Can you give us a brief overview of your latest book? Is it part of a series?
Essie Darkenchyl is a devil-like creature obsessed with bureaucracy and the rule of order. When she gets assigned to a crew that is anything but that, she thinks her troubles can’t get any bigger. But soon she finds herself in a political dispute that dissolves into civil war, and there’s some sort of ancient monster at the center of it all. At times funny and at other times intense, the book explores serious themes in a lighthearted way without compromising on character development and adventure. Although it has a few dark moments, there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel.
It can be read as a stand-alone, but there are currently two other books featuring her as a hero and a few others in the same world.
Do you have a favorite character?
Essie is heavily inspired by my wife, and this book actually started off as stories that I made up for her when we had our kid. So if forced to choose, I’d obviously say the one based on my wife is my favorite. But they’re all my babies! I can’t possibly choose just one.
Have you ever had a minor character evolve into a major one? Did that change the direction of the novel at all? Did the character become the hero/heroine of their own book?
Certain minor characters evolve naturally into more important characters as the story goes on. If you read all the books in the series, you’ll see the frightened, cowardly young security officer Merritt Chenall grow into a frightened but still pretty badass adult. He never stops being terrified of fighting, but he does get better at forcing himself to do what’s necessary to help his friends. I did write a book where he has his own adventure, but I still haven’t decided if I’ll publish it or not. Depends if everyone else likes him as much as I do.
What is your writing process? Do you listen to music or do you like silence?
Since I’ve got two day jobs and a kid, my writing process is super disorganized. I honestly don’t know how I do it, but I’ve written more since I had my kid than before. I think not having a process and just telling myself, “Screw it, I want to get this story out, no matter how I do it,” has helped. That said, I like to listen to music and I almost always spend weeks creating lengthy Spotify playlists that I almost never listen to during the actual writing process.
Do you outline your story or just go where your muse takes you?
Yes. The word I’ve heard lately going around is “plantser,” although admittedly that word is a little silly. But I always create an outline at the beginning. I type out all the chapter headers and very brief points of what I expect to happen in that chapter. As the story goes on, though, characters might hit milestones in a different order than I expected, and sometimes I even need to revise the whole structure of my outline. Having the chapter headers in advance keeps me going. I never want to sacrifice natural character development for plot, though, so the outline is always a loose guide.
What have you’ve learned during your self-publishing journey?
Self-publishing is expensive! There seems to be this mentality that if you’re not willing to spend X number of dollars on your book, you don’t care about it. I find this unfortunate, because it ruins the promise of self-publishing: that anyone with passion and a great story can do it. I live in Mexico, and most services are priced to United States clients. I paid $100 for a cover that turned out rather bad, and when I asked for feedback on it in a Facebook group, I was castigated for not spending up to $2000 on a cover. It is, after all, your most important marketing tool. But $2000 is 10% of my yearly income! It’s my whole budget for the project. Obviously, covers are important and artists deserve to get paid for them. But if the promise of self-publishing is to give voice to authors who wouldn’t have had the opportunity otherwise, requiring huge sums to self-publish creates a barrier for many voices. I don’t know what the solution is, but I wish other authors would get over the idea that a lack of financial investment means you’re not dedicated to your work.
What advice would you give a new author just entering into the self-publishing arena?
Set a budget. Know that most folks don’t make much money off of one book. It’s a long game. You’re more likely to make money if you have five or six (or twenty!) books available than if you have one. So the budget for your first book should focus more on classes than on services. For example, rather than spend, say, $100 to have someone prep an Amazon ad for you, consider spending $100 on a class about how to prep your own Amazon ads. I write for pleasure, but publishing is a business, so the more you treat it as a business, the better off you’ll be. Most businesses don’t make money the first few years, so don’t have high expectations for your first book. That said, I know a lot of authors hate marketing, but marketing is really just finding new and creative ways to tell the same story you told in your book. If approached this way, marketing can be fun.
Besides writing, do you have any other passions?
In school, my focus was the ancient art and writing of the Maya people, so I also study Maya hieroglyphs, depictions of childhood in ancient societies, and the art and culture of the ancient world. I love me some old stuff.
Some techniques from Maya poetry appear in my work. For example, Mesoamerican writing uses what’s known as diphrastic kennings. This is when you combine two opposing concepts to create a metaphor. The easiest to explain is that, instead of saying “time passed,” some artists would write “it day-and-nighted.” The title of my book is an example: The River Against the Sea is a reference to the two major political factions in the work; one deals with internal issues (‘the river’) and the other deals with external issues (‘the sea’).
Some fun facts about you, which do you prefer – dogs or cats? Chocolate or vanilla? Coffee or Tea? Talk or Text? Day or Night?
If there’s a writer that prefers dogs to cats, I haven’t met them! I’m actually allergic to dogs, so I’m doubly pro-cat.
I live in the place where chocolate was probably domesticated, so we’ve got some of the best chocolate in the world here, so chocolate it is.
I always prefer texting to talking, especially if it’s about something short.
I used to be a night person, but now that I have a kid, I’m usually pretty exhausted by the night. I still prefer working at night, though.
What’s next for you?
There’s a lot! I have all three books of this trilogy written, as well as three additional books in the same world. It matters that they’re all in the same world because it’s a world built on the idea of hope and that talking resolves problems as often as fighting. That said, don’t feel like reading my first book is a commitment to five more. If you like the character and the style, you’ll probably like the other books, but they’re not required reading to understand Essie’s journey. Although two of them are YA, they all have the same general message that even after tragedy, it’s possible to retain your sense of wonder and your sense of humor.
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BLURB:
Some heroes have swords. Essimore Darkenchyl has a pen. But it’s a magic pen. Some wizards have spellbooks. Essie has Gossen’s Guide to Shipping Law. But it’s a current edition. Some sailors have experience. Essie has a new diploma and a year-long contract, and her people have won wars with less. And that’s good, because between stolen weapons, a coup, and a strange disease creeping in around her and the crew, she might need to win a war.
In a world that blends traditional fantasy with the Age of Exploration, Essie knows a pen is mightier than a sword, especially since hers sometimes shoots lightning.
But what she thinks is a routine political dispute turns out to be something much, much more, and she may have finally met the one problem she can’t talk her way out of.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Zac Lindsey is an anthropologist and a linguist who focuses on the Maya people of Quintana Roo. Since childhood, he's had a not-so-secret love of weird, silly, and well-structured fantasy. When other people's parents were reading them picture books, his mom was reading him Terry Brooks. He typically writes hopeful and character-driven fantasy.
Today, he lives in Quintana Roo, Mexico with his wife, daughter, and various stray cats.
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/z.lindsey_fiction/
Face: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550498257222
Amazon preorders (for ebook): https://www.amazon.com/River-Against-Sea-Z-Lindsey-ebook/dp/B0CH3TW3YD/
B&N preorders (for paperback): https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-river-against-the-sea-z-lindsey/1144077772
Thank you so much for featuring this author today.
ReplyDeleteThe cover looks good. Sounds like a good book.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like it is an excellent read.
ReplyDelete