Interview with R.S. Ford, author Engines of Empire!

  

Today I am excited to be sharing with you all the second of two recent interviews I've been fortunate enough to share, and this one features the incredible R.S. Ford, author of the recent epic fantasy release Engines of Empire! Once again, I have both R.S. Ford himself and Angela Man at Orbit to thank for this incredible opportunity, and I could not be more grateful for it. 

Engines of Empire is a thrilling and adventurous new epic fantasy that is the start of what is sure to be an unforgettable series. I had a great time coming up with some questions for Ford about Engines of Empire and his writing and I hope you all have a great time reading them as well–I know I did. Below the interview you will also find some general information about Engines of Empire, be sure to check it out!

If I’m not mistaken, this is your third fantasy series. How would you say this series is similar to and/or departs from your previous works? Have your experiences writing in the SFF genres influenced your current writing from past works?

RF: Technically my fourth (Kultus, my first novel, was meant to be the start of a series but that never happened) but who’s counting? This is certainly the most expansive series I’ve started so far, both in the scope of the world and conflict, and page length.

Previously I’ve been focused very much on character, and writing from a relatively ‘micro’ point of view. As much as The Age of Uprising focuses on character, it details a continent-spanning conflict, and will be much more ‘macro’ in its scale. Saying that, the first book does, more or less, focus on members of one family, although book two will see that widen out a little.

I’ve certainly learned a lot from the previous seven novels I’ve written. I probably started the first book in the Steelhaven series with too many characters off the bat. It would have helped by focusing on fewer characters at the start, and perhaps introducing further POVs later in the story. For the War of the Archons series I spent a lot of time flitting around the timeline, and included a few too many flashbacks. In hindsight it may have benefitted from a more linear approach. Consequently, Engines of Empire is a much more focused and linear story, despite the fact it’s the longest novel I’ve written.

I’m sure you get asked this a lot, but is there anything in particular that inspired your creation of The Age of Uprising series?

RF: Nothing ‘in particular’. This series, as with everything I write, is the product of a host of influences from a wide variety of media. I knew I wanted to step out of the traditional ‘medieval fantasy’ mould, so there is a heavy steampunk element to the worldbuilding. The strong familial elements are as much influenced by Peaky Blinders and Boardwalk Empire, as they are by, say, Game of Thrones. Anyone who reads the novel will see familiar tropes, but I don’t think tropes are anything to be scared of. Nothing is ever truly original, and it’s always fun to see how different writers put their own spin on common themes.

I was really pulled in by many of the themes you explore in Engines of Empires, from imperialistic elements to more personal familial struggles–do you find that there are often set themes you know you want to explore when writing, or do they tend to evolve as you go (or a bit of both?)

RF: Theme is never something I’m conscious of during the writing phase. If I look back at my work I can often identify it, lurking there in the shadows, but it’s generally a subconscious thing. I wrote the Steelhaven series in the immediate aftermath of my father’s death. It wasn’t until I looked back at the series years later that I realised there’s a strong thematic thread involving fathers and their legacies in those books. A lot of the characters are living up to, and driven forward by, paternal expectations.

You’re right that Engines of Empire does have imperialistic elements – it would be difficult to write a book with the word ‘Empire’ in the title and not touch upon colonial themes. But that’s more a framework for the novel rather than a thematic commentary on empire. It doesn’t take me (a white guy from Britain) to write a fantasy novel for people to realise colonialism is bad – we all know invading other people’s countries and taking their stuff is inherently evil.

Similarly, the familial themes, along with others, are simply a common thread for people to connect to (everyone has problems with family, for instance). I think including mundane elements everyone has experience of helps the reader connect to the characters, even if they are in a world with giant eagles and magic-fuelled war machines.

Many epic fantasy books tend to have multiple POVs, but not always. Did you know from the time you started writing Engines of Empire that you wanted it to be a multiple POV story? And along those lines, did you always know which characters you wanted to write perspectives from, or did it change around throughout the writing process?

RF: I think pretty much everything I’ve written (apart from the few short stories) has been a third-person multi-POV narrative. There’s just something about telling a story from varying perspectives that I’m drawn to, in both reading and writing.

And no, I didn’t have all the POVs down from the start. When I was working on the original partial manuscript to pitch to publishers Conall Hawkspur, the eldest sibling, wasn’t in the story at all, and a servant of the Hawkspur Guild was included instead. When reviewing the partial I realised I wanted a character with a little bit more ‘bite’ than the other members of the family, and so Conall was born, and the family’s servant was sadly erased from existence.

How do you go about getting into the minds of your characters? Do you write one character at a time to immerse yourself or do you end up jumping around more chronologically?

RF: The initial writing phase invariably sees me write the MS chronologically. However, there will always be at least one editing pass where I will read the individual POV chapters in a block to maintain consistency of voice and narrative flow. If you can pick out a particular character’s chapters, and their story arc makes a fairly cohesive novella on its own, you’ve pretty much nailed it.

There are a lot of different settings and components (magic and otherwise) to this world. How did you go about constructing this world? Do you tend to create your worlds with hard rules from the start, or do you sort of develop more as you go?

RF: A bit of both. With this series, certainly more than any other, I spent a long time on the worldbuilding before I’d started drafting the manuscript. Previously, I’ve always worked on story and character first, and let the worldbuilding develop organically around it. With this series they basically informed one another as the plot evolved. Since this series has so many different systems of magic, it was important that the rules were nailed down, at least in principle, before I started.

While reading Engines of Empire, I found myself appreciating the more ‘traditional’ fantasy feel it has, it was great sitting down and diving into something truly epic in scope. Do you find any sort of preference for writing epic vs. ‘non-epic’ works?

RF: While reading Engines ofNot really. While writing this series, I’m also writing a historical fiction trilogy, which for the most part is focused on a single character (the first book is Oath Bound written as Richard Cullen). I’m actually enjoying the process of both, and switching between the ‘epic’ and the ‘non-epic’ is a nice change of pace.

And lastly, because I always find it interesting to hear this answer from the authors themselves–do you have a favorite character from Engines of Empire, and is this character also your favorite to write? If not, who was/is your favorite to write?

RF: As with my other series, I get the most joy from writing irreverent characters – the ones who speak their mind, and say the things no one else dares. So I guess with this series it would be Sted, Conall’s intractable lieutenant, who isn’t even one of the main POVs. Maybe I should promote her one day.

Anything you can tease us with for the next book (or anything you’re working on), or anything in general that you’d like readers to know? Congratulations on the release of Engines of Empire, I know I can’t wait for the next book already!

RF: I guess it’s okay to tease the fact that book two in The Age of Uprising series will feature two new POV characters who have appeared in minor (but critical) roles in book one. They’ll help expand the narrative outside the Hawkspur bubble a little more. Beyond that, my lips are sealed!

About Engines of Empire:

The nation of Torwyn is run on the power of industry, and industry is run by the Guilds. Chief among them are the Hawkspurs, and their responsibility is to keep the gears of the empire turning. It’s exactly why matriarch Rosomon Hawkspur sends each of her heirs to the far reaches of the nation. 

Conall, the eldest son, is sent to the distant frontier to earn his stripes in the military. It is here that he faces a threat he could have never seen coming: the first rumblings of revolution. 

