So I’m sitting down having a chat with my Indies Unlimited buddy, Lynne
Cantwell. I’ve just finished the first book in her Pipe Woman Chronicles
series, Seized, which I enjoyed immensely. Lynne, can you give us a
quick overview of the series?
Sure!
The main character, Naomi, lives in Denver and works as a mediator for a
good-sized regional law firm. As the series opens, she is doing extremely well
in her career, and the guy she’s been dating off and on for the past ten years
has just proposed. Then she finds out that her good fortune is the result of
meddling by a Lakota Sioux goddess named White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman. The
goddess has enhanced her powers of persuasion so Naomi can mediate a
power-sharing agreement between the Christian God and the pagan gods and goddesses
whose worship God has supplanted. She
has also gifted Naomi with a team: Naomi’s best friend Shannon, who becomes her
Counselor; a Ute shapeshifter named Joseph, who is appointed her Guardian; and
an Investigator, Jack, who we don’t meet until the second book. The series arc follows Naomi’s journey, from
a prosaic lawyer who lives an unexamined life to someone who understands and
acknowledges her own heritage and who can deal with deities on their level.
Where did the inspiration come from to
write about magic in our rather unmagical, urban times?
I
never outgrew my love of fantasy. My favorite series ever is still The
Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson (the
tenth and final book just came out, whoo hoo!). The best fantasy writers
investigate the psychological depths of their characters by putting them into
untenable situations with magical complications, and watching how they react
and grow. When I started reading urban fantasy, I realized I could do all that within
a fantasy setting, but without having to invest in a whole lot of time in
world-building. Seemed like a win-win.
Did you find that magic asserted itself
during the writing of the books?
Wouldn’t
that be awesome? Alas, no, not for me personally, unless you count the fact
that people have read the series and said they liked it. That’s pretty magical.
Shucks, I was hoping you’d say that you set
the book aside at night and when you fired up the computer again in the
morning, you miraculously had 100 more pages! Where’s Rumplestiltskin when you
need him?
Your main character comes from a mainstream
Christian background but finds herself drawn into the living mythology of many
ancient cultures. Can you tell us about your own spiritual journey?
My
father was a Catholic-turned-atheist and my mother didn’t grow up in any
religious tradition. So I had barely darkened the door of a church by the time
I got to college. At that point, I started shopping around. But I never really
settled on a denomination and considered myself agnostic for many years. When I
reached my 30s, my daughters and I were baptized in the Episcopal Church.
Eventually, though, I began looking into Paganism, and I realized that it made
the most sense to me. In my current practice, I follow several deities: Brighid
and Lugh from the Celtic pantheon and Mokosh from the Slavic pantheon. Mokosh
is Mother Earth, more or less; Brighid is, among other things, the goddess of
bards; and Lugh’s just generally awesome.
We have a lot in common. I, too, have
adopted a very eclectic view of spirituality, and have cobbled together many
disparate teachers and masters that touch my soul. I have often said that there
could be one church for every single person on the planet, just because no two
people believe exactly the same way about everything.
Now back to writing. When you started
writing Seized, did you know it was going to be a series? Did you have
the series all plotted out, book by book? Or when you got close to the end of Seized,
did you realize it was going to go further than you thought?
SEIZED was a NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) project.
And yes, I had it in mind to make it the first book in a series. I'd been
reading a fair amount of urban fantasy and thought I'd sussed out the
conventions of the genre, and wanted to try my hand at writing one. As for
plotting out the whole series -- um, not totally. I knew I wanted to base the
series structure on a Native American medicine wheel (I did a post on it on my
own blog; here's the blog post link: http://hearth-myth.blogspot.com/2012/04/series-structure-or-how-it-comes.html). That meant writing at
least four books, one for each cardinal point on the wheel. But there's a
fifth point at the heart of the medicine wheel, and I knew that would be a
great metaphor for wrapping up the story. I just wasn't sure I would have
enough plot, after book 3, to write two more. Once I got there, luckily, I
found I had plenty of complications!
I love the fiery effect of the covers. Do
you do your own covers or do you have someone else design them?
Thanks for the kind words on the
covers. Actually, I did them myself. I think the naked abs on so many
paranormal romance covers are getting to be a cliché, so I went looking at a
royalty-free stock photo site for pictures of animals, to play up the
shape-shifting aspects of the story. I found that I kept coming back to that
fractal owl on the cover of SEIZED,
and I thought, "If it keeps catching my eye, it ought to catch
others' eyes as well." And that's pretty much how
it's worked out. For FISSURED
and GRAVID, I couldn't
find fractalized pictures pre-made, but I discovered a GIMP plug-in that
produced the effect. And I did get advice from a couple of friends
who are graphic artists.
As for GIMP, you can download the
current version of the program here: http://www.gimp.org/
The plugin is called G'MIC, which
you can find here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gmic/files/. Once it's installed, go to the Artistic tab and click on
Rodilius. That's the process/utility/thingum I used to fractalize the photos
for my book covers.
Helpful information, thanks. I have a
feeling many other writers will be trying their hand at these wonderful
effects.
