Dragon Soul Press had the opportunity to sit down and interview Author Silvana G. Sanchez who is launching the second edition of her series!

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What does literary success look like to you?

Literary success to me is the ability to reach out to the reader with my words, establishing the magical connection that allows readers to immerse themselves in the worlds of my creation. The complicity between authors and their readers is unique, without it you’ve got nothing. Success in all its forms stems from that first unique bond.

Do you view writing as a kind of spiritual practice?

Perhaps more psychological than spiritual. There is only so much I can store in the archives of my brain. I’ve gone through several emotional hardships in the last couple of years. Losing my first-born son, Iker, and being myself so close to dying definitely reshaped all of my preconceptions and reaffirmed my belief in what’s truly important in life. To this day, I find myself still placing those thoughts and emotions in the right compartments of my heart; writing sometimes is a healthy way to cast them out of my mind and onto the page, where they serve a better purpose… I guess in the end, writing can be healing in a spiritual sense.

What do you owe the real people upon whom you base your characters?

I try not to base characters solely on people I know, but there certainly have been major influences from friends and acquaintances in the building of my characters. If I told you how Ivan Lockhart came to life as the heart of The Unnatural Brethren series, you’d probably call me crazy…and you’d be right, lol. There’s a lot of crazy going on in my writerly mind.

But seriously, I am grateful to have such a rich assortment of personalities amongst my friends, and I owe to them portraying on the page those traits and quirks as honestly as I can.

How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

*Insert maddening laughter here* So many! I’m currently working on five projects, shuffling revisions, drafts, and editing between them. Hopefully, you’ll get to see the third installment of the Unnatural Brethren series by the end of this year!

As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?

The dragon is a symbol that has accompanied me for years. In my view, the dragon represents strength, wisdom, and resilience.

I have a dragon tattooed on my back, two dragons actually. Each dragon symbolizes my past and future. Both are entwined emulating the Caduceus symbol, alluding to the fact that I’m also a doctor.

This interview is for Dragon Soul Press, so there you go: Dragons are the best!

How do you balance making demands on the reader with taking care of the reader?

I don’t know that I am too demanding on my readers, maybe my sole demand would be for them to keep track of the characters and their plotlines –since there are so many.

I take every comment seriously and I listen to my readers’ expectations. Oftentimes, their hopes will meet with the needs of the story, and when they do, it’s exciting to give them that special scene they’ve been waiting for, knowing they’ll be as thrilled as I was when I wrote it.

What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?

It has to be Jane Austen’s Persuasion. The theme is brilliant, how Anne Elliot is persuaded to break off her engagement to Wentworth, only to realize later on she’d made a mistake. Of all of Austen’s works, Persuasion gets the least amount of love. But it’s truly a masterpiece, not only because of how Austen handles the plot but because her narrative style was more mature by then. She expanded the use of Free Indirect Discourse, blending the voice of the narrator and character seamlessly, which immerses the reader in the story. It’s simply wonderful.

How many hours a day do you write?

More than measuring time, I keep track of my daily word count. Lately, my minimum daily word count has been two-thousand words, sometimes I get to five or six-thousand. What’s most important to me is to write every single day, which is easy when you have so many ongoing works in progress like I do, lol.

Have you read anything that made you think differently about fiction?

I certainly have. There have been works which have reached best-selling status very quickly, even made it to the television or the silver screen, and by the time I’ve gotten around to reading them, they’ve proven painfully disappointing. I don’t want to start a whole thing about it, so I’ll keep those titles to myself. (It’s not you, J.K. Rowling, just in case you were wondering. It’s not you either, G.R.R. Martin, your books are brilliant!).

Where can readers learn more about you?

You can visit me at my website, Facebook, and Twitter. Looking forward to connecting with you there!