shifters

Episode 8 With Lindsay Buroker!

Our guest this week is Lindsay Buroker, the author of the Death Before Dragons series. Lindsay joins co-host Paul Sating to talk writing, quick releases, and book cover gaffes in this episode of the Urban Fantasy Author Podcast.

This episode’s excerpt is from chapter one of Sinister Magic, book one of Lindsay’s “Death Before Dragons” series. You can pick up Sinister Magic at: https://geni.us/sinmagic

Lindsay is a full-time independent fantasy and science fiction author who loves travel, hiking, tennis, and vizslas. She’s written over sixty novels, appeared on the USA Today bestseller list, and has been twice nominated for a Goodreads Readers’ Choice Award.

Find Out More About This Week’s Featured Author:

Find Lindsay at: https://lindsayburoker.com/
Find Lindsay’s books at: https://geni.us/lburoker

Transcript of This Week’s Author Interview:

(NOTE: The following is a machine-generated transcription of this week’s interview. Please excuse the typos. ~MDM)

Paul Sating (00:22):

Everyone Paul Sating here again, your co-host for urban fantasy author podcast. Great to be with you once more. I’m very excited about today’s guest Lindsay broker, and we’re going to get into her episode in a second. Don’t forget. At the end of the episode, we have the entirety of her first chapter in book one of her death before dragon series to make sure you stay tuned for that. After the outro music, Lindsay is a full-time independent fantasy and science fiction author who loves to travel, hike, play tennis, and vizslas, which I don’t even know what they are.

She’s written over 60 novels appeared on the USA today bestseller list and has been twice nominated for a good reads reader’s choice award. Now let’s get to the interview with Lindsay on cue. I was warning Lindsay off air that my Chihuahua was going to raise cane and she is, and now she’s getting my Husky all wound up. So if you hear the two dogs in the background, I totally apologize. I do try to be a professional from time to time, but dogs can throw a wrinkle into anything. So patrons welcome. And this is your video exclusive portion of an urban fantasy author podcast with not just urban fantasy, but fantasy and sci-fi author Lindsey broker, but I wanted to welcome you to the show and thanks for coming by.

Lindsay Buroker (01:49):

Awesome. Well thank you very much for having me.

Paul Sating (01:51):

I’ll definitely, it’s an absolute honor and pleasure. I’ve loved your stuff, and I love following your blogs and stuff for a long time. I actually met you in at 20 books two years ago now and an in in the elevator, but I’d been in Vegas for like a half an hour. I was tired. I didn’t recognize your face to your voice kind of thing. I just said hi to you real quick. And then it was like, I don’t know, two hours later I went, wait a second. You know, I had the light bulb moment, so it’s cool to actually get to formally formally meet you. So I wanted to start off with an easy kill question for you. A little bit of background about who you are and what it was about urban fantasy that kind of drew you to the genre where you actually wanted to dabble in it.

Lindsay Buroker (02:34):

Sure. so I have always been a reader. My mom got me reading and like age two or three, because I was annoying her so much that like you need a hobby kid. So I was always making up stories when I was growing up, but I wasn’t really good about finishing them. It took me, you know, getting into the adult world and going, gosh, I wish I could be an author for a living to get serious and join a workshop and start finishing things. And that took a little while it was slow process, but in 2010, I published my first novel. It was just kind of the beginning of the Kindle age, because I was actually thinking I’m going to have to look for an agent. And I didn’t think that would go well since I wasn’t really writing anything they were looking for.

Lindsay Buroker (03:13):

And then, you know, all of a sudden it kind of blew up. People were like posting on their blogs. Hey, I’m making money, self publishing. So I went that route and I’ve pretty much stayed indie. I do have a publisher for my audio books and I’ve signed a couple of foreign rights sayings, but it’s been great. About 2012, I was able to go full time. I started with sort of high fantasy. A lot of that in the beginning, tried steam punk. I did a couple of S you know, kind of space opera series. And I dabbled briefly in kind of contemporary fantasy, but I abandoned it after only two books. I need to go back and finish that series. But yeah, this last series I did in 2020, I’m just publishing the last one in a couple of weeks here. The ninth book in depth before dragons is actually kind of urban fantasy. It takes place in the Seattle area for the most part and brings dragons and elves and doors and all the fun D and D kind of characters that I grew up with and wanted to, you know, I was like, if I’m going to do contemporary fantasy, I got to bring my dragons and elves into it.

Paul Sating (04:14):

Oh, absolutely. And as somebody who lives near Seattle, it was it’s real. It’s a really cool series, especially. Well, I mean, we’ll get into the book in a second here, but I do ha since you’ve got it on the front of my mind, I was out walking the dogs or maybe running and I was listening to it. Cause I like to do audio book as much as possible. And you have, I’m not going to give anything away folks. You’ve got to go check it out yourself, but you have a a portion of this, of a scene where you mentioned a military base. That’s like 20 minutes down the road. And I thought, God, that’s as a former military guy, that’s really cool for someone to give some love to the local base. And it doesn’t happen that often for me,

Lindsay Buroker (04:52):

It was fun. And I grew up in Edmonds actually, and I was planning to go back cause I hadn’t lived there for about 10 years. My parents retired and moved out of the area. So now I have to visit them in Arizona instead of Edmonds. So I was going to go up there and like actually going downtown and see all the things and kind of get reminded of everything. And then COVID happened as I was, I was, I had like a Airbnb and everything. I was going to go to Emerald, Emerald city, me and Rose city comic con last year. And well, that blew up. So I’ve been like Google using Google maps and the internet, just kind of, a lot of this story ends up taking place in kind of the suburbs North of Seattle, because I’m more familiar with like Woodinville Edmonton’s bottles. So people that are like, why isn’t this in cooler parts of the town? I was like, wow, I don’t know. It was, it was wow. There is some in downtown and Capitol.

Paul Sating (05:40):

You did you put a good, I thought you did well, I did that with one of my my first book of my Zodiac series and I live an hour less than an hour. Well, depending on traffic, less than an hour from Seattle and I still had to Google map it. So I don’t fault you at all. You haven’t been up in this neighborhood for awhile. I had to check

Lindsay Buroker (05:58):

Out to make sure gasworks park and Lake union still looked pretty much the same as I remember.

Paul Sating (06:03):

It’s funny how quickly, especially when you’ve got a place like this, it changes so quickly. So what was it because I interviewed with McLendon a few weeks ago, like you, he started his journey more on the Epic side of the fantasy spectrum and came back to urban Fanny fantasy, which I find not funny, like funny ha ha but ironic for me because I was dabbling in thrillers and horrors and I like them. I enjoy them, but I didn’t want to write them. I wanted to do fantasy. So as I was thinking about my conversion into fantasy, I wanted to do Epic, but for me, Epic is like the stuff you see behind me, you know, it’s those 800 page tomes and I wanted to do Andy. So it didn’t make sense. So for you, what was it that, was it a business decision or was it a matter of the heart that kind of brought you into the urban fantasy area?

Lindsay Buroker (06:54):

I actually did not particularly want to do urban fantasy because it’s very competitive, especially as indie authors, there’s just a lot of authors writing good books. And I felt like it was a little easier in sort of the Epic fantasy slash teen punk area where I’ve done a lot of stuff and I, they always recommend, and I recommend it to people that you really stick with one genre to build up a fan base because it’s just easier than asking people to like, Hey, I did Epic fantasy. Now I’m doing face offer. Now I’m going to do contemporary fantasy. You’ll get some people that will follow you for everything. But it’s, it’s easier. A lot of people just want more of what they already know. They like, and they don’t want to venture into other things, but it was just a case of the character, Val kind of coming to me first.

Lindsay Buroker (07:38):

And I just imagined her with this relationship with her therapist, you know, texting back and forth and stuff. And I was like, this is not really gonna work. I mean, you can do telepathy and things like that, but I just really saw her in his modern setting and I saw the opening scene, but I think you’re going to share with your podcast listeners where her Jeep gun ends up getting thrown up in the tree by the dragon that ends up being a main character as like, well, she’s got a Jeep, it’s got to be a contemporary fantasy. So from there I did try to read, you know, I kind of read the book one and two have a lot of the popular authors just to make sure I wasn’t completely out of left field. Cause I also drawn as a reader more to like the galaxy far, far away, then things set on earth. So I was like, well, it’s not going to be exactly like their stuff. But I know I had a lot of readers already that were fans of Ilana Andrews. And I thought, well, it’s kind of in that vein. So hopefully I got it right.

Paul Sating (08:30):

Yeah. I thought it, I thought it worked well. And I loved the I liked the Jeep and the, you know, the callbacks to the Jeep from time to time. So let’s talk about that first book in the, in the series and it’s sinister magic and it’s from, it’s in the death before dragons series, which I’m going to have another question on later because you’ve done something as an so for those of you who are authors or aspiring authors, Lindsey’s done something really cool with death before dragon series. I’m going to ask her about in a second. But sinister magic. What, what is it? What can, what about Val? Who is she? What’s what, what is her conflict? Why does she exist? What does she after or what’s after her?

Lindsay Buroker (09:10):

I would, I think she would say she’s just kind of a normal, you know, geeky, maybe slightly geeky, half elf assassin. I mean, that’s a normal game that you have in a fantasy novel. She was in the military. I was actually in the army for four years, myself. So I kind of know a little bit, I mean, it’s kind of fuzzy now. It’s long enough in the past, but I know a little bit about that. And one of the side characters, Willard, the boss that she contracts for as a Colonel in the army. But yeah, she’s just her, her goal is like the series starts, she’s having some health issues. And so her doctor and therapist are like, okay, you need to learn how to relax. Maybe have a little less stressful life. Maybe don’t kill as many people, but that’s sort of the, one of the, you know, internal conflicts.

Lindsay Buroker (09:55):

And she’s also got a daughter and an ex-husband a teenage daughter that she wants to like she’s kept away from them because her business, you know, it was very dangerous. She gets assassins of targeting her as revenge stuff a lot. So she’s really tried to keep her family at arms length. But if that bothers her, you know, and it’s something as the series goes on, we get to see her kind of developing a relationship with them again. And I thought that, yeah, a lot of the urban fantasy, I did read focused on characters, heroines that are maybe like 22. And so I thought, well, I can’t write anybody young. You should’ve seen me on Google. What do teenagers say? Cause the teenage daughter has to be like saying, Oh, this is Gucci man. Like I had to try to get the slang that is actually being used out there.

Lindsay Buroker (10:43):

So I just, I couldn’t really write a hero in that age as I, well, I’m gonna write somebody that’s my age, but I’ll make her a half elf. So she’s a little, she has a longer lifespan, but no, it was just fun. And I I’ve had a lot of readers thank me for like a character. So a lot of my readers tend to be like 30 and up more so than teenagers. I don’t know if that’s just how it is on the internet these days, or those are the people with the disposable income that are buying books on Amazon maybe. But that seems to have be the folks that gravitate gravitate towards me. So I wanted to do a character. I felt I could write and a character that they would relate to. So I’ve gotten some good feedback or just, you know, thank you is like, Hey, we’re, we’re super excited to have a character that’s actually dealing with like having a teenage daughter.

Paul Sating (11:27):

Well, and it’s nice, you know, it’s all about that. Well, I shouldn’t say it’s all about relate-ability but relate-ability is a huge thing. And a lot of people, like you said, there’s a lot of youthful, main characters out there in the genre. So yeah, it is. I absolutely agree. So let’s talk about the series. And because I’m pretty proficient, I wrote a fifth book in my series in December in 18 days. Finished it from ward one to the end. And so far in 2021, I’ve got a trilogy I’m going to jump into, I finished the first two books first draft, obviously, and I’m almost done with the a third book. I’ll actually should knock on wood, finish it after our interview today. And so I get told quite often, I don’t know how you write so much and then I try to help people.

Paul Sating (12:14):

But then I look at people like you and I look at your Amazon page and it blows me away. So folks, if you don’t know, we’re talking about sinister magic is our first book in the death before dragons. It released February of 20. I’m doing this interview with Lindsay in February of 2021. And what did she tell you at the beginning? The last book in the series book nine is coming out. All right, Lindsay, how this, like as eloquent as I can be, how do you do nine books in a series? And I’m sure you wrote wrote ahead and whatnot, but whatever you feel comfortable sharing, I’d love to know, you know, that work-life balance how you were able to do it. And keep that balance keeps things fresh because I hear that a lot from series writers, they start hating their characters. So how did you do that?

Lindsay Buroker (13:03):

So I have been full time for like the last eight years. So anybody that is trying to fit writing in between like having kids and working a full-time job, you know, they’re just going to roll their eyes and they’re like, well, that’s not realistic, but so I have the luxury at this point of having the whole day basically. I mean, I have to do admin stuff and you know, the marketing and getting covers and all that too. But so I do have several hours a day that I can write most days. So that’s part of it. And I’ve just gotten more efficient with more novels written. I always tell people, my first one took me about seven years to actually from conception to publishing it. I stopped, there were some breaks in there. Those were the world of Warcraft years, which may not be most did not have a lot of productivity going on.

Lindsay Buroker (13:48):

And then the second book took about a year. You know, I was putting these two workshops at the same time. So a lot more time on the editing. And it was just kind of gradually, you know, I got inspired by other people in the, in the author community that were podcasting and saying, yeah, I did my 6,000 words today before we recorded the podcast at one. And I was like, wow, I’m slacking off. I think at that point I was writing about 3000 words a day when I first went full time. That was my goal. And it was a thousand words a day before that. And I think a lot of it is to getting better at writing a first draft that doesn’t need as much editing. I started out as a pantser gradually became an outliner. And I just realized that when I outlined first, I’m a lot less likely to have to rewrite complete scenes or cut things and veer off in another direction.

Lindsay Buroker (14:35):

You know, the first book I wrote it, I, it took me a while to realize the ending was not there. I think I had to rewrite the last eight chapters of the book among other edits and changes. And that wasn’t even my first novel. I had written a couple before that that will never see the light of day. But so a lot of it is just having the time to do it. You know, I have been self-employed in one way or another, since 2003 or show. So I’ve learned, you just got to get stuff done. It’s almost better when you go full-time and you depend on it for a living because when it’s a hobby and you don’t know yet, if you’re going to like get a publisher or be able to make any money, it’s completely your passion for it. As a hobby, that’s driving you this, your motivation, maybe you think one day, okay, I could have fans, I can have a publisher that the point where it becomes your day job and you’re relying on that income, I think it’s actually a little easier to just knuckle down and do it.

Lindsay Buroker (15:30):

Not that there aren’t days where you’re like, Oh, Twitter is extremely fascinating today. I get all the things that are trending that I probably need to check out. Some days you just got to like turn off the wifi on the computer and not let yourself get distracted.