Tyreta’s sorcerous connection to the magical resource of pyrstone that fuels the empire’s machines makes her a perfect heir–in theory. While Tyreta hopes that she might shirk her responsibilities during her journey one of Torwyn’s most important pyrestone mines, she instead finds the dark horrors of industry that the empire would prefer to keep hidden. 

The youngest, Fulren, is a talented artificer, and finds himself acting as consort to a foreign emissary. Soon after, he is framed for a crime he never committed. A crime that could start a war. 

As each of the Hawkspurs grapple with the many threats that face the nation within and without, they must finally prove themselves worthy–or their empire will fall apart.

Paperback. 624 pages. Orbit. 

Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org

Interview with Richard Swan, author of The Justice of Kings (out 2/22)!

 

Today I am excited to share with you all the first of two upcoming interviews featuring Richard Swan, author of the fantasy novel The Justice of Kings, out tomorrow 2/22! The Justice of Kings is Swan's fantasy debut and is sure to make a big mark in the fantasy world with it's gripping narrative, complex characters, and a world system that just begs to be explored. (You can read more of my thoughts about the book in my review.)

I am incredibly appreciative and grateful to both Angela Man of Orbit for setting up this interview and Richard Swan himself for taking time out of his schedule to answer some questions for me! I had a lot of fun coming up with questions and even more fun reading Swan's answers–I hope you all enjoy learning a bit more about Richard Swan and The Justice of Kings with this interview. Now, let's dive in!

You’ve been writing SFF for a number of years now. What changes (if any) have you noticed in your writing over the years?

RS: I think the biggest change I’ve noticed in my writing, certainly as I’ve got older, is that I’ve found I’ve had more to say. I’ve started to allegorise more—and not be afraid to allegorise—and I’ve found that that exploration very motivating and in some ways cathartic. When I was younger I was just interested in writing actiony explosive sci-fi and collapsing fantasy empires; now I find I’m much more interested (both as a consumer and producer of fiction) in exploring the human condition against a backdrop of actiony explosive sci-fi and collapsing fantasy empires.

The Justice of Kings really stood out to me as a unique story with the narrative style and the law focus. This may be a more common question, but I always love to know: is there anything in particular that inspired The Justice of Kings?

RS: Absolutely! The story frame (i.e. having the story be about Sir Konrad but not told by him) was inspired by Robert Harris’s Cicero Trilogy, in which the storied life of Cicero is told not by Cicero himself, but by his slave, Tiro, whilst the Slavic/Teutonic feel of the world was inspired by both the Witcher 3 videogame, and more broadly the late Antiquity Roman Empire/Holy Roman Empire non-fiction I was reading around the same time. More generally my day job as a litigator was a big part of it, and the idea of “fantasy lawyers” has been bubbling away in the back of my mind for a few years now. The magickal powers—necromancy and the Emperor’s Voice—really just came from me thinking about what the most useful powers for an investigator to have would be (being able to use animals as witnesses, asking homicide victims directly who murdered them, and forcefully extracting confessions from people). 

More general sources of inspiration include CJ Sansom’s Shardlake series, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, and Dan Abnett’s Eisenhorn / Ravenor inquisitor trilogies as well, and I don’t think any of those will come as a surprise to readers.

How has the story evolved since you first began writing it? Did you plan for it to be a longer form series or did it grow from something smaller?

RS: The Justice of Kings started life as a short story called the “Witch of Rill”, which I wrote during a long, cold and rainy February weekend in Exmoor. I tried to sell it to a few publications without success, but I liked the premise so I expanded it into a full novel. It was quite short for a fantasy novel, only a hundred thousand words. I had originally planned for it to be a series of indeterminate length, in which Vonvalt, Helena and Bressinger would solve a new crime each book, but actually I think the narrative strength of the novel—that of Helena’s voice and how she bears witness to both Vonvalt’s changing character and the fall of the Sovan Empire—could not be effectively sustained over more than a trilogy, so I began to focus on a tighter arc. By the time it passed through my agent and then my editor at Orbit like some kind of literary Human Centipede, the book was about 30,000 words longer and with a few crucial changes that I can’t talk about without spoiling it!

I was surprised to find the story narrated by Helena rather than Vonvalt when I first started reading and ending up loving that narrative choice. How did you decide to tell the story of Vonvalt through Helena’s perspective–and as a recounting of the past, as well?

RS: I think the narrative choice has caught a lot of people off guard. I chose Helena to narrate for a number of reasons. The first is that I think it preserves a great deal of the mystique around Vonvalt, as well as giving us a more rounded view of him as a person. Viewing him through Helena’s lens means that we can analyse his character and try to deduce his motivations, but we can never know. It means the narrative is more unpredictable—and, hopefully, more interesting. I think it would be unsatisfactory for a reader to hear Vonvalt’s inner thoughts and monologues. Justices, after all, are supposed to be semi-mythological figures, these slightly outmoded judicial demigods, and seeing the world from inside his head as he deconstructs every judgment could only be disappointing. 

I also think (hope!) Helena is a fascinating character in herself. She is someone who has been plucked from poverty and obscurity and who should be grateful for the life of wealth and privilege she has ahead of her, but who instead feels listless; she is uncomfortable with her new status and is still finding her way in the world. Helena has had a traumatic upbringing and Vonvalt is the first true constant in her life, and I think it’s interesting to see the effect it has on Helena when Vonvalt begins to lose control of events. Her temperament becomes much more defensive and mercurial as the world begins to descend into chaos, and that was another rich seam of characterisation to explore. 

As for having Helena narrate as an old woman, this again throws up a host if storytelling devices which I personally love—lots of dramatic irony and foreshadowing! We know from the first paragraph of the book that we are witnessing the decline and fall of the Sovan Empire; what we don’t know is how it happens, who (beside Helena) survives that experience, and also what the form of the world is now. It also enables Helena to turn a critical eye to her own past actions and reflect, which allows me to inject a bit of unreliability into her narration, and some melancholy, regret and foreboding.

I was personally captivated by the character Bressinger–he was so multifaceted to where he seemed like a jokester at times, but also was very no-nonsense and serious as well with a darker undertone. How do you go about developing your characters' personalities/backgrounds and getting into their individual mindsets?

RS: The Justice of Kings was the first book where I really drilled into my characters’ histories as a way of developing their ‘present day’ personalities. I really took the time to think about the things they had endured in their early lives and how this would have affected them as older people. All of them, for example, had early experiences of warfare, and I wanted to demonstrate how a huge, empire-spanning war could traumatise an entire generation of people (in the way that WWI did, for example). 

For Vonvalt, his adolescence spent campaigning with the Legions tells me that he is a quiet, serious adult, and a man who uses the law and moral absolutism as a way of avoiding having to truly grapple with the implications of what he did as a soldier for the Empire. 

For Bressinger, who suffered a life-altering personal tragedy, he has essentially unresolved post-traumatic stress disorder. He drinks excessively, he suffers huge mood swings, and like Helena he is wholly dependent on Vonvalt for stability in his life. For other, book 2 spoilery reasons, he is doggedly loyal to Vonvalt—to a fault, so that makes him prickly whenever Helena is being rude to their shared master. 

