Out March 28th 2012! |
Alright, I know March's Writer Interview is really late, but I have a good reason, I promise! Just give me a moment to explain! Last year I had the opportunity to meet Bryce Moore at Conduit 2011 (where I also met Peter Orullian, another author interviewee of mine who you can read up on here). We chatted a bit about his book Vodnik, which (I believe) he had contracted recently. A year later, it's finally coming out! Last month I contacted Bryce about doing an interview to help publicize Vodnik to some of my readers, and he agreed, 'cause he's a cool guy like that. He provided me with the ARC (Advanced Reader's Copy) so I could familiarize myself with it, which I did enthusiastically. You can read my review here. We decided to hold off on releasing the interview itself until Vodnik was closer to being available, in order to help with the initial sales effort. You all know how important the first few weeks of a book's release are, right? Right? 'Cause a book's first month is huge in determining the continued support of marketing dollars, and plays a large roll in how many retailers want to stock it.
Anyway, Vodnik is great; probably my favorite book of this last year. It's different than most others I've read, and totally refreshing. But I'll let you read my full review yourselves. Make sure to check out the link Bryce provided at the bottom of the interview, where you can purchase the Kindle version right now (in case you didn't know, most smartphones, definitely the iPhone, have Kindle apps. FYI). The hardcover of Vodnik will be officially released on March 28th. So pick it up; it's totally worth it.
Bryce Moore Cundick was born in Utah, but moved to the East when he was two years-old, growing up in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia. In 1996, he moved back to Utah to go to college (at BYU). He left for two years to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in Leipzig, Germany. After graduating from college with a Masters of Library Science, Bryce moved to Maine, where he now lives. He's been married for almost ten years now to a wonderful woman from Slovakia, and he has a six year old son and a two year old daughter. Without further ado, here's the questions:Bryce in front of the castle from Vodnik. |
So, you're a librarian, who writes
books.... What's all that about?
I actually think
it’s a perfect job for an aspiring author. I’ve always loved
libraries—how can you not, if you’re an avid reader? But I got my
first job in a library at BYU. My sister worked in the periodicals
department and liked it, and it was one of the better paying jobs on
campus, so I applied and got it. I loved it, but I somehow assumed
you couldn’t make enough money to support a family as a librarian.
I was wrong, obviously.
I’ve now worked
in both public and academic libraries, and I like them both. Library
work is generally low stress. It’s a job I can totally leave behind
me when I walk out the doors of the building. At the same time, it’s
related to writing—you’re working with books every day. Part of
my responsibility at work is to stay current on different genres. So
I get paid to do some of the things I should be doing as a writer,
anyway. Add to that the fact that I get benefits—the Holy Grail for
any author—and life is really good.
Becoming a
librarian isn’t necessarily easy. You need to get a Masters of
Library Science (if you want a good paying job), and the field is a
bit flooded right now. Still, if you put your mind to it and are
serious about it, you can make out just fine. I’m happy to answer
anyone’s questions, if they have more.
Having a day job, how do you find
a balance between work, writing, watching Downton Abbey, and your
family?
It’s tricky, as
anyone who tries them all can attest to (especially the Downton Abbey
addiction). I do it mainly by compartmentalizing different things in
my life. Family comes first, but there are some times when they’re
not around. Like early in the morning. So I get up each day an hour
earlier than I’d like to, and I get my writing done then. A
thousand words a day, Monday through Saturday. (I take Sundays off to
recuperate—it helps to have one day a week when I have nothing else
that I have to do (except a bunch of church stuff, which is a
whole other kettle of monkeys). As long as I get up on time each day
(admittedly not always easy), then the writing gets done. And if I
sleep in late, then it gets done at lunch time. And if it doesn’t
get done then, then it gets done when I get home from work. The nice
thing is that when I wait that long, my family isn’t too pleased
with me, so they remind me (in detail) why I really ought to be
getting up early.
I’m a
schedule-based kind of a guy. I think I have to be, to get everything
done that I want done. It works for me, but I’m sure it wouldn’t
work for everybody. It also helps that my work is related (but not
the same) as my writing. I get to work with books, but I use
different parts of my brain. Still, one last reason it’s good for
me to write first thing: I’m fresh and rested. I can give my
writing my full attention. When I wait until the end of the day, I’m
exhausted, and the words don’t flow as easily.
When and why did you first decide
you wanted to write a novel?
I first tried
writing a book when I was in third grade. Mrs. Allen’s class. It
was called Cat’s Eye Cave (I actually have a link to it up on my
website: http://brycemoore.com/writing/miscellaneous/cats-eye-cave/).
