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Melissa McPhail Interview 12/1/2012 6:39:08 PM
Award winning author Melissa McPhail discusses Cephrael's Hand and the writing life! LTS: For today’s feature, I’d like to introduce you to the lovely and talented, award-winning author Melissa McPhail! I’d like to begin by having you share a little information about yourself with our readers, Melissa. What do you enjoy doing when you are not writing?
MP: Wow—that’s a small window, actually! When I’m not writing, I spend as much time with my 10-year-old twin daughters as I can. We luckily enjoy the same activities, and I can bring them with me most anywhere and enjoy their company.
Upon a cursory look, I’d probably glibly reply that I live a fairly sedentary lifestyle—time spent blissfully writing and reading, ideally fireside with my cats—but when I really take a good look, I realize I’m quite an active person. I teach two classes of yoga every day. We ski all winter (a long stretch in the Pacific-Northwest, as you know), and our summers are active in the outdoors. I love sailing and hiking and anything that reveals the distant, quiet places of the world. Yet for all I enjoy exploring this word, I’m happiest when engrossed in a new one—either another author’s or my own.
LTS: You grew up in a house full of musicians, but your creativity emerged in the form of writing. Has writing stories always been a part of your life and becoming a published author a lifelong dream?
MP: You know, I never imagined myself a writer growing up. I always thought I would end up in music like the rest of my family. I grew up with such an appreciation of these accomplished, classical musicians all around me, it seemed a natural course to follow in their footsteps.
I stumbled into writing the way one sometimes bumps into providence, colliding with it accidentally. I can’t say I wrote much outside of English class until high school, when I took an elective creative writing class. I always loved English, I read voraciously my entire life, so writing came easily. Fortunately I had a poet for a creative writing instructor, and she believed the best way to teach writing was to send the kids out to actually write. So I did—hundreds of pages over the next few years. Writing became both an outlet for my creativity and the escape reading had always provided.
I know I share that love affair with many authors.
LTS: Your debut novel, Cephrael’s Hand was the winner of The Written Arts Award for both the best fiction and the best Sci-Fi/Fantasy categories! Congratulations! So tell us, what was the inspiration behind this story and can you tell us a little bit about it?
MP: I started the first version of Cephrael’s Hand over a million words ago when I was going through a difficult time in my life. I most needed the cathartic joy that I’d always found in writing, and I didn’t set out to write a novel, just to write. That first draft had no planning, no world-building, no design. I formed the world around the characters as I went along, each new chapter pouring out, the story growing larger and the world taking shape with it. It was pure creative inspiration. And it was awful!
But the characters… I had brought them into being, and now they had a story to tell. It took my growing as a writer—and over a million words tossed into the trash—to finally tell their story properly.
Cephrael’s Hand is the result of a philosopher’s approach to fantasy. It’s the story of one man’s steadfast determination to save the realm he swore to protect, and his willingness to do anything it took to accomplish that end—even to become known as a traitor. It’s the story of those who fall beneath his shadow, and those who follow him. Ultimately, it’s a story of salvation.
We all face tests of our integrity and honor. We all strive to accomplish our goals and find success—happiness. None of us set out to do evil. Yet evil is done. Our goals are often abandoned. Integrity is compromised. We often totter precariously on thin wires as we move through life. The lucky ones find a stable route across that labyrinthine web, but in the vastness of human existence, such are few.
I see fantasy as a metaphor for life in this world, and I strive with my series to illuminate those wire-thin paths of our lives, that we might find solid ground beneath them.
LTS: Without giving away too much, can you reveal what’s in store for the readers when they crack open Cephrael’s Hand?
MP: If you listen to my critics—too many characters! But this is an epic fantasy dealing with a conflict that spans multiple kingdoms. It takes a team to save the world. ;)
Hopefully you’ll meet interesting characters and a world you can easily find your own place within. You’ll discover pirates, princes, star-crossed lovers and philosopher-soldiers. You’ll see many characters who are not as they appear, and a few who are exactly as they seem. You’ll find adventure on a perilous road with Ean val Lorian, and escapades of a different variety with Trell of the Tides and the pirate Carian vran Lea.