For Helena, she was too young to fight in the Reichskrieg, but her home city Muldau was sacked and suffered a number of uprisings over the years which eventually led to the death of her parents and her becoming a ward of the state. So while she spent years developing a pugnacious, survivalist comportment of hard iron, she is still young and desperate for stability and a parental figure. But whilst Helena is grateful to Vonvalt for providing all of those things, she also has to contend with the (what she perceives to be) drudgery of Vonvalt’s practice as a Justice, which makes her feel trapped and therefore surly, listless and temperamental as well.

The themes of the law, justice, and morality are obviously very prominent in this book. What excited you about exploring these ideas?

RS: My interest in these themes really began when I studied jurisprudence at university. I was fascinated by the philosophy of law, by moral absolutism versus moral relativism, consequentialist versus deontological ethics, and the intersection between law, the state, and the people—the ‘social contract’. All of these things together really get into the nuts and bolts of how civilised societies work and how they function on a daily basis, and how “the law” achieves that equilibrium. 

If you think about it for a moment, there is practically nothing physically stopping you from grabbing a knife and killing your neighbour. But our society isn’t one constant cycle of bloodshed—in fact, contrary to what you’d think, we’re actually living in one of the safest and most peaceful periods in human history. If I asked you why you haven’t killed your neighbour, you’d likely say “for obvious reasons!”—and you’d be right. But to really drill down into it, to get into the guts of it and really ask why killing is wrong, you actually get an answer which is vast and multi-faceted that covers a huge mass of intersecting biological, historical, sociological, legal, moral and ethical issues. 

In the Justice of Kings I wanted to take this broad canvas ask the question: what happens when an ultimately ethical, secular legal system produces the ‘wrong’ outcome? What ultimately is the right thing to do, and what means are permitted to achieve that outcome? And also to demonstrate, as we have seen recently, that it doesn’t take much more than a few lunatics acting in bad faith to upset the world order.

The Justice of Kings was the type of book that forced me to slow down and really drink in every word because of the thoughtful prose narrative, the many discussions regarding law and the state of this fantasy world, and of course the world of the Sovan Empire itself. How did you grow about creating the world of the Sovan Empire–did you start with the world itself, the characters, etc.?

RS: My planning process is quite a random process but it hasn’t changed since I was in my late teens. Normally when I am designing a fictional society I’ll find and save a picture of the Cultural Iceberg and flesh out lots of different bits of it in no particular order. So there are things that I “know” about the Sovan Empire which don’t make it into the book because they are not relevant, but which helped me create it and its feel. Fleshing out these details—for example, the Emperor’s family tree (the “Haugenates”)—also creates backstory consistency and lets me drop in random details into the main narrative to give the characters’ conversations an air of verisimilitude. 

As for a geographical/political analogue, it will shock no-one to learn that I used the Holy Roman Empire as my base, with some flavours of Late Antiquity Rome, the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and Medieval England to taste. That involved a few days of reading about those different cultures, looking at maps, looking at German toponymy, etc. To add in a feeling of multiple similar but different cultures coexisting within one landmass, I used a variety of Baltic / Slavic names as well, often with minor modifications. 

The characters of Vonvalt and Helena came very early in this process, but this time I really took the time to flesh them out. Bressinger came later, and most of the other secondary characters actually just sort of popped up as I was writing the book.

And I always have to ask because I love hearing the answer from authors: do you have a favorite character from The Justice of Kings, and is this character also your favorite to write? If not, who was/is your favorite to write?

RS: I did really enjoy writing Sir Radomir, even though he doesn’t appear much in the novel. It’s difficult to talk about him without spoiling parts of book 2, but I like him because he has that kind of straight-talking, gritty, urban wisdom and is a foil to Vonvalt’s erudite, liberal sensibilities. He also has a very world-weary courage; the kind of man who will fight in spite of just about any odds because it’s the right thing to do. His and Vonvalt’s relationship shifts and changes over the course of the book, and I enjoyed exploring that.

Anything you can tell us about upcoming works, or anything in general that you’d like readers to know? I am very eager (as I’m sure many other readers are) to see more of the Sovan Empire in any form! Huge congratulations on your release of The Justice of Kings!

RS: Thank you so much! At the time of writing my answers to these questions I about 30,000 words into the first draft of book 3 of the Empire of the Wolf, and I anticipate getting Orbit’s edits back on book 2 in the next couple of weeks. So those two books will really monopolise my writing time for a large chunk of 2022. So much of what follows will depend on the success (or failure!) of these books; I would love to do a trilogy of trilogies and follow the Sovan Empire (or rather, the landmass that it inhabits) through centuries of upheaval and conflict. Reading Fonda Lee’s Jade war has made me want to bring it all the way up to modern day (a quadrilogy of trilogies?) - basically to make it my own MCU. But these are all the crazy daydreams of a lunatic, company-starved writer.

About The Justice of Kings:

As an Emperor's Justice, Sir Konrad Vonvalt always has the last word. His duty is to uphold the law of the empire using whatever tools he has at his disposal: whether it's his blade, the arcane secrets passed down from Justice to Justice, or his wealth of knowledge of the laws of the empire. But usually his reputation as one of the most revered—and hated—Justices is enough to get most any job done. 

When Vonvalt investigates the murder of a noblewoman, he finds his authority being challenged like never before. As the simple case becomes more complex and convoluted, he begins to pull at the threads that unravel a conspiracy that could see an end to all Justices, and a beginning to lawless chaos across the empire.

Hardcover. 432 pages. Orbit. 

Buy: Amazon | Bookshop.org

Interview with Constance Sayers, Author of The Ladies of the Secret Circus!

 

Today I am thrilled to share with you all an interview with Constance Sayers, author of the soon-to-be-released fantasy novel The Ladies of the Secret Circus! She is also author of the fantastic 2020 release A Witch in Time. I am incredibly thankful and appreciative of both Hanna for reaching out with this opportunity, and to Constance Sayers herself for taking the time to answer my questions!

The Ladies of the Secret Circus is a dazzling story filled with intrigue, family secrets, and an unforgettable cast of characters. This is a book that will easily sweep you away into the magic of the secret circus and the lives of some truly unpredictable figures. If you'd like to know more about the book's plot, a synopsis can be found below. Now, let's dive into this interview and learn more about the book!

What inspired or prompted you to write The Ladies of the Secret Circus?

CS: For a long time, I had been tossing around the idea of a circus run by the devil.  I should point out though, that my version of a demon or the devil is more of a gothic, romantic character—more Lord Byron meets Jim Morrison. I’m not really all that interested in straight up versions of the devil that you find in horror films.  I adored HBO’s Carnivàle. You can see influences of that show in this book.  

Was there a specific idea or more of a general sense of a story? I recall reading that A Witch in Time was inspired by a painting (and I loved that paintings were so prominent in this book as well!) and have been curious about what may have prompted this story.

CS: In researching A Witch in Time’s Belle Epoque time period, I kept finding these circus images.  Visually, they were stunning and I have them on a Pinterest board.  I recall a photo of a female lion tamer and I was like “that’s it!”  So, I really have A Witch in Time to thank for the spark that became the second novel.  I tried to get to Le Cirque d’Hiver (Winter Circus) in Paris when I was there in 2019, but I had just missed the season.  There is just such a rich history of circus performance in France and I was really drawn to it.

