whatever I set my mind to; it just took a whole lot longer than I thought!

On the author page in your books, it is noted you have clerked for some of the most powerful law firms in the country. Did you entertain becoming a lawyer, or was that also due to Grisham influence?

I just happened to get a job there! I was looking for a 9-5, good job (that hopefully didn’t tax me too much) so I could write during my off hours. It ended up being a fascinating place to be, and because I was so in love with Grisham’s early work, I found a lot of great material and parallels and thought it was good experience. It was a dynamic experience for about 6-7 years, and I learned a lot. But really, from the moment I stepped out of school, it was “Novelist or nothing.” There have certainly been times over the years I questioned whether I should give this up, but nothing ever rose up to take its place where I wanted to do anything else.

So, what were you doing while you were trying to make your novelist career happen?

I had three different things happen, and I was writing the entire time. First, was the little mini-legal career I mentioned, then I got into doing full time ministry with a church here in Austin.  It started by leading college ministry, then singles ministry, and then overseeing operations for the church. Eventually, I became a campus pastor for a satellite campus we had started in downtown Austin. That was my second career, which I enjoyed a lot.

My third career came after my wife and I got married. We have three girls, but our first daughter (now almost 16) was a really fussy baby we couldn’t soothe. We started using this technique we had learned from a doctor – a really rhythmic shushing that worked like magic – but my wife couldn’t do it. She didn’t have the volume or lung capacity to do this really long technique, so I got a digital recorder to see if I could replace myself. It worked, and to make a long story short, that led us to inventing a product and starting a company (again on the side) called the Baby Shusher. It went global, is now in every Target, and we sold the company a few years ago…kind of living out the American dream.

In spite of this, the whole time, I was never in a place where I put writing to the side. The writing was always shifting around all of this. Even when we started the company and it started to become really successful, I found myself at a crossroads. If I was to give up the writing and really commit myself to this company, we could probably raise hundreds of thousands of dollars…and I could be the CEO of a traditional company, but I told my wife I didn’t want to do that. It wasn’t my passion. As much as I wanted to see it succeed, I didn’t want to commit my life to it and give up my writing. Thankfully, I didn’t.

What was the pull to stay in Austin?

We love it. It’s just a great city, and certainly the entertainment capital of Texas. While I was in college, my mom moved from Houston to Austin, and then my brother and his family came.  There were a lot of reasons to want to be here. I never felt like I had to be anywhere else to be a novelist. I do have a brother who lives near Huntsville with his family, so it’s awesome to share this there.

Interesting about the characters you create (other than the things most of us would never encounter in day-to-day life…like assassins chasing you) is their real-life struggles, emotions, and even faith journeys they have. Why is it important to you to include those?

I’ve always felt things really deeply and been a pretty emotional guy. I lost my father in high school to leukemia, so I went through tremendous pain and loss and hurt.  It felt like I overcame some of that and dealt with life trauma with the Lord. It was just my mom and I left at home dealing with it, so a lot of my characters suffer through things that are real, difficult life experiences.

You are involved in work with the homeless. Tell a little about that.

For ten years, my wife worked with a great non-profit called Mobile Loaves & Fishes, which serves the homeless here. The Community First tiny house village is part of this organization, and I have seen it grow into more than we ever imagined it could.  Through that, we met a lot of people on the street and heard a lot of stories. I have a lot of empathy there. In my David Adams series, a lot centers around that world. It means a great deal to our entire family.

One thing that stands out about your writing is that I never know what’s going to happen until the end. Invariably, I close the book thinking, “I didn’t see that coming!” Share your process for accomplishing that.

Well, (laughing) I don’t know! I am unsure how I do it, other than maybe I am intuitively gifted, having a bunch of creative thoughts running through my mind and can process them. I have probably trained my brain that way. Obviously, I want this experience for every reader. No one wants to read an anti-climactic book. I try to give my brain creative space to work in and for me; a lot of that involves running. I do long runs, and I pray a lot when I run. It is almost guaranteed there is always one run where the ideas start churning, and I will make 50-60 voice notes about the story. I will call my wife afterwards and say, “This was the run.”

I have turned in next year’s book to my editor, and I already have a general thought for the book following that, but I still need the hook…what is the one thing the reader won’t see coming? I have a lot of running ahead of me to figure it out!

If you enjoy domestic thrillers and would like to know more about Chad, you can find him on Amazon and at ChadZunker.com.