I recently had the pleasure of meeting Michael Eging and his writing partner, Steve Arnold on social media. The two of them have written a dark fantasy series, beginning with The Paladin of Shadows Chronicles, Annwyn's Blood. The two of them were kind enough to let me interview them and the following is the result of said discussion.
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| The book! |
Mike: I started writing in Junior High School. My father passed off to me The John Carter of
Mars Series, Sailor on the Seas of Fate (Elric Series) and other. As I read them, I realized I had stories I
wanted to tell as well. Throughout High
School, I had a few notebooks that I would write in and doodle illustrations in
the margins. My grandmother’s old
typewriter allowed me to clack away into the wee hours of the night on a
variety of short stories and a never finished novel.
Steve: I remember even as a child being simply awed
by the imagination of writers, how they could come up with entire worlds. I tried to make stories of my own but just
could never come up with anything to compare.
Then when I was about twelve I discovered Dungeons & Dragons. I started running a game with Mike as my
first player, and sort of fell into making up dungeons and creating histories
and back-stories to go along with them.
Why do you write?~
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| Michael Eging |
Mike: Now?
For sanity’s sake in large part.
With life being so consuming, it is wonderful to push aside the crush of
the everyday and create. Also, a few
years ago, I was busy taking my older children from activity to activity and
slowly crunching away when I had time on a novel. Suddenly it dawned on me that if I didn't take this seriously, one day I would be gone and I wouldn't have these stories
to pass on to my kids.
Steve: I find
it's an escape. It's refreshing to take
a little time, go off to a world unlike my own and imagine what life would be
like. It's also a way to show other
people how I see them, sort of hold a mirror up to the world.
What would be
your choice for a superpower?~
Mike: I have always been an Iron Man fan. So, I guess no super powers per se, but I
would really dig a suit of armor, with a splash of hot rod red. Or the really cool stealth armor, even
better!
Steve: Never really thought of myself as a
superhero. I don't really have a good
answer for that one, though I have often thought it would be pretty cool to be
like John Carter on Mars, master swordsman and with a physique made for another
planet. Right now if I was to put on one
of those muscle breastplates my physique would (to paraphrase one of my
favorite authors) 'fill it like Jell-o fills a mold'.
Who is your
favorite author?~
Mike: I have many favorites. Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, Stephen
R. Donaldson, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Timothy Zahn, David Drake… and the list goes
on. However, I keep coming back to Roger
Zelazny and the Chronicles of Amber. I
first found those in the library in the late 1970s as a child and I remember
curling up sitting in the windowsill at the library to read them as I waited
for my parents to finish work and take me home.
The noir opening of Nine Princess in Amber grabbed hold of me and I
found myself riding in a car on the mad chase to Amber - the car driven by a
man who you are never quite sure has a complete grip on reality… or does he?
 |
| Steve Arnold |
Steve: Terry
Pratchett, hands down. I like the funny
edge and how he captures the stupid things we do. I first found Colour of Magic in the
library in high school and have been hung up ever since.
What are you
reading now?~
Mike: I am reading a book by an ancient Greek
historian/chronicler name Procopius called the Secret Histories. It is a scandalous account of life in the
Byzantine court of Justinian and good pre-reading for future projects.
Steve: Hah! Draft chapters of Book Two of the Paladin of
Shadows. Seriously, it's like this never
ends. I just got done re-reading The
Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek. It's
an analysis of the origins of totalitarian governments and why they end up the
way they do.
Who is your
favorite character to write?~
Mike: I was just talking to my wife and writing
partner, Steve, about this. I think my
favorite character to-date is Roland, from the Song of Roland. When I was in college, my favorite professor,
Dr. Paul Pixton, introduced me to The Song of Roland. I was sucked into the world of Charles the
Great and his valiant knight who faced down treachery and found immortality in
legend at Ronceveaux. Dr. Pixton
mentioned that he hoped someone would one day produce a movie based on the
story. Shortly after I wrote an outline
for the script and put it on the shelf as I pursued graduate studies in History
at the University of Maryland and took my first post-college job working on
Capitol Hill. Over a decade later I
dusted off the outline and wrote the first draft of the script. Needless to say, it needed a lot of work, and
a friend who works in Los Angeles mentored me into developing the script
further. Many producers and agents who
read the script loved it, but wondered why I pursued a medieval epic as my
first project. Sometimes, passion for
something just can’t be shaken off because of “the market.” As a result, while yet unproduced, Song of
Roland was my first optioned script and will always have a special place in my
heart. Stay tuned, there is more to
this story to come!
Steve: I don't
know that I can say I have a favorite overall, but in Annwyn I have a
special affinity for Aldonzo. Yes, he's
young, vain, shallow and foolish, but he has the greatest potential for growth
out of all of them and I think ultimately that's what I've liked in any of my
characters or for that matter characters in other writers' stories – that they
learn something. I like kids' movies a
lot and I think that's why.
Do you have a
writing process?~
Mike: It depends on when something pops into my
brain! I try to write every night after
my wife and children head to sleep. Even
if only a few paragraphs or two. But
sometimes, I will wake in the night and something is just burning on my
mind. So, I jot it down before I forget
it. A fantasy novel I am currently
working on is the result of one such encounter with a story in the darkest of
the night.
Steve: I like to roll things around in my head for
some days before I write them down. I
rarely have something flash into my head that I just have to get down on paper
that turns out any good. I've found if I
go with the first thought I get it's usually just a variation on what I've
already seen and seems tired and overdone.
