The Interview - Mark Anthony Tierno

Currently self-published, which is hard enough as it is.  Trying to get the attention of a regular mainstream publisher, or even a literary agent, is a bit like trying to shoot down a cloud with en elephant gun.

Jot it down someplace but finish my current book first.  Or in my case, the current series.

Po-Adar is a crazy wizard, who together with his pet Elf, Eldana, is a bit like how they used to test if pasta is done cookinmg: toss a bit of it on the wall and se what sticks.  Or pit it this way: the dynamioc between Po and Eldana is rather like Joker and Harlequin but not nearly as socially well adjusted as that famous pair.

A bit of both.  Before I start word one, I outline the book, generate whatever additional characters I'll need, add in whatever additional background notes I'll need into my world book, then finally begin.  I know where the last chapter will be when I start the first, but if a good idea springs up en route that sounds fun, as long as it doesn't stray too far from my desired bullseye, I'll add it in.

Heinlein, Asimove, tolkein, Anderson, Kay, and many many others.

I like mixing my science fiction and fantasy elements together into a single blend, then sprinkle in the perspective of an entirely alien world with all its unique cultures, and it's a blast!  But then I up the ante to see how far I can push the epic-quotient while still maintaining a sort of relative realism; turns out I can push it rather far.

When you've spent some 8-10 hours in a day writing 14,000 words of a chapter and come out of it feeling refreshed, well that's something to keep yopu going.

Marketing once it's done.

I have a MS in Physics which skometimes comes in useful for some of the sciency background stuff.

I'd be in the luney farm if I identified with half the characters I've come up with.

Maldene:  A world beyond time... an adventure beyond imagination.

Cyberdawn:  What if every conspiracy theory you'd ever heard is true... and it's still not enough?

Takeaway 1:  "Wow, this has gotta be one of the most wickedly awesome books I've ever read!  Wait, there's more?"

Takeaway 2:  "Wait a second, is that a message squirreled away in there?  I didn't even notice it the first time, it blends so perfectly in with the plot and way it's told."

Is writing for 8-10 hours straight while playing music from movie soundtracks then editing for 2-3 hours later that night considered unusual?  I've never compared to what other writers do save that I seem to write a LOT faster than most of them out there.  (I remember one post where a lady was proud of the fact that while it took her a whole month that she'd finally finished the first 5000 words of her book; that's about what I get done by lunch).

The hardest critique for me to receive is ironically also the best compliment.  For when in a line like "This book is The Hobbit meets The Odyssey" where you've just been compared to the two single most famous names in fictional literature, it's both rewarding to hear as well as a bit embarrassing.  I get a lot of extreme praise for my works and I never know how to take them.  Guess I'm always looking around for that second shoe.

I can answer that with this original line I came up with:  They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  Yet the goal of a good writer– the goal of a great writer– is to make one word worth a thousand pictures.

There's one particular chapter in "Maldene X: the Chaos Wars" that has a certain space battle involving a number of different factions.  The book was already stretching the limits of my immagination (which is rather considerable), but this particular scene just wasn't entirely doing it for me.  It was an important scene, but I wanted it to be a turning-point scene.  The problem was the ships involved were all rather generic SF space ships, so nothing really stood out.  So I took a walk at the local arboretum and before I was through I came up with some ideas that would not only rev up that scene the way I wanted but change the flow of the entire rest of the book and inspire a whole lot more creative details.  I then rewrote that entire scene (something I've never had to do before this), not just with each faction being distinctive ships but excessively so.  One was a spelljammer– a magically powered sailing ship in space, while another was a large ball of plasma, and a third a large asteroid with engines and one very large gun.  the rest went on like that.  The design of the ship thence inspired the nature of the aliens running them (energy creatures for the plasma ship, a race of magically wise but technologically deficient wizards for the sailking ship, and some rock trolls for the big asteroid gun).  The dominoe effect this created for the rest of that book made it the best one in that series to date.

Doesn't really enter in my stories.  However, I do have a couple of love stories in the background of a couple of my series; never the main thrust of the plot, of course, but they have their own weight in things.

Never!  Between planning ahead before I start, the seemingly boundless relms of my immagaination, and playing the right muskc as I work, therte ain't no such a thing.

Yoga, biking in the sun, and thinking about my next series of novels.  Oh yeah, and solving mysteries of the universe (literally).

researchj, no.  Generate an entire worldbook of cultural details, mystic places, various cultures, and a world map?  Yes.

yes.  I have settled down to an artist that I use and if I have the full idea for the cover I'll explain it to him; if I only have some partial ideas then I'll tell him those and see what he can do with them.

Finally getting around to rereading Lord of the Rings.  To borrow and abuse a classic quote, the last time I read it I was the Apprentice, now I read it when I am the Master.  Gives me an interesting view on what I've accomplished in my own journey.

A lot more books.

Nope.

Consciously it was not foremost in my mind fort my Life's path when I was 12, but things just sort of aimed me in that direction.

The first Maldene book took my 9 months to write, and it came in at 330,000 words.  The 13th book in that series took me 4 months and it came out to 575,000 words.

Home on my computer.

Anything from the soundtracks to the types of movies I love to watch, but only that without lyrics.  think along the lines of Star Wars, the MAtrix, or the Avengers movies to get an idea.

Yoga.  Biking.  Gaming.  Reading.

Many are straight out of some (possibly dark) corner of my head, others based on fanciful ideas, a few based on types of people I've seen though not any one specific person.  SOme types are conjured up via need for the plot, a few because it sounded fun and I wanted to see what more it would add.  And of course there's the characters pulled from actual games I've run (using my own custom-written games books, naturally).

Not really, save that I love them all like my own kids (if I had kids, of course, but you get the idea).