I’m sorry I didn’t post last week! My family got together for about six days in Houston (a sixteen-hour drive, thanks to a renovated highway that cut over two hours off the usual time).
During our get-together, I frantically worked to finish an editing project that was due this past Monday. The project took a lot longer than I thought it would. So that took up the time as well. But here I am finally. I have a winner to announce. But first, come with me to the Houston Botanic Garden for a day of beauty and color. Click here for more information on HBG.
We walked through many gardens with sculpted floral displays like these.
Lots of floral archways.
I wanted to linger by these displays.
Some of the artificial displays fooled even the caterpillars! I didn’t snap a good enough photo of one flower that a stalwart caterpillar seemed determined to make its new home. But here is a real flower where a caterpillar cozied up.
The photo following this paragraph is not the best photo, but I had to include it. I didn’t know what this creature was at first. (You might have to click on the photo to enlarge it to see what I mean.) “Is it a beaver?” I asked. Ha. Silly me. The long, thin tail should have been my first clue. You probably already know that this is a nutria. It hopped into the water shortly after I snapped this quick photo.
All in all, a fun time was had. Speaking of fun, S. K. Van Zandt, you are the winner of The Stupendous Switcheroo by the marvelous Mary Winn Heider! Please comment below to confirm.
Thank you to all who commented.
Photos (with the exception of the author photo, by L. Marie.
The other day, some friends and I went to Wheaton College for a talk by three memoirists: Daniel Nayeri, Beth Moore, and Esau McCaulley. (Sorry about the less-than-stellar photos. We were waaaaaay in the back!)
I immediately thought of Marian Beaman, whose memoirs have been celebrated, not only on this blog but in many other places. (Her latest post is here.)
This post isn’t so much about memoirs as it is about two sentences spoken by Beth Moore about Daniel Nayeri’s novelized version of his immigration story, Everything Sad Is Untrue, the 2021 Michael L. Printz award for young adult literature (and a host of other awards). Those sentences are the title of this post. I was struck by that description of someone’s work.
When was the last time you thought that about a book or a movie?
Art is subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we think. Yet when Beth spoke those words, a hush followed. There was not a whiff of cynicism in the audience nor eye-rolling. Many of those present had read the book and seemed to agree with the sentiment. I haven’t read the book yet, so I could only take her word for it. But the description spoke volumes to me of the tremendous amount of effort and joy and pain and sorrow that goes into crafting something someone might someday say, “It was beautiful. . . . It was art.”
And speaking of beauty and art, I was inspired by Marian Beaman’s latest post to show my own tree photos.
While you ponder those, K. Quimby, get ready to sip some delicious tea. (Sorry I’m late with this reveal! Life has been life-ing.)
And Charles Yallowitz, get ready to pull up a chair and read Steve Bramucci’s The Race for the Ruby Turtle.
Congrats to the winners. Please comment below to confirm.
With me on the blog today is Steve Bramucci, one of my awesome VCFA comrades. He’s here to discuss his latest middle grade adventure novel, The Race for the Ruby Turtle, which was published by Bloomsbury on October 3, 2023. Steve is represented by Sara Crowe.
Check out this book trailer:
El Space: Please tell us why you were inspired to write this book at this time. How did your travels affect the story you wanted to tell?
Rough-skinned newts in the Nehalem Valley wilderness, where Race for the Ruby Turtle is set.
Steve: Besides writing about the flora and fauna of the jungle, small friendship conflicts are what I feel like I do best. So the book is an amalgam of what I’ve seen on my travels, the interactions I had as a kid with ADHD, and some of my own interpersonal relationships. With a villain who is sort of cribbed from Spaghetti Westerns.
When it comes to the environmental aspects of the book, I have sincere, big questions about the dominion that humans should or shouldn’t have over animals. And I wanted Hettle [the aunt of them main character, Jake] to be wrestling with these questions without being pedantic or a know-it-all.
Regarding conservation, I’m not certain there are any easy fixes. It’s going to take a million elements working in unison for us to create true see change and kids are crucial to that.
The South Fork of the Nehalem River, near Nehalem, Oregon.
