dragon soul press

Author Interview with Austin Worley

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Dragon Soul Press sat down to interview Austin Worley, an author in the Murder and Mayhem and Organic Ink: Volume 5 anthologies.

1. What inspired you to start writing? 

My biggest inspiration to start writing was my 12th Grade Creative Writing teacher, Ms. Sullivan. Before her class, I had never really considered writing professionally. Her encouragement and confidence in my work ultimately led me to take the plunge. And here I am now: a published author and poet.

2. How do you handle writer’s block?

My first method for avoiding writer’s block is to plot out everything before I begin writing, because I find the only time writer’s block is a problem is if I don’t already know where I’m headed or how to get there. When it does set in despite my best efforts, I just push through the block as best as possible. Either the block will subside, or I’ll eventually finish, because even a paragraph or two every day is progress.

3. What comes first, the plot or characters?

For me, it varies wildly. Sometimes a unique idea for a character suddenly takes shape. This was the case with The Silver Shrike. I loved the idea of a superhero who wanted to prove to the world—and himself, deep down—that he was nothing like his villainous family. Other times, a very loose plot would grab my imagination. “An Oath to the Sun” in Murder & Mayhem was inspired by a little research into methanol poisoning, which made for a great murder mystery.

4. What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?

Oh, this is a tough one. Personal quirks are so difficult to identify yourself. If I had to choose, I’d say the gender imbalance of my protagonists across my entire body of work is my most interesting writing quirk. Most of my stories published and unpublished have female leads. Part of this is because of recurring characters—roughly two-thirds of my published works star either Arlise Dun or Topsannah Price—but even if you only go by unique protagonists, there’s a definite slant towards women. I don’t know why. Lots of male writers find it difficult to write female characters, but that’s never been an issue for me.

5. What does success mean to you? What is the definition of success?

To me, success means my work ends up in front of readers. Earning a living purely from writing might be my pie-the-sky dream, but readers enjoying my stories is enough success for me.

6. On a typical day, how much time do you spend writing?

Between three and five hours in front of the keyboard is pretty typical, but I spend a lot more time working on writing-related stuff in my head.

7. Do you find it more challenging to write the first book in a series or to write the subsequent novels? 

Series are tough because the deeper into them you go, the more limited you are by what came before. First stories or novels are always easier because you have so much freedom, especially in terms of character and setting.

8. What advice would you give a new writer, someone just starting out? 

Persist. There are going to be times where you doubt your writing is any god. Times when you want to give up on a story or even writing in general, especially once the rejections start piling up. But if you throw in the towel, you’ll never achieve your goals. Persistence is the only pathway to success, whatever success looks like to you.

9. Are you working on anything at the present you would like to share with your readers about? 

Right now, I’m preparing for two novels. The first is a novelization of my second-chance superhero romance novelette “Law, Love, and the Whippoorwill”. I feel like expanding this story into a novel will allow me to better develop the characters and their reconciliation. My other project is a military sci-fi romance influenced by Honor Harrington and the work of Linnea Sinclair. Most of the subgenre is centered on marines or space fighter pilots, so I’d like to bring more of a naval focus to the table. Once the pre-writing is finished, I’ll dive into writing whichever one fires my imagination more.

10. Where can readers learn more about you?

You can find out more about me and my work on my website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, DeviantArt, and Wattpad.

Author Interview with Toni Mobley

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Dragon Soul Press interviewed Toni Mobley, an author featured in History, Age of Artifice, and Haunt.

1. Who is your favorite author and why?

It’s hard to pick just one! My all-time favorite author is a tie between Sara Douglass and Garth Nix! When I lived in Australia, they were the inspiration for wanting to improve my craft and I have always looked up to them. Sara Douglass created these fantastical worlds with rich history and made it seem so effortless, while Garth Nix perfected memorable characters that have stuck with me even years after reading his books.

2. When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I wrote my first book at 11 about all my classmates and I on a deserted island, and it was after that I called myself a writer. But it wasn’t until my first short story was published that I called myself an author.

3. What comes first, the plot or characters?

For me, I usually come up with a plot or a location and then work characters into it. I’ll be inspired by beautiful locations around the world or something I saw in a video game and think, that’s amazing, I want something just like that!