Paul Sating (15:44):

Yeah. And if, if folks don’t follow you on Twitter, they might, I don’t people who know me know, I don’t like Twitter. I, I pop in there. I try to be social. Right. I don’t use it as a sales vehicle. I use it as a, get to know Paul vehicle. And because I like a lot of your stuff, you all the algorithm always pushes your tweets, obviously in my little timeline. And I still look at that and I go, how does she do all of this when she’s this proficient on Twitter as well? It’s remarkable.

Lindsay Buroker (16:11):

But I only post like four or five things on there a day. I probably wouldn’t be on Twitter, except that I have a, my beta readers who have become friends in real life. And we’ve done lots of stuff together. We actually have a DM chat just going who’s the time. So half the time I’m on there, it’s just because I’m popping in and like, Hey, what are you guys doing? Or, you know, share something like, why are the characters doing this horrible thing? They’re, they’re not doing the right thing. So I, don’t not sure I’d be on Twitter otherwise, because it’s not a big seller of books for me, Facebook doing the author page on Facebook has been a lot more worthwhile as far as like I, you know, I use the affiliate links on Amazon to actually see how many books I sell from posting on the author page on Facebook.

Lindsay Buroker (16:53):

And it’s actually like my number two behind my newsletter above any of the paid stuff. Like even, I mean, BookBub would be an exception, but most of the sites don’t drive that many sales, but I’ve got a lot of people that will follow me there that aren’t, I mean, some are also on the newsletter, but the Facebook’s like where the breaking news happened. So it’s been, I have a love, hate relationship with Facebook. I barely use it on my personal account, but it’s been worthwhile as an author to have that and post and post four or five little things.

Paul Sating (17:25):

It’s one of those things with a big learning curve. But if you can start unlocking at least incrementally you can start seeing some pretty nice momentum. I haven’t unlocked all of it at all by any stretch of the imagination, but I swam against the tide with those other vehicles that you’re kind of talking about too. And I never gained anything. It all seems Facebook seems to have that magic algorithm.

Paul Sating (18:52):

So how did, okay, so I’m really curious. I don’t want to fixate on it for too long, but that is something that I hear quite often from folks is about that. And I don’t want to, Jade is saying someone is jaded, comes with a lot of connotations, but was there a point when you became jaded, how long did it take you to get from the, you know, that first draft of book one to when you signed off on book nine, and was there anything that you did mentally or, or structurally in your writing habit to keep that world fresh for you?

Lindsay Buroker (19:27):

I think I try to just, I gave myself a lot of potential villains. You know, I didn’t have like one, I think that’s one thing I, as a reader, when I’m reading a series and it’s like the same villain that they can’t kill that you’ve told me back again. And I’m like, I’m like, I love like Firefly when Malai kicks that guy into the jet engine at the end, I was like, Oh, I’m going to love this guy. He just got rid of it, you know, instead of having the same villain, keep coming back. So each story there’s sort of a thread she’s got to deal with the dragons versus AV and then his family. So that is a thread. There are some things that are continuing arcs that go throughout the series, but I definitely try to have kind of different plots and different stories in each one.

Lindsay Buroker (20:07):

And since she’s the main character, I, I guess everybody has a main character, but I’m, since I came up with her first, I really have built the plots around her and like what she’s trying to achieve in her job. Whereas sometimes like with Epic fantasy, what are my star kingdom series is very, I came up with the characters first, but it was very driven by the plot. So sometimes you get, you have to make the characters, you’re trying to like fit them into the plot. And it was just very organic. The stories just came along pretty easily plus, and here’s the real secret, right. Something more complicated first. And then when you go to, like, for me not to say urban fantasies simple, but because I chose first person, there could really only be one storyline they’re much simpler novels than like the space series.

Lindsay Buroker (20:56):

I was just talking about, had like seven POV characters by the end and multiple storylines going on at once. So that actually made deathly four dragons. So like, I’m this like delightful, you know, the books are only like 80,000 words. This stories are pretty simple. One few of you character. So they were kind of a reprieve for me cause I was also finishing up the other series at the same time. So I don’t know, like if you’re stuck on anything, like if any of your listeners are doing Epic fantasy, which we talked about, and it’s just a kind of feeling like a slog and I was like 200,000 words. And when is, when is it going to end sometimes doing something just real simple, you know, it can be almost a pleasure in itself, almost a reward. So I was like, especially at the end of the started kingdom series, I was writing one of those.

Lindsay Buroker (21:44):

Cause they ended up being about 150,000 words at the end with all the POV characters and then I’d go write three and the death before dragon series. And it would just be like, and then after that, I’d be ready to go back to something else. So that, that worked for me. It was good this last year with COVID that I was stuck at home anyway, it actually ended up being a pretty prolific year for me. Like I always write a lot, but it’s like, well, I can’t take any of my, I usually go to like 20 books and Vegas, you know, Nick and Florida, some of the writer’s conferences out there. So I usually have some trips and things to break up the year a little bit, but I was like, well, I’m just stuck at home. So I’m just going to work. And then when we’re free again, then I can take some vacations.

Paul Sating (22:27):

What is your like average, roughly word count day? Are you a seven day, a week hard structure person?

Lindsay Buroker (22:35):

I tend to write pretty quickly and quite a few words a day when I’m working on the rough draft and same thing when I’m editing and then take breaks in between the project. So I try to get them done as quickly as I can. I maybe like 6,000 to 10,000 words a day, pretty typical for a, you know, a new book or a book in the progress in progress. And that’s just my preference. I really, I find that if I take a couple of days off in the middle, I have to like get back into it after we read what I wrote the day before, you know, a few days before. Whereas if I can just write it as quickly as possible, it’s just sort of, I don’t know about flow state and all that, but it’s kind of like, that is like the movie will be playing in my mind and it’s just really easy.

Lindsay Buroker (23:19):

Well, not really easy, but easier to continue on versus like taking the weekends off or sometimes it doesn’t work perfectly. Like I may have to go over edits on something else, take a break for that. Then my editor sent back, you know, and that’s, that’s fine. But my, my preferred thing is just kind of right. Start day one, knock out 10,000 words right away. I usually get harder towards the end. So I slowed down a little bit at the, but it’s kind of like Nana, Nana Ramo, they get ahead, you know, and then you slow down at the end maybe, but yeah. So I try to do it as quickly as possible. And I actually find often not always, but often there’s less editing needed on the ones that I wrote more quickly because they were just a came out more quickly. I often have to, what I do is think about the next two or three scenes, like the night before.

Lindsay Buroker (24:09):

So even though I’ve outlined, I, then there’s sort of like, you then have to plan each scene in more detail. My outlines are just kind of bare bones. And that helps me too. If I know exactly what happens in the scene that I’m about to write, it comes out a lot more quickly. I always recommend to people, you know, there’s that advice? Just write something, you know, like, no, go figure out what happens in the scene. First, take a walk, do a jog, you know, drive whatever you gotta do shower. I don’t know. Authors love to come up with ideas in the shower, figure it out and then sit down to write it.

Paul Sating (24:40):

And that may, and that makes sense that your, your outline or your structure sounds a lot like mine and I can totally, I the best thing I ever did, I was out we’ve got beaches here. Believe it or not folks in Washington state. And I was out, it never gets hot. They’re always like 71 degrees. But on a good day, I was reading a Hemingway book about a writing advice in one of Hemingway’s pieces of advice was to always stop at a, at a critical juncture. You know, somebody says something that’s been building up for a hundred pages or somebody punches somebody in the face and shocks at whatever that intense moment is, stop right there and walk away. It’s going to be hard to do, but it’s all about habit for me. Like you were talking about Lindsay, you know, writing quickly doing it every day, keeping that flow going.

Paul Sating (25:26):

And I found so for, if that on top of a Lindsay’s other advice, if that helps you at all might be something to work with as far as keeping the flow. And I agree with you as far as when it comes to just right. No, I agree. Having an idea know where you’re going in that scene. It’s so hard to look at a blank page, especially for newer writers. So one of the things I kind of want to delve into with you that might be a little 400 level for some folks. So folks, if you are just starting out your journey, just this could be a very entertaining question. Eh, we’ll see where Lindsay goes with us. For those of you who have published, especially those of you on the indie side, where you have that input into the processes and the presentation of your books.

Paul Sating (26:11):

Lindsay, one of the most interesting things that you’ve done recently with this series is when you, I don’t want to call it an addendum cause that’s not fair. But when you went and stretched out the depth before dragons and you added the secrets of the sword portion of that series, it still falls under death before dragons. And from a marketing slash branding standpoint, you did something that really shocked me. It really surprised me. And I’d love to pick your brain and have you share whatever insight you’re comfortable sharing. Because those covers, you can see that series. And then all of a sudden the secrets books come and it’s a marked shift and you still did it under death before dragons. And you know what you’re doing? So when somebody like you does that, you know, I do the little dog ears and I peek up and I wonder what went on with that. So how, however much you’re comfortable sharing. I’d love to know your thought process behind that.

Lindsay Buroker (27:09):

Well, this is actually no brilliance. This is actually going to be a warning to your listeners to make sure you have your cover art lined up like well in advance. That’s one of the challenges when you write quickly is I often will write quick, more quickly than like the cover art can be produced because those guys have lots of clients. So I actually, the custom illustrations that are used on the last three books, the secrets of the swords trilogy, which is essentially books, seven, eight, and nine in depth before dragons. And I, I wanted people to be able to find them, you know, cause they all on the same Amazon page and it’s the same characters. But the main reason for that was that I had commissioned that artwork before I actually started the series. So like October of 2019 from a great illustrator, her name is Louisa Pressler and she’s actually done some Ilana Andrews and some other really gorgeous artwork.

Lindsay Buroker (27:59):

She gets a model and use it. You know, I think that she takes pictures of the model and then makes it her own and gives it a fantasy setting. So she does people really well. I was super impressed, but I found out that’s kind of time intensive. And so she, you know, she got everything to me in time, but I didn’t realize that I was going to be writing the books as quickly as I did. And I kind of got to the point where I was like, Hmm, I’m going to be waiting on cover art. If I, if I use her plus I didn’t know if she’d want to do it. Like I originally wasn’t planning to do nine books. I thought five or six, I’m just trying out this urban fantasy thing. But I, as I wrote more and I enjoyed the characters, I was like, okay, I got to do these six.

Lindsay Buroker (28:36):

And maybe more beyond that, I knew I’d be waiting on the cover art. If I went that way in their beautiful covers too, I would have loved to use them for the first books. But so I contacted somebody else that I’d worked with before gene Mullica. He actually, he does really great covers too. He gets models at he’s over in New York. And so he has access to a lot of models and takes gives them costumes, fantasy costumes. So you get original people that aren’t on a ton of other comforters, like you get with stock photos and I’ve worked with him before. And I know because of his style, he takes a whole, he does this photo shoot and he gets a whole bunch of pictures and then he illustrates the background, but he can do that more quickly than like doing an entire painting of a person.

Lindsay Buroker (29:18):

Right. So I was like, Hey Jean, what’s your work schedule? Like, can you do some of these? And so that’s what he did. The first six. I was like, I still have these other amazing covers that I want to use as I am. Okay. I’m going to do three more. And they were definitely vow on the covers. I thought the artists did a great job really more authentic than the other ones because all those New York models like 22 and here’s Val health, half of them blood. So she does look young that is in the books. But just in the illustrations, I she’s a little older looking and I thought that was more authentic for her, but so that’s why I switched it. Wasn’t like, let me try some grand marketing plan. I wouldn’t really recommend that to people I’d recommend a consistency throughout a series and brand, but I had, you know, I was like, I’m going to use these.

Lindsay Buroker (30:07):

These are amazing. And I didn’t want to disappoint the artists by not using our artwork of course, either. So I, and I made it so in trilogy because I had finished, wrapped up the storyline around books six and I thought, well, the readers really want more. I have these amazing art, you know, this amazing art that I want to use. So I’m going to do another books, which is, they’re kind of the wedding books, you know, that’s that’s what kind of holds it together and also finding out more about the sword that she has throughout the series. But you only get teasers in the first six books about why is it the way it is so that those are the two things that were going to be the main plot drivers in the last three books. And so I did call them one, two and three to make it clear it’s kind of its own trilogy.

Lindsay Buroker (30:52):

And also if somebody was just browsing around and were like, Oh, this is book one. I can jump in here. That was sort of my plan. I’m not sure. I never really promoted that one individually. Like I don’t run any ads to it because that was the plan. But as I was writing it as I, I don’t think I can do this. I think they probably should have read the other books before jumping in here. But that was the thought process was possibly have a second place that people could come into the series. But like I said, if it wasn’t brilliant, it would recommend it. It was just a case of cover art and what I had.

Paul Sating (31:26):

That’s a good warning though. I mean that people can be surprised how long it takes you know, depending on who you go with and whatnot, but yeah, for those of you who are new or maybe you’ve dabbled in a trad before, and you’re checking out this indie thing and it’s not something you thought of seriously, seriously, if you find that person, you like, one of the questions you need to ask her to front is, you know, how long it’s going to take. I have to wait almost 10 or 11 months for mine because of the backlog too. So it’s something to definitely keep in mind at the end. Thank you, Lindsay. I was very curious about that. If you had some like very, you know, super secret advanced author tactic for that, and I was like, I’m going to copy this if this works. Sure.

Lindsay Buroker (32:12):

No, I don’t think so. My recommendation for people, if you do get to the point where you’re right quickly is probably just to stick with the stock photo stuff and the Photoshop manipulation, because usually those designers can do those pretty quickly. This was a bit like I’m kind of the point now we’re going to afford to spend more on cover art. And I want to, it’s a pride thing too. I was like, I want original models. I don’t want that. Same woman is on every third urban fantasy book or, you know, I have a, I have a fantasy kind of a fantasy mystery slash romance series I did. And the guy I picked, like, he’s great. He looks great for the part, but I was like, as soon on that romance novel, I’ve seen on that fantasy novel, it’s like, he’s all over the Kindle store and everybody’s covered.

Paul Sating (32:54):

Yeah, they do. There are a few of them that are very prevalent. Let’s just say it like that. That really are. So if you were to give somebody starting out or newer in their career, or just dabbling into this authorship, a piece of advice, what would Lindsay do? You know, what would 2021 Lindsey do to 2010 Lindsey? What would you do differently nowadays if you were back in that position?

Lindsay Buroker (33:23):

So I, I enjoy the stories I wrote, I’d write the same stories, but it didn’t know much about was marketing and selling books then. So I kind of had not very good covers for quite a while. This is like an ongoing theme with my author careers covers. So I don’t think I did myself any favors with the covers I had on the first series of my book. It was to be fair, harder to find cover designers back then it was really new industry authors actually needing their own cover designers, as opposed to just sending the manuscript off to a publisher. So I, and I learned along the way to that is actually, I thought I had these original stories. So I did kind of quirky blurbs for them to like highlight a little bit of humor, even though they were high fantasy. And those are usually I’m more serious blurbs and I’m not sure that helped anything either.