El Space: So protecting nature is your inspiration for writing the book? Steve: It’s one of them. As is the experience of being a kid with ADHD—those are two tandem big thematic issues. As I mentioned, while I dip into more layered, complicated conservation issues, I think the most resonant idea is a simple one: That young people loving the natural world is the only way to save it.
Mushrooms foraged in the Tillamook National Forest.
El Space: What was your process for developing the characters for this book? Who is most like you? Least like you? Steve: I think, in part because the main character was just like me, a boy with ADHD and I knew that early on, I sort of “got on a roll” and pulled most of the characters of the book wholesale from my life.
Jake is me, obviously. And I took that pretty far, especially with how he navigates ADHD. Every piece of the ADHD experience, I just went in my head and asked, “What would I say in this situation?”
I was diagnosed with ADHD for the third time in my life before writing the first draft because I was really insecure about writing about it and taking ownership and speaking for that community or the neurodiverse community on any level. After diagnosis, I got friendly with my psychiatrist and said, “Hey can I vet a few things by you?” And I did for a time but eventually we were talking and he kind of laughed and said; “It seems like you’re just writing things from your perspective of how you would react. Well, you have ADHD. So you’re not going to be wrong as long as you stick to that rule.”
I guess the character of Mia is probably the most unlike me. In part because of her lived experience as a Black female. But also, because she’s more precise and more focused and better at taking big ideas and forming them into a cohesive plan. And she’s not as impulsive—impulsivity has shaped my life to a large degree, so that’s a huge difference.
Her qualities made her a good counterpoint to Jake.
El Space: What do you want kids to take away from Ruby Turtle? Steve: A sense of self-acceptance. I want them to say, “Oh wow, here are some imperfect people doing their best and they actually achieve something cool.”
Then there’s the hope that a few people maybe decide to dig deep and go, “Hey, I’m interested in animal conservation!” I consulted with animal conservation experts during the process of writing the book. There are some valuable ideas about conservation that can be drawn from reading it but I chose right away not to hit people over the head with those.
Also, and I think this is important to say—I’m a storyteller before I’m a conservationist. So storytelling is crucial. I have a deep respect for anyone who is going to give me a sliver of their one life on earth by reading something I wrote. Meaning that I won’t just bog a book down with philosophy—I want it to really hum along!
So yes, I want some kids to learn self-acceptance and yes, I want some kids to get intrigued about conservation. But I would be well-satisfied just to know that kids had a good time reading. If someone came and said, “I spent a rainy Saturday reading this book and it resonated with me. It was fun. I wanted to read more,” that would be enough.
El Space: You wrote a previous adventure series, the Danger Gang, which we talked about here on the blog. Why adventure stories? How did your childhood dreams or experiences prepare you for writing these stories? Steve: I grew up in Oregon. As a young man, I needed to go and spend months at a time in Uganda and Vietnam and Madagascar and Indonesia and see wild spaces and animals in the wild that we don’t have in the United States. But as I meandered around the world, my parents, who were nearing retirement age at that time were like, “It’s hard to beat Oregon.” My parents would be going on hikes in Oregon and I would be going for hikes in Mozambique and they’d be like, “Your scenery is great. Can it beat ours?” They were always reminding me of how beautiful the state that I come from is.
When the pandemic hit, I knew I wanted to do a book that was a little quieter and less bombastic than the first two; something that took place in Oregon. There are these river valleys that cut between mountains before they empty into the sea and they are incredibly temperate—the Nehalem River Valley, the Rogue River Valley. They’re also the wettest places in the state.
I was deeply intrigued by these valleys. They’re as lush as most any jungle I’ve visited in New Zealand or Ecuador or wherever. So I decided to set a book in one of those valleys and settled on Nehalem because the pandemic limited my research time and I knew that area better from family trips as a kid.
Photos from the Nehalem River Valley, near Nehalem Falls, Oregon
El Space: What advice do you have for writers of adventure? Steve: The best advice I ever got about adventure writing actually came from one of our VCFA classmates, Caroline Carlson. She was an early reader on the first Danger Gang book. She wrote me a note that was like, “I have adventure fatigue at this point in the novel.” She articulated it beautifully in a letter but I remember that phrase “adventure fatigue.” What it taught me was that if you have a lot of madcap excitement with no quiet, character-building moments in between people don’t feel very attached to your adventures. They sort of want to hop off the train. If they can get those character moments like Indiana Jones—those moments on the plane where we see his self-awareness, those quiet moments between the chaos—then people can start to care about the characters.