Now, what might be of more interest to readers is that the Lara Barnes framework is actually from my very first novel which did not sell.  In hindsight, it was a rural noir mystery and it just wasn’t the right book for me, however, I completely borrowed my characters from that novel and put them in this new setting.  It was great because I knew them all so well and just made it this fantastical tale.  It goes to show you…hang onto your old writing.  You never know when you can put it to use.

I, along with many readers, love circus settings, especially when they come with a dark side. What most drew you to the mysterious Secret Circus? Would you like your own invitation to the show?

CS: I’d love to get a wicked ticket to Le Cirque Secret!  Well certainly, I owe a lot to Erin Morgenstern’s Night Circus. What a beautiful and heartbreaking book!  All of us writing about circuses with dark origins owe her a great debt.  I do feel like my book has a trippy, cinematic feel to it like Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  For this book, I did a lot of research on old photos from the time.  I recall seeing this old Paris night club, Cabaret de l’Enfer, where the entrance was a devil’s mouth and I just had to use that.  As the book went on, I tried to just keep upping the stakes trying to make the circus weirder and weirder with really strange rides and that’s where the idea around the purpose of the circus and the role of the performers came to be.  My favorite thing about the book is the true identity of Mr. Tisdale.  

I really enjoyed reading about Lara’s magical powers and how the magic manifested among different characters. How did you come up with the form that the magic takes in this story?

CS: Without giving too much away, I gave her the powers of a witch, but she is not a witch.  To say more would spoil it, but I adhered to a magical system that aligned with that of a witch.

Was the process similar or different from writing the multiple historical settings that you explored in your previous novel, A Witch in Time?

CS: I love layered books with multiple historical times and settings, so I knew I was going to do that from the start.  In The Ladies of the Secret Circus, I went for a more straight up “journals from my grandmother” trope which I think worked fine versus the way it unfolded in A Witch in Time.  Journals always pose a bit of a struggle because you really aren’t writing them like you would literal diary entries, so Cecile’s story reads much more like a memoir than a diary, but I think it works.  Admittedly, I struggled with Cecile’s story the most and my editor kept sending those pages back wanting more.  Now, when I read reviews, I do see that readers really like the 1920s story of Cecile, so I think the re-writes were worth it.  

The research involved everything from the actual history of Montparnasse (Who lived there?  What was the art scene?) to costumes and food.  After this book, I realize that I write quite a bit about food, but Montparnasse in the 1920s was really a cultural center of Paris.  One of the best things I found was a book called Found Meals of the Lost Generation: Recipes and Anecdotes from 1920 Paris by Suzanne Rodriguez-Hunter.  It has recipes from Hemingway and Kiki de Montparnasse and tells what drinks they paired the food with.  Amazing!  Those are the great little historic details that make a book shine.  For both of my novels the research process is the same: I start with books and films to get a sense of the history and then I try to get on the ground to the actual settings.  For The Ladies of the Secret Circus, I had traveled Paris in the summer of 2019 and did a fair amount of research which was great because due to Covid-19, I wasn’t able to go back.

The Ladies of the Secret Circus has many wonderful characters with some strong and widely varying personalities. Which character did you have the most fun writing?  

CS: Althacazur.  I mean I think you can just tell I’m having fun with him.  He’s the best character.  He makes a brief appearance in A Witch in Time, but he’s quite the star of this book.  Second would be Esme.  I mean she needs her own book.  

Similarly, which character(s) (if any) was the most difficult to write? 

CS: Cecile was difficult.  It was tough to make her sympathetic and naïve but not clueless.  

Do you have any specific process for how you get into the minds of your characters?  

CS: I walk around with them in my head like a method actor.  I try to figure out how they would approach certain things.  Then, I look for the little details that would represent that. For example, I love the mirror that Cecile covers in dressing room because she doesn’t want to look at it too closely. Of course she doesn’t because that’s so Cecile.  That stays consistent through the book.  Consistency is another powerful thing to keep characters feeling alive and real.

Do you use the same writing process for each book, or do you find that different projects demand different methods?  

CS: The process for A Witch in Time and The Ladies of the Secret Circus was the same.  My third book has been a bit different.  I’m still dealing with three time periods, but I’m not seeing the ending to this one yet.  Usually, I have the ending mapped out.  I’m letting this ending unfold for me and reveal itself.  This book has not behaved like the others at all, but I’m really loving where it’s going.  

The Ladies of the Secret Circus has an amazing cast of strong and powerful women in both timelines and I loved how you managed to showcase their strength in their own individual ways. Are these women inspired by anyone in particular?  

CS: I dedicated the book to my mother and grandmothers because they were a powerful collective.  My father’s mother, Laura Beatty Fuller, died very young after a tragic life and he was adopted by Goldie Sayers who was truly the ideal grandmother. She died when I was nine and it was traumatizing because she lived with us and so one day she was there and the next day she wasn’t.  I will say that Laura’s real-life story inspired Juliet from A Witch in Time, so I’m constantly drawing upon the women in my family. They were all unique and strong in their own ways.  

Do you have any sort of daily writing routine that you adhere to?

CS: Sadly, yes.  When I’m in writing mode, I write 1,000 words per day.  I do this until I get to about 60k words and then I start to edit which expands a book to 80k easily.  I trick, reward and cajole myself to do the 1,000 words. I’m a miserable soul in that period of the process (which is right now!) There are days that I can barely find 500 words and other days when 3k flow easily.  You just have to show up at the computer.  When you do, problems start to solve themselves.  Characters reveal themselves and a real book begins to appear.  When they arrive from the printer, I always marvel at my books because they are mysterious, magical things that came from my brain.  

If readers take away one thing from The Ladies of the Secret Circus, what is it that you want that to be?

CS: I think all my books are ambitious. I try to pack a ton into them—history, family trees, cultural details. Both of my books have been about misguided parental judgement and the consequences of it.

About The Ladies of the Secret Circus:

Paris, 1925: To enter the Secret Circus is to enter a world of wonder-a world where women tame magnificent beasts, carousels take you back in time, and trapeze artists float across the sky. But each daring feat has a cost. Bound to her family's strange and magical circus, it's the only world Cecile Cabot knows-until she meets a charismatic young painter and embarks on a passionate love affair that could cost her everything.  

Virginia, 2005: Lara Barnes is on top of the world-until her fiancé disappears on their wedding day. Desperate, her search for answers unexpectedly leads to her great-grandmother's journals and sweeps her into the story of a dark circus and a generational curse that has been claiming payment from the women in her family for generations.

Hardcover. 448 pages. Redhook. 

Buy: Amazon | IndieBound

Interview with Stephen Kiernan, Author of Universe of Two!

Today I am both excite and honored to be able to share with you all an interview with Stephen Kiernan about his latest release, Universe of Two (and, of course, a few extra question!)! I am extremely grateful to both Wunderkind PR for reaching out about the opportunity and especially to Stephen Kiernan for taking the time to answer these questions for me. If you haven't had a chance to read or check out Universe of Two, then I highly recommend you do! It's an intense and beautiful story of two people coming together in a turbulent time of history, as well as individual stories about two characters coming to grips with the roles they are thrust into and the decisions they must make. I've included a brief bit of information about the book below, but without further ado, let's get into the interview!

I found Universe of Two to be incredibly detailed and researched, from the organ playing and construction to mathematics and science. What was the process like for you to not only research this information, but to craft it in such a seamless way into the story in a way that made it feel natural for the characters to know and/or learn?

