A Smart Bitch Interview with C.L. Wilson

I get a good number of “Have you read…?” questions about new books but when I am asked repeatedly if I’ve read an ARC for a specific book, then I know there’s buzz ahoy. I encountered a lot of “Have you read…?” from publishing folks, both during and after the RWA national about C.L. Wilson’s books, and like the nosy Bitch I am, I chased her down for an interview shortly after I finished Lady of Light and Shadows.  I got all up in her business about world building, websites, writing and whatnot, and she was gracious enough to put up with my nebby self.

Sarah: I’m curious about the linguistic sources of the Fey words – in a lot of ways, the vowel pairings and sounds seem similar to Hebrew, especially in contemporary transliteration. Was that intentional? Or is it just me? What’s your source for fantasy language development?

C.L. Wilson: Unintentional.  I just love putting words and sounds together, always have.  My background in languages has been primarily as a student of them.  I took a number of years of French in school, some German, and started to teach myself Japanese. (This was back when I actually had spare time in my life.)  I used what I learned about languages through being taught how to speak them to construct my grammar, syntax, and verb conjugations, and choose the basic building blocks of a language.  The words themselves I created based on a set of phonetic rules I established early on (certain sounds that are most prevalent, others that are not used at all).

 

Sarah: You’ve received some outstanding reviews, proclaiming you the best new author in romance, and in fantasy. Has it gone to your head? Did you buy yourself a Porsche with “Best Author Ever!” emblazoned on the side? Seriously, what has your reaction, beyond OMG SQUEE!, been to the feedback and response to your book(s)?

C.L. Wilson: Regarding praise going to my head: I have a husband and three kids (plus three siblings and several very, very dear friends) who are quite adept at keeping my feet firmly attached to the ground and my head still fitting in a hat.

As for my reaction to the praise.  Honestly?  Um…SQUEEEE…then terror.  LOL.  When the bar is set high, it can feel rather intimidating.  But I keep trying to tell myself that no matter how hard I try, I can’t expect to please everyone.  So I do the best I can and hope that will be good enough, same as everyone else does, I suspect.

Sarah: You are doing a bang-up job of generating a great deal of interest in your book using your website to offer giveaways, games, and prizes – and copies of your book. Many authors take a great deal of time trying to build a site that’s as diverse as yours and miss by a mile. Your site has something for a variety of visitors – a blog, a bio, and lessons on world building as well as your history as a writer and critique partner. What was your model for your website, and who helped you develop it?

C.L. Wilson: Thanks so much.  I’m so glad you enjoyed the website.  Because I was doing something so different with LORD, and because I’d spent so much time developing the world, I really wanted to share that in the hopes that the information about the world would get people interested in the books.  I wrote the content, decided how I wanted it laid out, downloaded a template, then handed everything to my dad and said “can you help me program this?”  (My dad is something of a computer programming wiz.  He was an IBM mainframe programmer who worked at NASA during 1960s then went on to start his own very successful computer software company.)

Well, he’s been retired and not doing much in programming for the last seven years, so he was a little hesitant to tackle the project at first.  Then I (innocently) asked, “Gee, Dad.  You helped put men on the moon. How hard can a little HTML be?”  Oooh.  I learned something I never knew about my father.  He does not back down from a challenge!  In a few weeks, he taught himself the basics of Javascript, HTML, Flash, Dreamweaver, and Photoshop.  And I had a website.  You gotta love it.

Sarah: Do you consider your book a romance or a fantasy novel? Or has romance become so easily blended and hybridized that few books fit solely into one category any longer?

C.L. Wilson: Ultimately, the key to the fantasy quest lies with Rain and Ellie’s ability to complete their truemate bond.  I think most people will, therefore, consider it a romance.  To me, it has always been both a fantasy and a romance.

Sarah: Most authors of multi-part series that depict an entirely constructed world are asked how they came up with that idea. JK Rowling says she had an idea on a train and a clear picture of Harry Potter, which blew up rapidly into an entirely, pardon the pun, novel universe. What was your starting point with Lord and Lady. I don’t mean so much “Where did you get your idea?” so much as “What was your point of access into creating this universe?”