But if I let it sit in the background and percolate while I work, run
errands or whatever, I find that new variations, new perspectives, come to mind
and things get a lot more interesting.
This was the difficulty I had trying to write as a kid – I hadn't
learned to wait yet. Once I have the
idea then I try to decide, what am I writing?
Crime drama? War story? Hero fantasy?
What is the core feeling I want to evoke? I want to have a general idea, then identify
basic elements of hero, villain, motivations.
Then nail down linking details.
How does it all work?
What's the environment and context?
How do we get from point A to point B?
Why does the hero/villain/wingman want this and not that? Sometimes this takes back story that never
sees light in the final product, but you need just the same so your storytelling
is consistent. Then fill in all the
little style points in between with stirring prose.
What advice would
you give to an aspiring author?~
Mike: Understanding the marketplace will be
critical to your long-term success.
E-books and print on demand have given a voice to aspiring writers
across the globe. After a well-written
piece of work, I recommend two things.
First, read voraciously. Not just
in a singular genre, or path. Read
authors who inspire you, find new voices and dig through old, new and emerging
classics. Second, find a way to stand
out. There is a deluge of material for
readers to search through to find your work.
Find ways to get in front of your readers. Find others who are willing to take a risk,
read your work and join your chorus.
Steve: Write what
you know. You can take your own personal
experiences, no matter how mundane, and put them into a story no matter the
setting. People really want to read
stories about people. Settings are just
trappings, window dressing, that adds flavor, but it's the experiences lived
and lessons learned of your characters that will make them memorable. And don't be afraid to let things percolate
for a while. You'd be surprised what can
come into your head that way.
What inspired you
to pursue writing?~
Mike: My father at first. He read my work. Encouraged me. Instilled in me a love of the
written word. Whether books, short
stories, poetry, or screenplays, he was the greatest influence in my life. Second, my own family. As I held my children in my arms, I realized
that I wanted to share these worlds and characters with them. Third, good friends who encourage me to not
give up and allow me to share with them ideas, thoughts and stories. Friends, like Steve, keeps me inspired.
Steve: I just
wanted to emulate those people that made it possible for me to while away some
of the more boring parts of my life in a much more fulfilling way. It wasn't until Mike started approaching me
about helping him with his projects that I seriously considered doing this for
real.
Mike: We just
launched Annwyn’s Blood, Book One in the Paladin of Shadow Chronicles. These characters have been with my writing
partner and me since college. Albion of
the Dark Ages, after Rome fell and Arthur’s Camelot, was a dangerous place and
ancient forces contended with newer ones for control of the isle. Here is the blurb we did for Smashwords that
encapsulates this:
Amid the dying embers
of a fallen Empire, a young knight embarks on a personal crusade to reclaim the
soul ripped from him by a deceitful lover's bite, and to save his family and
their world from the rage of the implacable god who sent her. Ancient magic
awakens from centuries–old slumber as the dead no longer rest in peace, and
long buried legends and secrets could be the world's only hope.
This was something that when we wrote it, we received
responses from publishers and agents that they loved our writing, but
seriously…. Vampires? Please send us
your next novel. So we put this on the
shelf in the mid 1990’s and moved on to other projects. We co-wrote the story for a WWII thriller
screenplay and a horror script. But this
novel was sitting on the hard drive and nagging me to get into readers’
hands. So I called Steve and said, “Hey,
if I can recover these old WordPerfect files, do you want to do something with
this?” Of course, the result is Annwyn’s
Blood. We are very excited to revisit
this world and bring all of you along with us.
Steve: Annwyn is a Dark Ages vampire tale, with a
reluctant hero that finds himself hounded by an Elder God who's desperate to
make him point man in a bloody bid to regain power in the world of men. It started out as a short story Mike wrote
back in the late 1980's, inspired by a little 'girl trouble' he had. Some time later he got the crazy idea to turn
it into a novel and he called me up to help.
To be honest I don't know why – my real passion isn't writing, it's
drawing (every year I do a piece for my wife for Christmas). I suspect he wanted his old dungeon master to
figure out a backstory. So I thought
about it, not really sure what I was going to be able to do with it (which is
probably where I began to realize things work better for me if I let them stew
for a while) and eventually came up with a couple of chapters which he thought
(rather to my surprise) were great! We
spent the next five years finishing the book, and then the rejection letters
came. Like your stuff; not what we
want. After a while we just had to set
it aside and get on with life, jobs, kids, and so on. Then I had an idea for a story, a WW2 spy/crime
thriller and jotted up a treatment just because it was in me. It was hard to do that much. Mike turned it into a screenplay and now it's
getting shopped around with Roland.
Next came the horror script and by now we were settling into this whole
'writer' thing (or at least I was; I think Mike had long ago). By then online publishing was a big deal and
Mike realized we could bypass the gatekeepers, so he pulled Annwyn off
the shelf, blew the dust off it, sneezed a few times, and sent it back to me
for a fresh edit. And here we are.
I'd like to thank Mike and Steve for sharing with the folks here at Eye on Ashenclaw...now go buy some books!
Please join me and the other amazingly talented authors over @ Skulldust Circle where we have formed a Writer's Circle that must be seen--a collection of brilliant, up & coming independently published speculative fiction authors with much to give both now and in the future!
All of my work can be found on AMAZON -- Kindle versions here
See you in Wothlondia! Cheers!
Please visit MY HOME PAGE to enjoy an extended reading experience, see direct links to purchase my full length novel, Covenant of the Faceless Knights, the short stories: Wothlondia Rising, and to see what else Ashenclaw Studios, LLC has in store in the future!
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