Lindsay Buroker (34:08):

I’ve since learned that you kind of actually like this, great. If you’ve got a quirky story and fun characters and it is a little different from the norm, but probably you should highlight the things that make it like the books that sell well, you know, go look through the top 100 in the Kindle store in your category and be like, okay, you know, checking, what are the covers look like? What are the blurbs like? And then, you know, you don’t have to make yours exactly the same, but it should probably fit. And then if it’s a little different inside, nobody’s going to care. As long as you have a good opening chapter and they enjoy themselves, they will have forgotten the cover and blur by the time they start reading. But so that’s kind of the big thing I learned is that people want more of the same, but just a little bit different.

Paul Sating (34:47):

Yes. Yes. That’s a great piece of advice. It’s the curse of the creative, isn’t it? That we want to be original and different. And we take that into the marketing side too. We have to have that unique cover and we have to have that unique, funny blurb. You’re absolutely right. Okay. So I don’t want to hold you because I know you have things going on, but I do want to ask you a couple more quick questions, maybe a little more fun type of question. Everybody who is a patron sees my bookshelf behind me. So secrets are revealed what Paul reads. What about Lindsey? What’s currently on your bookshelf? What are you reading or what are you waiting to get to, to read?

Lindsay Buroker (35:24):

I actually just picked up Brandon Sanderson has a Saifai series. And I didn’t know that, and I haven’t read his fantasy yet because they’re so long. And like I have way more patients as a kid than I do now. I’m kind of like, if I see something’s over 405 pages and like, all of those characters is going to take forever. So I think it’s called Skyward. I just started it. Yes, I think. Yeah. So I was excited and it’s only 400, 500 pages. So you can’t kill any chihuahuas with his, like, I’m cute. I love that. As soon as you said Chihuahua, do you have your company there? Yeah, that came early. Okay. No, that’s totally fine. Folks, we need to cut it off here, but Lindsay, where can folks find you if they want to check you out and check out your books? Lindsayburoker.com would be great or I’m on Amazon.

Ep. 7 with Urban Fantasy Author Whit McClendon

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In this episode, Paul Sating interviews urban fantasy author Whit McClendon. Whit writes The GrimFaerie Chronicles, a series about a hunter and a witch who team up to protect humankind from evil Fae.

Find Out More About This Week’s Featured Author

Buy Grim Undertakings on Amazon: https://geni.us/grim1

Find This Author on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whitmccauthor

Transcript of This Week’s Author Interview:

(Note: This is a machine generated transcript, so please excuse the typos. ~MDM)

Announcer (00:00:01):

Welcome to The Urban Fantasy Author Podcast! From indie authors to trad-pub, gritty contemporary fantasy to lighthearted urban fantasy, masquerade to unmasked… Every week, we’ll bring you new authors and novels from the world of urban fantasy publishing. Now let’s introduce this episode’s featured guest.

Paul Sating (00:00:24):

Hey everybody. Welcome to urban fantasy author podcast. I am not MD Massey I’m fellow author, equally shaven headed, and just as good looking urban fantasy author, all sating author of the Zodiac series. It was my great pleasure for MD to ask me to come on board this podcast and help him do some of these interviews. I’ve got 10 years of podcasting experience and I’ve recently retired. My writing podcast called horrible writing, even though I still have one podcast out there called audio fiction, but I was more than excited at MDs invitation. And I’m more than excited to have met you and be able to bring you some outstanding interviews starting today with this first episode with urban fantasy author, Whit McLendon.

Paul Sating (00:01:14):

So let’s get into wit’s interview with McLendon was born on Halloween in Freeport, Texas. He grew up in Angleton, Texas and was active in martial arts track and field and playing the clarinet in band one year at Texas a and M proved that lacrosse was far more fun than electrical engineering. And he eventually graduated with a degree in engineering design graphics from Brazosport college. After working in the petrochemical field as a CAD drafter for many years, we finally realized his life’s dream of becoming a full-time martial arts instructor. Now lives in Katy, Texas plays lacrosse as often as possible and runs Jade mountain martial arts. It lasts a lot more now than he did when he worked at an engineering firm. Let’s get into the interview.

Paul Sating (00:02:06):

I’ve told people in the introduction who you are, so I want to jump right in and welcome you to the show. Welcome to be in my first guest on the urban fantasy author podcast. Thank you. Hey I’m honored and thrilled to be here. I’m glad to have you. And I’ve been stalking you out there on the, you know, the big bookstore in the sky kind of have an idea of who you are and what you’ve got going on. But I was wondering, I was curious, give us a little bit of background on who you are, but specifically since you know, this is an urban fantasy author podcast. Why in the world urban fantasy?

Whit McClendon (00:03:00):

Well let’s see. My name is Whitton McLendon. I live in Katy, Texas. It’s just outside of Houston. I run Jade mountain martial arts and martial arts school out there. And Katie have for nearly 20 years out here or Epic fantasy was my first love, I mean, comic books when I was a kid and Lord of the rings, Dennis McCarran and just a, a Conan, I mean, Oh yeah. Conan. And so I always loved that kind of thing. And I used to write stories in junior high and high school just to amuse myself. I got a couple of little awards from a literary magazine and in high school, but I never really thought about writing anything beyond that. And the early nineties, I got ticked off at an author because I was trying a new author. He had tons of books and I bought the first two of his first trilogy and I got irritated and said, man, I gotta be able to write better than this guy. It took me 20 years and I gained a new level of respect for what it takes to be that guy.

Whit McClendon (00:03:50):

And so cause he turned out book after book and I was like, I go blue. So so I turned out my first Epic fantasy in 2014 and it’s been about a book a year ever since the urban fantasy came about. I just had this idea for a scene, which is usually how my books come to life and I started writing the scene and then put it away and then somebody suggested, Hey, why don’t you do NaNoWriMo? You know, it’s fun. Yeah, it’s fun. They said. So so I, I went ahead and pulled that concept out and I managed about 30,000 words. But it wasn’t you know, it wasn’t near to the end of the book, but by then I picked up some steam and I was enjoying the character and enjoying what was going on and went ahead and finished it out. And that became my first urban fantasy. It was grim undertakings book, one of the Grimm fairy Chronicles. And I just I liked it and people liked it. That was a pleasant surprise for me. People really seem to enjoy it. And so I wrote another one and I’ve got a third one that you know, that’s my newest release.

Paul Sating (00:05:00):

It’s interesting to me that you went from a Epic over to urban that’s because, and I haven’t shared this with you, but I’m doing the opposite direction. My heart is being called by the Epic journeys and you know, the battles in the worlds and all that stuff. But like you I’ve always, you know, for, at least for me when it comes to Epic fantasy, I think that I cleaned the, that word Epic and I picture, you know, the, the six to 800, 900 page tomes that I want to write. No, it is absolutely. It is. And it’s not very how shall we say responsible for, for an indie author. Who’s trying to make a career out of this, you know, trying to pump out 900 page books, you know, I can get away with shorter books with urban. Yeah. So that is interesting.

Paul Sating (00:05:53):

I do have a question cause I want to dive into your series here, but I, I see you on camera. My patrons, see you on camera as well. We know you’re in a Stu, a martial arts studio here. You, you teach all kinds of physical combat stuff. So in my head, this doesn’t make sense is big tough guy teach, teaches the physical combat arts for a living. And then he’s writing urban fantasy about fairies. So chicken and egg martial arts and fairies. What came first and how in the world did you put those two together?

Whit McClendon (00:06:23):

The, the I’ve been doing martial arts since I was 12. And I knew from day one, I wanted, I wanted to be a seafood, you know, a traditional Kung Fu instructor. And I pursued that. I took the long road, but, you know, I finally managed to get my own school. So the martial arts definitely came first in, in some ways, even though at that time I already loved reading fantasy, but in terms of writing it, it was just kind of a natural thing. I mean, you know, you write what you know, and you know, I, I feel really fortunate in that I’ve been trained in both traditional Chinese Kung Fu with, you know, swords and daggers and PSI and big giant, you know knives with long handles, all kinds of fun stuff. But at the same time, I’ve also trained in what some would say more applicable arts in terms of actual fighting such as, you know, Krav Maga and Brazilian jujitsu and judo and all of that stuff, which made the traditional stuff more accessible.

Whit McClendon (00:07:25):

Like, Oh, that’s what this is for. Oh, that’s what that’s for. And so it created kind of a really interesting body of techniques both traditional and you know, like, like street self-defense to use in the writing, because if you’ve got Epic fantasy, you’ve got urban fantasy there was going to be fighting. And in both, there are opportunities for bladed weapons for, you know good old fist to cuffs and punches kicks and elbows. And in the urban fantasy though, that’s where we bring in the guns. And so it was really fun for me to be able to talk about, you know, how to take the guns away without being super technical, but still being real in how you would deal with someone with a gun close far, whatever. And so it’s been so much fun to kind of put all of that into the stories to, I hope give them a certain sense of realism with the action.

Paul Sating (00:08:27):

You balanced that as as somebody who you, you know, you’re pursuing the professional authorship aspect, but you also run the studio. I find that I I’ve read some authors that you can see their life’s passion kind of bleeding into their stories because they overdo it. How have you found this, a technique that you’ve used to kind of like, Hey, Whit pumped the brakes. You’re, you’re going a little geek on the reader because maybe the reader need all that. They might want some of that. Right. But so is there anything that you’ve, have you even noticed that about your, or maybe your work?

Whit McClendon (00:09:03):

I try to be careful with that because as you know, I mean, I’ve, I’ve been a teacher for forever at this point. And, and I recognize that there’s a tendency when you know, something really, really well, and you’ve known it for a long time. You might accidentally expect that someone else knows the same things, you know, and they don’t. I mean, they don’t, you know, there’s, there’s so many people walking around that look very tough, but they, they literally do not know how to throw a one, two punch with anything resembling good technique. You know, they’ll filling something out there that could hurt you. But as far as technique goes, they’ve simply never been taught. Right. And so when I’m writing, I really want to be careful to describe the action well enough that someone can get an idea of what’s going on and somebody can tell, yeah, this sounds, that does actually sounds technically right. Without bogging it down. So that it slows down everything because, you know, that’s, yeah. I could geek out about, you know, exactly what, you know, Oka you’ll get up like this and then you turn it and then you’re, you know, it’s like, you could do that, but I try not to, I really want to get the action going, get it moving, but still have it feel good, feel right.

Paul Sating (00:10:16):

Is there a difference in your Epic versus urban descriptions in those fight scenes then?

Whit McClendon (00:10:22):

Oh yeah. Well, you know, firstly in the Epic fantasy, no gums, you know, you don’t have to take those things away from somebody. And I tend to have my urban fantasy is written first person, you know, from the main character’s point of view with a little bit of a third person, if it shifts a viewpoint to someone who is somewhere else. But then the, the Epic fantasy is all a third person. And so I tend to be a little bit more formal in the Epic fantasy as I’m describing the action. I don’t want to sound too pretentious. I just want it to be, to be in that fantasy feeling. You know, I want my readers to feel like, yeah, this is fantasy. And then the urban fantasy, I want them to feel much more like, well, yeah, well this is real life, except there’s a, there’s a monster there, you know? And so I’m trying to balance those two things.

Paul Sating (00:11:15):

It’s a different mindset, right? Like you and I both share that love for Epic and urban fantasy. And when I sit down with an Epic, I want you to explain the way you cook the meal. I don’t want the McDonald’s dropped on my plate, whereas urban fantasy, right. Just give me the food. I just want the food. Right. And there’s something, there’s something about that experiential submersion in Epic that we can get away with it. We can’t necessarily get away with it with urban fantasy or people would just kill us about the pacing of stuff.

Whit McClendon (00:11:46):

Absolutely. It’s well, when everybody, when it’s in present day you know, everybody knows you know, everybody knows a drive through is, you know, and so it’s like, it’s a little easier to gloss over some of those mentions of things that everybody already knows about. Whereas in a fantasy setting, you know they want to know more about the whole situation, you know, where is it, what does it look like? What’s it like to be in this? What is in actually an alien environment, although it is also familiar because so many of us have, you know, been immersed in medieval fantasy for so long.

Paul Sating (00:12:21):

Right. So let’s talk about the, this mixture then. So you’ve got this background in the, in this passion for the art martial arts combat sports. How did you get to Fay in creating this kind of, you know, tough guy, tough Gail Fe story. Was it just a moment of inspiration or did you deliberately go out and see what fantasy race species can I grab and mix this in these two worlds? You know,

Whit McClendon (00:12:53):

It really wasn’t anything like that. I am, I am so much pantser okay. Like they’re really, I get picked at, by some of my friends that are like, you could plot a little, no, I can’t. And so most of what I write is very much like I’ve got a YouTube channel going on in my head and when the connection’s good, I’m just reporting what I see. And I have the luxury of being able to change it later, if it doesn’t fit. Sometimes the connection is a little more spotty and then, you know, staring at a screen hoping for the best. And so it really, wasn’t a conscious effort on my part to blend, you know, okay, I want a Berry creature, but I want him to use martial arts or, you know, there, there was nothing like that. It was more that the CRE the, the Kane, the main character in this he appeared, you know, kind of fully formed and I followed him on his adventures.

Whit McClendon (00:13:47):

And it turns out that he is a, basically a Fe assassin who keeps the balance between light and dark by taking out some of the, some of the bad guys before things get too bad. And he, he doesn’t really use a lot of martial arts. He has claws and fangs and certain magical abilities, and he’s, you know, kind of a nasty character for a good guy. But the people that he meets there’s a a witch that he meets in the first book and she is a tough Texas girl, a two gun Toten, which, you know, and she loves her firearms and she loves her magic and, and she’s a lot of fun. And that’s where I get to explore a little bit more of what we see is martial arts, because she’s been trained, you know, she likes to kick and she has to know how, and so

Paul Sating (00:14:40):

For, for the series of talk, I mean, we can talk about that, jump into the Chronicles now that take on fairies. I, what inspired that? I’ve always that

Whit McClendon (00:14:53):

That’s a really interesting society, you know, and, and I mean, the cool thing about urban fantasy, there is so much material to draw from in terms of you know fantasy creatures legends myths so much stuff, you know I, I feel like Jim butcher has done a fantastic job in that kind of thing, you know, but it’s like, ah, w when I was looking at my face society, I’ve kept it at a very surface level so that I can explore it myself as we go and then start, you know, kind of laying out relationships and hierarchies and different things. Like at this point, Cain takes his, or his marching orders from the goddess from basically mother nature. And, you know we don’t know very much about the rest of his face society. But I can feel a lot of that burbling around in there and it starts to starting to want to come out

Paul Sating (00:15:54):

Those pesky stories. They do that to us

Whit McClendon (00:15:56):

Do that. Yeah. So

Paul Sating (00:15:59):

They do you have a world concept that you’ve, that is rumbling around in there in the head that your readers haven’t seen yet, that you are planning on getting to, at some point in the series, does a world get bigger and bigger? It does.