From there, I developed a sort of “adventure book math” that I really practiced until I felt like my brain was well-tuned to when the adventure novel reader wants some excitement and when they want to slow down. I think this novel balances those aspects really well.
Quaint shops in Nehalem, Oregon. A mining camp on the South Fork of the Nehalem River that plays a role in Race for the Ruby Turtle.
El Space: It does! 😊 What will you work on next? Is there a sequel? Steve: Book tour is sort of shifting my feelings on the “what’s next” conversation because I’m meeting kids and getting a sense of what they are connecting with in this book and that shapes my thinking. I’m really interested in audiences. I’m not a “I’ll write what I write and you’ll take it!” type of writer.
I listen to audiences. Not out of some fear but because that makes the content-creation process more of a collaboration. It’s a dialog between me and my growing readership.
With that said, in all likelihood, the project I’m working on next will be a survival book set in competitive surf culture. The pitch is basically “Steve Bramucci doing his version of Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet in the surf world.” My editor, Mary Kate Castellani, is such a creative partner and she mentioned the germ of that idea in an email and I got really excited.
Charles wrote about intimidation and how that stopped some would-be authors, as you’ll see if you read the post. I really resonated with it, but had decided not to write about the subject, though it hit close to home. But today I received an email which discussed how we sometimes allow insecurity to stop us from moving forward. So I decided to post about it from a different slant. Please note: I did NOT have specific individuals in mind when I wrote this post. So please don’t think this is a less-than-subtle hint to pay attention because I’m talking to you!!!! Nope.
I have often allowed the opinions of others to stop me from writing. Some of these opinions came in the form of rejections from agents and publishers. Often, I assumed that if the person rejected my book, that meant the project was bad or I was a bad writer in general. And some of the rejections were blanket rejection notes sent to other writers. Those are the hardest to bounce back from, because you don’t know what might have been “wrong” with the manuscript.
Has this ever happened to you? If so, I wanted to share some insight as a slush pile manuscript reader for several editors in a publishing division. I’m not giving advice because I think I’m “an expert.” This is not a post on manuscript writing, especially since trends in manuscripts change over time. But I wanted to share some thoughts because some rejections are really not personal.
Sometimes I was told to reject manuscripts on certain topics (like the Civil War) because the acquiring editors had already seen hundreds of manuscripts on that topic and didn’t want to see more anytime soon. So, if you happened to send a manuscript on that subject, it would be rejected. That means the rejection has nothing to do with your writing. But I can see how an author might think otherwise, especially since I was instructed to send a form note.
But sometimes, an acquiring editor saw potential in an author’s manuscript. In that case, I was instructed to tell the person to resubmit once certain things were changed in the manuscript. Sometimes, for budgetary reasons, the manuscript could not be acquired at that point. Yet there was no guarantee that the manuscript would be acquired. Still, the invitation was a slightly open door. But instead of using the feedback to improve the manuscript, some authors chose to attack. This was why in grad school, advisors suggested that we wait a day or so before looking at feedback. In that way, we wouldn’t lash out. Editors remember authors who lash out. Who hasn’t seen people lashing out on social media? Definitely a way to burn a bridge.
I don’t know an author, a scientist, a cook, a parent—literally anyone—who hasn’t experienced failure of some kind. No one is failure proof. I sometimes forget that when a manuscript I submitted is rejected. Yet, we wouldn’t have any of the innovations or great books we currently have had the inventors (or authors) stopped trying.
Speaking of great books, I will now announce the winner of two of Mary Quattlebaum’s books, one of which is Queen Elizabeth II. And that person is: Marian Beaman. Marian, please take a look back at the interview post (click here) to decide which other National Geographic book you’d like.
Thank you to all who commented.
Stop sign from clip-art library. Mind image from bubblejam.net. Author photo and book cover courtesy of Mary Quattlebaum.
