• Fantasy

    Romantic Fantasy: The Red Queen @themikewrites #RLFblog

    Michael J. McDonald, welcome to Romance Lives Forever.
    Let’s talk about your book, The Red Queen.

    Genre:
    Romantic Fantasy
    Publisher:
    Books to Go Now
    Cover
    artist: Jenna White
    Length:
    31 pages
    Heat
    rating: Medium
    Tagline:
    “Long live the Queen!”
    Blurb:
    The Red Queen is a political thriller set in a world of medieval fantasy,
    against a backdrop of political and sexual corruption. The king of Liberi
    passes away, leaving his crown to his ambitious son, while his wayward daughter
    struggles to deal with her apathy and indulgence. Her old friend, the Cardinal,
    reminds the Princess of her sense of duty to her people, who are caught in the
    cross-fire of her brother’s machinations.
    Buy
    links:
    Amazon
    http://amzn.com/B0088D28X8
    What are your main characters’
    names, ages, and occupations?
    Princess
    Amelia, in her early 20s, is the younger sister of the heir to the throne and,
    with no responsibilities and a liberal attitude to love, the embarrassing
    open-secret of the royal family.
    Private
    Leroy, 19, is the fresh-faced batman for the esteemed, pompous General Stagg,
    and in his own shy way intrigues the Princess far more than his blustering
    superior.