And, by the way, your book is the first I've read in a long, long time that had absolutely no typographical errors; it's extremely clean in that regard. Congratulations on that; it's rare these days.
And, by the way, your book is the first I've read in a long, long time that had absolutely no typographical errors; it's extremely clean in that regard. Congratulations on that; it's rare these days.
What other books or blogs have you written?
I have
two other novels published. SwanSong is a fantasy based on an Irish
tragedy called “The Fate of the Children of Lír.” The Maidens’ War is
also a fantasy, based sorta-kinda on the Czech legend of the same name. It’s
set half in sixth century Eastern Europe and half in 1980s West Virginia. I
also co-authored a nonfiction book called Living Simply in the City.
My
blog is called hearth/myth; I post
there every Sunday. On Thursdays, I post a book review at Rursday Reads. I’m at
Indies Unlimited every Friday. And I used to write a monthly column for The
Indie Exchange before the site went dark earlier this year.
What are you working on currently?
I’ve just
wrapped up the first draft of Crosswind, the first novel in the “Land,
Sea, Sky” trilogy. It’s set in Washington, DC, ten years after the Big
Mediation in Annealed. The second “Land, Sea, Sky” book, Undertow,
will be my NaNo novel this year (if all goes as planned!).
What is your writing process? Are you a
planner or a pantser?
I’m a
planner, but I don’t outline every jot and tittle. I write a synopsis paragraph
for each chapter, but sometimes the paragraphs will contain more questions than
statements! And sometimes, too, the characters have other ideas. In the outline
for one of the Pipe Woman Chronicles books, I wanted Joseph to act like a
complete jerk, and he just flat refused to do it. In retrospect, I think he was
right.
I know the feeling. In one of my last books, my main character developed a very dark and moody side that I hadn't planned on. But like you, I went with the flow and the book was better for it.
Do you work on more than one manuscript at
a time?
Not usually.
Although this fall, I stepped away from Crosswind to write a short story
for an anthology called 13 Bites. It’s a Pipe Woman Chronicles prequel
with Joseph and his roommate George as the main characters. It was a lot of fun
to hang out with those two guys again.
It’s like going back to visit old friends,
isn’t it? And the great part is that you can visit them any time you want, just
by re-reading the books.
Do you work with a writing/critique group?
No, I don’t.
I’ve got an editor and a beta reader, and that’s it.
I don’t either. We always hear writers should
get into a group, but it’s just never appealed to me. I’m glad I’m not the only
one!
When you're not writing, what’s your
favorite activity?
When I’m not
sleeping, you mean? Knitting is my big hobby. I think I have more knitting
projects queued up than writing projects….
I don’t knit, but I LOVE naps! Naps are the
best.
What’s the best part about being an indie
writer?
I love
having control over my own destiny. I collected my share of rejection letters
in the days before KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). It’s so great now to be able
to publish my own stuff without trying to convince an acquisitions editor that
my work would make money for a publisher.
I heartily agree. Having control over our efforts is the best. We are actually able to create the book we envision without having to fight someone else over the title, the cover, and the way it’s marketed.
Back to fantasy. If you could only bring three items with
you to a deserted island (non-writing items or people) what would they be and
why?
You mean I
can’t bring my laptop with the solar-powered charger? Oh, fine, then. My Girl
Scout wilderness survival kit would be the first thing. Number two would be my
Kindle with a solar charger, so I could catch up on my TBR pile. And finally,
I’d bring a satellite-capable cell phone, so I could call for rescue when I was
ready to come home.
You’re able to invite three people (alive
or dead) to dinner. Who do you invite, and how do you seat them?
I think I
would invite my two daughters and my father. Dad died several years before my
kids were born. I think they’d enjoy meeting one another, particularly now that
my girls are in their twenties. I’d be across from Dad, and the kids would be
between us on either side.
Sounds like that would be an awesome time for all.
What is the book that you wished you had
written?
Any of the
Harry Potter books, just to have J.K. Rowling’s royalties!
Agreed! Then we could quit our day jobs and
just write!
What advice do you have for aspiring
writers?
Read – a
lot. And pay attention when you read to how the author does what he or she does.
Then sit your butt in the chair and write. Oh, and once your book has been
professionally edited (and I can’t stress the “professional editing” part enough), don’t waste your time chasing a traditional
contract – go indie!
Could not agree more. I think we need to
make up sweatshirts that say that. Lynne, thanks so much for stopping by and
putting up with all my questions.
Find out more about Lynne below.
Bio:
Lynne
Cantwell has been writing fiction since the second grade, when the kid who sat
in front of her showed her a book he had written, and she thought, "I
could do that." The result was "Susie and the Talking Doll," a
picture book illustrated by the author about a girl who owned a doll that not
only could talk, but could carry on conversations. The book had dialogue but no
paragraph breaks. Today, after a twenty-year career in broadcast journalism and
a master's degree in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University (or perhaps
despite the master's degree), Lynne is still writing fantasy.
Where can we connect with you?
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LynneCantwell
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LynneCantwell