You’ll often wonder who is good and who is bad—because like in life, good and evil often appear cloaked in shades of gray.
LTS: The road to publication is difficult at the best of times. What made you choose to go the indie route and self-publish your novels?
MP: I’d been working on this novel for so many years, I thought it time to finally let others find it, too. The rise of self-publishing seemed another bit of providence on my path, and I jumped at the chance to put my work out there for others to (hopefully) enjoy, and to do that my way.
LTS: What is the best and worst part of being an indie author?
MP: The best part is having total creative control. The worst part…probably having total creative control! I think the biggest hazard of being at the forefront of any burgeoning industry is having to find your own way across the frontier. You make a lot of mistakes, and the world is rather unforgiving about them. Fortunately, there are so many other indie authors out there now, and it’s so easy to connect with them via twitter and other social media, that you don’t have to continuously reinvent the wheel on your own journey into print. I’ve never encountered a more mutually supportive group than indie authors.
LTS: What is the most important lesson you’ve learned on the road to publication?
MP: Oh my... that humility is your friend! Being willing to admit you know nothing and learn from the experience of others.
LTS: Plotter or pantser? The readers would like to know if you tend to plot out your storyline in great detail or if your writing is more organic with the characters and events unfolding as you write.
MP: I write from scene to scene with not much plotting in between. The scenes act as milestones, islands in the sea. Each scene anchors the story and casts a heading toward the next, so I know overall where I’m going, but not necessarily how to get to the next island.
LTS: Some authors meditate, others need to fuel up on coffee or listen to music. Do you have any rituals, ones that can be shared with the readers, that you must do before you hunker down for a writing session?
MP: I can write without tea, but not happily. I have playlists for each book. They change as the tone of the story changes. I wrote much of the first half of book 2, Dagger of Adendigaeth, to the dulcet tones of Lifehouse, Anberlin and Daughtry. ;)
LTS: At one time or another, most writers hit the wall and their work stalls because of the dreaded writer’s block. What do you do to get around or over this mental wall to resume writing?
MP: Usually I turn to music—either composing it or listening to it. If I can find a great new song, sometimes that will help inspire me out of the hole. When a scene just isn’t working, I’ve learned to go back to where I was last doing well in the story and scrap everything that came after. It’s an agonizing process, but usually necessary.
LTS: Who is your favorite author and how has he/she inspired you to write or influenced your writing style or choice of genre?
MP: Wow—can anyone really answer this? Naming a single favorite author seems an egregious affront to the rest of them. Everything I’ve read has impacted or inspired me in some way. I can’t read a story without some aspect of the author’s writing style imprinting in my consciousness.
I turn to the classics as refreshers between books—or even between chapters—to my favorites: Les Miserables, Romeo & Juliet, David Copperfield, or anything by Oscar Wilde. I particularly admire the lyrical voices of Anne Rice, Jacqueline Carey and Pat Rothfuss (fantasy authors, all). Ayn Rand’s work hugely influenced me as a teenager.
The only books I’ve read more times than Atlas Shrugged are Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series, which I first read as a child and still enjoy as an adult. Those books have real magic in them.
LTS: What do you foresee in your future over the next five years and do you hope to branch out from fantasy into other genres? The sequel, The Dagger of Adendigaeth is available now. Can your fans expect a sequel to book 2 in the near future?
MP: I have four books planned in the Shadow & Light series. After that I’m planning a trilogy of prequels leading up to the Adept Wars and the fall of the Citadel on Cair Tiern’aval.
LTS: Thank you so much for taking the time to discuss your works and the writing life, Melissa! I’ll catch you on Twitter.
Thank you, Lorna!
For more information about Melissa and her novels, check out:
Website: http://melissamcphail.com Follow Melissa on Twitter: .melissagmcphail