Whit McClendon (00:16:17):

As I, as I’ve progressed, I’ve gone through three books and I’ve managed to introduce a few new characters there in this the second and third books, I introduced a female detective who probably has some faith in her bloodline because she is intensely powerful with magic, but has suppressed it. So as she wouldn’t seem different but now it’s to the point where she’s having to be taught how to use it, otherwise it’s dangerous. But she, she’s an awesome character. I really like her. And there’s, there’s a werewolf character, basically, he’s the King of a werewolf clan. And so as these new characters emerge, bad guys and good guys it allows me to kind of fill out those ranks of the society within the books. And I’m starting to see opportunities and stories that, that, you know, that flesh, all those things out. And, and that’s so much fun. It’s just so much fun to explore those things.

Paul Sating (00:17:18):

When you start seeing the layers, it’s, it is a lot of fun. It’s one of those things that I mean, I don’t know how long of a series I could write, but like with the Zodiac series, you know, by default, you automatically think 12 books because of the Zodiac type of thing. And there’s a lot of people who say, I don’t know how you could even think to write 12 books. And now I keep saying, but there’s just so much, I haven’t even touched on yet. Right. I can see myself. There is, I was, I don’t know if you listen or read more contemporary, Epic fantasy, but if, you know, Terry Mann, Coors spell mongers series, it’s 12 or 13 books now. And I saw a recent interview with him that right now, notionally he’s, he, he said it was a 32 or 33 books.

Paul Sating (00:18:08):

I’ve never even imagined a 30 plus book, Epic fantasy series. That’s a remarkable. So let’s talk about with the writer that you’ve been guiltily admitted or not. So guiltily admitted that you’re a pantser. I am. Yeah. So kind of give us a, give a, you know, a lot of folks who will listen to this will be fans of urban fantasy as well, but there will be a lot of either aspiring authors, people who only consider themselves writers as a passion or people who are already published and maybe just interested in what other folks are doing. So what does your writing day look like?

Whit McClendon (00:18:45):

I have to fit my writing in, around my school’s activities. And so some days, you know, I’ve got classes in the morning classes at noon classes in the evening, and, you know, there’s other things that I have to do. I have, I have to get my physical training done. I have to get my own practice in as well as all the errands. And so it’s, it’s, I have to be really brutal with my time management to get any writing done at all, because, you know, it’s like the school is what pays the bills and the, you know, and I would love to kind of shift my writing and, and, you know, so that the writing is taking more you know, bringing in more income than that, but that’s a process, you know, and it takes a lot. So at this point, I’m, I’m managing my time really, really harshly so that I can, okay, I got 15 minutes, boom, I’m going to go, you know, so I’ll set a timer and I’ll do 15 minute sprints for writing. And then, you know, depending on what else is going on, maybe it’s going, well, I’ll keep going. Other times I’ll try and block out an hour or two in a row. And that’s like exciting.

Whit McClendon (00:19:49):

And so really it’s, it’s about writing when I can and making those opportunities. And so, because with all of the other stuff that I have to do, if I don’t prioritize, then stuff gets dropped off the list and then I get in trouble later. So being able to manage your time and plan when you’re going to do it, even if it’s in little bitty bursts, I mean, I wrote most of this third book and a little bitty bursts and you know, in the end it all came together. Okay.

Paul Sating (00:20:16):

Really encouraging because there will be a lot of people who will cling to folks like me who do those more marathon sessions and it can be, and I can understand it can be discouraging, maybe if you’ve only been writing for a few years or if you’re just starting out. So it’s really encouraging, even for me to hear somebody like you talk about you know, making that time and if it’s 15 minutes it’s, and that’s all I can do, it’s still 15 minutes. I get some more

Whit McClendon (00:20:43):

I have a couple of friends, one of them both authors. And one of I was she was talking about how it was difficult and whatnot. I said, look, just do a hundred words, just a hundred words and, and do your best and see what happens. And that ended up becoming kind of a joke between us. She’s like, I did my a hundred words and then I did 500 more, you know? And like, yeah,

Paul Sating (00:21:06):

I like how she gave you attitude about it too.

Whit McClendon (00:21:09):

Yeah. Attitude. She’s awesome. Yeah.

Paul Sating (00:21:13):

A number of us back in the day when I had the horrible writing podcast, I actually did an episode and it was called a hundred word day. And it was basically, I was trying to, I’ve got this theory right. Every day. Don’t give me an excuse. Why you can’t get words down. Yes. We’re all busy. Congratulations. Everybody’s got stuff going on, but you can write every single day. And I gave them an example of, you know, my average word count is between three to 5,000 words a day, depending on, and in context, I do this full time, so I’ve got more time for it, but there was a day when we had a family thing going on. So I got up a little earlier, I’ve jumped in here. I pound out literally a hundred words cause I was just struggling that day. And then I went and did important family stuff. Cause the, the stories can wait. Right. And it’s about keeping that balance. So I really liked that. You said that, especially in the context of what everything else you’ve got going on, I’m really curious how you shift that quickly. Is there any advice or any tips you could give us from the business mindset? You know, I’ve got the heating and air heating and cooling guy coming by the gym to fix a thing. And then you go right into that creative mindset. Is there anything that you’ve learned over the years to help you shift quickly?

Whit McClendon (00:22:27):

Almost everything that you want to be able to do is simply a skillset that takes practice and you will get better at it. The more times you do it, you know, it’s like, I wish that I could say, you know, it’s like, well, I come in here and I ring a chime thing and I get into, and then I hit it. But a lot of times I just don’t have time for that. And instead I pull up the document and I’d take a deep breath and let it out and be like, all right, I read the last page or so to kind of see where I am and then I’ll start the timer. And, you know, in the beginning I would get really frustrated because I only had so much time and then class would start or something. But now it’s like, I use those actively like, okay, 15 minutes. And that gives me like, see what I can get done in 15 minutes and then I’ll, I’ll get it done and then either go beyond it or because of my time constraints, I’ll just stop. But I will feel good about what I’ve done,

Paul Sating (00:23:24):

That self motivation, that self challenge. And then that learned behavior of doing it, doing it, doing it, getting through the suck. So let’s talk about urban fantasy, then I’m going to kind of shift into the genre itself. What is it besides the you said earlier, I can’t remember exactly how you started, but as something along the possibilities, right. There’s boundless possibilities in urban fantasy. What is it that drew you to it and that you’re, you’re doing it and you kind of want to play around with maybe experiment with going forward in your stories, whether it’s this series or something you’ve got planned.

Whit McClendon (00:24:00):

Well, you know I I’ve thought about that. And really the, the thing that keeps coming up for me is just, it’s, it’s fun, you know? I mean, it’s just so much fun to you know I have, I have my, my guys they’re, they’re going up into a, a skyscraper in downtown Houston, you know, and it’s like, well, the, there, there were quite a few supernatural issues in this tower because there are guards, you know? And so I just think it’s, it’s a really interesting and fun, you know, to turn a corner somewhere and then there’s a mountain troll. Oh yeah. And so, you know, being in an urban fantasy environment lets me do that. It’s like if you’re in an Epic fantasy environment and you’re walking around in the mountains well, and there’s a mountain troll, it’s like, Oh yeah, they warned me, you know, it’s but you know, you’re just going to the stop and go. You don’t necessarily expect like a Reaper to come out at you or some kind of a goblet and, and and that’s just fun. So I really enjoy that part of it.

Paul Sating (00:25:06):

It is a lot of fun to to play around with that and see the possibilities in the world, you know, that all the Epic fantasies always attracted me because they were magical and foreign and new. And I think that’s one of the things I appreciate the most about urban fantasy is that it takes this mundane world that we live in, where we’ve got the gray, concrete cities and, you know, technology, and then, you know, it could be very boring, but urban fantasy has forced us to see the fun that, you know, I’m with you

Whit McClendon (00:25:39):

On that. Oh yeah, absolutely. With you on that.

Paul Sating (00:25:41):

So let’s, let’s kind of get people to know who you are as a, as a person a little bit. What are you currently reading when you’re not busy doing a million other things that is right? What are you reading right now?

Whit McClendon (00:25:53):

Well, I, I kinda stepped into my, my youth a little bit here recently. I managed to find almost all of the red Sonja books David C. Smith, you know, and it’s just been so long since I’ve enjoyed those and that is nothing but swords and sorcery, you know, sandals and, you know, the most ridiculous armor that a woman would never wear, you know? Gosh. but in terms of the writing, it’s like, it is just, it’s pure candy for me. Yeah. And, and so I really enjoy that. And the last couple of things that I’d read before that I read Dean, thriller, the silent corner, very modern you know, with certain fantasy elements. And that’s something that I’ve enjoyed about Koons is stuff. A lot of times is that it’s a very, very real world, thoroughly research thing. And his writing is really colorful. But there’s always some kind of fantasy element in there. And it’s really well thought out. So I really enjoyed that. And Stephen King too, you know, he had some good stuff that I’ve read lately. Yeah.

Paul Sating (00:26:58):

Yeah. He I mean, tried and true his intro, we got so much, we’ve got so much in common when it comes to what we actually work on and what we actually read on the side too. I like, I love the darker stuff I always have. And it’s always interesting when you do urban, right. Urban fantasy, how those elements can kind of influence your fantasy world. For example, when you’re reading something like King and you know, you’ve got those heavy horror elements, if you will.

Whit McClendon (00:27:27):

I love that. You know, it’s like I, in fact, I looked back over my Epic fantasy and there are some pretty horrific parts in there as well. And it’s like, you know, it’s like, yeah, I know. I like the bloody stuff. Just a little, just a little,

Paul Sating (00:27:40):

Just a little bit. I I’m with you on that. I think one of the most enjoyable, I don’t know if you were a fan or not, but the Jordans wheel of time series Sanderson came on board and he finished that series in that had Hapic battle. I can’t even, I asked somebody once I’ve never looked it up myself, I think is actually I Google. Same, but that for those of you who haven’t read it, I’m not going to give away any spoilers, but there’s this massive, good versus evil battle thing in that scene. I don’t remember something like 500 pages long, just the scene itself. And, you know, you know, I liked the intense horror stuff, but man, if you can drag out the, the fighting and the blood and the killing, that’s good. And you can make it work, I guess that’s the key. Yeah, he did. He did that. Well, I couldn’t, I couldn’t Brandon, I can’t hold your a pen. So if you could do this all over again, if you could pick up the Quill for the first time, starting with books, zero again what would the aspiring author do differently? If he had that second chance?

Whit McClendon (00:28:47):

Oh man, I would jump into some indie publishing courses right away. It was, I I’d already, you know, I’d gotten the first book out and was working on the second and I don’t remember when it was sometime I think between the second and third, when I really started digging into some of the bigger courses out there that that really starts you from the ground up as far as like, okay, maybe I wrote something or maybe I’m thinking about writing something, what do you need to do to be an indie author? You know? And it’s like, well, you end up with a kind of a big checklist you know, get a website, social media presence, you know, you gotta write the book, you know, write the book how to get it up on Amazon or how to go wide. If you’re going to do that, how to think about mailing list, it’s all of these things.

Whit McClendon (00:29:37):

It’s kind of like when I was a kid and I, you know, day one in the Kung school and I said, I want to be a thief. That’s what I wanted. I want to be a kung-fu instructor. Nobody says anything about the desk work. You need to do all the other stuff that goes along with being a teacher of martial arts. If you run your own business and an author business is no different, you have to know or hire somebody and I’m not doing that. You have to know how to do all of those little things that make that your author business become a business. And I wish that I would have started that earlier. That’s the big thing that I would have done

Paul Sating (00:30:13):

Meat. I I’m, I think I’m absolutely, I’m still at that point you know, two years into taking this serious and I’m still just doing baby steps, you know, and taking those little nibbles of learning all of these things that you’re hinting at, because it’s just, you know, frankly it can be intimidating and I’ve been doing this, like I said, full time for over a year now, but seriously for the two years. And it’s just, I can see why a new person coming in would just be absolutely, you know, throwing in the towel before they even just overwhelming.

Whit McClendon (00:30:46):

Yeah. I mean, there’s, there’s so much to do and there’s so much information on how to do it, that that can also seem overwhelming, but you know, I’m a Kung Fu guy, you know, I’m, I’m used to starting at the bottom. It’s like, stand like this. Okay. Now do this now breathe. You know, it’s like, I’m used to starting with just the tiniest little things and then eventually, you know, adding as you go. So it’s like also, it will take me a thousand years if I started now, then, you know, I got a shot.

Paul Sating (00:31:18):

I mean, but that’s that, you know, that is so important to keep we, you and I spoke about mindset earlier and it’s, you know, about that, my you’ve got to have that practical mindset, or, or if you do, you end up throwing in the towel and being one of those folks who was going to try to write a book and then, you know, that was one of those things on your death bed. You look back and go, gee, I wish I had tried. So

Whit McClendon (00:31:41):

People ask me like at booths at the conventions, they would come up and say, I always wanted to write a story. And then they would spend the next 10 minutes telling me the story. And my comment is always the same.

Paul Sating (00:31:52):

Go home and write that start now. Exactly. No, I’m exactly with you. Yep. What what’s the future of Grimm fairy then? What can we expect coming from it?

Whit McClendon (00:32:05):

Well, and the third book, there is just a hint of romance going on in there. So that’s been fun to explore the feelings of the characters as things emerge. And also I got kinda hit in the face the other day with an idea for some of the characters. They’re more supporting characters, but max, who is the King of the werewolf clan you know, a billionaire businessman, a very noble character throughout the series. But I, I suddenly got hit with an idea or something where they are, he is the main character and it’s, it’s a pretty involved thing and I don’t know what to do with it. Somebody dropped this thing in my lap and I’m like, well, that’s not a grim very story. That’s a Maxim story. That’s a werewolf story, you know? And, and, and so I’m trying to figure out, I feel like I’m cheating on my Granbury right now. Like yeah, no, I, yeah. Let me get, let me just get back to you. I got a little thing and then I’m coming right back.

Paul Sating (00:33:06):

I swear. I just went to lunch. I just,

Whit McClendon (00:33:09):

So just let’s talk into the wearables just a minute. So as far as the grim period goes I don’t know exactly what he’s going to be doing next because I haven’t seen it. It just, you know, pops me in the face at some point, Oh, Hey, that’s what he’s going to do. But I know that he, and one of the characters are looking at their relationship. And so I’m kind of very interested to explore that. It sounds like it’s a lot of fun to me.

Paul Sating (00:33:33):

Do you, so do you let ideas percolate because you’ve talked about how even your friends give you a hard time about your pants saying if max doesn’t leave you alone for the next year, do you just leave max out there and just let it percolate? And then maybe two years from now he goes and has a side adventure, or are you one of those kinds of authors? I got to jump into Max’s thing. Cause he’s telling he’s screaming at me for attention.

