Charlie Huston uses Seagate storage to back up his work. (Photo by Ray Coco Smith)

When he’s not writing two turbo-charged crime novels a year or writing comic books for Marvel, Charlie Huston is, well, writing some more. He’s revising earlier drafts, plotting out new books, adding to his research notes or updating his website.

The prolific Huston (who’s been hailed by the Washington Post as “one of the most original crime novelists at work today”) depends on Seagate storage to protect his work.

No Victim Here

“This is my livelihood,” says Huston, who uses a 160-GB Seagate FreeAgent Go external storage solution to back up every file on his laptop hard drive. “If my computer crashes, I’m shut down. So I’m not taking any chances anymore. I’ve got my entire hard drive on my FreeAgent Go, and it works very well for my needs.”

The Los Angeles-based novelist has quite a digital-content collection. In addition to drafts of his books, Huston also safeguards proofed pages, galleys, artwork, book-jacket photos, lettered comic-book pages for Marvel and more on the FreeAgent Go solution. And let’s not forget the digital tunes (musicians ranging from Big Joe Turner to Queens of the Stone Age) Huston enjoys while taking a break from writing.

“Charlie Huston is a great example of how digital-content creators and consumers have become the fastest-growing market for Seagate storage,” says Jim Druckrey, SVP and GM of the company’s branded-solutions business. “It says a lot about the reliability and security of our brand that top writers like him trust their most important digital assets to our products.”

Moon Knight courtesy of Marvel Comics.

Huston burst onto the literary landscape in 2004 with his debut novel, Caught Stealing. Since then, he’s published five more books and has another due out in December. Huston also recently concluded a 12-issue stint writing for Marvel’s reboot of its Moon Knight superhero—a character first introduced in 1975—and has more projects lined up with the comic publisher.

“With Charlie’s powerful storytelling, the new run not only entertained long-time Moon Knight fans but also created a whole new audience of comic-book readers,” says Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief at Marvel.

Fellow crime novelist Charles Ardai considers Huston to be “one of the most exciting talents to emerge in the past 10 years.”

“Charlie’s taken the field by storm,” says Ardai, who’s also the founder and editor of Hard Case Crime. “He has a highly cinematic brand of storytelling, and he puts memorable characters in situations of great suspense and danger. Reading a Huston novel is like downing two cans of Jolt and saddling up for a ride on a bronco.”

Modus Operandi

A typical writing day for Huston—which begins after a morning jog or a workout at the gym—is one where he can feel steady progress in a story’s arc. Huston always has a broad plot in mind and an ending point for his books, but most of his stories will evolve as he starts to write.

“A great deal of the work involves not saying ‘no’ to your ideas,” he says. “If you kill them before they’re on the page, you’ll never know if they’re worth a damn. And when I nail it, those are the days I really remember to back up the work on my FreeAgent Go.”