But if you discount that, I made a few other attempts in high school.
They never got very far. A chapter or three at most.
Then I went to
college, and I took a class from Dave Wolverton (who also writes
under the pen name David Farland). It was a fantastic class, all
about how to write science fiction and fantasy. (Actually, Brandon
Sanderson and Dan Wells were in the same class, but they wore
fedoras, so I didn’t talk to them. We wouldn’t be friends until
three years later. The moral? Always talk to guys in fedoras.) I
loved the class, but I got a B+. I took this as a sign that Writing
Was Not For Me. (Funny anecdote—I talked to Dave about that years
later (we’ve since remained friends), and he admitted he had no
clue what grade to give people, and he gladly would have changed it
if I’d talked to him. The moral? Always grade grub.)
In any case, I set
writing aside. Or I tried to. A year later, I was back at it again,
taking another writing class at BYU. Short stories this time, and my
professor (Doug Thayer) didn’t want me to write genre fiction.
Unfortunately, all my mainstream literary stuff ends up about
depressed people doing depressing things. But I got an A in the
class, so go figure. I took that as a sign that I wasn’t too bad at
this, and I kept going.
The next class was
Writing for Children and Young Adults, taught by Louise Plummer. I
wrote some (bad) picture books for that class, and I started a novel:
Into the Elevator. I kept at it, and kept at it, and in the
process started learning about myself as a writer. It wasn’t very
good (though there are still some concepts in it that I’d like to
return to someday), but I learned so much about novel writing through
that process. I was hooked, and I haven’t stopped writing since.
You went to school here in Utah,
right? Tell me which would win in a fight, Maine or Utah?
Maine would totally
win, because Utah would be too upset that Maine hadn’t shaved in a
few decades. Then while Utah was busy trying to convince Maine of the
wonders of the razor, Maine would cut Utah down with a mighty chop of
an axe.
We'll be talking about Vodník in
just a bit. But first, tell us really quick about anything else
you've written in the past.
I’ve written ten
novels, actually. One of them ended up being published for a very
small press—Cavern of Babel
(http://brycemoore.com/writing/cavern-of-babel/),
quite likely the world’s only alpaca fantasy novel. That one was
aimed at a young audience (8-10), but everything else I’ve done has
been for young adults. I think that mentally speaking, I’m still
stuck in high school. The conflicts and drama at that age are just
generally more interesting to me. I also like YA fiction because of
how fast it clips along. It’s all about story and character—at
least the kind that really speaks to me. I read many different genres
(epic fantasy, urban fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, non-fiction—I’m a
librarian, after all), but I really only write in one thus far.
Okay, on to Vodník. You
obviously have a lot of personal ties to the content of the
book. What made you decide to write a book based off a true-to-life
setting, and how did you come up with the premise?
When I first went
to Slovakia and saw the city of Trenčín in 2001, I thought it would
make a fantastic setting for a fantasy. The castle is superb—really
well restored, and right in the middle of this big town. The tour
Tomas goes on in the book is the same one I went on that first day. I
saw the castle, the statue of the Vodník downtown, ate ice cream—I
tried to recreate the first experience I had. When my wife told me
about vodníks—how they’re friendly looking water spirits who
wait around to drown people and store their souls in tea cups—I was
really intrigued. It was so different from any other folklore
creature I’d encountered.
I used a vodník as
the villain in my second book, a fantasy novel set in medieval
Slovakia. He was quite sinister in that novel. Very mean and nasty.
But the book itself didn’t work all that well. I hadn’t done the
amount of research needed to pull off the historical setting, and my
style of writing doesn’t lend itself well to times outside of the
present. My voice is too modern, maybe. In any case, the book didn’t
work. But elements of it hung around in my mind—the vodník
especially.
For the book that’s
now being published—the one you all can read soon—I decided to
start with a simple premise. A boy moves to Slovakia from America,
and he discovers that a vodník wants to kill him. Everything else
grew out of that, step by step.
How long after you completed
writing the first draft was it finally published?
Yikes. Good
question. I think it was 2006, and the first draft was awful. Well,
maybe not awful, but certainly not very good. It didn’t help that
I’d been writing it at the same time I was workshopping it with my
writing group. They would come up with suggestions, and I’d
incorporate them into later chapters, leaving the beginning alone.
The end result was a first draft that was a patchwork of different
plotlines and characterizations. Revising that thing was a mess, and
the second draft—while somewhat more understandable and
recognizable as a cohesive book—was still no good. The third draft
was yet more work, but by the end of it, I felt like it was good
enough to start shopping around.