SK: This book was immensely difficult to write, in part because there was so much I had to learn, but more broadly because I had to construct a plot that would work within the timetable of historical reality. Building the bomb, testing it and using it all occurred on specific dates in specific places, so the characters’ lives needed to align with those facts. I spent decades in newspaper work, so I am accustomed to having to dig to find things out.Yet, ironically, when I’m researching, I am not particularly interested in the names and dates of history; I’m sniffing around for the human elements, the universal things that any reader would understand and embrace. For example, Los Alamos, where the bomb was built, was the largest collection of Nobel Prize winners ever gathered in one place, along with hundreds of PhDs and several thousand graduate students. Yet the milk there was always sour. They could fashion an atomic weapon, but they couldn’t figure out refrigeration. For a novelist, a detail like that is gold.


What most drew you to writing this story of Charlie, Brenda, and the atomic bomb’s creation?

SK: Partly it was a fascination with World War II. I’d written a book in part about the Pacific Theater of the war (The Hummingbird) and one about the European Theater (The Baker’s Secret), so I wanted to write a home front story.I read about an actual person who was involved in the Manhattan Project but who also opposed use of the bomb, and that was something I’d never heard before. With a little homework, I found that many of the bomb’s builders had qualms about it, and hundreds of them signed petitions begging the president not to use the bomb on people. When I learned that, and realized the weight on the consciences of all those smart people, I was hooked. Lastly, I needed a love story in there so that the idea of redemption was possible.


What was your favorite part about getting to share Charlie Fish’s story with your readers?

SK: Hearing from them now, when they reach the last page and feel emotionally filled to the brim. That is fantastic. This is my 6th book, and I think it is my best ending yet. So when people reach out to let me know how it made them feel, that is immensely rewarding. 

Speaking of Charlie--the moral dilemmas that he faces are hard to imagine as someone who has never and likely will never be in that type of position. How did you go about exploring such topics and figuring out how to write about them?

SK: I interviewed clergy. I read books about conscience (the collected sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for example). I spent a lot of time examining my own conscience, remembering times when I had not been the best person I could be, and what I did to come to terms with that, and how I had atoned. It felt like touchy material, very sensitive, which increased my desire to write about it. 

And as much as we love Charlie’s character, I found Brenda to be an equally compelling figure, especially in regard to her many internal struggles about both her relationship /feelings towards Charlie as well as her own feelings about herself. Where did your inspiration come for Brenda, specifically in regards to these conflicts she faces?

SK: I consider Brenda the character who does not have a security pass. She does not know what is really going on in Charlie’s work inside the barbed wire. She is, therefore, like all of us. Also I told her story in retrospect, so the reader could see her in two ways: the brassy know-it-all in 1943 Chicago, and the elderly woman in the 1980s who has learned what love is, and wishes that she had been kinder. Every time her voice as a wiser older woman appears, I felt the emotions on the page grow richer and deeper. 

Is there anything in particular that you want readers to learn from Charlie and Brenda’s relationship?

SK: Yes. But to explain it would spoil it. Like I said earlier, if a reader comes to that last sentence, the power of their love, and of love to teach us and redeem us, will speak for itself. 

Outside of Charlie and Brenda, do you have a favorite secondary character you’ve included in Universe of Two? Who and why?

SK: Thank you for asking this question, because I loved creating the minor characters in this book. There’s a rodent of a guy early on, named Beasley, who is so unlikeable I couldn’t get enough of him. The minister’s wife and Brenda’s friend in the boarding house stand out for me, as do the two young men Charlie befriends in Los Alamos. There are senior scientists and math geniuses, but by far my favorite is Brenda’s mother. Feisty and wise, she is definitely the source from which Brenda’s personality comes. Every moment that she’s on stage, the energy rises. 

Do you have any specific process for how you get into the minds of your characters?

SK: I let them emerge as I write the book. Once I’ve gotten to know them, I revise and revise and revise until they are consistent from start to finish. As I get to know them better, they also reveal themselves more deeply to me. 

I loved the square dancing portion of Charles' story; it added some levity to an otherwise rather dire situation and I think allowed everyone to have a break. Was this something that you uncovered as a hobby of Charlie’s in research or something chose to include from your own idea? If the latter, what sparked the idea to include it?

SK: I am not a square dancer, but I love the music and idea of square dancing. There may have been some of it at Los Alamos, but there definitely were amusements to give the people a break from the intensity of their work. Beer was plentiful and practically free. Also, it’s a form of dancing – often in groups of eight – where Charlie can have fun with women but not be at all unfaithful to Brenda.There is also a minor subplot about Los Alamos having a Bread and Circuses aspect: the parties, the alcohol, the amusements, all to help the people forget the potential consequence of what they were building.

What is one thing that you’d like people to take away from the story of Universe of Two?

SK: Conscience is an impeccable moral guide. And no matter what we have done in our lives, redemption is possible.

Did you always know that you wanted to be a writer?

SK: I have been a storyteller since grade school. 

Are there any specific books or authors that have inspired you?

SK: Too many to name. I read 100+ books a year, and I consider reading to be the best form of writing instruction. In that regard, the most helpful books may be the ones I dislike and don’t finish. 

For the writers out there who are curious--do you have any sort of daily writing routine that you adhere to?

SK: Yes, though it depends on where I am in the process. During the first draft writing, I take no days off – not my birthday, not Christmas. I have to stay as close to the story as possible. I write early mornings, before the phone rings or emails arrive or quotidian tasks demand attention (this can include stopping work to eat). If I am lucky enough to be in the fever of work, I can wake as early as 3 a.m., not from an alarm but from the pull of the novel. Some days I have a second writing period, usually shorter and more about revising what I did earlier in the day. Most often this happens after I have exercised, because I’ll be out running or biking or swimming and something will become clear to me. I go straight to my desk to write down this better version of events. When I have a finished draft, I typically spend as long revising as I did writing the first draft. Then I entrust the finished work to a very few early readers (geniuses all), make changes based on their response, and only then does it go to my editor. Of course she has ideas and wisdom to offer too. 

Do you find it more energizing or emotionally tiring (or neither!) telling your character’s stories?

SK: Energizing. I love my job.

Do you find that you have any ‘favorite’ words that appear a lot when writing (even if just in drafts)?

SK: Not that I am aware of. I do have some “unfavorite” words that creep in far too often. I think of them as moments of language laziness, or of concentrating so hard on one aspect of a scene that the prose dips in quality. When I finish the first draft, I do a search for those words and remove every one. There is always a better substitute.


Is there anything else you’d like readers to know about your current/future projects and/or is there anything else you’d like readers to know about Universe of Two? Thanks so much for your time in answering these questions!

SK: Two things. First, every year I write a short story that I put up on my website in December, a winter tale, to express my thanks to readers for making my writing life possible. The story is free, but to receive the link you have to follow me on social media. And second, that’s worth doing anyway, if you like my work, because I’m already well along in a new novel.

About Universe of Two:

Graduating from Harvard at the height of World War II, brilliant mathematician Charlie Fish is assigned to the Manhattan Project. Working with some of the age’s greatest scientific minds, including J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard, Charlie is assigned the task of designing and building the detonator of the atomic bomb.