Whit McClendon (00:33:58):

Yeah. That’s that I’ve started. I’ve made way more notes right now on Max’s stuff, his situation than on any new Grimm fairy stuff that could change at any moment, honestly, because I could be, you know, working away on some, on just making some notes on max and then all of a sudden power. Here’s a really powerful scene with the with Kane, the Grimm fairy and or Ariana, the witch or, or detective Avery Lynn, you know, it’s like something will hit me really hard and it will yank me right off of that other thing. And so it’s like, I let my creative urges run me around to a certain extent, but then I have to focus some admin skills to finish it out. If I don’t, then I’m just going to have a whole bunch of different story chunks lying around. And I won’t know, in a while, I, I don’t want 20 stories and I haven’t finished any of them. Yup. So once I get one going enough, then I will make myself finish that. And then the other one will wait,

Paul Sating (00:35:04):

There we go. All right. So there’s, it sounds like there’s plenty more to come from the world. Yeah. And all of his characters. All right. So folks who want to check you out, where can they find you?

Whit McClendon (00:35:15):

I am pretty easy to find. You can go to wit mclendon.com and there I am. Also I’m easily. Find-Able on Facebook. What McLendon author and personal Facebook page Jade mountain.org is my martial arts website, you know, and you’ll see me in there. I think I have a YouTube channel. But man,

Paul Sating (00:35:38):

I, I stink at YouTube. I’m still trying to figure that nonsense out Instagram as well. You know, it’s like, I’m, I’m on all the major things. I don’t, I don’t tweet though. I don’t, I don’t tweet well, so sorry. I’m just not good at that one. Yeah. Anybody who knows me will know that you, you know, I’m with you walking side by side and I used to be very heavy in it and I just, I can’t exhaust me and I don’t under, I’ve got a, my podcast get uploaded automatically to YouTube, or I probably wouldn’t know what to do with YouTube either. So, right. I have no idea. You know, it’s not really visually stimulating to watch an author type out a story. Yeah. So yeah, one of these days I’ll figure it out. I have no idea. Alright. So w I want to thank you for joining us.

Paul Sating (00:36:25):

It was, you were very gracious as my first ever urban fantasy author podcast, interviewee, you were very patient. I really appreciate it. And I actually am very excited to dig into some of your stuff and see what you’ve got coming out, especially as I get in there. And I started seeing how you mix the, the world, the, the races of the ferry and the martial arts stuff. I geek out about that stuff. So it’s going to be really interesting to dig into. I appreciate your time today. No, thank you. Like I said earlier, it’s an honor. I really appreciate the opportunity. And I’ve had a ton of fun.

Paul Sating (00:37:01):

I have as well. Again, urban fantasy author podcast fans. I am so humbled and appreciative that you have welcomed me into your show with open arms. And I want to thank MD Massey for not only allowing me to do this interview, but others in the future coming up, including my next one with Lindsay Buroker, if you want any more information on me or my books, just head over to PaulSating.com. Keep being epic.

Ep. 6 with Camilla Ochlan and Bonita Gutierrez

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This week M.D. Massey interviews Camilla Ochlan and Bonita Gutierrez, co-authors of The Werewolf Whisperer urban fantasy series. Click the play button to find out more about what this dynamic writing duo has in store for their readers in their latest release, Blood & Bones.

Find Out More About This Week’s Featured Authors

Latest Release: Blood & Bones

Camilla’s Website: https://camillaochlan.com/werewolf-whisperer

Bonita’s Website: https://bonitasgeekyblogfu.wordpress.com/

Transcript of This Week’s Author Interview:

(Note: This is a machine generated transcript, so please excuse the typos. ~MDM)

Camilla Ochlan and Bonita Gutierrez — Camilla Ochlan (L) and Bonita Gutierrez.

M.D. Massey:

Hello everyone. This is MD Massey, and I am back with another author interview for the urban fantasy author podcast. Today I have a co-writing team with me Camilla Ochlan and Bonita Gutierrez. Camilla is the owner of a precariously untamed imagination, and a scuffed set of polyhedral dice. And Camilla writes fantasy and science fiction. An unapologetic dog lover, and cat servant, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband, actor, audio book, narrator and dialect coach, PJ Ochlan, with three sweet rescue dogs and a bright orange Abyssinian cat. I flubbed the Ochlan there. Did you catch that?

(Inaudible discussion and laughter)

I got it right once and then I got it wrong. And you just told me that. And okay, so let’s move on to Bonita’s bio. She found a way to the stage at the early age of five after college, she moved to Los Angeles to get into the biz. Over the years, she’s played many roles from actor to producer, screenwriter, to filmmaker, and now novelist with a background in Jeert Kune Do, Bonita holds a black belt in kickboxing, MMA and trains in Kali and Escrima, which is stick and knife, fighting. An avid runner, student of film and lover of music, Bonita is a self-proclaimed hamburger connoisseur with a passion for all things Star Wars and Buffy. Camilla and Bonita, welcome to the show.

Camilla and Bonita:

Hi. Hey, thanks for having us.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah. Glad to finallychat. I can’t remember how I stumbled across your books, but I remember seeing them and thinking this is pretty interesting. So I downloaded the first book and I started reading it and I was like, “Oh, this is really good.” These ladies know how to tell a story. I can’t remember if I reached out to you or what, but yeah, we’ve been kind of communicating back and forth for a while. So it’s a pleasure to speak with you.

Camilla and Bonita:

I know it’s been, yeah. And then we had the whole martial art thing in common.

M.D. Massey:

That’s right. Yeah.

Camilla and Bonita:

We’re talking quite a bit. So no, it’s great to finally put a voice to the face.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I get to use my radio voice for the podcast, so, Yeah. So, so let’s start off with a little bit of background from you both. If you could if each of you could share a little bit about you know, how you get into writing urban fantasy your writing background, other than urban fantasy writing and so forth.

Camilla and Bonita:

Well I think the urban fantasy came really natural to both of us because we really love the genre. And that’s one of the things we, you know, we bonded over, you know, really early on. I’ve been writing for a long time. I did have a you know, I was writing more Epic fantasy and I was one of those writers who never finished anything. And some something finally something finally changed. I think I read someone or was all these writing books and someone that really stuck with me that, you know, the more you do it, you will get better. You will get better. And it’s something about that just took away that fear of, Oh my God, this is going to be so awful. And people are going to hate it and I’m not worthy. I’m not worthy.

Camilla and Bonita:

I’m like, well, if I keep doing it, I will get better. So I wrote a, I wrote a screenplay off of an idea I had had, and that was I call it a suburban horror story. And that gave me something in that gave me the idea for the world was for, and I shared that idea with Bonita and we were off and running. So yeah, I know that was for me it was well I acting or both doing acting two at a time. And Anna, the thing that I was doing was just trying to get my own work out there. So I was writing screenplays. I was writing my husband’s a screenwriter and he taught me a lot about screenwriting and gave me he kept saying, you should, you have such a good voice. You should get your own ideas out there and you get your own ideas out there. So I wrote a short film called Cantar awhile ago and produced it and shot it and went to film festival. And so that kind of gave me the feeling of go, okay. Yeah, that’s cool. I can, I can keep doing this. And then Camilla comes along with this idea and she’s like, Oh, could you read my script? And it was so good. I got to take, I can’t even tell you it was so good.

Camilla and Bonita:

It really was. It’s a great story. And we, and then originally we since we were both coming from screenwriting, we wrote it as a web series. We wrote it as, yeah, that was just for the world whispers. Like after we worked at, we worked on Camilla short film. And we, over that summer, then she’s like, Oh, I had this idea. And she wrote out like three episodes, three, three minute episodes of and then said, Oh, and had me over for dinner. And her husband’s a phenomenal chef. And we like had this amazing seven course dinner and it was a great, and then she was like, here, look at this. And so I started reading and she just said the title and I laughed so hard. I was like, I am so in on this. And we started sitting down that summer and we just print out like a whole season 13 episodes. And we had such a blast so much fun and we’re like, Oh, we can act in this and we could do this. This will be great. And then a friend of our friend, Stephanie Thorpe, who’s a she’s a media content producer. She’s like, Oh, let me look at it. And she was like, Oh, you know, this is going to cost probably about 50,000 an episode.

Camilla and Bonita:

Maybe not

Camilla and Bonita:

Since we had worked on it all summer, we were already developing so much more to the story and the world. And that’s when we thought, well, we could write a novel. That’s what Camilla thought, what do you think about writing this as a novel? This is all coming from our brain. I was like, I haven’t ever written a novel before. And I went, okay, sure. Let’s do it. But you’ve read about a million. I’ve read a million novels. I’ve read, I read I’m a voracious reader, but I was like, okay, all right. All right, let’s do it. Let’s do it. I can do this. And so

M.D. Massey:

And then you found out it was super easy, right?

Camilla and Bonita:

So easy to write. I’m one of the, one of the super cool things taking, doing the novel after having written the season or season and a half, we had an outline. We had quite the outline. So filling, filling that out was a lot of fun. And it was a, it was a lot of fun. It was fun writing the first book, just kind of explaining and making this world so much bigger than we, even than we even initially had thought it would be. And, and, and coming up with things and, and, and we’d come over to Camilla’s house and she lives up in the Tarzana Hills and we don’t have, we have a, well, she has a giant pack of dogs. They’re giant dogs. And I haven’t, I have a tiny little pug, so I’d bring my little tiny pug over with her giant dogs. And we walked down the neighborhood and start plotting out things. And as we walk the dogs, we plot out the werewolves.

M.D. Massey:

Nice. And you have to tell me, so these giant dogs, what breed are they?

Camilla and Bonita:

Well, they’re all rescues. One of them, I think we just call it LA Brown dog. So there’s have, and Elliott dogs all have pit bull in them. If you get them for a rescue and just a bunch of stuff, her name is Zuzu and she’s wonderful life. And she’s sweet. I have a house Siberian, Husky, half golden retriever he’s white. He looks like ghost from, from game of Thrones, he’s Lammy. And he has a very Lammy personality. And then we have the monster. We have a 90 pound Ridgeback Weimaraner mix, she’s awesome and a lot of work and a lot of fun. She’s great. She’s a horse. She’s very needy. They’re great. Bonita has her sweet little pug.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah. My wife is a, she’s a small dog person. I’m a large dog person. And so when we got our dog, which we lost last year, unfortunately it was time for her to, you know, she was sick. So we had to put her down, but a sweet, sweet, sweet dog. And she was 110 pound American bulldog and looked mean is, is, you know, the day is long, but she was just a sweetheart. Just the sweetest dog. Yeah. We miss her so much. So I love large dog breeds. That’s why I had to ask.

Camilla and Bonita:

I mean, yeah. I don’t care how large or small they are. They’re just, you know, sweet. But we got, we, I live in an apartment. So for me, it’s It’s easier to have a smaller dog.

M.D. Massey:

Oh yeah. If you hear the clinking, that’s, low-key drinking some water.

Speaker 4:

Nice.

M.D. Massey:

That’s good. No problem. We are dog lovers on the show. So I get to ask you both you know, cause I know you you’ve both worked in the entertainment industry to some extent. So what is it like working in Hollywood?

Camilla and Bonita:

Well, one, one of the things that brought me to writing and writing novels and being happier than I’ve ever been, it is it is all mine. It is all, it’s all my decisions. It’s all, there’s a great independence to being an independent author. And you know, the other side of, you know, then you have to market it, but the actual creating what I found with Hollywood as a, as an actor, you don’t get to act, you know, other people decide whether or not you’re allowed to work. So you spend all of this, you know, time training and this is your passion, all this great stuff. But the, and nobody works. You know, that’s the other thing it’s, you know, you’re, you’re not alone in your, I just can’t, I don’t, I don’t know what’s going on. You just don’t have control.

Camilla and Bonita:

And then as an actor, you know, film, the director has the control. The actor does not. And that’s also something I came to find out that for me, I don’t really want to say other people’s words as it turns out, I want to, you know, write my own. So that’s not a good thing for an actor. So that’s where sort of transitioned very happily. But I think it’s a really, it’s a fun to, I love LA it’s a fun town to be in the industry. You know, there’s so much creativity and everyone who’s involved in, you know, in whatever way. So many people make all of this happen. That it’s, I find it really exciting for me, for me. I don’t know. I, I love the, I, I, I don’t mind it. I don’t, I hate the auditioning process. So that’s the thing I hate the most.

Camilla and Bonita:

And of course that’s how you get jobs. But the thing I like is when you’re, I love being on set, I love, I don’t care in what capacity that is. I just love, it was just like how I was in theater. I love being in theater, whether it was on stage or behind the scenes. It’s just something I love being around that energy and being a part of it. I think that’s the kind of addictive thing of it. The thing I like Camilla says is you have no control over anything that you’re doing even, and even in the higher echelons or even the mid-grade echelons, it’s like, you are always looking for the next job which is not a bad thing, really. If you can be comfortable in being uncomfortable, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just the way it is.

Camilla and Bonita:

The thing with me is I love that collaboration and I think that’s why working with Camila. I mean, we’d known each other for many years and to me it’s the same as collaborating different medium, but collaborating in a play or profiting on a film it’s, it’s coming together and creating something, which is what I love. And that’s the thing that drives me. I like telling stories, whether it’s as an actor, whether it’s being a producer or whether it’s you know, shooting the thing or writing the thing or all of the things. To me, it’s just, for me, it’s just part of who I am as an artist. So whatever capacity that is, I’m happy to do it. There are things that, of course, in the Hollywood biz that just, you know, they work for some people and not for others, or it happens for some people and not for others.

Camilla and Bonita:

And I think the idea is to just keep finding your voice and keep putting it out there. And that’s what at least we tried to do and found, find a place to be happy. It’s almost, it’s almost like LA itself. There are so many different parts to Los Angeles to live. And, you know, people, when they first, when you first get here, it can be really depressing because it’s so different than anywhere else. You know, you may have come from, and until you find your corner of LA you’re, you’re going to feel unsettled. But after a while, everyone sort of finds their place, whether it’s, you know, downtown or the Valley, or, you know, silver Lake or, you know, all these different places you can go and you find yourself home. And it is home in this great, big, crazy place called LA. Yeah. Which is kind of cool.

Camilla and Bonita:

Why we, you know, made the wearable force for the virus that takes over happens in LA the backdrop for a fantasy story. That’s for sure. Oh yeah. Yeah. And there’s so many, you know, we wanted to we want it to show those places that we knew about. We know, you know, unless you’ve lived here for a few years, you know, you’re not going to know much about, and I’ve actually heard from other recent transplants that are like, Oh, I’m reading about them that I didn’t know about yet. And so I’m going to check that out. It’s in your book. I remember. Yeah. I remember. And I was reading Mercedes Lackey had, has urban elves series. This is before I moved to LA and she had the big confrontation take place in this place called Griffith park.

M.D. Massey:

Oh my God. There’s a park in the

Camilla and Bonita:

Middle of LA. So it was that same thing. Like, Oh, actually we have some stuff happening. Thank you, Mercedes Lackey.

