These are my absolute favorite posts to write. I feel like a big time journalist who is getting the insider info on the writing world's up and coming new writers. I have met some absolutely fabulous writers since starting this weekly post and I hope you all have enjoyed them as much as I have. This week is a bit different though. My guest doesn't have a blog (yet ahem hint hint ahem). He has just recently published his first novel, The Sable City
, and is new to the whole blogsphere/facebook/social network scene. See don't I sound like I know what I am talking about lol. His name is Michael Edward McNally and he has written an amazing guest post regarding his journey in "indie publishing". If you're wanting to be transported to far off mythological lands, then you must check out his book. Welcome Michael!!
, and is new to the whole blogsphere/facebook/social network scene. See don't I sound like I know what I am talking about lol. His name is Michael Edward McNally and he has written an amazing guest post regarding his journey in "indie publishing". If you're wanting to be transported to far off mythological lands, then you must check out his book. Welcome Michael!!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks to Dafeenah for allowing a still-finding-my-way-around Indie writer to post a few thoughts. Here are a few of mine.
My whole life I’ve been reading or seeing interviews with authors, and 99% of the time one of the first questions asked is, of course, “Where do you get your ideas for your stories?” So you would think I’d have had a witty answer ready for when I myself was inevitably asked (particularly as I’ve had my Grammy and Oscar acceptance speeches good-to-go since age 14 or so). But not so much. The question came up not long ago, and I just stared at it, wondering, as it had never really occurred to me to ask myself.
I think I said something about hearing voices in my head, seeing a character as though through a glass darkly, little joke, little aw-shucks, something like that. Because of course the only honest answer for me was, “Heck if I know.” Stuff is just rolling around the brain-pan, be it serotonin or pixie dust, and once in while something sort of globs together. As a writer, all I do is take a rolling pan to it, and see what it looks like after it’s flat on a page. Maybe not a good answer, but what it may lack in quality, it makes up for in sincerity. If I knew I would say so, but Heck if I know.
What I do know, and the question nobody asks, is “Where do you get your ideas for your setting?” That one, oddly, I can answer perfectly well.
I was studying the Balkans back in the ’90s when much of the region was on fire, and I got very interested in exploring issues of nationalism, religion, ethnic identity, etc. Writing about things myself is the way in which I explore them. However, I really didn’t want to step on anybody’s toes, so I did the obvious thing: I created a world with its own peoples, gods, and nations. Now, since I was big Tolkien/Eddings/Leiber fan from Back In The Day (and, yes, a total Dungeons and Dragons nerd for quite a while as a kid), my world was distinctly “Fantasy,” with magic, dragons, monsters, and what-not. This made me more interested in exploring some other things, as for example how “magic” could fill the role of technology in establishing communications and logistics allowing for Imperial expansion.
After a while I had a stack of notebooks and crudely-drawn historical maps defining the history of some places that had never been. I did it basically as a hobby, as it is too hot to go outside in AZ for much of the year, and there are snakes and scorpions out there. Also, it was cheaper than cable.
Which, of course, is when the heretofore mentioned “globbing” started to occur. Maybe the Hand of a Muse alighted on my brow, maybe I had a bad shrimp chimi for dinner, but something started to roil. That something is now a series of books, set in an early gunpowder/Age of Sail fantasy world with a pathological amount of detail underpinning it. Far more detail in fact than will ever be in any of the novels, because setting isn’t a story. There are people living in my world now, and the story is theirs. Specifically, it belongs to Tilda Lanai, the young Island Guilder trying to find the exiled heir of the Trade House she serves. Tilda is what the glob turned into.
So that’s what I’ve got. Book I of the Norothian Cycle, The Sable City is available on Kindle and from Smashwords for other readers. Volume II is slated for an end of June release....
My whole life I’ve been reading or seeing interviews with authors, and 99% of the time one of the first questions asked is, of course, “Where do you get your ideas for your stories?” So you would think I’d have had a witty answer ready for when I myself was inevitably asked (particularly as I’ve had my Grammy and Oscar acceptance speeches good-to-go since age 14 or so). But not so much. The question came up not long ago, and I just stared at it, wondering, as it had never really occurred to me to ask myself.