As he performs that work Charlie suffers a crisis of conscience, which his wife, Brenda—unaware of the true nature of Charlie’s top-secret task—mistakes as self-doubt. She urges him to set aside his qualms and continue. Once the bombs strike Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the feelings of culpability devastate him and Brenda.

At the war’s end, Charlie receives a scholarship to pursue a PhD in physics at Stanford—an opportunity he and Brenda hope will allow them a fresh start. But the past proves inescapable. All any of his new colleagues can talk about is the bomb, and what greater atomic weapons might be on the horizon. Haunted by guilt, Charlie and Brenda leave Stanford and decide to dedicate the rest of their lives to making amends for the evil he helped to birth into the world.

Based on the life of the actual mathematician Charles B. Fisk, Universe of Two combines riveting historical drama with a poignant love story. Stephen Kiernan has conjured a remarkable account of two people struggling to heal their consciences and find peace in a world forever changed.

Hardcover. 488 pages. William Morrow. 

Buy: Amazon | IndieBound

Blog Tour: Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan -- Review + Q&A!

I am so thrilled to be part of the blog tour for the upcoming fantasy Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan! This book is dark, atmospheric, and full of twists and turns. My tour post today features my brief review on the book, a Q&A featuring some questions that I was excited to ask Duncan, and an incredibly handy pronunciation guide (you'll definitely want to note it!).

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Title: WICKED SAINTS
Author: Emily A. Duncan
Pub. Date: April 2nd, 2019
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Pages: 400
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Audible, B&N, iBooks, Book Depository
*Please note that some of the links used are affiliate links!

SYNOPSIS:

“Prepare for a snow-frosted, blood-drenched fairy tale where the monsters steal your heart and love ends up being the nightmare.” - Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Star- Touched Queen 

A girl who can speak to gods must save her people without destroying herself. 

A prince in danger must decide who to trust. 

A boy with a monstrous secret waits in the wings. 

Together, they must assassinate the king and stop the war. 

In a centuries-long war where beauty and brutality meet, their three paths entwine in a shadowy world of spilled blood and mysterious saints, where a forbidden romance threatens to tip the scales between dark and light. Wicked Saints is the thrilling start to Emily A. Duncan’s devastatingly Gothic Something Dark and Holy trilogy. 

“This book destroyed me and I adored it.”- Stephanie Garber, New York Times bestselling author of Caraval

Wicked Saints is an intense, atmospheric fantasy novel with a dramatic setting and engaing plot. Duncan clearly loves to create characters with strong, unique personalities that all mesh well with one another. The world-building was equally exciting and unqie and felt very Russian-inspired, which is a setting that I am very much drawn to. I found the clash between magic and religion to be exceptionally thought-provoking and well done, especially when more philosophical questions regarding the two and how they can exist in the same world were discussed. 

I did have some mixed feelings about this book, however, as parts of this story were really well done, while a few others frustrated me. The pacing itself was a bit off to me at times and seemed to teeter between fast-paced with a lot happening and slow with almost nothing happening. There were also quite a few times when I felt lost, almost as if I had missed vital chunks of world-building, character development, or information about the magic system. There are some info-dump moments, but a few things still felt a bit confusing. 

Despite the minor issues I had, I still found this book a really exciting read and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a dark YA fantasy with an engaging plot with captivating villains and a beautiful setting.

with Emily A. Duncan

Q: I know a lot of authors see big changes in their stories regarding plot, characters, etc. throughout the process of writing--how did your own story evolve from the time you began writing it to the finished product? 

DUNCAN: The first draft only had Nadya, Rashid, and a handful of gods. It stalled out at about 30k words and I never finished it. The next draft had Nadya, Rashid, a handful of gods, and Serefin, Kacper and Ostyia. It stalled out at about 30k words. So did the one after that. Then, finally, I had figured out that it was that 30k point that was the problem and when I hit that point I threw in a bunch of new characters, hoping that one of them would have something to get me past that point I was constantly getting stuck at. I got, well, Malachiasz, and he sure did get me past that point and then make the entire book incredibly convoluted. The book now is very very different from where it was at the beginning, but the basic plot has actually always been the same. 

Q: Did you have to perform much research while writing Wicked Saints? How did you go about doing that? 

DUNCAN: I researched for years and then did simultaneous research while I was drafting. I was working at an academic library at the time, as a reference assistant, and my first love is doing research, so I did a lot of deep dives into databases. I also cleared out the greater northeast ohio area of their Russian and Polish folklore books. I had them all. They were all in my living room. 

Q: One thing that stood out to me was the character names, which felt very unique and Russian/Polish-influenced. Was there any particular way you went about choosing names and did you choose the names before writing the characters or did they seem to fall into place after establishing a character's personality? 

DUNCAN: I’ll tell you my dirty secret and it’s that I use name generators to name all of my characters. Nadya and Serefin’s names I came up with myself, but Malachiasz was a generator name and I still can’t believe it. I name characters first and the personality comes later but once a character’s name is set I cannot change it. Malachiasz was supposed to be a throwaway character, only in a few chapters, but then he stuck around. I wouldn’t have intentionally given a main character such an unwieldy name as his but that’s just how it ended up when he refused to leave the story. Everyone has a different process for naming characters, but the name generators work really well for me because I like seeing a lot of names all in one place and then picking which one feels right, and then digging into what those names mean/if they’ll actually fit the character afterward.

“Prepare for a snow frosted, blood drenched fairy tale where the monsters steal your heart and love ends up being the nightmare. Utterly absorbing.” - Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Star-Touched Queen

"Full of blood and monsters and magic—this book destroyed me and I adored it. Emily is a wicked storyteller, she’s not afraid to hurt her characters or her readers. If you’ve ever fallen in love with a villain you will fall hard for this book." - Stephanie Garber, New York Times bestselling author of Caraval

"This is the novel of dark theology and eldritch blood-magic that I’ve been waiting for all my life. It’s got a world at once brutal and beautiful, filled with characters who are wounded, lovable, and ferocious enough to break your heart. A shattering, utterly satisfying read." - Rosamund Hodge, author of Cruel Beauty and Bright Smoke, Cold Fire

“Wicked Saints is a lush, brutal, compelling fantasy that is dark, deep, and bloody—absolutely riveting! With a boy who is both man and monster, mysterious saints with uncertain motives, and a girl filled with holy magic who is just beginning to understand the full reaches of her power, this gothic jewel of a story will sink its visceral iron claws into you, never letting go until you’ve turned the last page. And truthfully, not even then -the explosive ending will haunt you for days! ” - Robin LaFevers, New York Times bestselling author of the His Fair Assassin trilogy

“Dark, bloody, and monstrously romantic. This is the villain love interest that we've all been waiting for.” - Margaret Rogerson, New York Times bestselling author of An Enchantment of Ravens

"Seductively dark and enchanting, Wicked Saints is a trance you won’t want to wake from. Duncan has skillfully erected a world like no other, complete with provocative magic, sinister creatures, and a plot that keeps you guessing. This spellbinding YA fantasy will bewitch readers to the very last page." - Adrienne Young, New York Times bestselling author of Sky in the Deep

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

EMILY A. DUNCAN works as a youth services librarian. She received a Master’s degree in library science from Kent State University, which mostly taught her how to find obscure Slavic folklore texts through interlibrary loan systems. When not reading or writing, she enjoys playing copious amounts of video games and dungeons and dragons. Wicked Saints is her first book. She lives in Ohio.

