BB10-Q (vol3) – Timandra Whitecastle

Top of the morning to all you wonderful folks out there! I am delighted to bring you the third volume of my BB10-Q interviews (where I grill authors and friends with extremely tough questions – they didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition!).

And I am very happy to be sharing some time with an author I discovered through the Grimdark Fiction Readers & Writers Facebook page, Timandra Whitecastle. Timandra is one of those authors that after reading four of her books, I’m there when she releases another. Her works are grim, funny, horror-tastic, packed with emotional hits, and damn good stories. Welcome to BB10-Q, Timandra!

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Hello Timandra. Thank you for taking the time to join me in the third BB10-Q interview. How are you?

Thank you for having me! I’m … slowly adjusting to the new normal, I guess? Anxiously awaiting every new day filled with existential dread? So, I’m fine. I feel fine. How are you?

I’m not too bad here, thanks. Though it’s not so much a case of SSDD, as DSDD. Okay, let’s get started. Please tell us a little bit about the books you have published so far. What genre are they? What kind of characters do they contain?

I’ve published a (grim)dark fantasy trilogy of books called The Living Blade trilogy: Touch of Iron, On the Wheel, and Mother of Slag. They feature Noraya, a young charcoaler maiden who swears a lot, who runs away from home only to get swept up in an epic quest for the titular mythical Living Blade. Throughout the course of the trilogy she realizes that she has to become the hero her world needs, but doesn’t deserve, if you’ll excuse the Batman quote. CW for sexual assault and a villain who uses sexual coercion. The Living Blade trilogy has an accompanying spin-off novella called Bloodwitch, in which a character from Touch of Iron gets her own little origin story and the main location recurs in Mother of Slag.

[image error]The covers are beautiful!

Touch of Iron here: “Old school fantasy with modern smarts and a generous helping of Grimdarkian grimness. The main protagonist, Noraya, is fantastic! Determined but fallible, impulsive and wonderfully sarcastic.”>

I’ve also written a heroic fantasy adventure featuring viking moms, set against a Norse-inpsired backdrop. It’s called Queens of the Wyrd and features middle-aged to older women as our merry band of heroes, most of them working mothers with kids; there’s dread wyrms, Norse Fight Club, the goddess Hel, and smashing the Patriarchy. Also some bad language. Sorry.

Queens of the Wyrd: “A tribute to mothers everywhere!”>

So what are you working on now?

Good question. What AM I working on now? This pandemic has me very scatterbrained, I’m afraid. My concentration is messy, so I try to write at least some words every day, but I don’t stay consistently in one project. Progress is harrrrrd this year. I’m currently writing Queens 2 (Reign of the Midnight Sun), also a dark cottage-core witch-punk romance? And a ghost story, an epic fantasy, and a historical Silk Road meets Nathan Drake/Uncharted kind of story… I said I’m scatterbrained, yes? Well, I’m all over the place.

Wohhh, that is quite a full buffet there! I’m stoked to hear about Queens 2 and intrigued by the “dark cottage-core, witch-punk romance”! Sounds like quite a niche you’ve found there. Good luck with it all!

Do you have a writing routine, say getting up early and hammering the keys, or drinking a glass of wine and settling down for the evening at the PC?

Alas. I don’t have a writing routine. I had one, but I lost it when the fire nation attacked and everything changed … wait. I mean when 2020 exploded into our faces, of course. The fire nation has not attacked. Yet.

I used to write late at night after the kids were in bed and I had done all the school work prep I had to do as a teacher. But my brain just couldn’t get by on the constant sleep deprivation. I’ve also tried writing early in the mornings before everyone is up. I’m very much a morning person, so this would suit me fine. But it often backfires since whenever I want to write a really crucial scene, inevitably one of my kids will be up brutally early and need my attention…

[image error]“I’ll get back to writing once I’ve fought off these ruffians…”

I hear you. I have to wait till my wife and both kids are out the house, and only then can I sit down and start wasting time on Facebook…er, I mean, start pounding out beautiful prose. Anyhoo… Why do you write books?

I write because I get to see myself in the words I use and the stories I tell. I write because I need to heal and I do so by refracting the pain into a fantasy tale. I write because I feel that I had no voice for such a long time, and on the page I find it.

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So glad you found that voice.

Buckmaster Books will give out two paperbacks of your wonderful “Queens of the Wyrd”, , so please tell us a little bit about the book without giving away any plot details whatsoever!

Queens of the Wyrd. In haiku format:

Harried Viking moms

Going on an adventure.

The kids are alright.

Basho Matsuo would nod in approval, I reckon. And finally, what inspired you or motivated you to write this particular story?

Short answer: My life.