I think I said something about hearing voices in my head, seeing a character as though through a glass darkly, little joke, little aw-shucks, something like that. Because of course the only honest answer for me was, “Heck if I know.” Stuff is just rolling around the brain-pan, be it serotonin or pixie dust, and once in while something sort of globs together. As a writer, all I do is take a rolling pan to it, and see what it looks like after it’s flat on a page. Maybe not a good answer, but what it may lack in quality, it makes up for in sincerity. If I knew I would say so, but Heck if I know.
What I do know, and the question nobody asks, is “Where do you get your ideas for your setting?” That one, oddly, I can answer perfectly well.
I was studying the Balkans back in the ’90s when much of the region was on fire, and I got very interested in exploring issues of nationalism, religion, ethnic identity, etc. Writing about things myself is the way in which I explore them. However, I really didn’t want to step on anybody’s toes, so I did the obvious thing: I created a world with its own peoples, gods, and nations. Now, since I was big Tolkien/Eddings/Leiber fan from Back In The Day (and, yes, a total Dungeons and Dragons nerd for quite a while as a kid), my world was distinctly “Fantasy,” with magic, dragons, monsters, and what-not. This made me more interested in exploring some other things, as for example how “magic” could fill the role of technology in establishing communications and logistics allowing for Imperial expansion.
After a while I had a stack of notebooks and crudely-drawn historical maps defining the history of some places that had never been. I did it basically as a hobby, as it is too hot to go outside in AZ for much of the year, and there are snakes and scorpions out there. Also, it was cheaper than cable.
Which, of course, is when the heretofore mentioned “globbing” started to occur. Maybe the Hand of a Muse alighted on my brow, maybe I had a bad shrimp chimi for dinner, but something started to roil. That something is now a series of books, set in an early gunpowder/Age of Sail fantasy world with a pathological amount of detail underpinning it. Far more detail in fact than will ever be in any of the novels, because setting isn’t a story. There are people living in my world now, and the story is theirs. Specifically, it belongs to Tilda Lanai, the young Island Guilder trying to find the exiled heir of the Trade House she serves. Tilda is what the glob turned into.
So that’s what I’ve got. Book I of the Norothian Cycle, The Sable City is available on Kindle and from Smashwords for other readers. Volume II is slated for an end of June release....
If anything I’ve said here gives you hope that these books might be a good read, please do check out the free sample downloads, as owing to my verbosity they are plenty long to you give you a taste.
Thank you for your time, and for supporting Indie authors,
Thank you for your time, and for supporting Indie authors,
 |
| M. Edward McNally |
About Michael "Ed"'s book:
Product Description
The Trade Houses of the Miilark Islands control the shipping lanes linking four diverse continents across the blue vastness of the Interminable Ocean. The Houses are represented abroad by the Guilders; men and women skilled in business and burglary, salesmanship and swordplay, merchandising and musketry. Tilda Lanai has trained for years to take her place among them, but now the House she is to serve is imperiled by the sudden death of the House Lord. Scenting blood in the water, rival Houses begin to circle. The desperate search for an exiled heir takes Tilda across a war-torn continent and to the gates of the Sable City, where centuries ago dark magic almost destroyed the world. Along with a sinister sorceress, a broken-hearted samurai, and a miscreant mercenary long on charm but lousy with a crossbow, Tilda must brave the demon-infested ruins to find the heir who may yet save her House.
From the Author
The Sable City is the first volume of a fantasy/adventure series called The Norothian Cycle. As such, it is the introduction not only to a cast of characters but to an entire world, though I have endeavored not to let laying-the-groundwork detract from Tilda's story. Additional background materials (maps, glossary, short histories) may be found at The Sable City on Facebook.
More about the author:
M. Edward McNally is a North Carolinian of Irish/Mexican extraction. Grew up mostly in the Midwest along the I35 corridor (Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota), and now resides in the scrub brush surrounding Phoenix, AZ, where the scorpions and the javelinas play. Masters in English Lit from ISU and Russian/East European History from ASU, though both date from an earlier era when there was a lot of Grunge on the radio and Eddie wore entirely too much flannel, even in the summer.
Places you can find his books:
Amazon
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/
Places you can connect with Michael:
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/medwardmcnally
http://www.facebook.com/thesablecity