C.L. Wilson: I love fantasy and I love romance.  I’ve always read fairly widely in both, and I’ve always loved the idea of an immutable union of souls.  I knew I wanted to write a book that combined both the fantasy and the romance so tightly the two plots could not exist without each other and basing a quest that requires (for reasons that are still unfolding in the plot) the completion of the truemate bond between the hero and heroine seemed a perfect vehicle to achieve that aim.

My lifelong love of dragons, shapeshifters, magic, epic fantasy, noble and courageous heroes, self-sacrifice and immutable bonds of love all converged together one day and I had this vision of Rain Tairen Soul (he was Rain Dragon Soul then) sitting on a golden throne, facing the extinction of both the tairen (dragons then) and the Fey.  He confronts a magical oracle for help, and the oracle’s response sends him to a city he despises and to a woman who drags him back into all the messy emotion of life with the promise of that immutable, perfect union of souls as the catalyst, the quest, and the reward all wrapped in one.  Everything, absolutely everything, sprang from that one image.

Sarah: This book, it is LONG – and therefore, as you’ve said on your site, split into two. Are there outtakes? How much was cut? Will you share?

C.L. Wilson:  Wayyyy long.  I wrote it as an unpublished writer.  And with no deadline, I could have fun wandering, so I did.  I’m not a fast writer, so I cannot bear to throw away even cut scenes that I may have spent hours on.  I keep all deleted scenes in the hope that someday I may find a use for them.  I also cut the original book in two earlier on, and some 300 of those pages are being adapted for inclusion in books 3 and 4.

Sarah:   In terms of your critique partnership with Christine Feehan – holy duo, Batman! How did you hook up with Christine Feehan, and what has she taught you about worldbuilding, writing, and handling success? And what do you think she’s learned from you?

C.L. Wilson: I love Christine.  We became friends long before she was really famous.  I read Dark Desire the day it came out, and that was it for me.  Fan for life.  I tracked her down over the internet, signed her guestbook, joined her discussion group, and promptly started telling everyone “Go to the bookstores.  Turn these books cover out! Tell your friends about her!  Tell them to tell their friends.”  I wanted her to succeed, so she would keep writing those marvelous books!  LOL.  I don’t think she needed my help.  Her books were already flying off the shelves.  One thing led to another, and we started critiquing when she was writing Dark Fire, Darius’s story, and have been ever since.

As far as what we’ve learned from each other, we’re friends first and everything else comes a distant second.  So let me just say I think Christine is an amazing talent and an even more amazing person, and my life is much richer in many ways for having her in it.

Sarah: What would you like to say to any readers who target solely Fantasy or solely romance who are curious about your book ?

C.L. Wilson: There are excerpts of the first 45 pages of Lord of the Fading Lands on my website.  If you’re not sure the book is something you’d like, give those pages a try.  And feel free to wander around the website to find out more about the world and the characters who live in it.

Sarah:   What romance novels will you never get rid of unless they are pried from your cold, cold hands?

C.L. Wilson: Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas, Dark Desire by Christine Feehan, Flowers in the Storm by Laura Kinsale. Lover Awakened (Zsadist’s story) by JR Ward.  (There’s a real theme there, lol.)

Sarah: Some writers compose to music, and others have visual images of people that remind them of their characters. Do you use any methods of visualization or auditory stimulation to write? Aromatherapy, maybe? And what do Fey smell like?

C.L. Wilson: I listen to the complete recordings of Lord of the Rings and The Two Towers by Howard Shore (brilliant music!)  And come Nov 7th, I’ll be adding the complete recordings of Return of the King to that list. *gg*  When I first started writing the books, I listened to the Phil Collins soundtrack of Disney’s Tarzan, but sung lyrics became a distraction.  I found myself singing instead of writing. (Phil, I love you, but I have to write!)

Fey smell like springtime, like rain-washed, lightning-shot skies, like flowers and freshly-turned earth.  And tairen smell of darker, richer things.