M.D. Massey:

Well, you know, I find that you know, cause by books are set in Austin because you know, you write what you know, and yeah. So do I, I’ve been here

Camilla and Bonita:

Barbecue. Oh my God. I would fly in her . And just to go to,

M.D. Massey:

Hey, if you guys, Oh, let me tell you something. If you guys ever come out here to Austin, just look me up and I will take you out. I take all my friends out for the best barbecue. So,

Camilla and Bonita:

Well, I actually really want to visit Austin. My son, really, the only place, you know, a lot of people say my brother lives in Texas. So, you know, I have to go to Texas sometimes. No, I love Texas. So he’s up in Denton. So outside of Dallas though.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah. I, you know, honestly of all the large cities in Texas, Austin is the only one that I really care for. But what I, what I find is I find that people that are from the area or have lived in the area, you know, they’ll, they’ll readers will contact me and they’ll say, Oh man, you know, I really love your books. And it’s so much fun reading, you know, different scenes and trying to figure out exactly where they’re taking place and you know, people like that, they like those kind of geographic references and those reference points and their stories.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah. I grounds it. And reading and reading the beginning of, of your book that I was like, Oh, wait, he’s big. He’s there. Oh yeah. I can totally picture that. That’s really great. That’s fun.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah. Well, I, you know, someone, I want to talk about it, switch gears a little bit. Because co-writing is like all the rage in urban fantasy lately and Epic fantasy and science fiction and science fiction fantasy. I see others teaming up all over the place to co-write novels, but it seems like you to kind of did it from the start and almost did it like before it became cool.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah. Yeah. We’ve been doing it since 2012.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah. So you guys were ahead of the curve now. I’d like to know how your writing process works between the two of you. How does that, how does that arrangement work? You know, who does, who does the bulk of the writing? Do you switch back and forth? Who does the editing, you know, in outlining and et cetera?

Camilla and Bonita:

Well, I’d have to say that there’s not a word in any of the books that doesn’t have each of her fingerprints on it, between the outlining and the writing and all of that. So, you know, I, 50, 50 right down the line we do flip chapters and character point of views. But then the way we, you know, we outline, we talk about the story, then we go away ride whatever chapter, and then we bring the chapter back and together we go line by line. And yeah, we read, we read aloud, we read what, whoever wrote, what chapter, that person, the chapter, and then we’d go, okay, well I have this, that, and the other note. And then we, we make sure that the voices blend each chapter because you know, even to the, you know, now it’s, it’s really also come to the point where, you know, chapters and Lucy’s point of view and, you know, I’ll ride whatever and I’ll put into, you know, our, the chapter that I bring back.

Camilla and Bonita:

And so she says something because I know, you know, Bonita will have the perfect thing that’s so she says, or I can, you know, I can write the thing, whatever line and or whatever or whatever. So she would say, she’ll say she said something in Spanish. We figure out what she says. So yeah, so we, we sort of really worked through the entire book together and it wasn’t, I know a lot of people are teaming up now because they want to write faster. And I, you know, I totally, I totally understand that, but for us the process I, I would not have written this book on my own. I love working with Bonita. I love working with Bonita in the genre and it just, it wouldn’t have been possible. It wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. So so yeah. And the other side of that is we, we work hard to, I don’t want to use the word please, but I’m going to, I’m going to say the word please.

Camilla and Bonita:

The other person’s ear and sensibility, like, it is important to me when I’m writing a chapter that the Nita likes it, same here. I hope she likes this. So we have tremendous respect for, you know, for each other’s vision and, you know, to once in a while, you know, stuff doesn’t work. And yeah, we, we we’ll have moments where we like pitched each other ideas and we’re like, Whoa. And then you have to kind of either honor the idea or go, yeah, that probably doesn’t work. Or, but I think it’s about really having the other person on board and we’ve been doing it. I think when we first started way back then we were just trying to figure out how to do it together. You know, how to work that out together. But now I think it’s just kind of second nature in a way.

M.D. Massey:

It’s very, it’s what I find refreshing about this. The way you’re explaining your working relationship is that you actually teamed up to write a better story. And I’m not saying that other co-writing authors don’t, but, you know, as you were saying earlier that a lot of authors team up to write faster to, you know, prank stories out. And sometimes I do think that quality kind of gets lost in the shuffle because people are trying to feed the Amazon algorithms first instant, right.

Camilla and Bonita:

And they’re, you know, more power to them. I totally understand. But I, you know, I feel I want to be in this for decades, you know, this is the law, this is the long game for me. So, you know, whether it’s, and I, and I, I honestly can’t crank things out. I mean, I, for me, it’s, I just, I bleed over every chapter, especially the chapters I’m writing right now. I’m bleeding over these chapters and, and I’m, you know, I don’t know how people write you know, 15 books in a year. I know think that this series can be written that fast. It’s just, it’s a much denser series than I think you’d normally find in the urban fantasy in terms of, in terms of, we’ve got a lot of, without a lot of moving parts going on in, in, in, in the story we, as you’ve seen with gut dual timelines going, we have multiple points of view going on. We have this, the pic, the little world picture between our main characters of Lucy and Xochitl, but then we had this big world thing going on. And so, and that’s being that progresses throughout the series. And, and so there’s a lot of puzzle pieces to stick together. And I just died personally. I couldn’t write this, like within, we actually wrote the first book pretty quickly. But that’s yeah.

Camilla and Bonita:

And then even the second book, but this we’ve really been, just really mapping out and really working the story through and making sure everything works cohesively, but also you know, continuity has to be there. You have to make sure, Oh yeah. Where were we here when we were doing that? And, you know, and you just really have to keep those, all, everything every puzzle piece together. And it’s, it’s a long, hard process.

M.D. Massey:

Let’s talk about that real quick, because I want you guys to get a little bit you know, into the world of The Werewolf Whisperer, because it’s a, it’s a pretty interesting premise. So if you could share a little bit about that…

Camilla and Bonita:

Everything starts for the main characters, Lucy and Xochitl, when Lucy’s partner a cop turns into a werewolf-like creature right in front of them during a raid. So there’s, you know, there’s SWAT everywhere and it’s all, it’s a giant mess. So Lucy and Xochitl, this crazy thing just happened. And there’s fallout from, from that event. What they do not know is that all around them, this virus is affecting everybody, you know, et cetera, setters in LA sort of spreads out from there. And the way we were looking at the, the world, the world changes and nobody notices very, very quickly. There, there are three categories of how people are well, four really, either not affected at all. Or you turn into something that it’s still looks human, but it’s very, dog-like, you know, very, you know, happy puppy, you know, then there or ones that are, which we call a hound.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah, exactly. Then there are ones called ferals. They’re more like, you know, wild coyotes. Again, they look human, but they might have, you know, some, you know, fuzzy ears or a tail because yeah, they might have some sort of, but they, they go run and, you know, live in the Hills or, you know, dig through garbage cans. People try and, you know, keep their loved ones that have turned into these barrels in their house. Right. It doesn’t always work out. Then there are the where beasts, which are, you know, the full-on werewolf type, huge change. So Lucy and Xochitl eventually start trying to help people to, like Bonita said, you know, if your loved one has a hound, you know, the kid just turned into a hound or grandma there, you have to just like, you know, you know, you get dogs, you have to train them to be able to get along.

Camilla and Bonita:

So Lucy who has dog training backgrounds somehow has like the dog was for, she’s really good with these hounds. She’s good with the ferals. But she has actually, she has this ability to make them do what she wants and nobody else has that ability. So, yeah. And it’s one of those things where, okay, so the, I mean, the book, like I said, the books is in it’s this, the first book is kind of an origin story of how they come together as a team. And it starts out with them already as a team. So then you see how they come up, become a team through the, through our alternating timelines. But yeah, it’s this idea that here’s this woman who has this ability that nobody else has, and the world is just moving on as if nothing weird has just happened.

Camilla and Bonita:

And she is sort of trying to make normalcy out of the abnormal because she can do that because she has this ability in Xochitl, her best friend is kind of there to be the muscle. We’ll try to help her support her in, in, and also what they start running is, you know, the, there, the violence comes quickly. You know, if you want to go help someone to try and the family member to, you know, not pee on the rug and you get there. And it’s really a full-on, werebeast, that’s trying to eat, everyone’s face off, you know, there, there, there are only a few ways of dealing with that. So they, werewolf removal, rehabilitation and removal.

M.D. Massey:

So I I’m curious, can, can these creatures, are they able to shift back and forth between human form and, you know, they’re werewolf or semi-werewolf form, or are they stuck, or how does that work?

Camilla and Bonita:

That’s one of the things you come to find out. We don’t want to spoil that. Yeah. I mean, it’s not really a spoiler thing. It’s, it’s, it’s Lucy and Xochitl think things are one way. And as we learned throughout the book and the story, and as any, even into the series, what they think isn’t really necessarily the truth of everything and what is really going on and things evolve and change faster than anyone is really aware of. But you know, you also have, the rest of the world is trying to deal with what’s going on in the best way. So there was a lot of misinformation. There are a lot of people who think they know what’s going, going on and they don’t, but it is, you know, one of our tasks as welcome to the world, Wolf, apocalypse, hope you’re locked and loaded. It’s going to go one way. And it’s that whole idea that especially in book one it’s, it’s, it’s so absurd it’s that these people, you know, are having these two women go out and train their werewolf isn’t and companies are coming out with werewolf food called hound chow. And, and it’s just, it’s, it’s, it’s this idea that the world can still go on as it is when chaos is really erupting.

M.D. Massey:

So, so there’s, there’s no masquerade. Then, then everybody knows this is like an, an out thing. Everybody knows that werewolves are happening.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah. Everyone knows. And they think that’s that’s, that’s it, everyone stems in LA, it moves through California. California is quarantined off from the rest of the world. I don’t want to go too far into that, but that’s, what’s happening. That’s where you’re at in the beginning of the book.

M.D. Massey:

Gotcha. All right. See this, this is kind of cool. It’s, it’s, it’s a different take on werewolves and I like it.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah. It’s not. I defy anyone to read a werewolf book and think that it’s the same as any other werewolf they read. I really do. I also then focus on the micro story of these two women. They both have, they both have things happen to them because of what is going on. And it’s, it’s their story and their friendship. And that’s it’s, that’s really the heart of it. This relationship between Lucy and Xochitl, it’s really the deep bond that they have, and that no matter what they have each other’s back because they’ve been through so much together and they know each other so well, and maybe they’re a little abrasive to everyone else, but they allow each other to be their best selves. And in this case, most capable selves because they need to it’s life and death for them. And every day is life and death for them. So and one is dealing with one of those days.

Camilla and Bonita:

No too, that we, that, that we have three out right now that are kind of what we call our highway to hell series, which is just sort of like they’re on the road. When you, when you get to book one, they’ve already been on the road for two years and doing this and, and they’re just coming back to Los Angeles for another seminar that Lucy’s giving and the other books are Beast Navidad No Beast So Fierce and Beast Out of Hell are all about stories that happen on the road. Stories first started this the, the web series, our, our sort of thought, what was that? This is a cross between supernatural and Shaun of the dead.

M.D. Massey:

So why don’t you tell me about your latest book in the series in The Werewolf Whisperer series?

Camilla and Bonita:

This you know, wraps up a bit of the story that, you know, started with book one, the character as Lucy and Sochi have had quite a journey. And I think, you know, taking the reader on this ride that starts out in LA a mysterious virus hits LA. How funny is that? That wrote that in 2014. Yeah. And predicting that 20. Right, right, right. And LA prescient. Yeah. California is locked down because, you know, people are, are turning into these Wolf creatures, which they don’t call werewolves. They’re called where beasts. And then we come to find out that there’s the machinations behind why this happened. And we delve into history and mythology and and genetic engineering and all sorts of stuff. So the characters really start in LA end up traveling all over California. And then this latest book, book three actually takes us to Russia.

M.D. Massey:

Wow. Yeah. So changing you know, changing you know, landscape, background settings, et cetera. How exciting was that? I mean, what did that do for you as far as your writing process, you know, did it help to kind of change things up a little bit? Or was it more difficult?

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah, it was always the story was always meant to grow from the personal to the, the world reaching and the characters sort of, no matter what, no matter what happens in the world, you always can really just deal with what’s right in front of you, but their involvement and what happens to the world is is undeniables. So they find themselves in situations that they were not at all planning on being in and yet it’s, it’s inevitable. And then, yeah, not at all prepared for, you know, not always prepared for it.

M.D. Massey:

It’s always good to stick your protagonist, like in, in, you know, deep, hot water, you know, that’s always fun.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah. Yeah. We do. We tried it, we tried it. We tried to make it very difficult for them. Yeah. They’re they’re they, they live hip deep in alligators, so yeah, but I’m, I’m thrilled. I, when all of this first started, I had a, I had an idea of where this book three would end and with all the things, as, you know, he ride along series a lot happens, but it, it brought it back to me being really, really thrilled that, yeah, this, this was the vision. Oh my goodness. So so, and, you know, we hope just so we’re giving people a really good, fun, exciting ride with, you know really rich tapestry of, you know, stories and characters and plot in action. Then the mystery, lots of history,

Camilla and Bonita:

And it takes, it takes the story from something small to something big and then changes everything. So, so where we end up here at the end of this book, without giving anything away will change everything for the remainder of the story that is yet to be told. So it’s a, it’s, it’s one of those things that, that yeah, I mean, I’m excited for people to read it, cause it is very different than I think anybody would expect to happen. I think you agree to that up to the last, I mean, we’re, we knew when we were going to the last day of writing, there were things that surprised us, like what, Oh, Oh no, this totally makes sense. You know, you come up with these, you know, these things happen, you don’t even know where they come from. And then it ties, it ties up loosens. You didn’t even quite realize were loose. Yeah. And it’s just, it’s one of those things where you’re just like, yeah, we, we had crumbs from book one that we we’ve, we tie up here in book three and we went, Oh, I think that’s just in the back of our mind, it’s just part of our consciousness. And we did it without even realizing we did it. But yeah,

M.D. Massey:

I think readers who don’t write I think often they don’t understand just how much of that I’m plotting, you know, and, and longterm story arcs happens in the subconscious of the writer’s mind to the author’s mind. And it, it happens to me quite often where I’ll even forget about a detail from the early books and then be like, Oh, I need to add that in, in this book, that’ll fit in. Perfect. It somehow always works out.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah. And that’s where, you know, all the research, you know, there probably were avenues of research we did that did not make it and it’s really time consuming, but it gives you something else that somehow sparks another idea or takes you in a different direction. So stuff that we researched years ago that things have changed so drastically in science, because we do a lot of science research and then we make our, what we call off science. It’s like, we turn into our wolves. So it’s like, you know, we, they, that the science has evolved so much since when we first started writing that we had, we were, Oh, we could actually go this direction. And it would, you know, we worked through, I mean, a whole section of this book is just about this virus and, and you know, it took years of research and then we were still changing, making sure and going back and going, does that really still fit? Does that really still work? Oh, look, this little thing just happened in the world. We could, Oh, that actually works with what we’re doing, you know? And it’s just like, it’s kind of crazy how, how it all evolved in, in the story.