LINKS: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr

Interview: Fred Holmes, author of The Ugly Teapot

After reading The Ugly Teapot, I had the privilege of interviewing the talented author Fred Holmes about his inspiration, influences, daily life, advice for writers, and much more! And be sure to check out my review for The Ugly Teapot if you haven't done so and are interested!

You can also find out more about Fred Holmes and his work here. 

1. Your day job is directing/screenwriting. What drew you to begin writing a book? Have you always enjoyed writing, or was this a new experience?

Actually, I didn’t start out to be a writer. I started out to be a director of television and films. I did pretty well—earned a couple of Emmys and a bunch of other awards—but I was often disappointed with some of the scripts I was given to direct. So one day I decided to start writing my own scripts, and one of those scripts was called FIREFLIES. My agent shopped it all over Hollywood and it was very well received. Several high profile producers optioned it, including Gerald R. Molen who had won the Academy Award for producing SCHINDLER’S LIST (along with Spielberg and Branko Lustig). Jerry tried to get FIREFLIES made into a movie for several years, but he was known for producing big budgeted blockbusters and FIREFLIES was a sweet, small budgeted film, so he was never able to get it off the ground. Then a friend of mine at Disney read it, loved it, and suggested I turn it into a novel. I’d always been intrigued by the idea of writing a novel, so I gave it a shot, and the result was THE UGLY TEAPOT.

2. Are there any particular authors that influenced your journey to becoming a writer?

I have so many favorite authors it would be impossible to name them all. I will say that I’m a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss, George R. R. Martin, J K Rowling, Stephen King, Ken Follet, Orson Scott Card, Stephanie Meyer, and Terry Pratchett, along with a whole long list of others. But perhaps my favorite author of all is Ray Bradbury. He wrote my favorite novel of all time, DANDELION WINE. Why I connect with that book so viscerally, I have no idea. It is about a time in which I did not live and a place I’ve never been, and yet I absolutely adore it. A big reason why is Ray’s use of language. His writing is about as close to poetry as one can get. As a side note: Years ago, before Ray died, he was working with my friend, Jerry Molen, on the movie version of THE MARTIAN CHRONOCLES for Universal. I told Jerry what a huge fan I was of DANDELION WINE, and when I showed up in his office at DreamWorks the next day he handed me an autographed copy of DANDELION WINE. On the inside of the cover, Ray had drawn a picture of a dandelion and written, “Fred, this dandelion is for you!” And it remains one of my most prized possessions.

3. What drew you to create children’s television and books?

Truth is, I’m just a big kid. I still love Disney movies, and I’m a huge fan of children’s literature. The way I got started writing and directing children’s programming was that a friend of mine created a TV show called WISHBONE for PBS. He was looking for a director who had done single-camera, film-style directing (like you do in movies) and asked me to direct the pilot. After that I directed several more episodes, then the parent company that owned WISHBONE asked me to direct another one of their PBS shows, BARNEY & FRIENDS. All of their BARNEY directors were TV directors, and the producers were looking for someone who could do both single-camera, film-style directing, as well as multiple-camera, TV-style directing. I was one of the few people who had experience doing both, so they asked me to direct a bunch of shows, which also led to me writing a bunch of them. After that I was on everyone’s radar as a children’s director. Mary Lou Retton (who had won the All-Around gold medal in gymnastics at the 1984 Olympics) asked me to produce and direct her TV show, then other people did as well, and to date I’ve written and/or directed over 250 episodes of TV. It’s been a lot of fun, and I really enjoy working with kids. And if I ever need a break, I direct other projects. I’ve directed several shows with NASA and have worked with some really cool astronauts like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Charlie Duke, and Sally Ride, plus I’ve shot on the Space Shuttle and been to two launches. I’ve also directed three feature films: DAKOTA, starring Lou Diamond Phillips, for Miramax; HARLEY, starring Lou Diamond Phillips, for Lionsgate; and HEART LAND, a Bollywood feature film that I directed in India that starred Indian superstars Divya Dutta and Prem Chopra. I’ve also enjoyed directing TV documentaries, and doing so has allowed me to travel the world on someone else’s nickel, which is great for someone whose hobby is travel.

4. What made you choose to write fantasy?

I’ve never been a big fan of real life. I love believing that magic exists. I especially love magical realism and urban fantasy because I want to believe that magic exists all around us...if we just open our hearts enough to see it. Life can be harsh, and when it is, it’s nice to think that there is something more out there—something good and kind and loving. My novel, THE UGLY TEAPOT, reflects this belief. My heroine has experienced a terrible trauma in her life and it drives her to seek solace in a fantasy world. If you enjoy books like THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, THE BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA, etc., then THE UGLY TEAPOT is for you.

5. Did you start writing The Ugly Teapot with a specific message in mind that you wanted to share with readers?

I did indeed. THE UGLY TEAPOT sprang from tragedy. My brother, Jim, died at a very young age and I had a hard time handling it; so I wanted to write a story that would help others who had experienced something similar. However, I didn’t want to write something depressing. My goal was to create a fun (and occasionally funny) action/adventure story that, in the end, would provide comfort to those who had suffered a painful trauma in their life.

6. What is one of your favorite aspects about directing/writing?

There are many things I enjoy about both. What’s great about directing is that you’re in charge of a huge collaboration between many different artists working in a variety of areas—actors, painters, photographers, editors, costumers, etc—and as the director, you must know a little about all of those areas. And I love the social side of directing. Every day is a battle, and you must work with others to overcome tremendous odds. Fortunately, you’re in the trenches with some incredibly talented people, all of whom are focused on doing the best show possible. It’s a noisy, rushed, highly pressurized environment, much like being in the midst of a battle, except people aren’t trying to kill you...usually. ☺  For me, writing is the total opposite of this. It is a quiet, often lonely, experience where you have no collaborators. Everything is up to you. You begin each day with a blank page and you must draw the story out of yourself. It helps that I am by nature a loner, so I do not mind being alone...and when I get lonely, I go direct something!

7. Are there any particular aspects of directing/screenwriting that you think prepared you well for writing a book?

There were several. Directing and screenwriting both teach you discipline. You must show up and do the work. They also teach you what a story looks like and how to craft it. But perhaps the most helpful aspect of both is that they teach you to use your imagination. When you start out to direct a film or a TV show, or even to write a screenplay, you have to imagine something that does not exist—the same thing you must do when you write a novel. I actually love the challenge of this. You’re creating worlds and people that have never existed, and there are no rules. You get to decide what happens. I remember when I directed the pilot episode for WISHBONE we built the protagonist’s bedroom on a sound stage. That bedroom was supposed to be on the second floor of a house, and on our first day of shooting I was blocking a scene where my protagonist (Joe) was supposed to climb the stairs and walk into his room. There was no way for me to know whether Joe should enter his room from the left or the right because we didn’t build the stairs, so I asked my production designer which direction he should enter from. The designer said, “Hmmm, we never thought about that. You decide.” So I decided the stairs were on the right and I brought Joe from the right. Yes, I know, that’s a tiny, inconsequential decision, but it’s illustrative of all the decisions you make as a director. You’re deciding what millions of people all over the world will know and understand about a story, and that’s pretty cool.

