I Write Espionage Books, But My Own Life Is Actually One Big Plot Twist

I’ve been writing novels professionally for 15 years, but I’ve never managed to craft a second-act plot twist in one of my thrillers as dramatic as the one my own life took. I transitioned from 50 and single to married with a houseful of kids and dogs, while still under deadlines that didn’t care if I was stuck at the veterinarian all morning, the pediatric orthodontist all afternoon and a swim meet all evening.

I grew up wanting a family, certain that things would just magically fall into place when the time was right. But the time never seemed right, and as I worked hard to pursue my professional dreams, my personal life suffered.

In 2009, after 20 years of trying, my writing career officially kicked off with my first novel, The Gray Man. I signed a two-book deal after that, quit my job in the medical device industry and became a full-time spy fiction author. A decade after my first success in publishing, I found myself with a movie deal, well over a dozen bestsellers, two successful series and a couple of other book projects in the works. Plus, I was fortunate enough to travel all over the world doing what I loved: doing research and writing.

Flying the back of a fighter jet is all in a day’s work.

But deep down, I felt unfulfilled, because while my professional fortunes grew and grew, my personal life had completely tanked. I married in 2015 and divorced three years later, and I saw my lifelong dream of having kids pass me by. I was single and in my 50s, after all.

The Plot Thickens

Then, in April of 2019, I went on a blind date arranged by a friend. Allison, like me, was divorced. Also like me, she had two rescue dogs. Unlike me, however, Allison had three children: Ava, then 15, Sophie, 11 and Kemmons, 10.

I fell in love with Allison the first time we met, finishing one another’s sentences and entrées at a Thai restaurant in Memphis, Tenn. Her humor and her spirit were the breath of fresh air that my staid and rigid “work first” life so desperately needed, a beaming bright light that shined for me at exactly the right time. We were all but inseparable after that first night, and after a couple of months of dating, it was time for me to meet the kids.

Allison and me at a film premiere of The Gray Man, based on my book.

Connecting with Kemmons was a piece of cake. We bonded over cars, Nerf guns and dogs, and I loved him instantly. Ava was in boarding school at the time, so I didn’t get to really know her until she moved back home, but we formed a great “relationship” over the phone and on Facetime.

Eleven-year-old Sophie was the lone holdout to my affection. She was ambivalent about this new guy in her world, to say the least, and I began to feel like I was back in junior high, desperately trying to make a girl laugh or at least talk to me, evaluating every interaction with her to decide if she was finally warming up to my charms. The more I tried, the more she yawned, played with my dogs or looked past me, not at me, when I tried to get to know her.

But I was undeterred. Six months into my relationship with Allison, I told Sophie that someday she and I would be best friends, and I believed it. Slowly, she began to realize I was there for her, her brother and her sister, and I wasn’t just swooping in to snatch up her mother.

Nine months into my relationship with Allison, we were all eating at a restaurant when Sophie walked around the table and whispered into my ear. “If you’re going to propose to my mom, you’ve gotta tell me first.” I already had the ring, and planned to propose in just a couple of weeks, so I immediately agreed to Sophie’s demands.

Because I didn’t have the alone time I needed with her before the proposal, I wrote Sophie and her two siblings each a letter, telling them that I wanted to ask her mother to marry me, and promising that I’d always listen to them, and do my best to be a great stepfather. All three were thrilled, and they loved having the inside information about the proposal.

The COVID Twist

Allison and I got engaged in January 2020 with plans to marry in September, but in March, COVID-19 shut down the world. The only way to see each other, and for me to get to know the kids better, was for us to all move in together. So Allison and the kids packed bags and came to my house.

This “insta-family” was intimidating for a guy with no experience, but I told myself I could handle the lifestyle change and still get my next book in on time.

As the kids homeschooled around the house those first few months, I remember Allison telling me — in a tone that revealed she was worried about the culture shock I was going through — “I promise, they’re usually not home all day, every day!” The truth was, I enjoyed the energy of having everyone around.

In too deep? It’s all for research

As a writer of military and espionage themes, I’ve never let the fact that I didn’t serve in either the military or the CIA deter me from plunging into research to get the information I needed to do my job. I’ve flown in the back of fighter jets, gone swimming with sharks, shadowed State Department security officers in West Africa, trained in shoot-houses with SWAT teams, and stood at the helm of a Navy destroyer.

Parenting felt similar to me in that this wasn’t the world I was accustomed to, but I’d managed to find myself right in the middle of it, and I needed to learn my way around—fast!

There were, and are to this day, many challenges. I’m a pretty laid-back person, so while the kids brought tremendous joy to my life, I was unprepared for the occasional moments of pandemonium.

Still, I shocked myself by how quickly I developed a “dad voice” when necessary.

Finding Balance

Staying disciplined in my writing through all this was a challenge, to say the least. It was as if the voices of the characters in my mind had to compete with the noise from the real world generated by the other eight living creatures in my home. It seemed impossible to find the focus I’d once taken for granted, with my characters and my step kids all clambering for my attention. When my stepson needed help studying for exams each night, for example, I privately told my wife I wasn’t sure I had the energy to make it through another six years of junior high and high school.

"It’s the little things about this family that I love most," writes the author.

Balancing writing life with family life, I’ve found, is all about discipline: carving out the necessary unobstructed time to work, and then being able to shut that part of my brain off and flip on the “dad mode” switch.

It’s the little things I love most. Playing soccer with Kemmons, rubbing Sophie’s shoulders while we watch an 80’s teen movie, listening to Ava’s music (she’s a brilliant songwriter and singer). Time with them is fleeting, so I’m trying to soak up as much as I can, and I tell my wife all the time that I feel like I’ve “caught up” to where I always wanted to be.

The Chaos Agent (Gray Man Book 13)

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Both my work and my family are a beautiful chaos, and I marvel that there is no other place on earth I would rather be than right in the middle of the bedlam.

My quest for the right work/life equilibrium continues, and I suppose it will until I either stop working or stop living. Each chapter of my family’s time together brings new joys and new challenges, and as I enter my fourth year with this wild crew of humans and beasts, I find myself occasionally exhausted and often overwhelmed, but constantly excited about what’s to come.

Mark Greaney's new book, The Chaos Agent, is out on February 20.

Mark Greaney

Mark Greaney has a degree in international relations and political science. In his research for his novels, he traveled to more than thirty-five countries and trained alongside military and law enforcement in the use of firearms, battlefield medicine, and close-range combative tactics. He is also the author of the New York Timesbestsellers Tom Clancy Support and Defend, Tom Clancy Full Force and Effect, Tom Clancy Commander in Chief, and Tom Clancy True Faith and Allegiance. With Tom Clancy, he coauthored Locked On, Threat Vector, and Command Authority. His first novel, The Gray Man, was made into a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans.