Rob J. Hayes's Blog, page 17

Confessions of Fantasy Author – Allan Batchelder

Hello again and welcome to another round of heresy. Today in the confession booth we have Allan Batchelder, author of Steel Blood & Fire, and he’s here to admit to you all his sins. Let us gather round and judge him together.

I started writing fairly seriously in 8th grade. The teacher would ask us to write stories two or three pages in length, and mine was thirty-seven pages. The class loved it, ‘cause when I read it, it took up most of the period. Also, people died.

 

Speaking of which, I was very angsty in high school because my best friend died when I was sixteen and then my dad fell over dead in front of me when I was 17. I wrote a lot of bad poetry and worse song lyrics.

 

From that point until I was about 32, I pursued and then enjoyed a career as a professional actor. I entertained myself and friends writing nasty parodies of professors and directors we all disliked.

 

I once accidentally-on-purpose goosed a Tony Award winning actor, thinking he was someone else.

 

When I got out of grad school with my oh-so-special MFA in acting, I had a hard time paying the bills. I thought maybe, somehow, I could supplement my income through writing monologues and plays. Ha!

 

I then started my nine-year career as a stand-up comedian. I got a lot of writing gigs out of that – dialogue for computer games, sentiments for greeting cards. Usually I got about a dollar a line, but I was desperate and had no shame. It was hard getting all of those bills in my bikini underwear, let me tell you!

 

Still poor, I took a teaching job, which is like selling your soul to the devil, on it’s the devil’s halfwit step-brother Morrie.

 

One day, I had a temper tantrum during an extended D & D session and decided I could write better stuff than we were playing.

 

Joe Abercrombie once tweeted that he didn’t really “get” semi-colons (or something to that effect). I get them. I make mad, passionate love to them. And I suspect they kinda like me, too.

 

You know how people say they’ve “let themselves go?” I chased myself the hell outta town.

I’m a cat person. Don’t even. Cats are gods, and they know it.

 

Some people have a love/hate relationship with the Oxford comma. I once got chlamydia from the Cambridge Ellipse.

 

Rob: And Allan has graciously provided a video of himself dressing up in a tutu… Without any prompting.

Allan is a professional actor, educator, writer and former stand-up comedian. During his years on stage, he’s gotten to participate in countless battles – some even with other people – involving longswords, rapiers, daggers, staves, pistols, bottles, loaves of French bread and, of course, his grimy little fists. Allan is a lifelong fan of epic fantasy and horror, so you can just imagine how much he loves Grimdark. He’s currently working on the fifth and final book in his series, Immortal Treachery, before he tries his hand at a) steampunk and b) horror. His books are available in paperback and kindle formats on Amazon. Allan lives in Seattle, within a few miles of the two richest men on Earth and can thereby assure you that there’s no such thing as financial osmosis.

 

On the march, around the campfire, and in the taverns, they tell incredible stories about Tarmun Vykers, the Reaper – how he’s never been cut in battle, how he once defeated hundreds of men by himself, how he exterminated an entire people over an insult. These stories make Vykers seem like a god, but he is a man, an arrogant, ruthless and bloodthirsty man. For all that, he may be the only thing standing between the human race and utter annihilation at the hands of the mad wizard who calls himself the End-of-All-Things. Against this backdrop, smaller, lesser folks struggle to fulfill their own destinies, folks like Aoife, burdened with a secret so dark she is driven to do the unimaginable and seek an alliance with fey powers no mortal has ever encountered. 

Confessions of a Fantasy Author – Martin Owton

It is time, readers, for another author to open their heart to you and confess their sins. This week Martin Owton, author of Exile, is here to beg for your forgiveness. And he’s even included a video of himself reading from his book.

I was fired from my own heavy rock band for not being good enough

I once staged a public hanging in the Red Lion Shopping Centre, Cambridge for rag week; I was the victim.

 

I appeared 4 times on TV quiz show 15:1 and won 2 games.

 

When I was eleven I wrote a 200 page story in 2 weeks for a class project.

 

I used to play good class club cricket.

 

I part-authored, and acted in, a comic play that was staged at the Edinburgh Fringe. It required me to strip on stage down to Union flag shorts.

 

I’m still a fairly decent potter. My aunt was a professional potter who trained me and I helped her in school holidays. The real craft is in the decoration.

 

I have a cochlear implant. When it is disconnected I have no hearing at all.

 

I write really slowly, maybe a couple of hundred words a day. It takes me years to finish a book.

 

So those are his sins. Is he forgiven his heresy? If you’re still on the fence, why not check out his video reading from Exile.

 

‘The Exile of Darien’ is a fast-moving tightly-plotted fantasy adventure story with a strong thread of romance

Aron of Darien, raised in exile after his homeland is conquered by a treacherous warlord, makes his way in the world on the strength of his wits and skill with a sword. Both are sorely tested when he is impressed into the service of the Earl of Nandor to rescue his heir from captivity in the fortress of Sarazan. The rescue goes awry. Aron and his companions are betrayed and must flee for their lives. Pursued by steel and magic, they find new friends and old enemies on the road that leads, after many turns, to the city of the High King. There Aron must face his father’s murderer before risking everything in a fight to the death with the deadliest swordsman in the kingdom. 

Review Blog – Mirror’s Truth by Michael R. Fletcher

The Mirror’s Truth is the second novel in Michael R. Fletcher’s Manifest Delusions series, following pretty directly on from Beyond Redemption. It follows the same cast of characters (for the most part) in Bedeckt, Stehlen, Wichtig, and the insane newly-made god Morgen. For those who haven’t heard of Fletcher’s world, it exists on a very simple… complex… odd concept, that belief determines reality. Believe hard enough and that belief becomes real. The world’s laws are governed by the belief of the populace. This makes religion a very powerful concept as enough people believe in an afterlife that there IS an afterlife. It also makes the insane the magic users of the world in many ways. If someone is delusional enough to believe they are the greatest swordsman in the world, they ARE the greatest swordsman in the world. If someone is delusional enough to believe they can shapeshift into a dragon that breathes madness instead of fire and can shred reality… well then they CAN shapeshift into a dragon… And that is the basis for the crazy world that Fletcher has created.

It’s worth noting that the delusional magic users in this world aren’t all happy happy joy joy kicking around with magic powers just because they want to have them. It really seems as though Fletcher has done a bit of research into mental disorders and many of the powers are manifested due to deep pain or trauma. A kleptomaniac might be able to turn herself invisible, but only because she truly believes she is worthless and beneath people’s notice. Many of the powers the characters show are manifested as a way to hide truths the characters are too scared to admit even to themselves. This is actually one of the areas where Mirror’s Truth does a lot better than Beyond Redemption, we really get to see and feel the hurt and psychosis that drive the characters. It helps to bring them alive and makes them easier to connect with… which is important for characters who are… utter arseholes!

The book, and the series, fit very firmly in the grimdark genre. The world is shitty, the characters are bastards, and pretty much everything in the world is out to kill or steal from everything else. It adds an underlying thread of tension that thrums through the book no matter what is happening and when and to who. This is only amplified by Fletcher’s willingness to put his character’s through the wringer. AND HE REALLY PUTS THEM THROUGH THE WRINGER!!! No character is safe at any point in the book and that leaves the reader balancing on a knife edge. Some characters you want to die and can’t wait to see get their comeuppance, and others you really want to survive and find some measure of happiness… But you know they probably won’t. It’s like reading a car crash; you know nothing good can come out of it, but you can’t stop turning the pages.

I did feel this book had a few pacing issues. It was really slow at the start with the same scenes and information being told to us by different characters. It gave the first half a very plodding feel, almost as though Fletcher was trying to find the balance between giving the reader all the information they needed to proceed, and giving his characters something interesting to do. But then the second half kicks in and it’s pretty much a non stop thrill ride. And what a finale! With equal parts humour, touching sentimentality, and brutal swordstrokes, with a couple of satisfying twists thrown in… It’s fair to say Fletcher nailed the ending.

All in all I’m going to give The Mirror’s Truth 4 stars. The pacing issues at the start hurt it a bit, but a truly satisfying grimdark novel chocked full of touching character development, brutal murder, and vague promises of worse things to come.

Review Blog – Blackwing by Ed McDonald

This is easily the quickest I have ever got through an audiobook. I struggle with audiobooks. I’m very picky when it comes to narration and rarely find time to stick my headphones in and dedicate time to listening. I’m also not very good at just sitting still and listening, I need to occupy my body in some way while I’m at it. I got through Blackwing in a single week. I was finding excuses to ignore the world, stick my headphones in and listen. My house was cleaned twice; I even scraped the window frames clean and hoovered all the skirting boards. Blackwing made me do household chores just to have an excuse to listen. So I guess what I’m trying to say is… I loved this book!

At this point I’ll mention that Blackwing is narrated by Colin Mace and he did an absolutely fantastic job. It took a few chapters to get the speed setting right as he leaves quite long breaks between paragraphs, but also speaks quite quickly. But his portrayal of the main character truly helped drag me in and I felt completely absorbed.

So Blackwing takes place in a sort of post apocalyptic frontier type of world. It might be termed as matchlock fantasy as there are firearms and odd levels of technology. It’s set against the backdrop of a war that has been raging for generations. The humans on one side, backed by wizards called the Nameless; and the Drudge on the other side, ruled by ancient evils creatures called the Deep Kings. And between the two sides lays the Misery, a vast expanse of wasteland blasted by a cataclysm that tore open the sky and infected the land with malevolent magic. The things that live in the misery are monsters, warped by a magic that seeps inside and twists them about. It’s fair to say the Misery lives up to its name.

Our main character is a delightful chap called Ryhalt Galharrow. OK, he’s not delightful. He’s harsh, cynical, nihilistic, violent, drunk more often than not, and a bounty hunter who will do just about anything for the right price. He’s incredibly compelling and drags you right into the narrative, and then holds you under until you’re seconds away from drowning in it. I’m fairly cynical myself, so it’s fair to say I got on well with Ryhalt.

But before you go thinking it’s all grimdark, with crappy people and a shitty world. It’s not. Ed McDonald himself admitted there’s a love story going on in there and the story is as much about hope as it is about cynical nihilism, with a fair touch of awe and wonder. And he’s right. It’s all delivered in first person, riding along in Ryhalt’s head, and despite the fairly horrific things he’s been through, despite the lot he has drawn in life and the terrible choices he has made, there is a kernel of hope buried in the center of his being. That he tries desperately to crush it at every opportunity only serves to make him even more accessible to the audience.

The plot zips along as a dizzying pace as Ryhalt and his interchanging crew are led on an investigation into the one thing that is protecting the humans against the drudge, an apocalyptic weapon that has sat dormant for decades. But don’t expect it all to be straightforward. The author slaps the audience about with twist after twist and it’s not until the end where everything falls into place that many questions are finally answered.

I’m struggling a little with the rating. I reserve 5 stars for something truly special. But I loved this book. I loved the setting and the characters, the magic system and the technology, the players and the masters their strings. I felt completely absorbed by Ryhalt’s voice and the narration was stellar.  So I’m going to cheat a little and give it 4.5 because I always round up!

Confessions of a Fantasy Author – A.M. Justice

It’s confession time once more and today A.M. Justice, author of A Wizard’s Forge, has stepped into the booth to confess all her sins to us. Should we absolve her or warm up the pyre?

I’m a rewriter (I’ll come back to this).

 

When I was eleven years old I wanted to be a marine biologist and marry Philippe Cousteau Sr. (Philippe Cousteau Jr. hadn’t been born yet.)

 

I also wanted to be an actress, and I carried these opposing ambitions (acting vs marine biology) all the way through college, where I discovered a) acting involved more than memorizing your lines and not tripping on furniture, and b) marine biology involved a lot of math. I became a writer instead.

 

In addition to writing fiction, I’m a medical writer for the pharmaceutical industry. I have written articles that were published in some top-tier medical journals, but none of them carry my byline. This is called ghostwriting.

 

Once, through careless operation of a power drill, I accidentally gave myself a partial stigmata. Rather than go to the ER, I bandaged the wound and went to the movies. Return of the King had just opened, and we had already bought our tickets. This is called priorities.

 

I worked the summer between high school and college as a lab technician for a pesticide company. I spent my days in a hot warehouse with no air conditioning, grinding up plant stems in a blender with distilled water, and testing these stick smoothies for nitrate levels. I was often alone and always very bored.

 

I have started more projects than I’ve finished. One of these was a novel based on Xena, Warrior Princess.

 

Xena isn’t my only fan-fic effort. Once I played the villain in a friend’s Doctor Who fan film, a role that required me to have silver skin, and the director used silver spray paint. Miraculously, I survived. Thankfully, the print of this very bad film has not (to my knowledge).

 

I had a literary agent in the 1990s. The day I received his letter saying he’d represent me was one of the happiest of my life. He died before he found a publisher for my work.

 

I used to go to Argentine tango salons (ie, milongas) three or four times a week. Then I got married and it became once a week. Then I had a kid and it became nonce a week.

 

I watch TV waaaaaaay more than I read books (lately).

 

I rewrite stuff. My novel A Wizard’s Forge is a rewrite of a novel called Blade of Amber, which is a rewrite of a novel I wrote in high school, so I’ve been working on the same story for close to thirty years. I think I’m finally getting the hang of it.

 

I rewrite stuff. I revised this list of confessions after I submitted it. (Rob: It’s true. 3 times!)

 

Victoria wants revenge. Taken from her homeland and sold into slavery, she endures months of torment by a cruel tyrant before she seizes an opportunity to escape. After enlisting in a war against her former master, she gains bloody satisfaction raiding his forces. Yet her ordeal haunts her, feeding and thwarting her hunger for vengeance.

 

A.M. Justice has danced tango beneath the wings of angels, played hide and seek with harbor seals, and sought distant galaxies from dusk to dawn. She still scuba dives and star gazes whenever the seas are calm enough and the skies dark enough. Currently, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband, daughter, and cats.

Confessions of a Fantasy Author – Melissa A Joy

Today on the altar of sacrifice confession Melissa A. Joy, author of Keys of the Origin, has come to plead forgiveness from you all. Judge her well, for her sins are many.

 

I used to role-play on the old MSN chatrooms when I was about 15.  That’s where a lot of my early character development was done.  A friend (who I actually met on those chatrooms and still know today) and I ended up moving this to MSN and Yahoo messengers.  Since the MSN chatrooms had a button that automatically changed text into purple italics, we used that for description and actions, I was adamant that we kept to that practice when we moved.  Both of us kept some of the role-play sessions by copying and pasting them into word documents.  I still have some of them, and whenever I’ve looked through them glean ideas from them, I’ve found myself thinking “this is laughable and absolutely appalling!” while at the same time knowing that if none of it had been done, many of my characters may not be who they are today.

 

I started writing seriously when I was 13.  My first attempt at writing a book involved influences from Final Fantasy VII and VIII and therefore a bit more urban/futuristic. What did I call it? The Novel Fantasy. Really? Was I honestly thinking that was a good title? I suppose it might have been because I’d always wanted to be as original as I could be, knowing the genre is packed to the gunwales with content that’s already been done dozens of times over.  The word “novel” in that sense referred to “new”.  I still have it on floppy disk somewhere.  If I ever find an ancient computer it would work on, I’d like to have a look just to remind myself of how terrible it was.

 

Since I decided at the age of 13 that my life’s purpose (when it came to following a career) was to be a published fantasy author, I’d tried to develop the right kind of story.  I intended to be published one way or another by the time I turned 25.  As it turned out, it took another five years as a result of “life’s a bitch”.  In total, it’s taken 17 years to put what is now Keys of the Origin together.  Worry not, you won’t be waiting 17 years between books as you might with some other authors.  

 

I admit that Aeldynn is a large and very complex world and confuses me at times.  World-building is supposed to be challenging, right?

 

I’m not a fan of dwarves; except for Gimli of course.  They tend to have a distinct lack of manners, disregard of personal space, and have been known to trespass by inviting themselves into other people’s homes.  Truth be told, I never really clicked with them.

 

It find it nigh on impossible to write unless I have the right kind of music playing, and many tracks end up on repeat for a while.  At least I have headphones plugged into my laptop, or I might find myself buried alive down the bottom of the garden. 

 

I’ve never subscribed to the idea of vampires being undead; I think of them as something more demonic (in Aeldynn the transformation is the result of a demonic influence).

 

I fully intend to develop antagonists and villains based on notable individuals who have done me wrong.  How does that saying go? “Never wrong a writer; they get their revenge in print.” If you haven’t been nice, start worrying.

 

I dread being asked “what is your book about?” because every character, plot, back story, fragment of mythology or history (etc) of world-building flashes before my eyes and I draw a blank, which is shortly followed by me answering the question with another question; “how long have you got?” 

 

I have been influenced by both videogames and anime, so you might find a few strange scenes occurring occasionally.  You’ll also find a few oddly matched character quirks such as, say, a perverted seafaring elf and an immortal winged tribesman who’s fond of cake. 

 

Melissa A. Joy is a new fantasy author who challenges the conventional expectations of fantasy and takes them to a whole new level. It is no secret that she believes in the existence of all things fantastical, and that anything is possible. 

She began building the world of Aeldynn and started writing seriously aged approximately 13, and has since developed it into something truly magical worth sharing. From the glorious winged Drahknyr and wise and fearsome dragons to pirates of the high seas and a world rich with history and lore, her imagination could be said to be limitless. 

When she isn’t locked in a reverie about what’s going on in the world of Aeldynn, she’s probably out sailing the high seas on a tall ship, gaming, or perhaps dressed up in costume at an anime convention.

“Very well thought out, brilliantly written, and I eagerly await the next installment!!” *****

“A very groundbreaking and interesting read; a new fantasy series by a promising new author.” ****

“If you are looking for an epic novel in the same vein as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, then look no further.” *****

“Got the book on day of release and took me 3 days to read. One amazing start to the story.” *****

“This book was a real revelation. Such a refreshing change from the standard storylines and cliches of other books. It offers so much in colour, tone, imagination and creativity.” *****

“An immersive venture into a meticulously crafted high fantasy world.” *****

“Not to be missed by fans of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.” *****

Review Blog – Skullsworn by Brian Staveley

Skullsworn is a book that really shouldn’t work. There, I said it. I meant it. I’m not taking it back. But it really does work.

I read this book on Audible, narrated by Elizabeth Knowelden, and I’ll point out right now it is beautifully narrated. I’m not the biggest fan of audio books and I frequently struggle with narrators, but Knowelden does such a fantastic job I’ll be checking out what else she has done.

Moving onto the actual story itself. Skullsworn is about Pyrre Lakatur (if you’ve read Staveley’s Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne trilogy you might recognise that name). Pyrre is a young woman and kind of like an assassin in training with one last trial left before her god and her order will accept her into the ranks proper. The only problem is that trial is to kill seven people in ten days and not just any people; there’s conditions. And the final condition… she has to kill “the one who made your mind and body sing with love / who will not come again.” Pyrre’s problem with this is she has never been in love and doesn’t even really know what love is.

The main story of the book revolves around a convoluted plot Pyrre constructs in order to make herself fall in love with a man she met many years ago. How convoluted? Well not to give too much away, but she pretty much tries to burn a city to the ground in the fires of revolution just to have a reason to be near the guy. It’s fair to say our assassin in training has some issues.

Sounds good so far. But why, I hear you ask, should this book not work? Well that’s because its basically 15 hours (448 pages) of philosophical meandering over the meaning of love and the importance of letting it go set against the backdrop of ticking clock. Pyrre has ten days to fall in love and no idea what the word even means. Her supporting cast and witnesses to her trial have their own opinions on the matter, and given that they are themselves in love with each other, also provide tangible evidence of what love is to Pyrre. But still she doesn’t know. She flip flops constantly over whether she’s making progress and agonizes over how she’s going about the whole affair. But it works. It works so incredibly well because Pyrre is such a compelling character and Staveley writes with such gorgeous prose (and Kowelden delivers a stunning performance to boot for us audio readers).

You might think, with such a lot of philosophising that the book is fairly slow paced, and in some ways it definitely is, but it never drags. There’s always something happening and such a lively and well defined cast of characters that it was truly compelling throughout (this is a welcome change as I found a few of the characters in Staveley’s Unhewn Throne trilogy quite flat. In fact I described one of the main cast as a potato and I stick to it!) There’s tension in spades as well and not just because of the ticking clock of Pyrre running out of time. The book is quite literally set in an environment that is actively trying to kill everyone around it, and there is a looming threat of something larger than all of the characters waiting nearby.

At the end of the day this book won’t be for everyone. It’s far from a standard fantasy tale and simply should not work. But it really does and I loved it. Staveley takes my favourite character from his trilogy and gives her a compelling back story that only serves to solidify her as the best of his creation. 5 stars from me. Brian Staveley has created something truly special in Skullsworn.

Confessions of a Fantasy Author – Richard Writhen

 

It’s confession time again, my dear lost souls. Once a week an author steps into my confession booth and airs all their dirty little authory secrets so that you may judge them. I urge you to judge them harshly, yet not forget the fact that you too have sinned. Today Richard Writhen, author of The Hiss of the Blade, has volunteered to beg forgiveness from you all.

 

The lurid confessions of a fantasy writer? Oh, where to begin. I’ve been rolling down the rocky road of the writer for some time; and as I have been practicing the art, I have found many stumbling blocks to trip upon indeed. To begin with:

I submitted a proposal for my first novella to a notable publisher who will remain nameless. Their submission guidelines specifically forbade anything YA oriented. Now, although my work is for adults, that novella features three teenaged characters, and although it flew right in the face of convention, I subbed it anyway … and received a rejection, of course. Subs need to be specifically tailored to the audience, or there is almost no point from what I can tell … just wasted time.


I have also tended in the past to submit stories to publishers when they have very little context; in other words, they make very little micro sense, but when re-included into the novellas, they integrate. I have subbed a few of them that, while probably well-written enough, must have confused the slush readers with the seemingly random character deaths and the like.


My first two novellas were originally written and posted as serials, on two different websites. If you follow, the beginning of my second novella was originally the ending to the first, but when I worked out the timeline, the first novella wound up being chronologically later than the second. So when I re-edited them both for KDP, I wound up putting a flashback scene in the first (which referred “back” to the second) where the first scene of the second used to be. Confused yet? No? Well in addition, the first scene of the first novella, which was later cut, was in fact a flash forward … so the serial version of the novella originally opened with a flash forward and then ended with a flash back. O_O

I would advise writers to be careful with conlang and syntax. When I first started posting my second novella on WordPress.com, a few users on Westeros.org began to castigate me and say that the work wasn’t even written in English. So if your stuff is too strange or flies right over readers’ heads, they obviously aren’t going to like it. So when it came time to write the third novella, I decided to use american spellings and a lack of conlang suffused sporadically throughout the text, for simplicity and a greater readability. Oh, and BTW, don’t wig out when they do start to criticize the hell out of you.


I was still in the process of patting myself on the back for successfully self-formatting my three novellas when an online friend posted that he had bought and received his copy of the paperback version of The Hiss of the Blade. He said that he was enjoying it but … where were the page numbers? For some reason, I had assumed that the KDP software would auto-format such a thing, and then had to go back and manually format them in Word. In a way, the control panel adds more flexibility by having the user do all of that.


I had toyed with the idea of screenwriting for awhile, and intended to write a flick with an enigmatic cult leader, something kind of like the Branch Davidian or Heaven’s Gate cults. I even went so far as to check out some software and the like, only to decide to scrap everything in favor of writing prose. Then, when I wrote up the concept in prose form, I wasn’t happy with it, and subsequently scrapped it again. Months later, I started my novellas that are currently finished (?) and forgot all about it. Then Hulu came out with The Path and I just groaned; this just goes to show that you have to strike while the iron is hot.

So there you go … the journey hasn’t been easy thus far, and it will probably stay that way. And these are just a few of the issues I’ve experienced. But if a few writers that are just starting out can get something of a heads-up, and be a bit more aware of the pitfalls that are coming, then all to the good.

 

 

About Richard: Originally from Rhode Island, Richard Writhen also lived in NYC for about ten years. He has been e-published on several notable sites such as the DarkMondays Blog, the MightyThorJRS Blog, MichaelRFletcher.com, Techzwn.com, Grimdarkmagazine.com and Ragnarokpub.com and is the author of three novellas on Amazon KDP: A Kicked Cur, A Host of Ills and The Hiss Of The Blade. Richard also writes short form stories in the styles of Gothdark, Grimdark, GDSF and Psychological Horror, and will eventually be exploring the weird west.

 

About The Hiss of the Blade: Two petty mercenaries are falsely accused of switching sides in a feud between two rich and powerful magnates; an ex-miner on the run from a murder charge becomes a reaver and embroiled in a romance; an industrial lieutenant is recruited to help capture a serial killer and an entire city is in danger of being ensorcelled by an ancient monk.

CONFESSIONS OF A FANTASY AUTHOR – Ben Galley

Gather round, children, for another author is about to step into the confessions booth to admit to you all his dirty authory sins. Today, for your judgment, we have Ben Galley, author of The Heart of Stone. Should we ring the bell of Shame?

Confession the First:

I genuinely think the word “moot” is the finest word in the English language.

Confession the Second:

I wrote my first full length novel around 11 years old. It was about anthropomorphised monkeys living in southern India, and a complete ripoff of Brian Jacques’ Redwall books, which I will forever hold in lofty esteem.

Confession the Third:

I can never remember, without looking it up, what the difference is between “practise” and “practice”. Try as I might, it won’t stick in my brain. I’m even googling it right now.

Confession the Fourth:

When publishing my debut novel, The Written, in 2009/10, I was inordinately skint, so I convinced myself that I didn’t need an editor, and that I could do the same job if I just went through the book enough times. Problem was, I didn’t have the grammar skills to notice where I’d gone wrong, and published it riddled with errors. Fortunately, I had it proofread a few months after the release, and rereleased with the second book’s launch.

Confession the Fifth:

I am constantly terrified that one day I’ll turn up to a book convention or event and somebody will have a question about an older book I’ve written, and I won’t actually know the answer. (And I’m naked.)

Confession the Sixth:

My first ever batch of author business cards said “Imagination Jockey” on them. My second batch said “Professional Liar”. These days, they say just say “Fantasy Author”.

Confession the Seventh:

In one of the versions of my Emaneska books, I swear I gave one of my main characters a surname. I’m convinced I did it, but have never been able to find it, nor remember what surname I would have given him. It haunts me continuously just in case I use the same name somewhere else, a clever reader spots it, draws an epic yet wrong connection, and all my fictional worlds implode in on each other in a big blast of fire and shit.

Confession the Eighth:

I more often than not imagine Morgan Freeman’s voice reading my descriptions whenever I’m editing. I find Imaginary Morgan has the perfect pace for analysing and measuring a sentence. If I can’t imagine it in my head, I’ll do his voice out loud.

Confession the Ninth:

I do a terrible Morgan Freeman impression.

Confession the Tenth:

The first ever thing I wrote was when I was about 5. It was an 8-page, printer paper, pencil-drawn comic about Christmas, with Santa and Spiderman as the badly drawn heroes. There was also a game in the back with a “mirror writing puzzle”. I tried about a dozen times to get the mirror writing to work, and spent so long erasing and redrawing the page that I crumpled up the rest of the comic. My mother says I cried, but I refute that claim.

Confession the Eleventh:

I tried writing in 2nd person POV once, just before starting The Heart of Stone. I found it so unfamiliar that I spent weeks battling to get into the mindset, only to get annoyed with the plot and shelve it. When I came to writing The Heart of Stone, I was so entrenched in 2nd person, the first draft constantly switched between 2nd and 3rd person without me noticing, and to infuriating levels that delayed the editing phase considerably.

Confession the Twelfth:

I put a reasonably graphic sex scene in my debut The Written. I was so wrapped up in getting to the editing stage, I immediately asked a family friend to beta-read for me, as she was incredibly well-read. In my excitement to see what somebody thought of the novel, I completely forgot that the sex scene existed, never mind the fact it involved a character that bore a striking resemblance to the beta-reader’s daughter – my girlfriend at the time. They almost had the same name. I removed the pages from the printed-out copy I gave her and kept quiet until the book came out.

Confession the Thirteenth:

As a shameless LotR fan, I went to see The Fellowship of The Ring 11 times in the cinema the month it came out.

These are my confessions. Forgive me, audience, and may the gods have mercy on my shit-smeared soul.

Ben Galley is an award-winning purveyor of dark fantasy from the UK. He is the author behind the gritty and epic Emaneska Series, a western fantasy series, The Scarlet Star Trilogy, and the new standalone The Heart of Stone. Aside from writing and dreaming up lies to tell his readers, Ben works as a self-publishing consultant and tutor, helping fellow authors from all over the world to publish and sell books. His website shelfhelp.info will tell you all you need to know about DIY self-publishing. Ben can be found being loquacious and attempting to be witty on Twitter (@BenGalley), Facebook (/BenGalleyAuthor) or at his website bengalley.com.

Confessions of a Fantasy Author – Ulff Lehmann

It’s time for another author to step into my confessions booth. Today Ulff Lehmann, author of the novel Shattered Dreams, has volunteered to bare his soul to everyone. Judge him harshly!

 

The first documented story of yours truly is well over 30 years old. And my mother kept it. I wrote it in 5th grade, for a “storybook” our German teacher assigned us to compile. Handwritten, with my mother, for the first half, hovering over me and reminding me to write nicely. One can literally tell when she walked away. It was one of those spirit duplicator thingies, back in the olden days.

Around 14 or so I attempted to write what would now be considered Indiana Jones fan fiction. Thankfully that piece of prose is lost.

I also improvised various audio plays, with my sister and friends. No tapes survived either. Thank goodness!

My first semi serious attempt at a short story came when I was 16 or 17. The pulp-type scifi magazine I read held a writing contest. Of course, in my youthful arrogance, I even submitted. The only copy. (I see a pattern here, don’t you?)

In the American High school I attended as exchange student, I took a creative writing class, but seeing that I was about as focused as a hummingbird on speed, I didn’t get that much done.

Then, finally, after I returned, some of my friends took me along to one of the cons I they had spoken about so often. I got drunk. Several other cons followed, all of which I experienced in an inebriated state, but in one of my sober moments I actually made a rather sane decision: I wanted to write, participate in the world these guys were creating. Well, when we were not at cons, that is, because at cons: alcohol.

I came up with the concept, and wrote the first story, by hand, around 1993. Then, with one buddy lending me his PC (yes, we didn’t have a computer at the time) and I entered the story into the pre-windows word processor. Several more followed.

By the time I was close to leaving the club (I figured I had outgrown it. Subconsciously I guess I realized that suicide by booze wasn’t that much fun after all) I also realized that I should try writing in English instead of German. I wrote a short text, which had people in stitches back then, telling me it was the right choice. A few years later, I showed the text to an author/editor friend I met at GenCon, and it almost caused her to advise me to stop writing. – Thankfully I also showed her a passage from what would become Shattered Dreams, and she revised her opinion. (and yes, that text is also lost)

Commas hate me, I hate them back.

I obsess over every sentence, not so much as to get the perfect sentence. No, I try to mix up the word order so as to avoid, to me, tedious repetition.

During college, I was the singer and lyricist in an acoustic band. My lyrics were usually very moody, dark one might say. The ladies in the band, one vocalist and one violinist, asked me to write something more upbeat. I did, packing every sodding cliché into the thing that I could think of. And yes, I still remember the lyrics, mostly.

With the band I even recorded a 6 track CD. Cost us a pretty bundle. One particular line I had some 40 takes to get right, in the end someone else sang that phrase, in a different key. I could have done it one octave lower too!

 

Ulff Lehmann has spent quite a while waiting on his Midlife Crisis, and decided he won’t go there. For the past two decades he has been developing the stories he is now publishing. Born and bred in Germany, Ulff chose to write in English when he realized he had spent most of his adult life reading English instead of his mother tongue, and brings with him the oftentimes Grimm outlook of his country’s fairytales to his stories. A wordsmith with a poet’s heart, Ulff’s goal is to create a world filled with believable people.

He can be reached via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ralchanh

And you can buy his first novel at Amazon: http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=B01HBPR8GK