L.T. Suzuki, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by L.T. Suzuki
Dale Ivan Smith Interview 11/4/2012 7:18:17 AM
Science Fiction author Dale Ivan Smith discusses the writing life! With the vibrant online writing community, I’ve had the good fortune of meeting a number of my fellow authors that I follow on Twitter. I met one such author during the San Diego World Fantasy Conference in October 2011 and we’ve ‘tweeting’ regularly ever since. For today’s author feature, I’d like to introduce you to Dale Ivan Smith. I’d like to begin by having you share a little information about yourself with our readers, Dale. What do you enjoy doing when you are not writing?
DIS: Thanks for inviting me here, Lorna! When I am not writing I enjoy reading and watching movies trying to get my story fix, working out, playing video and board games, spending time with my wonderful wife LeAnn, and working at my day job at the local library, a job I genuinely love.
You have been writing stories since you were a child. When did you decide to take your writing seriously and make the jump to become a published author?
DIS: Excellent question. Though I had been writing for many years, on and off, it was in 2008 and that I finally, truly, decided to take my writing seriously by attending my first writer’s conference, the Willamette Writers annual conference held here in Portland. I was only able to attend for one day, but that one day lead to my taking an intensive eight week writing course taught by Eric Witchey, an award winning writer, which led to more classes and workshops. I learned that the craft of fiction can be broken down into its elements and each studied on its own, and that conscious, regular practice can really improve your writing.
Let’s discuss you latest short story, a sci-fi entitled Persisting. What was the inspiration behind this story and can you tell us a little bit about your protagonist, Daniel Matsura?
DIS: I had the image of a man in powered battle armor, all alone, facing a terrible choice in the midst of an interstellar war. The immediacy of his dilemma pulled at me and I wrote a very short version, gave it to beta readers, put it aside for a time, and then came back to it a year a later to write the full version.
Matsura is a young telepath and a technician working on a covert project who is sent by Earth’s military to Eridani Prime, a former colony world that is a bastion in the war against the alien Hive. He comes from a military tradition, though he is a rebel and considers himself a civilian.
Without giving away too much, can you reveal what’s in store for the readers when they crack open Persisting?
DIS: My aim was to write an emotionally involving story, about an unlikely hero who ends up caring deeply for another and has to make a momentous decision in the face of incredible odds. It’s a science fiction story about sacrifice and struggling to find unorthdox solutions to great problems.
The road to publication is difficult at the best of times. What made you decide to go the indie route and self-publish?
DIS: I saw the opportunity to reach readers in directly, and the freedom in a wide open market for stories that established publishers would not be interested in but which readers would enjoy.
I decided to make Persisting my first indie publication. I’d gotten some great feedback from readers, other writers, and one editor, but it didn’t fit the sci-fi short fiction market. I had sold several flash fiction stories (stories a thousand words or shorter) to a couple of online markets, but markets for longer form sci-fi and fantasy tended to be a bit less wide open to differing types of stories than the flash magazines were.
Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, and other eBook retailers presented a golden opportunity for this story—here were new markets for fiction and different audiences then the traditional short story magazines, and here the story could find its own readers. It also was an opportunity to learn the indie ropes, as it were, by publishing a short story first.
What is the best and worst part of being an indie author?
DIS: The best part is the freedom to publish what you want and in charge of your own writing career. Quality matters and you have to put your best work out there, nothing less will do in my humble opinion.
The worse part is juggling the various demands of being an idie—reaching readers, learning how to self-publish, lining up editors, cover art etc. However, I like being able to make those decisions. So perhaps that isn’t really the worse part after all. I’d say this biggest challenge is the flip side of the best part--that you are in charge of your own writing career, so it is up to you to motivate yourself, and find validation in the writing itself, rather than in praise from an editor or agent.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned on the road to publication?
DIS: The writing has to come first. This might seem like a blindingly obvious point, but it is easy to get sucked into using social media, connecting with other indies, worrying about sales, learning formatting, cover art etc. The thing is the writing must come first, and the result of that writing are books you are putting out there for readers to enjoy.
Still on the subject of writing styles, are you a plotter or pantser? The readers would like to know if you tend to plot out your story line in great detail or if your writing is more organic with the characters and events unfolding as you write.
DIS: I started out as a pantser but moved into becoming a plotter, for a time being a very heavy outliner. The problem is that over preparing for me can prevent me from actually drafting a story, so I’m learning to plot with a deadline in mind to begin writing, because the act of drafting often results in discovering things about the story and its characters I would never have imagined when I was planning what I wanted to write.
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?
DIS: I’ve tried different rituals like meditation and fueling up on tea in my case, but the thing that works the best is having a short sketch of the next scene I want to write, just bullet points really, and then writing reasonably quickly, for 30 to 45 minutes in a session.
The author and writing teacher James Scott Bell advocates writing five hundred words first thing in the morning, to prime the pump, and I find that if I can write at the start of my day for a short session and create a few hundred new words that I get off on the right mental foot.
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?
DIS: I’ve found there’s a couple of things that can cause writers block.
One is not knowing what happens next. In this case, I brainstorm ideas for ten or fifteen minutes, get some physical exercise—a short walk outside, or some yoga stretches, or even pacing up and down the hallway in my house, drink some tea, play with my cats etc.
Another cause of writers block is thinking that you are a terrible writer. I tend to go between thinking I am utterly brilliant and thinking I’m the worse writer in world history. Neither is the case. Ironically the way through this block is by allowing yourself to write badly. As epic fantasy author Brandon Sanderson said once, “You can always fix it in post.” Meaning that you can revise what you have written, and certainly for me revision is hugely important.
Finally there’s the block that comes from having inflated expectations about potential outcomes, such as how your work will be received, how well will sell etc. Like expectations in general, they can hold you back. Letting go of those expectations is crucial for me.
Who is your favourite author and how has he/she inspired you to write or influenced your writing style or choice of genre?
DIS: That’s a tough question for me to answer—I have a number of favorite authors, folks like C.J. Cherryh, Roger Zelazny, JRR Tolkien, Glen Cook, Jim Butcher, Carrie Vaughn, Robert B. Parker, Ken Scholes, Connie Willis, and many others. What all of these folks have inspired in me is the desire to create compelling, emotionally satisfying stories that linger after you finish them. Many of my favorite writers write tight, and don’t overdescribe a character or setting, and that has influenced my own writing style.
What do you foresee in your future over the next five years and do you hope to branch out from science fiction into other genres? Can your fans expect a sequel to Persisting in the near future?
DIS: My current work in progress is Weed, a superhero serial set in the modern world, featuring Jolene Jacobs, an ex-supervillain sent to prison when she was a teenager and released at 21. She’s trying to stay out of trouble and start a new life, only trouble won’t let her and she finds her self the target of villains and heroes alike who want to use her for their own ends. Weed is structured like a television series, six episodes to a season, with each episode being a novella. The first season will begin early next year.
Beyond that, I have ideas for a steampunk series set in 1870s America and an urban fantasy police procedural style series. I’m also a big fan of the suspense genre and have a thriller on the backburner.
As for Persisting, there is a sequel in the works, a novelette entitled Perception, which I hope to have out in the near future.
Thank you so much for taking time from your hectic life to discuss your writing and the writing life, Dale!
My pleasure, Lorna! Thanks again for having me here!
For more information about Dale Ivan Smith and his works, check out:
