Tell us a little about your hometown and your childhood there. What was your parents' relationships with books and writing?
I grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia. A lot of changes happened to my hometown over the years. I can still remember when about half of our shopping centers were fields. We used to be able to go around the corner for farm-fresh produce, instead of about thirty minutes outside the city center.
My parents probably inspired my reading the most. I was in a private preschool and they blew through their book budget trying to keep me happy. The first chapter book I remember was a Little Bear book, and I was so proud to be reading it. I picked up the Pickwick Papers at age six before being told I was 'too young' to understand it. In all honesty though, I believe my love of fantasy and science fiction came from my parents. My dad had Terry Brooks books on a huge shelf in his office, and my parents shared their Anne McCaffrey collection. Even my aunt, who had left the country to live in Belize, left her books for me. We still swap books and recommendations today. As a family, we love to read.
How long have you been taking and teaching violin? In what ways do you think your musical inclination has seeped into your writing?
I started playing violin at eight years old. I took lessons formally through the end of high school, so for about ten years. I was the concert master of several area-wide youth orchestras, including the All City Orchestra and the Bay Youth Orchestras. One of my favorite concerts was a side-by-side with the Virginia Symphony, focusing on works by John Williams. For those of you that aren't music nerds, he's the composer that wrote the music for such iconic movies as Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, Schindler's List, E.T., and many others.
As far as influencing my writing, I think music has had two huge influences, not so much on my work, but on how I approach my work. Number One: Practice makes perfect. No matter how good you are, you always need practice, and you always need to keep pushing. World-famous violinist Joshua Bell practices over five hours every day. I remember all of those hours put in, slaving through scales, double-stop books that forced my intonation to get better, and solo pieces. While the solo pieces were the most fun, they took up the smallest amount of my practice session. What took up the most? Horrifyingly-dull things: three-octave scales that started off slow, two notes per bow, and ended up insanely fast at up to fifty-nine notes per stroke (my teacher added a few so that the acceleration exercises worked out evenly.) Number Two: art is subjective. Creative folks the world over have to deal with doubt, but as a performer, you take on less of that risk than as a creator. Even still, the same solo can sound entirely different when played by two different soloists. Books are much the same. Readers can read the exact same book and come away with an entirely different message and opinion. I think starting with music has helped me better cope with feedback as an author. It helps me look at things more subjectively and less personally.
What is a writing dream of yours that you have yet to accomplish? What are some goals you have accomplished that you are especially proud of?
I would love to join the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Association). For some reason, in my mind, meeting their membership criteria is equivalent with 'making it' in my head. Ultimately though, I just want my currently expensive publishing habit to start covering its own costs. As long as it does that, I can keep sharing my stories with the world.
As far as goals I've actually achieved, I'm proud of the surprisingly simple ones. I wrote a book. I withstood the harsh critique periods. I learned a lot, not just as an author but about how abuse in my past had lead to surprisingly passive writing. For me, tackling passive voice issues wasn't just a new author rite of passage, it was a fundamental change to how I thought and processed every-day life. I re-wrote that book that originally took me nearly three years to complete in only three months. I got it edited, survived that, and published. That book now has over four thousand copies floating around out there in a little over a year. Not only that, I did it all again and again. That series is now complete, and I'm already working on the next project.
When did you publish your first book and how did it change the way you see the book industry?
I've always loved reading, but I never really thought of books as an industry before. There is so much to learn once you have that first timid manuscript in your hands and you're trying to figure out what to do with it now that it's finished. I published my first book January 21st, 2017. As a self-published author, I have to be good at it all; writing, marketing, fan relations, copywriting, the whole nine yards. I never thought publishing would require this amount of homework or so many hours doing everything BUT writing (such as typing up interviews ;) ), but it's all part of the puzzle and I love being able to interact with my fans.
Do you have a favorite place and time to write? Are you a person that likes to snack while they write or do you forget everything, including food, when you go into author mode?