4. How do you come up with the titles to your books?

Before I even start writing a book or short story, I’ll create a list of the most important aspects of the book, including several titles. It isn’t until I’ve finished writing that I sit down and choose the title that most suits the story.

5. What is the most difficult part about writing for you?

Sticking with my outline! As I’m writing sometimes my characters will change or I’ll decide a location no longer suits the tone of the story and I’ll have to go back and nitpick everything. Or, more often than not, I’ll be halfway through writing a story and inspiration will strike and I’ll want to completely rewrite what I’ve written.

6. On a typical day, how much time do you spend writing?

I can spend hours and hours writing, from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. But I’m not just writing, often times I’m researching, and I’m sure many people are familiar with researching something innocent like the History of London, England and three hours later they’re learning about particle acceleration.

7. What do you like to do when you are not writing?

Although it’s rare to find me not writing, I enjoy spending my free time reading or playing video games. I am a sucker for nature and enjoy going for a drive to the beach or mountains. But I’m just as happy at home watching TV or testing out new recipes I found online.

8. What was your favorite part, and your least favorite part, of the publishing journey?

My favorite parts are the people I meet along the way who are just like me, and at the very end being able to hold something in your hands with your name on it and thinking, ‘Wow, this is surreal!’ The least favorite part is the waiting! The publishing industry is notoriously slow with hundreds of moving parts and requires a tremendous amount of patience.

9. What advice would you give a new writer, someone just starting out?

The first thing (or eight) that you create won’t be perfect. I’ve written a dozen novels, but it was my third book that got me a publisher. Like any form of art, it requires dedication. It’s a craft that you must continuously work on to improve yourself at. Even prolific authors like Stephen King and Nora Roberts are still learning. Read a lot, write a lot, no matter if it’s an article on particle acceleration, or a short poem. Anything and everything helps you to do better!

10. Where can readers learn more about you?

Readers can find me on Twitter or my website.

Why You Should Keep Improving Your Skills #3

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In life, everything is constantly changing. This applies to books and their current trending genres. One week, fairies are topping the charts, but the next, Greek goddesses have taken over. Depending what genre those examples delve in, the writing is different. Gone are the days when Tolkien’s style of writing was popular. Now, stories told from a First Person POV and leaning heavily towards romance are selling the best. Those two elements can be applied to any setting and genre, but only if you know how to execute it.

Reading in your genre is the best way to see what readers are looking for. As the saying goes, readers want to read the same exact thing, but with minor changes and some originality. Once they pick up a book by you, they expect the others to be similarly written.

If you’re expecting to sell a lot of books, it’s best to stick with the current writing styles of authors topping the charts. It’s a personal decision to attempt getting a book into all of the current trends. Sliding into even one of them will drastically boost your ratings and get the attention of new readers.

At this point, you may be getting a bit defensive at the fact you should improve your skills. There is a vast difference between style and skill. Style is the art of the storytelling. Your style may always be changing or you may have nailed it down earlier on. The skill is the execution of the writing and should always be improving.

In order to succeed, your writing skills will need to constantly be advanced. There’s not enough room for the famous “show, don’t tell” speech here, but you can find our previous articles for reference: Pitfalls to Avoid: Showing vs. Telling and Show, Don’t Tell.

Continued from
Why You Still Need an Editor After Multiple Books

Why You Shouldn’t Withdraw Your Submission Early #1

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After being in the business for so long, one ends up seeing multiple dreams being squashed or coming true. One of the worst things is getting in your own way and causing everything to crash and burn. This has occurred many times and as such, has warranted this article.

Many publishers have the option of manuscript and anthology submissions. When someone submits to both outlets and one gets rejected, the automatic response is to withdraw all submissions from that publisher. This is the wrong way to do things. Just because one thing was rejected does not mean everything will be.

There are so many possibilities as to why it was refused. Some of the most common reasons is it needed more editing or that story didn’t fit in that particular anthology. No matter the reason, none is cause to withdraw all of your submissions. More often than not, the publisher is planning on accepting one even though another was rejected.