I learned a little piano ages ago, so I’m definitely not an expert in music. Someone like Laura Bruno Lilly, a great musician and composer, could do justice to a post like this. But you’ve got me, so here goes.
If you’re wondering who Daniel Pemberton is and why he’s mentioned, he is the composer responsible for the scores of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and the upcoming Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. I’ve the seen the first two films, which have three directors each. Click on each movie if you want more information on the film and the directors, especially since the first Spider-Man won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2019 (which netted Oscars for the directors and producers).
You might know him as the composer for the film Steve Jobs (directed by Danny Boyle and written by Aaron Sorkin) or Molly’s Game (written and directed by Aaron Sorkin). He was the Film Composer of the Year at the World Soundtrack Awards in 2021 and also an Oscar nominee that same year.
I bought Pemberton’s score for the first Spider-Man when the movie debuted (love it) and just finished listening to the second score, which already has a place in my heart. And because I love watching interviews with creatives, I set out to watch or listen to any interview with Pemberton that I could find online.
I’m just impressed with the guy. I won’t fangirl too hard here. Besides wanting to introduce the winner of Ways to Play by Lyn Miller-Lachmann (and now that I think about it, I have to smile at how apt this post is since Lyn is a DJ), I wanted to share someone who inspired me.
In an interview with Richard Kraft [Daniel Pemberton (Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse) Full Interview] that you can find here, Kraft described Pemberton as someone who “paints with music.” I love that description. If you’ve heard the soundtracks for the movies (and you can find them online at Apple Music and on YouTube), you would know how apt that description is. {Please note that the first movie has two highly appreciated soundtracks.)
Pemberton mentioned that he often recorded interesting sounds to insert into his compositions. Like the first Spider-Man score is filled with a professional DJ (DJ Blakey) record scratching over Pemberton’s compositions to mirror the world of Miles Morales, a teen heavily influenced by hip-hop. Pemberton’s style was described as “postmodern” because of his wide breadth of knowledge of musical styles like hip-hop, techno-pop, classical, rock, etc., and his use of such in his scores.
Pemberton inspires me, because his passion for his craft and his vast knowledge of it caused him to produce musical works of excellence.
And now, on to the winner of Ways to Play by Lyn Miller-Lachmann. That winner is Marie! Thank you to all who commented on the interview post! In the chat, if you feel like commenting, please tell me which musical composers inspire you.
Daniel Pemberton image from Rotten Tomatoes. Author photo courtesy of Lyn Miller-Lachmann. Across the Spider-Verse image found somewhere online. Other photos by L. Marie.
With me on the blog today is the amazing Lyn Miller-Lachmann, who has come to discuss her picture book, Ways to Play, which will be published by Levine Querido on August 8. Ways to Play was illustrated by Gabriel Alborozo. Lyn is represented by Jacqui Lipton.
El Space: You’ve written so many kinds of books, Lyn. I’m glad to see you make your picture book debut. Please tell us how you came to write this book. Lyn: In fall 2020, the famous Arthur Levine of Levine Querido put out a call on a certain social media platform for a picture book text by an autistic author. Wanting to help him out because I love Levine Querido’s books, I recommended several authors. A few months later, Arthur emailed me, saying basically, “We were really looking for you.” He wanted an autistic writer to collaborate with Gabriel Alborozo, the acclaimed illustrator of This Old Dog, written by Martha Brockenbrough.
Gabe is also autistic and this would be a pioneering collaboration between an autistic writer and an autistic illustrator. I looked up Gabe’s work and noticed that he loves dogs. I love dogs too, and miss my playful bichon frise, Charlie [below], who crossed the Rainbow Bridge in 2019. So I decided to write an ode to Charlie and to play. After working on drafts with the help of my agent, Jacqui Lipton, my critique group, and my writing partner, Susan Korchak, I sent it out. Gabe loved it, and so did Arthur.
El Space: What were the challenges of writing a picture book? How did your story evolve? Lyn: Years ago, an editor told my former agent that she shouldn’t send out any more picture books of mine, that I didn’t have the sensibility to write picture books. Maybe I’m just not funny enough, I thought, so when Arthur put out his call, I knew I wasn’t the one to help him out. My biggest challenge was overcoming the feeling that I couldn’t do this. What helped me was seeing Gabe’s gallery of illustrations, which gave me so many ideas. I could connect his universe to my own experiences of playing with toys in ways that were different from the other kids when I was younger, along with my 15 years of being Charlie’s significant human.
The story evolved in interesting ways in the course of illustration. I had envisioned Riley as a girl like me. Gabe illustrated the protagonist to present as a boy. Writing in first person left that question open, and I was actually heartened to see that I’d created a story so universal that Gabe saw himself in it. And changing the gender also serves to show that the toys themselves aren’t “girls’ toys” and “boys’ toys.” The theme that there’s no “right” way to play works on multiple levels.
El Space: I absolutely love this book and Riley’s sense of himself and the value of the way he liked to play with toys. What did you learn about yourself in the writing of this book? Lyn: Thank you! I started writing this book after finishing my chapter book biography of Temple Grandin in the She Persisted series. In researching that book, I saw that her mother was also worried about the way she played, tearing newspapers into strips or sitting on the beach running sand through her fingers for hours. I enjoyed these kinds of sensory experiences as well, and in a way, they were practical in that nature becomes a plaything. Certainly for Temple Grandin, it did, and it helped make her the prominent scientist she is today.
I liked playing with my dolls, not always the dolls that the other girls preferred either. My favorite of the Barbie universe was the younger boy doll, Ricky. And I played with dolls long after girls my age had given them up, which embarrassed my mother but ultimately I can tell her it contributed to my becoming a children’s book author. And an author whose main characters are boys as often as girls. So I think the most important thing I learned is that every way of playing develops something in terms of skills and interests and becoming part of the world.
El Space: What was it like working with your illustrator? Lyn: Most picture book authors and illustrators never meet, and Ways to Play followed this pattern. Gabe lives in the U.K. and we worked on this project during the Covid era of limited travel. As a writer of picture books, I like the idea of leaving room for the illustrator as a co-creator. I also have a lot of experience working with collaborators like Zetta Elliott for Moonwalking and Tanisia “Tee” Moore for Film Makers: 15 Groundbreaking Women Directors and welcome the ways in which these talented individuals enhance my work. One of the appeals for me of picture books is seeing what the illustrator does with my story.
El Space: What picture books inspire you? Lyn: I read fairly widely and unsystematically in this genre. I love the wacky postmodern picture books but could never be that clever. I save my metafiction for YA. Some of the picture books that inspired Ways to Play are the excellent titles by other autistic authors, including Too Sticky! by Jen Malia and Benji, the Bad Day, and Me by Sally J. Pla. Although the author isn’t autistic, I very much appreciated Jenn Bailey’s A Friend for Henry and the new chapter book series that follows Henry as he moves through school and makes new friends.
El Space: What will you work on next? Lyn: Most of my writing is YA historical fiction, including verse novels. I have a verse novel coming out in spring 2024, Eyes Open, which portrays a teenage girl who writes free verse to honor her boyfriend, a political prisoner under the right-wing Salazar dictatorship in Portugal in 1967. And I’m starting a new YA verse novel set in the midst of a little-known but important event in twentieth century U.S. labor history.
Now that I have you thinking about a certain song by The Beatles, alas, you must put that clean out of your head. (Not so easy, huh? Sorry.) One of Charles E. Yallowitz’s posts for his fantasy writer craft book, Do I Need to Use a Dragon?inspired this post. (That and my need to reveal the winner of a copy of said book. 😊)
The post concerns a question readers asked about Nyx, one of Charles’s characters in his book series, Legends of Windemere. If you’re not familiar with that character, don’t worry. You can get familiar with her by purchasing that series (some of which you can get by clicking here). If you only have five minutes, you can either read the post at the link above (please do), or keep reading this one.
The readers wondered why Nyx, a powerful practitioner of magic, didn’t solve the problems that came up in many of the books. Wouldn’t that be easier?
Short answer: It sure would!
You can read Charles’s response to that. But the post reminded me of a question many people have asked about Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy: Why not let the eagles take the ring that rules “them all” to Mount Doom? (If you don’t want even that much of a spoiler, please avert your eyes. But know that the first book was published almost seventy years ago. So you’ve had plenty of time to read this trilogy or to watch Peter Jackson’s film adaptations, which debuted twenty years ago.)
Questions like this seem logical. Why shouldn’t an author explore the easy route—a quick shortcut to the goal? When we were kids, many of us had an are-we-there-yet mentality. The quicker we get there, the better. So why not an easy solution to the problem?
It really depends on the author’s goal, doesn’t it? If his or her goal is to provide an adventure for readers to enjoy, would taking the fastest route possible to a solution help him or her with that goal?
What are your thoughts on the matter? Please comment below. And Mark, get ready to read Charles’s thoughts firsthand, because you are the winner of Do I Need to Use a Dragon? Please comment below to confirm. As usual, thank you to all who comment.
P.S. I am feeling much better! (In case you wondered. If you’re mystified as to why I would say that, click here.)
Book and author photos courtesy of Charles E. Yallowitz. Lord of the Rings bookcover from Goodreads. Shortcut image found somewhere online.
This time, having the virus hasn’t been quite as bad as the last round. But I didn’t want to pretend that nothing is going on, especially since I promised to reveal the winner of Andrew James Murray’s stellar poetry collection, Fifty. (It’s Lyn, by the way.)
A friend dropped off groceries, so I have nothing to complain about. Sure, I feel that weird, bloated feeling in my head. But the coughing isn’t as bad, thanks to cough pills from the last bout of the virus.
I don’t know what it is about being under the weather that puts me in the mood for old animated series like Justice League and The Batman.
My Netflix list. Please don’t judge me.
This goes back to childhood when my parents would bring me chicken soup and ice pops. (See? I purposely avoided the use of a brand name. If you are absolutely confused by that remark, please click here.) They let me watch animated series and movies on TV. So I tend to return to that cozy feeling.
There’s also something about villains being trounced and the good guys riding off to their complicated lives that lets me know everything’s going to be okay.
Anyway, how are things in your neck of the woods? Did you have a good fourth? See any good movies? Last week, I tentatively made a plan to pop over and see the last Indiana Jones movie. But that will have to wait.
Author photo and book cover courtesy of Andy Murray. Wonder Woman from the Wonder Woman Wiki. The Batman image from the DC Database. Other photo by L. Marie.
With me on the blog today is none other than Charles E. Yallowitz, whom you know from his blog, Legends of Windemere, and the many books he has published, including the series, Legends of Windemere,War of Nytefall, and others. Today, he’s here to discuss his fantasy writer craft book, Do I Need to Use a Dragon? which was published on July 2.
Cover art by Alison Hunt
El Space: What made you decide to write a craft book on fantasy writing? Charles: Partially insanity and self-doubt not showing up until I was already well into the project. Well, that’s the funny reason. The truth is that I was texting with a friend about writing and various topics that I discussed on my blog. She suggested that I write a how-to-write-fantasy book, and then her husband chimed in. It was pointed out that I was already giving good advice to authors who asked me questions, so I might as well attempt a craft book. It took me about a year to come up with the presentation style, topics, and titles. After that, I used the first Covid summer to finish writing the last two War of Nytefall books and dove into Do I Need to Use a Dragon? before I could think myself out of it.
Interior art by Alison Hunt
El Space: During an interview, an author of fairy tale retellings gave this advice that I am paraphrasing: “Take a fairy tale you hate and retell it the way you want it told.” Did you have a similar desire—to write a craft book with the kind of advice you would want to be given, rather than advice people often give that you don’t find helpful? Why or why not? Charles: I’ve had a rough history with craft books, but I had to read a few in college. They definitely felt like they were talking to someone else most of the time. So, I can see how a person can look at them and feel like it isn’t helpful. Another person might read the book as gospel because it’s exactly what they want to hear. For example, I had to read Stephen King’s book on writing in college and most of my classmates thought it sang to them. I sat there feeling like the advice wouldn’t work for my genre, style, and aspirations.
For myself, the problem with most craft books is that they speak with the jargon that one would only know from experience as an author. If that isn’t a big hurdle, then it might be the depth and deviations, which can make a new author feel overwhelmed and quit. This is why I focused on the delivery more than the specific advice. I wrote every section as if it was a long blog post, so there’s a minimal use of jargon and a casual voice. This is how I would have liked to learn about writing instead of it being so clinical. Make me think we’re having a conversation or that you’re talking to me like a person instead of a face in the crowd. This won’t work for everyone, but I hope it helps those who are nervous about their path.
Also, probably helps that I flat out say that my advice won’t work for everyone. That’s a big thing that many people forget.
El Space: What advice on fantasy writing or writing in general has been really helpful to you? Charles: Thinking back, I can’t remember any solid writing advice that I received. The closest one is probably when a high school teacher told me to pick a tense and stick to it. I had been switching from past to present all the time, including in the same sentences. She explained how it worked and I went with present tense, which is where I am now. Everything else that I could call advice really came from discussions with other authors. You learn a lot from talking to those in the same situation and the casual conversation can reveal nuggets of advice even though the speaker doesn’t intend for it to happen. Situations like this is when I realized characters and plot feed off each other, pantser/plotter hybrids might be the best method, and other aspects of my author identity that have sunk into my core.
El Space: What fantasy series (book, TV, anime) really inspires you? Why? Charles: I have this voice in my head telling me to say Tolkien or Saberhagen. That’s the safe answer that most authors go for. The truth is that I’ve been inspired by so much over the last 28 years of writing that I can’t pick one thing. Dungeons & Dragons can take the top spot only because many of my stories are based around the campaigns I played. I used those to test out characters and get a sense of story. Even so, I’ve added pieces of various comic books, video games, shows, and novels that triggered an idea. My inspiration really has become this amalgam of sources that I can no longer put a finger on unless we’re talking about a specific series. Probably not the answer people like to hear from authors, but it’s what I realized while pondering this question for an hour.
El Space: What, if anything, about the current state of fantasy writing would you want to see changed or explored more? Charles: Admittedly, I haven’t really checked out a lot of recent fantasy books. It felt like everything was either Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones again. So, the genre appeared to be stale and spinning its wheels. That’s mostly due to streaming shows, which must be overshadowing the books of newer authors. At least, I hope so. If not, then I would love to see more fresh faces and worlds be lifted to the spotlight. I feel like audiences, publishers, and authors themselves are just stuck on the established franchises. It doesn’t leave any air for a new story to be discovered, especially since the indie author trend seems to have become a shadow of its glory days. Too cynical? Probably, but I decided to be honest in Do I Need to Use a Dragon? and I’ll be honest here too.
El Space: What will you work on next? Charles: My current project is a new fantasy series that I’m hoping to start publishing next year. I’ve actually been writing volumes since 2021 just to maintain my skills. It’s going to be called The Slumberlord Chronicles and will take place in Windemere after the events of Legends of Windemere. The main character is a halfling named Darwin Slepsnor who is seen as a town nuisance because his attempts to help tend to create incidents. He means well, but he isn’t good at social queues and panics very easily. The series follows him after he gains magic and decides that he can be a hero like those in his childhood stories. Of course, Darwin creates messes as well and is simply a friendly, happy force of chaos that is unknowingly disrupting the very fabric of destiny. I’m having a lot of fun writing this character and I hope people enjoy his adventures when I get them ready for publishing.
Looking for Do I Need to Use a Dragon? You can find it on Amazon or in your very own Kindle just by commenting below on good advice you were given about writing or life or both. Winner to be announced sometime next week. But the winner of Andy’s book will be announced later this week.
Check out these books by Charles:
Cover, interior art, series book covers, and author photo courtesy of Charles Yallowitz. Cover and interior art by Alison Hunt. Other book covers from Goodreads.
Hello! Joining me on the blog today is the awe-inspiring, your friend and mine, Andrew James Murray (Andy to those of who know his blog, City Jackdaw), who is here to discuss his third collection of poetry, Fifty, which was published Alien Buddha Press on June 2.
El Space: On my shelf are Heading North and In Brigantia. I’ve asked you about themes before. Again, I’m curious as to how you chose the theme for this new collection, Fifty, and how it relates to your other poetry collections, if it indeed does. Andy: As my milestone birthday began to appear on the horizon, I thought that it would be nice to mark it with a new collection: fifty poems for my fiftieth year. And so I went all-out Adele and called it Fifty. Adding to this personal theme I used for the cover a contemporary photograph of a block of flats that served as my home for the first eighteen months of my life.