I have a desk that has been part of every book I've written. On it is a fish tank with a single calico fancy goldfish named Nets. This is my writing cave. The entire room is full of books, and I have huge boards on the back wall. One is a 3'x4' whiteboard, and the other is the same size in a cork board. The cork board has all sorts of things; graphs, passive voice guides, aroma guides, 100 Jobs for Fantasy Characters that aren't Knight or Peasant... it's my real-life Pintrest author board. The white board tends to be my 'Big Picture' board, where I hammer out the huge details of the book before moving to a more in-depth outline. While I call it my writing cave, there's actually four windows in this room and I have a great deal of natural light.
As far as a favorite time for writing, I am most decidedly not a morning person. My muses take this to the extreme; my most productive hours are between ten at night and about three or four in the morning. Definitely a night owl. As far as food, this one varies. If I'm having trouble with a chapter, whether it's a tricky plot element or a character that's refusing to talk to me, I'll nibble on things. That being said, there are certain scenes where I hit what I call a 'writing coma'. During these scenes, there is no fish tank. Nets can be begging for another fish flake all he wants; I'm oblivious. If anyone says something to me during these sessions, I won't remember it at all. I get so sucked in that I don't realize what time it is. Once the scene is done, my heart is racing like I've run a marathon. I can look up and realize I just pounded out seven thousand words in an hour and a half. These are normally the most intense scenes in the book and, surprisingly, are my highest-quality work. My editor leaves me tons of comments, and sometimes they will be something along the lines of: "Man, whatever you were on when you were writing this chapter, I need some. This is fantastic." Normally, this is followed by a chapter with the note of: "Um, were you asleep when you wrote this? Dear heavens. cracks knuckles"
Which literary character, could be your own or someone else's, would you say is the most like you?
I'm not entirely sure how to answer this question. I think the best characters are the ones that have a piece of them you can relate to, but I spread those pieces out over all of my characters. As silly as it seems, I'm going to have to go with a comic book character, which is hardly literary. Sarah's Scribbles is the comic I empathize with the most. I'm not sure if the character's name is actually Sarah, but I believe she is my spirit animal.
How did you get the idea for your Order of the Lily series? What is a "Seeker" and what is their job?
I later found out this is a symptom of anxiety, which I have, but the best technique I have for falling asleep is to image a situation, scenario, or world, and start working on building it up into something. This normally puts me to sleep, but ideas that I like a lot get revisited night after night. This gives me so many options to play around with world-building details, dialogue, and whatnot. Audrey came to me in one such nightly session, though if I'm being entirely honest, Hound made his entry first. Over the course of about six months, I had this whole world dreamed up that was such a relaxing place to disappear to when trying to fall asleep. Then I met one of my best friends, who is also a novelist. She took my babblings about it over lunch one day and said, "You should write a novel." And I did.
As for Seekers, they are male members of the bloodline of the Order of the Leaf. They have the ability to phase between one location and another, and in The Seekers, their primary job is searching the past for ancestors of the bloodline to bring with them into the present.
Who was the inspiration for your character Audrey? If you met in real life, what do you think she would have to say about you?
Well, in these nightly adventures of mine, I'll pick a character to be 'me'. Not so much in the sense that I believe I am them, but more that I'm experiencing this world through their POV. Their voices are distinct from my own, and a lot of times they have qualities I myself lack. I think Audrey is who I aspire to be in a lot of ways. Kind, strong, and responsible, but she doesn't take crap from anyone. If we were ever to meet, I think it would be one of those inspiring conversations where someone has watched you struggling and growing and actually has something really encouraging to say about your progress, while still admitting that you have a long way to go.
Which of your characters would you say developed the most from "The Seekers" to "The Watchers"? Did you edit and re-edit the conclusion to this exciting series a lot until you were satisfied?