(The ironic thing,
of course, is that I still ended up having to do three more major
revisions before the book was considered ready for publication. Some
writers may just be able to pull off a single draft. I am not one of
those writers. Not yet, at least.)
What age group is Vodník written
for, and what age groups do you think should read it regardless?
Before I had a
second grader who was reading, I’d have said 12 and up. But my
seven year old just blazed through the entire Harry Potter series in
about two weeks, so I’ve had to reevaluate my worldview when it
comes to reading ages. I shouldn’t have been surprised—I read the
whole Lord of the Rings when I was his age. Kids are going to
read what they want to read, when they want to read it. Usually, it’s
more the parents who are concerned with what’s age appropriate and
what isn’t.
There are some
pretty heavy themes in Vodník. Racism plays a significant
role, and the main character has some brutal things happen to him.
Real world brutality. I think sometimes in Harry Potter, the violence
is lessened a great deal (as far as its actual impact) because it’s
fantasy violence. Spells and hexes. I’ve got some of that going on
in Vodník, too—there’s more realistic stuff, too. One of
the first things Brandon Sanderson said when he was reading it was
how surprised he was by the high body count.
Bunnicula
this ain’t.
The book is
primarily aimed at 12-16 year olds, but that’s not to say people
younger or older than that wouldn’t enjoy it. Most of what I read
these days is Young Adult, after all.
How would you respond to someone
suggesting it's a true story, magic and all? There are several
similarities to your real life....
Similarities? What
similarities? There are no similarities. (Nervous titter) And
if there were, I certainly couldn’t tell you about them. I had to
sign a contract with Death agreeing that I’d claim everything in
the book is fiction.
That’s a contract
I plan on keeping, thank you very much.
One of the things that struck me
while reading Vodník was the large amount of information
weaving through it. Halfway through the book, I kept thinking to
myself, "Wow, there's still a ton more to go!" It was one
of the great things about it; it seemed much longer than it actually
was. How did you keep track of all the details in your own head?
I don’t think I
could have kept all the details in my head—or even included them
all in the first draft, for that matter. This was a book that grew in
layers. The first draft had the basic core of the story, but with
each passing draft (and there were many), I’d add more. Flesh out
the characters, increase the conflicts. I’m not saying that’s the
way to do it normally. Adding an entirely new plotline is a real
beast. For example, in an earlier draft, the kids that bully Tomas
were always referred to generically. There were no scenes that had
him actually confront anyone. This wasn’t working. I needed some
people for Tomas to see and struggle against. So I had to add in
scenes with those characters.
Some people plot
out their entire books ahead of time. I’ve done that a few times,
myself. I still try to—although inevitably that outline ends up
getting altered a great deal by the time the book is finished. But
with Vodník, it was almost entirely organic. And as a result,
it was a lot of work.
Vodník is a pretty modern
book, with a lot of pop culture references. How did you choose which
references to use, and why?
Anyone who knows me
knows that I’m as steeped in pop culture as you can get. It’s
actually very difficult for me to not include pop culture
references. It’s how I think. So often in the first draft, I just
give myself free reign, and put in each and every reference that pops
into my head. After the first draft’s done, I have to go back and
trim the ones that don’t really work. At that point, it helps to
have a writing group who can look at it and give you feedback. But
I’m getting better at figuring out the good ones and the bad ones
on my own. The trick is making sure they’re references that your
character would make, and that your audience will likely
understand—at least know what he means, if not exactly what film or
TV show he’s talking about.
Are you doing a book launch or a
tour of any kind? Will you be in Utah for any conventions coming up?
I’m doing a book
launch here in my local town in Maine. April 3rd at 7:00pm
at the public library in Farmington. I’ll also be appearing at the
library-focused Reading Roundup in Maine a few weeks later.
However, perhaps of
more interest to your readers, I will also be at CONduit this year in
Salt Lake. No idea yet what panels I’ll be on or anything, but I’ll
be there to play games, talk to people, and generally have a grand
time. The fans in Utah are awesome—I really love coming out to see
everyone when I can. I lived in Utah for almost 10 years, after all.
One of the things I miss most is the great writing and fantasy
community.
Are you writing any sequels
to Vodník, or other books? What can we expect/hope next from
you?
No sequel to Vodník
yet. I have some in mind, but they’re not under contract, and my
agent wisely advised me not to write sequels if you haven’t sold
them already. (However, I really really really would love to write
some more of this story. Hopefully the book sells well enough to
persuade The Powers that Be that sequels are a necessity. Tu has been
really supportive of the book so far. I’m very optimistic.)