M.D. Massey:

I did that with my first series, because there were some some gene splicing and some other stuff going on, that was that I was using to explain you know, different things in the story, different, different characters in their powers and so forth. And then by the time I got to about, I’d say the third or fourth book in my current series, I was just like, ah, I’m going to do this because magic, you just get tired of doing the research. I was like, I interpret fantasy. I can do what I want. So, but but yeah, I think when you do that much research, it definitely adds a depth to your storytelling that you wouldn’t normally have. So I think it’s worth it to do that research for sure.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah. And then we had to research a lot of stuff. I mean, you know, the Russia stuff, we, you know, everything has, it’s like so much research. And then for a moment, you know, you have to be careful not to, you know, be saying, I did all this work. I want all of the, to be in that.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah. No would always read input dumps. Yeah.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah. Not at all. They want to know how it works. They just want to know that it works. Yeah. It’s like so yeah, and it’s just kinda fun to take something that like watching a video on how to do something and there’s something that I had to learn and then having to describe it, you know, in a way that’s more exciting and not just boring. And, and so you take all the details and you just go with the, with the description of what it would feel like or sound like, or, or, or if it’s within conflict between two characters, that’s where you get the information, not, not in, okay. Picks up this and he puts that into it and then it creases. And you know what I mean? It’s like, it’s one of those things you have to sort of take all that information and filter it through your imagination then, and then put it down, which is fun and, and quite challenging at the same time.

Camilla and Bonita:

And I do feel like this book of it really does give us a nice, nice, I don’t want to say ending, cause it’s not the ending of the story, but a nice encapsulation of this one aspect, aspect of the story. Yeah. This, this, this is like to be continued and this is part one. And now we’ll go on to part two. The other thing of living with these characters for a, you know, a number of years and so many adventures that they’ve had, we know them very, very well. So when they are confronted new and

Camilla and Bonita:

Crazy situations, we know how they react, we know how they feel. And that was one of the, you know, one of the pleasures of working, you know, through the arc of these characters that they change and they have to change, you know, that’s yeah, one of our, our little tagline there evolve or die, it is, it is. So it is so important that they’re able to make certain changes because there, there is no choice. So

M.D. Massey:

Yeah, well, I think it’s interesting to me at least that it was much easier to engineer ident, a dynamic character arc over my first three books than it has been over 12 books. And and I think, you know, it gets harder and harder as your, as your series gets longer and longer to show you know, some sort of a, you know, a character arc scene or some sort of an evolution of your character. And you know, I’ll be honest with you. I kinda miss that early stage of, of writing the series because that’s so exciting to do. I think it, you know, when you’re developing characters, it’s, it’s a lot of fun and it’s a lot harder to do with more established characters. So, so I think it’s cool that you guys are having so much fun.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah. Well, in your case, your, your readers have an expectations of the characters you know, who the character is like, you can’t really change James Bond very much.

Camilla and Bonita:

So yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. It’s really interesting. Yeah.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah. So I know that my readers were, they really took to your books when I introduced the them, the, my readers to your books and my newsletter. And I know they’re going to be excited to hear about this new book dropping, and they’re going to hear about that before this podcast actually hits the air, but I would like to hear about what you have planned for the future. Well, so what do you have planned for the werewolf whisper series? And are you considering any other collaborations and fantasy between you or doing projects separately?

Camilla and Bonita:

Well, this like Benita mentioned, there’s a certain aspect of this story that has concluded, but there will be more Werewolf Whisperer tales because now they’re facing something that, wow, what’s going to happen next. So we have, we have plans for the next few stories. But we’re very much in a, in a planning stage. This third book took, took a while to get back on this one. So, yeah. And I think our, you know, the way we work has changed quite a bit. So it’ll, it’ll, it’ll be a different process to be perfectly honest. Every book I’ve written has been a slightly different process. So so yeah, there definitely is more coming of this, of these stories. And I think it’s also an interest and I am still interested in these characters. So I want, I wanna know what happened.

Camilla and Bonita:

There’s still more to tell, but we do have plans for a whole new set of books that we’re where we want to start. Focusing on a little bit, come next year as a whole different set of, I don’t know, how do you wanna explain it? Cause it’s like a universe of like, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of thoughts dancing around and a lot of you know, possibilities for projects. So I think probably, you know, we, we are, as we speak in November now, and so we have the rest of the year to kind of sort things out, but there’s, there’s, there’s plenty to be. So so yeah, I’m, I’m really looking forward to what’s next with, you know, with other series and other stories and other characters.

M.D. Massey:

Okay. So definitely more books in the werewolf whisper series and potentially a different series. And will that be also urban fantasy or will it be a different, but related John rhe?

Camilla and Bonita:

That would be urban fantasy. Yeah, I do ride I write an Epic fantasy story about magic and monsters and talking cats and my writing partner and Carol just put out our books six we just I’m editing a short story that follows, and then we’re going to be working on our next book called Wildwood Fate, which will probably be next year, but that’s a whole, that’s a whole different, that’s a whole different genre. I’m also really interested in become very obsessed with historical fantasy. So I’m kicking some things around. We actually started something, this was just a little newsletter extra that we did a number of little short stories about one of the characters. And it, it took us all the way back to hundreds of years ago in China and this character. And we became really fascinated with the the secret history of the Mongols. And there was a long line about one of the founders being a blue wolf. And I know it’s very poetic and, but that’s sort of, you know, got, got my juices flowing. So I, I, I am hoping that we will return to that urban fantasy. There’s also like we did in this book, there is some, you know, going back in history kind of stuff, sort of, it sort of, kind of comes out naturally in what we’re doing anyway. Yeah, so, you know, we do have ideas and some new urban fantasy things that we were trying to develop and get, get going. And and meanwhile, you know, she’s writing her books and I’m writing. I keep working on my little blog. I got my little Bonita’s geeky blog food that I do movies and books. And, and I talk about martial arts, which is a big thing for me. So, which I know you Mike are a big martial artists too, and it’s really been killing me cause I haven’t been trained. I haven’t trained since February. It’s not safe in my opinion. So I I’m staying home and not doing it, but I’m, you know, I’m, you know, do my thing at home, but yeah, it’s not the same. Yeah.

M.D. Massey:

One of my instructors in Hawaii, we were supposed to do a big, and I’m getting off on a tangent, sorry. But we were supposed to do a big you know, like a gathering of the, you know, of the tribe and so forth. And we had to cancel it. He’s been doing a lot of zoom trading with his with his people, you know, doing his online and stuff.

Camilla and Bonita:

I’ve seen some people doing that too, and that’s kind of cool. I’d like to do that with, with Kali. I’m trying to convince my, my teacher is like, can we do some zoom Kali? So so anyway, but no. Yeah. So I’m kind of itching for that. Can’t wait for all this to be done so I can get back to it. But in planning, planning, planning, planning the next few months. Yeah. I I, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know how you go about your planning for the next book or the next series. But I think that the end of the year for me is always that, you know, sitting down with a piece of paper, writing out all, all the, all the goals and you know, kind of going from there, but I think, you know, definitely a time you know, to figure all of that out for next year.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s actually, I tried to clear my desk before the holidays. I tried to do it before Thanksgiving, although this year, so that’s not going to work out. I think it would be writing during Thanksgiving actually. But yeah, I do the same thing and I think it’s really helpful to plan out your year ahead of time because you know, it kind of gives you some goals and that way you’re not just floundering and what you’re going to write in ocean. I write those. Should I write that? Cause if you’re like, if you, if you’re like me, I get shiny object syndrome really bad. So I have to make sure that I actually have a plan otherwise I’ll Oh, forget it. I won’t get anything them

Camilla and Bonita:

For me right now starts my corporate tax year. So I start taxes right now.

M.D. Massey:

Oh man, you may as well be like, that’s like you know, I don’t know. It’s like restringing your guitar or something.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah. So March, so geez.

M.D. Massey:

Oh, okay. So tell, tell everyone let’s, let’s tell our listeners how they can find out more about you, where they can find your current release, all the information about you and any other projects you have going on.

Camilla and Bonita:

Well, we’ll, you can find the series werewolf whisper.com. You can find us on Amazon. We are on Kindle unlimited, so you can read all the books one right after the other. And we have our, at my website, CamillaOchlan.com and Bonita has Bonita’s Geeky Blog Fu, which is BonitasGeekyBlogFu.wordpress.com. So you can find all my, my geeky musings there. And you’re pretty active on Twitter at [inaudible] B O N I T Z M G. And I’m on Instagram at Bonita mg and I’m on Facebook. So yeah. And we’re on Facebook with The Werewolf Whisperer as well. And we try to do, you know, put fun things up there and urban fantasy related things, which by the way, tomorrow is a big day for all of us. I think you’re a supernatural fan as well. Yeah.

M.D. Massey:

Oh yeah. I am actually a couple of seasons behind. I’m trying to catch up in July. I live, you know, I live pretty close to the, the the brewery that Jensen Ackles and his family started and I’ve been over there several times and, and yeah, it’s weird, you know, cause you’ll be hanging out there and then somebody famous will walk by. It’s really strange. Yeah. I’m excited about this last season for sure. And a little bit sad.

Camilla and Bonita:

Yeah. So no, but I’m, I guess I’m watching Walker Texas Ranger.

M.D. Massey:

Oh, my wife will be watching too. She is very into those, as she calls them, the cutie boys, so yeah. Okay, great. Well, Camilla and Bonita, I want to thank you for coming on the podcast and yeah, absolutely. And I will make sure to put all your pertinent links in the show notes on the website at urbanfantasyauthor.com. And I want to encourage listeners to stay tuned for a reading from the first book in The Werewolf Whisperer series. So stay tuned for that.

Episode 3 with Lori Drake

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In this episode of The Urban Fantasy Author Podcast, Lori Drake joins M.D. Massey for an interview and sample chapter reading. Lori is a professional book editor and the author of The Grant Wolves series, which currently consists of four full-length novels.

Click here to check out the first book in her series, Early Grave.

Featured Author’s Links:

https://loridrakeauthor.com

Lori’s page on Facebook

Check out Early Grave on Amazon

Author Interview:

M.D. Massey:

Hey everybody, this is M.D. Massey and I am back with this week’s author interview for The Urban Fantasy Author Podcast. And this week I have with me Lori Drake, who is the author of the Grant Wolves series. Now, I’m gonna read directly from her bio, because I thought it was really amusing.

So it says, “Disenchanted with her mundane human existence, Lori loves spinning tales of magic and creatures of myth and legend existing in the modern world. When not indulging in these flights of fancy, she enjoys cooking, crafting, gaming, and of course, reading. She is also a bit of a weather geek and would like to go storm chasing one day. Lori lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and two adorable kittens that don’t understand why mommy doesn’t like them climbing onto her laptop and batting at the screen. The kittens, that is. It would be really strange if her husband did that.”

M.D. Massey:

So, Lori, welcome to the podcast.

Lori Drake:

Thank you. I guess I need to update that bio. I’m up to three crazy cats. So …

M.D. Massey:

Three crazy cats and also four books, which is outstanding. Yeah, so you are the author of the Grant Wolves series. So let’s start off with that. Why don’t you give us a little bit of background about the series and the characters?

Lori Drake:

Sure. Well, the Grant Wolves series is about wolves, as one might expect. And my werewolves happen to be a family of werewolves that are also a pack. So the series starts out with one of the pack members dying and it’s a great big mystery as to who killed him. And why he’s still sticking around as a ghost. So, yeah.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah. So do you have one main character in the series? Or is there two main characters?

Lori Drake:

It’s two, it’s a dual or POV series.

M.D. Massey:

Okay. All right. Cool. So for those you that are listening, just to let you know, Lori actually, I met her at a local chapter meeting which I was speaking at for the indie author society here in Austin. And she approached me about doing editing work. So she’s done some editing work for me and we’re looking at doing a collaboration in 2019, doing a spinoff series for my main series, Junkyard Druid.

M.D. Massey:

So hopefully we’ll be able to do a dual POV series together in the next couple of months.

Lori Drake:

I’m super excited.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah, I’m looking forward to it for sure. So let me ask you this, okay? So tell me about the shifters in your books. Are they like classic shifters? Are they full wolf shifters? What’s their deal?

Lori Drake:

Well, I tried to go sort of a different direction from the standard werewolf tales. So they are werewolves but they aren’t cursed by the moon or anything. They can shift at any time that they want to and they have a relationship with the moon such that when the moon is full they’re strong and at their peak. And that tends to come out in them in different ways. Like one of my main characters gets super OCD detail-oriented during the full moon because it’s just her thing. And you know, another character gets super energized.

Lori Drake:

But they also don’t have any half wolf, half human forms, just they’re human. And then their shifting is more of a magic thing than a physical thing. So when they shift forms, they just become a wolf.

M.D. Massey:

Oh, okay. And I’ve always found that interesting because to me, you know, I kind of grew up on those classic, those kind of Bela Lugosi movies, you know? And so I always see a werewolf in my mind as being a human hybrid, a human wolf hybrid. And so shifting into a full wolf form, I think that’s also kind of cool too.

Lori Drake:

Yeah, I actually have a friend who is really, I hate to say werewolf-phobic, but she just hates that half human, half wolf transformation. And when they show it in movies, they always show it in profile so you get to watch the face transforming and elongating. And it just gives her the creeps. And she’s one of my best friends and I really wanted her to read my books, so I kind of wrote these on purpose to not have an in between form, just so it wouldn’t freak her out.

M.D. Massey:

Well, that’s kind of funny and that’s a really good friend, when you modify your whole story and series just so your friend will read it.

Lori Drake:

Well, this friend actually got me writing to start with. I mean, I’ve always been a writer, but she really sort of inspired me to try writing a novel. And this was not my first novel, it was probably my third or fourth novel. But if she hadn’t inspired me to write, I may never have written that first book that really got me started.

M.D. Massey:

And so you have you four books in the series. I’m on your website, I’m looking at them. The covers look great. I love the covers. They are awesome.

Lori Drake:

Thank you.

M.D. Massey:

So the books that you write, I know there’s kind of a disparity in the urban fantasy genre. Some people write books that are about 50,000 words. Some people write books that are closer to a 100,000 words. You know, I’m kind of somewhere in the middle. So where are these books at word count-wise?

Lori Drake:

The first book is pretty close to 100K. The other three are a little shorter. They average between 78 to 90.

M.D. Massey:

Nice.

Lori Drake:

On the long end, but kind of in between.

M.D. Massey:

I’ll tell you, you know, it’s funny. The last novel that I released in the Colin McCool series was, it came in right at 85,000 words. And one of the first reviews I got was, “This was way too short.” And I’m like, ah, you’re killing me.

Lori Drake:

You’re like, “It’s really long.”

M.D. Massey:

Yeah. It took so long to write. So yeah, but that’s cool. It’s funny too because I was talking to another author, Alex Steele, that I interviewed in the second episode of the podcast. And he was talking about Shayne Silvers. Now, Shayne likes to write books that are close to 100,000 words. And so I think it’s interesting because you’ll see people, you know, that are kind of like, they’re on both ends of the spectrum that are having success in urban fantasy. So I think that people are writing shorter books. I just think they’re cranking them out faster.

Lori Drake:

Yeah, I think so too. And I’ve heard it said that Kindle Unlimited authors tend to lean towards the shorter side. But I don’t know. I like to give my readers a good bang for their buck. So I try to make them, extend the length.

M.D. Massey:

And there’s also that thing where it’s like, you know, they always say and it’s kind of cliché but you know, how long’s a book supposed to be? Well, as long as it takes to tell the story. But, you know, it’s really true.

Lori Drake:

Yeah, for sure. And that’s how I ended up with one that was really long. And the others that are not quite as long.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah, because you got a good story to tell, you know? Okay, so let’s switch gears a little bit. So you filled us in on your books and series. Why don’t you, if you would, give us a little bit about your background. Tell me, you know, you said your friend got you into writing. Tell me, how did you develop an interest in writing?

Lori Drake:

Well, I think I’ve always enjoyed writing, even in school. English was always one of my favorite and best subjects, between reading and writing. So I just fell away from it for a long time once I got out of school. And I got into doing online role playing games. They were text-based, and so basically everyone was playing a character. And you’re basically writing a story but you’re writing it in little paragraphs.

Lori Drake:

So I got really into like what I call collaborative storytelling in that way and I think that that sort of pulled me out of writing for a long time and I had a hard time telling a whole story by myself, if that makes sense, because I was so used to other people contributing to the story. So then I started doing National Novel Writing Month, which is what my friend got me into. She did it for years. And she was like, you have to do National Novel Writing Month if you want to write a book. And I’m like, I’ve never written a book. I don’t even know what I’d write about.

Lori Drake:

So I sat down in, I think 2007 was my first NaNo and I had a vague idea for a book and I just pantsed the whole thing and did the whole thing in one month. And that was an adventure and it kind of hooked me. And then from that point on I was like, you know, I want to keep writing these books. It’s a lot of fun. And at that time, I had no designs on publishing. I was just doing it because I really enjoyed it.

Lori Drake:

And then it wasn’t until much later that I started meeting other authors locally and they’re like, well, if you’re writing these books, why don’t you publish them? And I’m like, well, you know, it might be nice to publish because I don’t have any kids, so I’m not really leaving a legacy behind. So you know, maybe I could publish them just for my friends and family. And then my friends came back and were like, why? Why would you just do that? Why don’t you actually sell them to people? People will read them? And I was like, okay. That sounds great. So that’s how I got into it.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah. It’s funny because I have friends that every November they write a novel for NaNoWriMo, which I’ve never done but I think it’s really cool. But then they never publish and I’m like, I keep telling them, I’m like, you’ve got to publish these books, you know? Pick one that you really like that you think is really strong. Get an editor and get it out there. I don’t know. I guess some people, you know, they’re just like, I’m just writing for my own … But do you think a lot of that is fear, though?

Lori Drake:

Some of it, I think. And I don’t know, I mean just people have different aspirations. I mean, I have a friend who’s a really good writer. And she actually has a PhD in like English Lit or something like that. She writes amazing stories. She’s actually mentored me on plot and structure. And I keep telling her, you write wonderful stories. You really should publish them. She’s like, eh, I just don’t want to. And I’m like, okay, but you’re writing, like, you try to write every day. You really love writing. She’s like, I know. I just don’t want to do it.

M.D. Massey:

That’s really interesting. But, you know, I can kind of relate to that because when I first got into martial arts training, I had no aspirations of owning a studio, running a dojo, teaching classes, you know? I just wanted to train and I just wanted to practice for my own satisfaction. So I guess it’s kind of the same thing, you know? And I didn’t want to go into competition either. I just liked to just train. I just loved to train and loved to do it on my own all the time. So I guess it’s kind of the same thing, you know, it’s just a personal expression and it brings you satisfaction and joy, so why not?

Lori Drake:

For sure, yeah.

M.D. Massey:

Let me ask you this, okay? Since you started writing in 2007 and you started publishing in what, 2017?

Lori Drake:

2017, yeah.

M.D. Massey:

2017. So that’s ten years, okay? So let me ask you this. If you were starting all over again as a writer, is there anything that you would do differently?

Lori Drake:

Yeah, I would have started publishing sooner.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah?

Lori Drake:

I mean, I would have stuck with it. I mean, I didn’t write a novel every year in between. I think I wrote three novels before the one that I ended up publishing. And I took some time off from writing. I went back to school. I went back to school and got an English degree along the way and that cut into my reading and writing time. But I think, yeah, if I could go back and do anything again, I probably would have started with that first manuscript and would have been like, let’s clean this up and get it out there because the sooner you start, the better off that you are. But that was a whole other ball game in 2007. So who knows?

M.D. Massey:

Well, you know, 2010 was the big watershed moment for authors, wasn’t it?

Lori Drake:

Yeah, I missed the boat on that one.

M.D. Massey:

So did I.

Lori Drake:

But I got on as soon as I could.

M.D. Massey:

Well, you know, it’s funny because I started publishing nonfiction books first. And it didn’t even occur to me to start publishing fiction until my wife kind of suggested it to me. And I, the same thing, I wish I would have started earlier. I really do.

Lori Drake:

Yeah.

M.D. Massey:

So let’s talk about this, okay? I want to ask you, as far as because you have a degree in English and you’ve been writing for a long time, which genres and authors do you enjoy reading most and who are your greatest influences as a writer?

Lori Drake:

Oh, that’s a tough one. Well, I do love reading urban fantasy, obviously, I would say. I also really enjoy post-Apoc fiction and I intend to write some someday. But I haven’t quite gotten to that. Writing influences, I mean, I’d probably say Stephen King is a big one because I read a lot of Stephen King when I was growing up. My mom had almost all of his books, especially the stuff from the 80s and the late 70s and the 80s.

Lori Drake:

As far as urban fantasy writers, I have to say my influences are pretty standard. I mean, there’s of course, Jim Butcher and Kim Harrison. But I think my favorite urban fantasy series of all time is Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden series. I really dug that. I mean, as a weather geek, I mean, I was all about it. I’m like, oh my gosh, this chick can control the weather and the weather is [inaudible 00:12:51] and it’s angry. It was just, it really lit a fire in my brain. I love Rachel Caine’s pacing. That’s always something that I struggle with, is pacing in my own writing. And she just, when you start that first book, it’s like racing down a highway the whole way. It’s like you finish and you’re like, whew.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah, you know, and see, I love that. And I can tell you and I won’t mention anyone in particular, but there are authors that I read that I love their books and it’s not because they have the strongest prose or because they are the best at description or plot and structure. But they have phenomenal pacing in their books. I just want to dive into a book and get sucked in and basically not come up for air until I finish the book.

Lori Drake:

Yeah.

M.D. Massey:

So as far as that pacing thing goes, how did that inform your writing and your writing process?

Lori Drake:

Well, I mean, for me, my first book isn’t greatly paced, so that’s a tough one but I did better in the second book where just sort of keeping things moving, keeping things happening, keeping the characters on their toes and like kind of pulling the rug out from under them so they don’t really know which way is up. And it’s just kind of making every scene, every choice matter for the purposes of both the current story and the coming story.

Lori Drake:

So yeah.

M.D. Massey:

Okay, so does that come out like making every scene count? Does that come out in your planning process when you’re plotting? Or do you focus on that more when you’re actually writing each scene?

Lori Drake:

A little bit of both. But definitely while I’m writing, pacing is on my mind a lot. I’m notorious for kind of going off of my outline and like, okay, I think I’m going to do this here. And I was just writing something the other day and I had these two characters meet for the first time, and then while I was writing I decided that one of them was going to be like a type of being that this person had never even heard of before. Why not?

M.D. Massey:

Nice. But that’s one of the funny things about writing fantasy, is you can pretty much do anything, right?

Lori Drake:

Yeah, yeah.

M.D. Massey:

So I don’t know about you, but one of the things I like to do when I’m writing a new novel is I like to try to find creatures from mythology and folklore that I haven’t written about before. Do you do that as well?

Lori Drake:

Not a lot because I don’t really focus on a creature of the week kind of deal with my stories, at least in the series. I mean, the series is a lot more about family and connection than it is about a supernatural threat that’s come in. I mean, they are threatened. They are people trying to harm them, but it’s not necessarily like, oh, there’s this new supernatural threat that we have to go and defeat. It’s just not quite that kind of story.

M.D. Massey:

So do you like Supernatural or not?

Lori Drake:

I do. Yeah.

M.D. Massey:

Okay. Because you’re like “creature of the week.” I’m like, oh, she must be supernatural, then.

Lori Drake:

I don’t mean to disparage the creature of the week. I just meant that’s not what’s in my story. I mean, in your story, Colin is like a druid champion and he goes out and fights for people. And these people, the stories are more about what’s happening in their world. They’re not championing for the little guy. They’re just trying to do their thing and life keeps getting in the way. You know what they say about the best made plans, you know?

M.D. Massey:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I’d tell anybody I’ve said it before, I’ve said it a million times. I like to write kind of pulpy stories, you know? Yeah, and I guess that’s because when you’re kind of weaned on Robert Howard and stuff, that’s what happens.

So let me ask you this. As far as turning your ideas into novels because this is a question that always comes up. I get this asked so many times. People always say well, how do you come up with ideas? I’m like ideas are easy. It’s turning them into stories that’s tough. So what does your process look like when you have an idea for a novel and you’re ready to turn it into a story? You know, what process do you go through?

Lori Drake:

Oh, wow. Yeah, see I’m currently going through that process right now and it’s hard because especially the deeper you get into a series. I tend to have a lot of ideas for side plots and then I have to figure out what the main plot is. Like what’s the driving plot in the story versus all the little side things that are going to kind of get in the way or just complicate matters, you know? So it can be really tough and I think sort of what it comes down to is I start thinking about the characters and where do I want them to start? Where do I want them to end? How are they going to change over the course of the story? And that kind of tells me what they need to encounter in order to get there? So what kind of challenge do I need to throw at them?

So I think I really start and end with the characters and I don’t always immediately have an idea for the overall plot when I first start. My first book started out with well, I’m going to write about wouldn’t it be cool if werewolves were ballroom dancers? That’s how my first book started. I was like, you know, because why not? They’re fast, they’re agile, they live a long time. They don’t age as quickly so they could outpace these 25, 30 year old dancers even though they’re older. So it’s like, yeah, that’s what I started with. I started with werewolf ballroom dancers and I’m like, so now what? Okay. One of them’s going to die, so I killed one of them at the very beginning. And that’s how that started.

But yeah, I’m a little bit of a pantser. I don’t always have a fully structured outline when I sit down to write my books, although I try really hard to do as much as I can ahead of time because it’s lot less stressful if you know where you’re going to go. Yeah.

M.D. Massey:

Well, I will definitely, when I’m planning a novel, I will write a very detailed outline. And then somewhere in act two, I’ll take a sharp left turn. And then I got to bring myself back on track to bring it back to the ending that I had planned originally, you know?

So if you are a pantser, how detailed is your plot outline? Or do you even work with a plot outline at all?

Lori Drake:

I always start with something, even if it’s just like a general statement of what the book is. You know, like this book is about so and so who goes to do this and encounters this. That’s at least where I start with just a bare minimum. I’m trying really hard to do more detailed outlines. I’ve been learning a lot about the system called Story Grid and how you can have these, you know, certain touchstones in your story that will help make your story stronger.

So I’ve been trying to determine what’s the global story and what are these different touch points that are going to exist to make the story stronger? So that’s what I’m trying to do now and with varying degrees of success, but you know, it’s good to keep it in mind too as I write, because I don’t always have that long outline. That I know that every scene, I want to have some sort of a turn in it so that it doesn’t end on the same note that it starts on and that’s kind of floating around in the back of my mind. And I know, okay, I’m coming up on 20%. This is where I need to start to get into act two. So we’re going to start here.

So it’s kind of keeping all that structure stuff in my brain, even though I don’t always have an outline.

M.D. Massey:

So you’re kind of like a pure pantser that’s kind of moving toward being a tweener but not quite.

Lori Drake:

I’m more a tweener.

M.D. Massey:

Yep.

Lori Drake:

Honestly. I mean, I always have stuff written down and some semblance of an outline. It’s just not usually very fleshed out. I’m trying to move towards more fleshed-out outlines. I know that it’ll help me write faster and that’s what I want. I want to spend less time worrying about what’s going to happen next and just writing it.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah, yeah. And you know, it’s funny because with today’s readers, I mean, output speed is huge, you know? I’ve heard from a couple of authors who’ve told me, you know, yeah, I published my first book or my first couple of books and then it took too long between the last book I published and the subsequent novels and it’s almost like readers forgot about the series.

M.D. Massey:

Yeah, so that’s something you really, you don’t want to happen. So yeah, I get the whole writing speed thing. So let me ask you this. Besides, you know, our planned collaboration which is in the works right now, what else do you have planned for 2019? What do you have coming up?

Lori Drake:

Well, I’m going to be appearing in three anthologies in 2019, so that’s exciting. I’m going to be finishing off the Grant Wolves series with books five and six. And I’m going to be starting a new series, too. I haven’t quite decided what that one’s going to be yet. It’s either going to be something in the Grant Wolves universe, or it’s going to be something completely different.

M.D. Massey:

Okay. So no working title yet, nothing like that? It’s just-

Lori Drake:

No working titles yet, no.

M.D. Massey:

You know you’re going to do it, though.

Lori Drake:

Yeah, for sure.

M.D. Massey:

All right, cool. So we’re coming up on time for the interview today. So what I want to ask you is, you know, can you tell our listeners, number one, where they can find out more about you online? Where they can find your books and so forth? And if you want to also and I’ll leave this up to you, but feel free to put in a plug for your editing services as well.

Lori Drake:

Okay. Well, you can find my books at Loridrakeauthor.com. I’m also on Facebook and Twitter at loridrakeauthor. If you’re interested in line edits or proofreading, you can find me on Facebook at Lori Edits, and that’s pretty much me.

M.D. Massey:

Okay. Cool. Excellent. Well, Lori, it was great having you on the podcast today. And like I said, hopefully sometime in 2019, Lori and I will be collaborating on a spinoff series in The World Beneath, you know, the world of Colin McCool. So you guys can look forward to that. Go to Amazon. Look up Lori Drake, look up her books. Check out Early Grave, which is her first series on Amazon, the first in the Grant Wolves series. And stick around because shortly, you’re going to hear from Lori. She’s going to narrate a first chapter sample from one of her books.