1.) Okay so I have to ask, what made you decide you wanted to be an
author? Is it a dream you've always had or something you sort of stumbled upon?
It was a little of both, actually.
I was a very creative kid, always building forts out of nothing but tree
branches and imagination. Once, in my
tender pre-teen years, I even created my own “What Men Know About Women”
book--same title, same blank pages as the recent best-seller, only my mother
found the effort to be a great waste of our paper. Yes, we were that broke. Being that broke, and the child of educators,
though, made me push for more of a scientific education, and so my creative
side got put on long, slow hold while I majored in physics and electrical
engineering. And then, of course, I went
into the U.S. Army, Infantry branch, to show how little use I could get out of
that degree.
So, fast-forward many years. I
was in the middle of my dissertation efforts and got tired of waiting to hear
back from my committee. See, people who
think the process of earning a PhD is either glamorous or enjoyable have
probably never really done it. There’s a
rush, every time you receive feedback, to incorporate their wisdom into your
growing book of research, and then whoosh!
Off the work goes, back to the committee for another mandatory two week
review period.
During that time, I decided that since I was already in the habit of
sitting at my computer and pulling my hair out for hours at a time, I should make
profitable use of that habit. I took a
story that had been circling about inside my skull for some time, spun it about
to make the woman the protagonist instead of her husband (the God of War), and
wrote it. I then proceeded to send this
mighty work of prose out to, all totaled, 80 different places, and they all
said no. The 81st, a small
press, said yes, and off I went with my first series, Return of the Gods.
Oh, and along the way, I did finally finish the PhD. Thank God.
2.) As for Prophecy, what prompted you to write this book in
particular?
Well, since nobody had been willing to throw a six-figure advance at me
for my first series of books, which were selling but not at bestseller rates, and
since the reality is that I have mouths to feed and bills to pay, I started
looking for something more commercially interesting in the fantasy genre. Sparkly vampires were already taken, but it
had been a while since either my wife or I had seen a good book about elves,
and we’re both Southerners, so the story pretty much came together based on
that. We started the story sitting at
Disney World and watching how the costumed characters came and went seemingly
by magic, and the idea of the parallel worlds came to me then.
3.) So Stephen, are you a reader yourself? Who are some of your
favorite authors, and some of your favorite books? Do you consider these books
and authors to have an influence on you and your writing?
Oh, absolutely. I love reading,
and I have since I was a young guy and Dragonlance was a new thing. I love nearly all things fantasy or sci fi,
and have a list of favorite authors that’s too long for most blog posts. I can, however, pick out five authors who had
tremendous influence on me. One is Isaac
Asimov, who I consider the grand master of the science fiction genre. I’ve read the Foundations trilogy more times
than any other book or sets of books, and I own most of his shorter novels as
well as the “Isaac Asimov on ___” informational series. That man had precise command over his plots
and could spin an amazing tale, and I can only hope one day to be half that
good.
Peirs Anthony also had great impact on my writing. For one thing, the idea of magic vs. technology
that he built into the Adept series was fascinating enough that I adapted it to
be the underlying mechanic of the Return of the Gods world. The Incarnations of Immortality series
bewildered me, frankly, insofar as his ability to write a plot line both forward
and backward at the same time. At the
same time, the editions of Incarnations that I own also contain an afterword by
the author in which he describes not just his writing process, but also the
steps he took to accommodate his old typewriter-based regimen on the high-tech
word processors of the day. Those
passages present a fascinating window into the way a master craftsman’s mind
works during the creative process.
Unfair as it may be to group two together, I have to thank both Douglas
Adams and Spider Robinson for showing me the value of humor in a story. Though I didn’t use it as much in Prophecy,
humor was a big part of Return of the Gods.
As a result, I’m glad to be able to tell you that, as an author, there’s
no feeling quite like seeing a line from one of your books quoted on Facebook
by a reader.
Finally, I think every fantasy author has to tip his hat at some point
to Tolkien, who not only showed us how much can be created by the imagination,
but also brought his wonderful linguistic expertise to bear. In Prophecy I play with that a little,
crossing Welsh over between the two worlds, and in subsequent books you’ll see
additional, and different, crossover linguistics.
4.) I always love asking this question, get so many different
answers. Would you say you have a set writing schedule, or is it more of a
go with the flow thing, where you write when you have the time or when the right scene or mood strikes?
Depends on life, really. I
prefer a fairly set schedule. My most
productive writing time, when I published all of the Return of the Gods books
(so far) and wrote the draft of Prophecy, was over a year ago. During that time, my work schedule was
somewhere around 10 am to 7 or 8 pm, and that gave me a few hours in the
morning to put words on paper, several hours during the day for my subconscious
to worry about what comes next, and then the evening to write that. With a more “normal” 8 am to 6 or 7 pm
schedule, I haven’t gotten the morning time, which means that I only really
have one or two scenes planned out when I sit down to write at night.