    Interview

    How did you get your start in
    the industry?
    I
    have been writing for almost my entire life. I recall on my very first day of
    school, before I could even write letters by hand, our teacher gave us simple
    words printed on card to slot together to make sentences. I soon ran out and
    asked for more to complete my epic tale. Creative writing became my favorite
    activity and by the time I was in high school I was writing lengthy fan
    fictions and otherwise steeping myself in the process of storytelling. When I
    entered the University
    of Glasgow,
    I started taking things a bit more seriously, and managed to win a couple of
    awards for essay writing while also getting a few credits for short stories
    under my belt.
    What is the most important thing
    you do for your career now, as compared to when you first started writing?
    It
    is still the same really –
    write. To keep the momentum going and keep building a profile, I need to have
    material out there and I always need to find ways to reach new readers.
    What websites do you visit
    daily?
    I
    keep an eye on various blogs through Google Reader, particularly K.M. Weiland’s
    Wordplay and the Smashwords blog. I
    also check out political sites like Crooksandliars.com and The Young Turks,
    because I’m cynical and like to be reminded why. I pop up on Wattpad now and
    then, too, but not every day.
    If you could change something
    about your first book, what would it be?
    At
    the last moment, I actually changed something quite radically. It is a
    generation-spanning fantasy where a teenage girl inherits a tremendous power
    from her mother, who survived a cataclysmic explosion that destroyed her
    homeland. Essentially it is a tale of a nuclear-powered superhero, in a
    steam-punk setting where everyone is trapped underground due to the fallout
    from a magical war. I wrote it in perfect chronological order, starting with
    the meeting of the main characters’ parents and ending with the main characters’
    conflict with her nemesis seventeen years later. Reading through in yet another
    final edit, I realized that there was a problem: the main character is not
    introduced until about a third of the way through the book. Her mother’s story
    is compelling in itself, but she disappears from the main narrative as her
    daughter comes to prominence, so I worried that a break in character might be
    jarring for the reader. Splitting the novel into two had been my very first
    intention during outlining but it never sat well with me to put off the real
    story I wanted to tell for a whole other book. So I jumbled up the order,
    threading the two characters’ stories together, and found I had a much stronger
    piece. The two perspectives provide a counterpoint to one another, and moving
    back and forth in time allowed for a subtler hand to be used in foreshadowing
    since I did not have to worry about readers remembering little details a
    hundred pages later.
    If I
    could change anything else now that Underworld is available, I might still have
    split it up after all. I am proud of how the novel turned out, but I have
    trouble leaving characters alone, and now that it’s done I still find myself
    imagining new ways to bolster the story and add even more depth to the opening
    act. It could have stood alone as a novel, but I am glad I got out the real
    story I intended to tell.
    What do you enjoy most about
    writing?
    The
    power. Not that I am an egomaniac or anything, honest, but it is a taste of
    being a god. The fate of your characters and their world is in your hand,
    literally. Yet even when in complete control, some strange things can make it
    onto the page, and characters can come up with unbidden ideas that add an
    unexpected twist to a carefully crafted story. Writing down what is in one’s
    head is still full of surprises, and that is what I love best of all. Like the
    reader, I’m dying to find out what happens next.
    If you could choose anyone to be
    your mentor who would it be?
    In
    terms of writing, my favorite author of all time is Terry Pratchett, and I
    adore the way his stories can be both darkly satirical and side-splitting at
    the same time. To be under his wing and learn how to walk that tightrope
    between zany humor and deep social commentary would be an honor. I am fortunate
    enough to have met him at a book signing for the Discworld novel Going Postal.
    If you could give the younger
    version of yourself advice what would it be?
    I
    would remind myself to always keep going. I have had some setbacks, not least
    of which is losing the capacity to hold a pen for any length of time, and have
    become my most crushing critic. I achieved more in my youth than a good number
    of aspiring writers, but I wish I had not wasted so much time lamenting what
    could not be helped and had channeled more energy into more output. My best
    advice to my younger self would have been to keep writing.
    What is your work ethic when it
    comes to writing?
    I
    would love to take the Douglas Adams approach and enjoy the sound of deadlines
    as they whoosh by, but that does not pay the bills. Still, being a creative
    process there are times when writing simply cannot be forced. I’m not too
    strict with myself; I know some people who write with their Internet cable
    unplugged just to stop them getting distracted by checking just one more tweet,
    but that sort of thing seems overkill. I just take what chances I get – whenever there’s time and
    space, I turn on my word processor, put on my headphones and see how far I get
    before something else gets in the way.
    How do you cope with stress as
    an author?
    Writing
    actually helps me cope with stress. When I am dealing with my own characters
    and their world and their problem, my own tends to fade into the background.
    Do things your family or friends
    do ever end up in a book?
    Never
    directly, though once or twice I have had friends who are certain they have
    spotted someone based on them. As any introvert writer I am an observer of
    people, and usually observe them a bit more closely than they realize, but it
    is all in aid of learning about how people work and what drives them so I can
    translate that into realistic characters who seem to move themselves through
    the plot.
    What are some jobs you’ve done
    before (or while) you were a writer?
    My
    day job is in Information Technology, so I generally work with computers all
    the time anyway, so sitting in front of a keyboard for far too long is not a
    stretch for me. My education was initially in archaeology, which unfortunately
    I could not pursue due to injury, but the skills remain valuable as a writer
    who must piece together the puzzle of a story and bring skeletal characters
    from my head to life on the page.
    Which of your books would you
    recommend to someone who doesn’t normally read your genre, and why?
    I
    would recommend Good Enough (available
    on Smashwords and Amazon), a short fantasy set in the same universe as
    Underworld. It’s a tragic romance between a countess accused of treason and her
    confessor, a young monk who is torn between temptation, compassion and duty. It
    gets a little erotic but by no means lewd, and there is enough political
    intrigue and medieval fantasy trappings to make it a gentle introduction to
    romantic fantasy. If you were interested in giving romance a shot and want to
    raise your heart-rate while reading a substantive fantasy-world plot, I believe
    Good Enough would be a great start.
    What kind of books do you read
    when taking a break from your own writing?
    I
    read all sorts of things –
    biographies, horror, contemporary fiction, fantasy/science fiction and far too