A lot of the characters change from the beginning of the series to the end. Zeche and Deuce are two of my favorites, but I think if anyone changed the most, at least in my mind, it's Hound. He starts off very guarded and professional, if anything loathing of this new babysitting job he's found himself saddled with. Throughout book one, he finds significant reason to doubt himself and his ability to lead and has to basically fall apart before he can truly mold himself into the man he's meant to be. He suffers numerous losses and has a tendency toward the darker side of the human emotional scale, depression a constant issue he's fighting. He's the only character that has had suicide watches set over him multiple times in the series, but each time, he manages to find something worth living for.
When it came time to write The Watchers, I was, quite frankly, terrified. Epic fantasy is a longer genre in general, but bringing a series to a close has its own struggles. I had my whiteboard full of character arcs that needed to finish up, inter-character conflicts that needed resolution, plot points that needed to be closed up, and all sorts of other notes. Before I even started the official outline, I had my entire beta team and my editor look over the lists, just to ensure I had everything covered that we could think of. I also had them all go over the outline as well, to ensure I had, quite literally, everything. The book with the most change, then, was actually The Seekers. Originally, after finding himself compromised, Hound was supposed to have an honorable suicide, a la samurai. The series is much stronger with him as a character that continues on, and I think he's the best change I made to the series as a whole.
Would you say you write more by logic or intuition, or a combination of the two? Summarize your writing process briefly for us.
This is a difficult question, but I would have to say a combination of the two. Logically, I know what the big points the books need to hit are, and I have a pretty good idea of how they get there. This question is similar to 'Are you a plotter or a pantser?' My answer, typically, is 'plantser.' I do a lot of planning before I actually sit down to write, and I have an outline with all of my scenes and key points that need to get brought out during the chapter. That being said, sometimes, things happen out of order. The characters get ahold of the chapter and show me a better way to do something, and I let them run with it. Some things get dropped from the outline and others added, all while writing. Audrey and Hound are both notorious for doing this to me. Audrey is like, "Okay, I get that, and that does need to happen, but wouldn't it be better and make more sense if--" And usually, it does. Hound is my emotional cupcake and #1 Unreliable Narrator. Sometimes, he's done before the chapter is, and he makes no end of trouble for me when that happens. I think flexibility when writing is really important. You can plan, but don't be so married to your plan that when inspiration strikes, you're too afraid to embrace it.
What is a book idea you would really like to put to paper but haven't gotten the chance to as yet?
I actually have an off-genre project that I've sort of started writing but has been pushed off to the side in favor of more fantasy books. It's still a fantasy project, actually bridging into Urban Fantasy, which is a new genre for me. The thing is, it's also a fairly spicy paranormal romance, which isn't what my readers have come to expect from me. The main character won't leave me alone though, so her story is getting written one way or another. The pauper queen of the panther shifters will get her tale on the page one way or another one of these years. I'll likely use a pen name for those works, though, as they're pretty far off from my normal writing.
Is there one subject you would never write about as an author? If so, could you tell us what it is and why?
I think stories are important. They have the ability to reach the masses and affect us in ways we would never have anticipated. Studies have proven that reading, even the Harry Potter books, helps to build empathy, something I think our society is severely lacking. As such, it's hard for me to pick a topic that I'd refuse to write about. We need stories where terrible things happen, because we need to see that they're survivable. We need to see people face insurmountable odds, because we need to see that success is possible. We need to see that evil exists, and that sometimes, evil will win. It makes us fight harder when the opportunity arises because we've seen the consequences of failure. I will admit to a fair bit of romance reading, so while there are tropes or kinks I'm not entirely sure I'd ever write, I don't think they should necessarily be excluded from literary works. If I refuse to write about something, it's far more likely that I don't feel qualified to write on the topic, rather than any other reason.
If you could offer a piece of advice to future authors about publishing and marketing, what would you say?
Read. Everything. Read your contracts. Know what you're getting into. Read books on the craft. Go to seminars. Spend the most on covers and editing, and don't ignore your blurb. Blurbs need an editor, too. Put forth a quality product. Don't be in such a rush to get your story out there that it lacks polish. You have one chance to make an impression on a reader. Make it a good one.