That all changed in April, though, when my job was cut due to the
college’s budget. I’ve gotten some
writing done, but not nearly as much as I’d’ve thought I would with so much
time on my hands. Then again, the job
hunt in itself is stressful, tedious, and long, and so I have to admit I haven’t
had as much time on my hands to write as I’d’ve thought I would with so much
time on my hands. If, um, that makes any
sense.
5.) Do you like to listen to music when you write, or do you prefer
silence. Maybe just a bit of random background noise?
Depends. I like writing in
general, and specifically Prophecy, to silence.
The reason for that preference is that I have to slip into an 18 year
old Mississippi girl’s voice in my writing, an act that requires both
concentration and the ability to sound some phrases out.
I haven’t always gotten silence, though. In Richmond my writing area was in the living
room, and our son who was still at home at the time loved watching TV shows
with bangs and blams and kerpows throughout the soundtracks. During that time I discovered that different
types of music played through a high-quality headset can be useful. Mozart, for example, with the crashes and
excitement, is great for writing battle scenes.
I can’t do anything vocal, though, because the words of the song always
cut through the words my mind is trying to get onto the paper.
6.) If you are a music fan, who are some of your favorites?
I wouldn’t be surprised if you found my picture in the encyclopedia
beside the word “eclectic.” If I’m in my
headset relaxing to a mindless game of Minesweeper, you’re just as likely to
see iTunes playing Stryper; Steel Pulse; Blue Oyster Cult; Crosby, Stills,
Nash, and Young; Pink; Rush; Toby Keith; or whatever that guy’s name is who
used to be Cat Stevens. Oh, and
sometimes I enjoy Canadian Brass or the King’s Singers. Yes, I really am that scattered. It comes
from having two music educators as parents and a long line of roommates with
strange music collections at West Point.
Alright Stephen, this has been fun so far, but sometimes I like to
add some fun, outside the box questions so my readers can really get to know
you. So, here's some of those.
7.) If you found a magic lamp that contained a genie, what would
your three wishes be? No wishes for more wishes!
First wish: eleven million dollars.
After paying the taxes on that, I’d have enough to pay off all my debts
and, with a decent investment, generate a very comfortable annual income that
wouldn’t erode the capital.
Second wish: I want my own Sorscha (a character from my Return of the
Gods series). Because, you know, having
a personal servant who is able to shape-shift into a silver dragon would be
awesome.
Third wish: take away my wife’s health issues. She’s going through some challenges that
haven’t been helped by my change in job status or our upcoming move, and so, as
much as I hate to inject some seriousness into this, my primary wish is that
those get taken off of her plate.
8.) Besides writing, what would you say some of your favorite
hobbies are?
I like just about any sort of craft.
I used to be very much into woodworking, but at a certain point I
realized that it wasn’t making me any money and wasn’t making my life all that
much better, either, and so I gave it up in favor of earning a PhD. I’ve also done, and enjoyed, cross stitch,
wood burning, and stone carving.
I also enjoy making music. I loved
playing the trumpet, and some day I plan to pick it back up. I’ve been in several singing ensembles that
were pretty good; one took me to perform in Ireland, Knotts Berry Farm, and
Disney World, among other places.
9.) Okay, so the zombie apocalypse is upon us. Will you survive?
Are you kidding? I have a genius
IQ, Infantry training, and a potential weapon in every room. Stick with me, folks.
10.) Last question! My favorite number is lucky number seven, so if you were to describe your book in seven words, what would those words be?
Sassy Southern girl becomes elf crown princess
About Stephen:
A Mississippi native, TOSK (Stephen H. King) moved
in high school from the small town of Corinth to San Bernardino, California. A
series of mostly unexplainable decisions led him through a strange sequence of
events beginning at the United States Military Academy, where he double-majored
in physics and electrical engineering, followed by a fairly short career as an
Infantry officer and then an electronics technician, a product engineer, a
carpenter's helper, and an elementary school janitor, before ending up on the
faculty of a small college in Anchorage, Alaska.
Stephen now lives in Memphis, Tennessee, with his wife, daughter, and two white Chihuahuas that seem to enjoy morphing from therapuppies into miniature dragons at the sound of food being opened.
During those years, he learned that reading
science fiction and fantasy allowed him to escape the strangeness into the more
understandable worlds crafted by Isaac Asimov, Piers Anthony, Marion Zimmer
Bradley, and many other great writers. As time went on he began to mold his own
worlds, and thus his novels were born.
Stephen now lives in Memphis, Tennessee, with his wife, daughter, and two white Chihuahuas that seem to enjoy morphing from therapuppies into miniature dragons at the sound of food being opened.
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