    many books on writing. As I mentioned earlier, I am a huge fan of the Discworld series, and enjoy other work
    in a similar vein. Surprisingly, for a fantasy writer I am not so fond of
    traditional high fantasy. I loved The
    Hobbit
    , but I found Lord of the Rings
    a chore, and avoid things like the Wheel
    of Time
    series and Dungeons and
    Dragons
    novels. Too many silly names and mountains of needless description
    seem to get in the way. It is a bit difficult to become intimate with
    characters when there’s fifty of them, all with three apostrophes in their
    name. It might be why I cannot help but smile at Pratchett’s lampooning of this
    tradition with giving his main characters bizarre names like ‘Moist’.
    What do you think is the future
    of traditional publishing?
    Like
    Dibbler of Ankh-Morpork, I fear that in their effort to stay in the market they
    are in danger of cutting their own throat. While independent publishing and
    e-books have risen to prominence, I have seen the traditional gatekeepers
    merely redouble their efforts to remain an almost impenetrable fortress in the
    face of aspiring authors. When I can upload my story to Smashwords the day I
    finish it – or have a company like Books To Go Now turn it around in a month
    for electronic publication – and my work is in front of millions in an instant
    and at a very reasonable price, why would I wait six to twelve months for an
    agent or editor to even read the manuscript?
    Traditional
    publishing seems to believe it is in their interest to put every hurdle they
    can imagine in front of an author. Many agents and publishers do not want
    simultaneous submissions, but they take so long to wade through the hopeful, if
    you play by the rules it could take a decade just to get a dozen agents to
    glance at your work. Then they treat customers no better, insisting on DRM and
    unreasonably high prices for electronic media that costs essentially nothing to distribute. Books themselves remain significantly expensive, running up to $30 for
    a new fiction novel, which is seriously off-putting to anyone not entirely
    confident they’ll enjoy it. It is a system that seems designed to maintain the
    status quo and avoid anybody taking risks, even readers, and I worry that with
    infinite space on Kindles yet finite time in customers’ schedules, eventually
    traditional publishers will find their wares just are not in demand. We already
    lost Borders because browsing a book store and picking something out is
    becoming an increasing gamble at higher and higher price points and with less
    innovation making it to the shelves.
    Imagine you get to go on a dream
    vacation, but you have only one hour to pack and leave, and it starts as soon
    as you finish this interview. What will you take with you and where will you go?
    Have
    laptop, will travel. I guess I’d stuff some underwear and socks and things in
    my bag too, and some pain pills. Beyond that, what more do I need? I would
    probably hop on the first plane to JFK and find myself a nice hotel room
    somewhere in New York City, and spend my days wandering and absorbing the
    atmosphere of such a lively and historic place before spending my nights
    writing while sitting up in bed and trying not to be distracted by HBO.
    What is your favorite holiday
    and why?
    Christmas.
    I’m not a Christian myself but that doesn’t stop it from being a very special
    time of year and a great reason to get together with family and share stories
    and food and drink with people I should not really have to find excuses to
    visit.
    What good book have you read
    recently?
    Good Enough
    I
    just finished She’s Come Undone by
    Wally Lamb. Not a recent book by any means, but a tremendous story of quiet
    triumph over enormous personal tragedy and trauma. It’s an unusual one for me
    since I tend to feel more affinity with the hopeless than those who struggle on
    for decades as Delores Price does, but Lamb avoids easy answers and any sense
    of happily ever after. Delores might get better, to an extent, but that doesn’t
    undo who she was and what was done to her.
    Where were you at midnight, on
    December 31st when the new century started?
    I
    was at a relative’s house, watching fireworks exploding over the river Clyde. I think I stayed up until every time zone had hit
    the year 2000, and I annoyed people by pointing out that the 21st
    century technically did not begin until 2001.
    What do you like to do when you’re
    bored?
    Play
    video games. I don’t own a console and I am long burnt out on all the shooters
    that seemed so cool and exciting in my youth, though, so I tend to play a lot
    of indie titles and RPGs. I love any game that tells a story, especially if it
    has a quirky style to it. I adore the scope of something like Skyrim, where I
    have an entire country to wander and forge my own myths within, but that doesn’t
    stop me enjoying something so much simpler, like Cave Story.
    If your life became a movie, who
    would you want to play you?
    Ed
    Westwick (Chuck Bass of Gossip Girl) strikes me as the right choice. Aside from
    me being not nearly as tall and handsome, his time on Gossip Girl showed how
    well he can portray a haunted, pained character. And, being from the UK,
    I imagine he would have little issue with my faint trace of a Scottish accent.
    If you were a color, what color
    would you be?
    Black.
    Call me Emo, morose, macabre, whatever, but black is starkly simple while
    unnervingly mysteriously, so that has always been my color. Even if my art
    teacher swore it’s not a color, but a shade.
    What do you wish I had asked
    you? Please ask and answer it now.
    I
    wish you had asked where I get my ideas; that seems to be the stock question
    writers face. I often come across people who are enthused about writing but
    lack the energy or commitment to follow through, and they seem so surprised
    that I am able to uncover not just one but many stories. To them, it’s as if I
    can summon my muse at the drop of a hat, and that can seem intimidating to a
    wannabe who has trouble fleshing out a single skeleton of a story. As boring as
    the question may seem to writers who have heard it over and over, I think it is
    valuable to encourage would-be storytellers that coming up with ideas is both
    harder than it seems and easier than you might think. Every author has their
    own way to drink from the well of imagination, but for myself, I tend to use
    music. If I close my eyes and let myself be carried away by a track or an
    album, my mind can dump me on some very strange shores and I often find the
    basics of an idea bob along into my imagination, like a message in a bottle.
    Please underline which
    statement is more like you:
    “I
    am a vacation spa because I am laid back and relaxed.”
    “I
    am a ten-countries in ten-days tour vacation, because I do things as fast as
    possible.”

    Please
    complete the sentences

    I
    love pizza with friends.
    I’m
    always ready for a drink.
    When
    I’m alone, I procrastinate. It’s only when people are around that I seem to find
    the will to write
    .
    You’d
    never be able to tell, but I’m a grumpy misanthrope.
    If I had a halo it would be sitting in a pawn shop window,
    traded for a spiffy cane
    .
    If I could, I would. At least once.
    I
    can never hear myself think because my parakeets won’t shut up.

    Previous
    Books

    Underworld
    Good
    Enough
    The
    Red Queen
    Fall
    to Climb
    And
    others…
    Michael J McDonald

    Books
    Coming Soon

    Portman Island Counter Terrorism
    Tramp
    The Dirt
    The
    Hellfire Club

    Find Me
    Here