The reason many authors are not successful with traditional publishing is because they don’t follow submission guidelines and once refused, they automatically give up. “Self-publishing is such an easier way to go” has been a saying going around writing communities. It may be easier, but you will never have the same opportunities that traditional publishing gives. And so, the story that was rejected due to poor editing is uploaded for self-publishing without further improvement and gets nowhere with sales.

The worst of all is that, more often than not, the author never continues improving their writing. Critique is the most important way to continue honing your writing skills. If you think you’re already the best and have nothing further to improve, then you’re already in the wrong mindset.

To be continued in a later blog post called
Why You Still Need an Editor After Multiple Books…

Author Interview with D.J. Elton

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Dragon Soul Press interviewed D.J. Elton, an author of short stories, microfiction, and poetry.

1. How long have you been writing?

I started writing as a child as it was encouraged at school and held my interest. I kept writing over the years, especially poetry. Recently, in the past 5 or so years I have become more focused in getting my work published. So I’ve been quite prolific with poetry, microfiction and short stories. It was bliss on a stick to return to writing, something was fulfilled inside of me.

2. What is the most difficult part about writing for you?

My day usually includes a range of various work-related activities: because other than writing I also teach, promote, liaise, meditate and follow up people and engagements. So I do a lot. Nothing is tricky about the actual writing itself, but finding time to write as much as I would like has been a big challenge. I suppose another difficult thing is getting a heap of rejections all at once; one day I got five and it was so painful. Then you get some acceptances and it balances out.

3. What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing?

Engaging descriptions. Characters and dialogue that are interesting, attention-grabbing, page-turning; people want to keep reading and not get bored. I always attempt to adhere to a plot framework but it sometimes gets hijacked by the characters. Several rounds of editing is usually helpful too. I am a short story writer, not a novelist.

4. How do you come up with the story or poem titles?

Mostly I leave it to the end, when I have written the piece. Then a title often comes to mind which is an added extra to highlight the theme. This I find easy. There will always be some words in the work which stand out and are significant for the title. Recently, I thought I will experiment with just a title and write a poem or story from just that. This can be a fun and challenging exercise, eg: “The Dog that could Fly” or “Green Skin.”

5. What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?

I’m in quite a poetry-writing phase these past few months. I can whip up a poem really quickly – I amaze myself in doing this; just writing it out, free-flow. (Not all are accepted or sent for publication of course!) But the ease of the writing of poetry continues to give me a real high, whereas writing stories and even microfiction is a lot more of a calculated process. (I’m a plotter mostly). I mean I would never plot a poem. No need.

6. How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?

I’ve not written novels although I have my work in around 50 anthologies, which includes short stories, poetry and microfiction. I was the team lead for a group of writers last year to come up with a speculative version of Alice and her adventures with the White Rabbit. The title is The Thirteen Lives of Alice. It’s quite a favorite, and completing it in 2021 was a huge challenge although there was a good team of authors on board and a savvy publisher (can I name Black Hare Press?) There’s a novella called The Merlin Girl which is the first thing I ever had published in the past few years. In retrospect it’s very raw but I love the story behind it; a medieval girl comes to the twenty-first century to repair some karma, stirring up the Camelot story.

7. Where do you draw inspiration from?

Nice question. From my life; what I see and experience. I have a healthy imagination so that works well for fantasy and sci fi. Anything that happens can be teased out into a story – this can be morphed into that and so on. Love rewriting faerie tales, folklore stories and myths. There is some great content available and I love to research.

8. Do you have any new stories planned?

At the moment I have about 6 stories I am rehashing, re-editing. I love how the editing one does today would be different in the next round of reading, or in 3 months’ time. I do have a plan for a book of essays on various themes, and have started writing these with a list of topics that continues to grow!

9. Who is the author you most admire in your genre?

I have to say Neil Gaiman. I just so loved The Graveyard Book when I read it. That is something I would like to write. I’m definitely more of a YA author than a horror author. I also like a good Michael Robotham read; he does crime thrillers and has an investigative journalist background. 

10. Where can readers learn more about you?

Readers can learn more at my website, Facebook, and Instagram.