In the meantime,
I’ve been working on a YA Noir Fantasy called Tarnhelm. It
takes place in America, with a 16 year old protagonist who’s
patterned his life after the hardboiled detectives from movies like
The Maltese Falcon. Then he gets embroiled in a “case”
just like them, and he discovers it’s much more complicated than he
imagined. The book’s been a blast to write, and I’m hopeful it
finds a good publisher so I can share it with the rest of you. Stay
tuned to my blog for updates.
What do you do when you feel like
your day's writing is crap?
I write anyway.
1,000 words a day, crap or not. The funny thing is, when I do that
and barrel through—then go to look at the entire book after I’m
finished, it’s hard to tell the sections that I thought were crap
from the sections I thought were genius. Sometimes you might think
you have an awesome idea in the moment, only to realize later on that
it doesn’t work at all. Other times, you think what you’re
writing is garbage, but then you read it later and see it’s firing
on all cylinders. I think my immediate response to a piece of my
writing is often worthless. Hence the 1,000 words a day goal.
Do you write anything for your
kids? Do you want them to read your work when they're old enough?
Of course! My
middle grade fantasy Cavern of Babel was written with the younger set
in mind, and each year I write a short story for Christmas (this
year’s was about a reindeer who accidentally hired elves to
assassinate Rudolph). That’s always a lot of fun. My son’s old
enough now that he’s taking more and more interest in my writing. I
think actually seeing a hardcover book come out with my name on it
helped make it that much more real for him.
Who do you feel like are your
greatest writing role models? Where do you get your inspiration?
As far as writers
who have made the most impact on me? Definitely Brandon Sanderson. I
was just dabbling in writing until he asked me to be in his writing
group. Watching Brandon week by week for four years really opened my
eyes. He’s so professional in his approach. He devotes a ton of
time to his craft, but he still makes time for the fans and aspiring
writers.
As for inspiration?
No clue. Like I said, I’m deeply steeped in pop culture. I watch
all sorts of shows and movies. But it’s not like I watch an episode
of Buffy and then decide “I want to write something like that.”
Ideas just come to me. When they do, I write them down. Later on,
when I’m looking for inspiration, I read over my various ideas.
Something always sparks at that point, and I go from there.
Let's hear some sage advice for
all of us out here in the local writing scene.
For me, it all
comes down to one thing: writers write. I know a lot of people who
love to talk about writing, or plan what they’ll write, or think
about writing. But writers write, plain and simple. Sit down in front
of a blank screen or blank piece of paper, and start putting words on
it. Do that every day, for a set period of time. Don’t “wait for
your muse.” Don’t only write “when you’re in the mood.” If
you’re serious about it, treat it like a job.
I love being a
librarian, but there are definitely days I’d rather stay in bed.
Too bad. I have to go to work, instead. I love writing, but it can be
a real drain. It’s very difficult to keep writing, even when I feel
like what I’m writing isn’t that good. Doesn’t matter. I keep
doing it.
If you take care of
the “actually write” piece of the puzzle, then you should start
moving on to the next phase: improve your writing. This might mean
taking some classes at college. Or maybe you join a writing group
(online or in person). At the very least, have some people not
related to you (or at least, people willing to be brutally honest)
read what you write and evaluate it. Listen to them. They won’t
always be right, but listen particularly for things like “I was
bored here.” Or “This confused me.” Because they’ll be 100%
correct about stuff like that. If someone tells you “I was confused
here,” you can’t tell them “No you weren’t.” See what I
mean?
Finally, two last
things. First, read. Read all you have time for, in many different
genres. Not just the genre you write in. Second, live. Go outside.
Play with the kids or friends. Enjoy your life. If you never
experience life, how can you write about it?
Thanks Bryce!
There you go folks, head out and grab Vodnik now at Amazon and pick up the hardcover on March 28th! Also, feel free to follow Bryce on Twitter, become a fan of the Vodnik Facebook page, and visit his blog.
Website: http://brycemoore.com/
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/vodníkbook
Twitter Handle: @bmoorebooks
This interview is so full! Just like Vodnik. And I don't care what anyone says; I think it's real :) If I were Bryce, I'd tell my kids every day it's a true story.
ReplyDeleteGreat interview. It's so nice to hear how legit authors make it happen!
I may have to pick this book up now.
ReplyDeleteFantastic Interview! I read everything about Bryce I can get my hands on. He's creative, funny and an exceptional writer!
ReplyDeleteI myself am becoming a pretty huge fan! Amanda, you really should pick it up, it's excellent!
ReplyDelete