8. Did you know from the start that you would want to independently publish your book?

I did. One of the hard lessons I’ve learned over the years is that the most unappreciated person in the entertainment business is the writer. They’re respected less and paid less than the actors and directors and producers, who wouldn’t have a job without the writer! That’s ridiculous. Writers should be at the top of the food chain. When I decided to write my first novel, I discovered the same thing was true (to a certain extent) in the literature business. Yes, writers are more respected in literature, but they are still grossly underpaid for the work they invest. Occasionally someone breaks out like JK Rowling, but most writers struggle to get by. Does this mean my only goal is making money? Absolutely not. I write because I love to write, and my number one goal is to become the best writer I can. But the hard, painful truth is this—if you don’t make money, you can’t afford to follow your dream. The Amazon model does offer some hope. They not only pay more, they also give writers more control over their work. Traditional publishers control many aspects of your book—title, cover, etc., and they can take two years to turn out your book; so I thought for my first novel I would give the independent model a try. What I have discovered is that it’s a tough, uphill slog. Unfortunately, when Amazon first offered their plan, millions of people dumped a lot of garbage into the system, then attacked any reviewer who dared call their work garbage. That seriously undermined the system for everyone. Some reviewers won’t review independent books for fear of being attacked, and most librarians and teachers won’t read them because they’ve read so much garbage in the past. However, I still have hope for the future. We’ll have to see what happens as more and more professional people choose the independent route.

9. Much of your day job seems to involve travel - does that provide a lot of influence and inspiration for your own writing?

Absolutely. It’s been my good fortune to see a large portion of this planet, and my travels played a big role in my first novel. A lot of the places my protagonist visits are places I’ve been, and a lot of her experiences, are my experiences. The father in the story is based (loosely) on me. For example, when he talks about working in Africa, that’s straight from me. I’ve been there five times. So all of those experiences bled into my writing. I highly recommend travel, by the way. It makes you realize it’s a great big world out there with diverse ways of thinking and believing, which makes you a better, more well-rounded human being.

10. What is the transition like when moving back and forth between writing and your day job? Is it difficult to find the time for everything?

It is a challenge, but it’s a challenge I enjoy. As I said earlier, I love the social aspect of directing, especially after spending so much time alone writing; but it is difficult to find time to do both. I do most of my writing at night and on weekends, in hotel rooms and on planes, and I work pretty much seven days a week for around fifty weeks a year.

11. This book features a classic idea - Aladdin’s lamp - and molds it into something exciting and fresh. Is there anything in particular that drew you to that idea?

I’ve always loved the Aladdin story. Who hasn’t wished they could have three wishes? And I adore Disney’s ALADDIN. It is one of their best animated movies, and I was fortunate enough to attend the premier at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood with my good friend Lou Diamond Phillips. The El Capitan is Disney’s flagship theater where they premier most of their movies and they really go all-out when premiering a new one. At the ALADDIN premier they had people dressed like Disney characters on the stage in front of the screen leading everyone in a sing-a-long of Disney songs. Meanwhile, a calliope up on one of the balconies was pumping out both music and bubbles that filled the auditorium. It was a magical night.

12. The Ugly Teapot centers around death of a young girl’s father, something that I have personally experienced and thus found very relatable - is this topic more personal or challenging for you to write about than other projects you’ve worked on?

It was indeed, as its inspiration was the death of my brother. They diagnosed him with Hodgkin’s disease and told him he had six months to live. My parents refused to accept that and took him to M.D. Anderson in Houston where he underwent chemo treatments, radiation, and surgery. He wanted to live so badly he managed to survive for another seven years. I was with him through it all and it was awful, especially toward the end. He hung on for as long as he could, but once the pain became too much, the only solution the doctors could offer was to give him so much morphine he would sleep until he died. That meant we all had to say goodbye. They brought each of us in one by one and I cannot tell you how terrible it was. Even now, after all these years, I have tears in my eyes as I write this. Everyone tells you death is a part of life, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I hate, hate, HATE goodbyes...and perhaps that’s why THE UGLY TEAPOT has sequels. I can’t stand to kill off my characters.

13. Do you have any advice for those who want to work in areas similar to yours?

Have a tough skin, take criticism with an open heart and mind, and keep your sense of humor. When I first started in the film business, I got to be friends with Samuel Bronston. Sam was an old-school, Hollywood producer, built like a fireplug, who chained smoked huge, very expensive cigars. He had produced EL CID, KING OF KINGS, CIRCUS WORLD (with John Wayne), and a bunch of other big budgeted films. I was a young kid, fresh out of college, desperate to be a director, and I once asked Sam if he had any advice for an aspiring director. He thought about my question for a long moment while puffing on his cigar, then took it out and said, “Never hire a stuntman with a limp or a special effects guy with only one hand.” Best advice I ever got.

14. How would you encourage others to find inspiration when trying to write?

If you have to “find” your inspiration, you’ve already lost the battle. Inspiration comes from within you. It keeps you awake at night and pesters you throughout dinner and follows you around during the day, whispering in your ear. Inspiration refuses to be ignored. It will stay after you, harping at you day and night, until you finally break down and create whatever it is driving you to create. Inspiration is always there. It’s within you at this very moment, begging you to let it out. The only thing stopping it is you. So no, you don’t have to find your inspiration. You just have to relax and let it out. Some people think they lack inspiration when what they really lack is confidence. And how do you gain confidence? You start by saying to yourself, “This is my story and no one else can write it but me.” Don’t worry whether you have the experience or the talent or the opportunity to write. Just write. Start right now. This very minute. Take an idea you have and turn it into a story. And when you’re done, you might not have a Nobel Prize winner, but who cares? You will have the very best of YOU.

15. And lastly - do you have any tips for those who are also trying to get their own books out and into the hands of other readers?

Boy, that’s a tough one, cause here’s the problem. I alluded to this earlier, but the truth is the independent model for releasing a book (Amazon, etc.) still isn’t perfect. There is still a lot of prejudice out there against independently published books—and for good reason. A lot of the books that came out initially (and are still coming out) aren’t professionally edited, etc. Forget the fact that traditionally published books also have typos, etc., cause everyone ignores that. And by everyone, I mean primarily teachers and librarians. For the most part, they won’t read or review independent books, and for someone like me who writes middle grade fiction, that makes my job very difficult. If my genres were romance or thrillers, Amazon would work great for me because the people who frequent Amazon are adults. Unfortunately, very few kids find their next novel on Amazon. They find their books through the recommendations of peers, or from parents, librarians, and teachers, and access to those folks is dominated by the traditional publishers like Scholastic. Does this mean I won’t independently publish my next book? Honestly, I don’t know. I write to be read, and whatever it takes to do that, I will do. So what is my advice to those who are trying to get their own books out there? First, write the absolute best book you can write. Next, make sure it is professionally edited, etc. Then finally, decide what release route is best for your novel. If it’s a children’s book, you might want to seriously consider getting an agent and a publisher. But whatever you decide to do, resolve to be in this business for the long haul. Do something every day toward meeting your goal of writing the best novel possible, and never, ever give up. The only people who fail are those who accept failure as an option. And know this. You have my very best wishes. Oh yes, if I had Aladdin’s Lamp, I would give you all three of my wishes. Why? Because you are attempting something good and noble and honorable. You are writing something that future generations will grow up reading. You are making the world a better  place.

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