Being just fifty poems long, this collection is shorter than both North and Brigantia. I guess they relate to each other in the sense that, if you read all three in chronological order, they would show my evolution as a poet.
El Space: I marked a number of your poems that were piercing in different ways. Your poem, “Ukraine,” was a gut punch. “Eight Lines, Relenting,” hit me around the throat area. Both reactions signaled a deep emotional place in me that I needed to explore. Can you give us insight into why you wrote both, even if the news stories seem explanatory? Andy: “Ukraine” was written at the point when Russian forces were massing at the border, just as the invasion seemed imminent. I used corn (which is represented by the yellow section of their national flag) as an analogy for the Ukraninan people, just wanting to be left alone to live in freedom
“Eight Lines, Relenting” began life as “Eight Lines, Unrelated,” but, as so often happens, the poem took on a life of its own. The lines related to each other and the poem became the sum of its parts. It’s me finding myself in this middle period, looking back at where I have been while being aware of where I am heading.
El Space: The late Mary Oliver, who was interviewed by Krista Tippett in 2015, cited the poet Rumi as someone she regularly read. Who, if anyone, is someone you regularly read—poet or prose writer? What does that person’s writing inspire in you? Andy: My favourites, poetry wise, remain the two that I name checked in our last conversation: Werner Aspenström and Kenneth White. They inspire me to create the kind of stuff that I like to read.
El Space: Have to ask you about “Streetlight.” For some reason, the poems in which you mention a child (like “In Her Laughter”) cause me to feel this well of deep emotion. What’s the story behind either poem? Andy: There is a poem in my first collection called “Midnight July” which was written one cool summer evening while sitting in my back garden, looking up at the stars and wanting to “know the unknowable.” Somebody passed by on the other side of the house and, without being aware of my presence, connected with me through the sound of their whistle. For ‘Streetlight’ I was sitting in exactly the same place and this time the connection came through the sound of a child singing through an open window.
The child that features in “In Her Laughter” was my (then) young daughter, Millie. Looking up at the night sky, she asked, “Does space go on forever because God is still drawing it?” I was dumbfounded. It was so simple and yet so profound, in a Creator/creation line of thinking.
El Space: For some reason, I can’t help seeing you as a night owl and an observer of humanity. Is that a fair assumption? How would you sum yourself up in a sentence? How does that affect your poetry? Andy: That would be spot on! The short poem ‘Two-Thirty Hues’ explains it:
oil slick sky the writer’s blues
dreams snatch me away from meaning
window lamp two-thirty hues
the fire inside still burning
That is me at 2.30 a.m., burning away. It seems to be my creative time. Sometimes, if I have gone to bed at a reasonable hour, I end up reaching for my phone on the bedside cabinet to write a few lines down in the Notes section before they become lost to sleep.
One of my traits is that I can be incredibly sentimental and nostalgic, with many enshrined memories to fall back on. I think that can make my writing more subjective than objective. When writing a poem about something else it can suddenly become self-referential. For instance the poem “Woodsmoke Nostalgia” began as an ode to a typical winter’s morning which then provoked a flashback to me as a child, returning from a walk down a disused railway line to see three dead rabbits—a poacher’s bounty—strung up on an outhouse door. That image stayed with me.
El Space: What will you work on next? Andy: I’m nearing the end of an oral history project that I’ve been working on for a few years now. It was interrupted by the Covid pandemic and my mother’s deteriorating illness. I put a few things (fiction and non-fiction) of my own on the back burner as this took precedence—I’ve since been to the funerals of two of the people whose stories I’ve got written down. The responsibility is not lost on me.
Thank you, Andy, for being my guest!
Looking for Andy? You can find him at City Jackdaw.
Looking for Fifty? You can find it at Amazon. One of you will be sent a copy of Fifty simply because you commented. Winner to be announced next week sometime!
Author photo and photos of Manchester courtesy of Andrew Murray. Book cover photo by L. Marie. Kenneth White and Werner Aspenström poetry collection covers came from Goodreads.
El Space--The Blog of L. Marie 