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Today, we have an author interview with Stephen Leigh, author of the upcoming novel Immortal Muse from DAW Books Inc! I asked him to introduce himself and the book, and here's what he had to say. Welcome him to the bog! And leave any questions you have in the comments section.
1. Introduce yourself.
Okay . . . Hi there, I’m Stephen Leigh (my friends call me Steve). I’ve had more than twenty novels published, and somewhere around fifty short stories -- most of those were under my own name, though a few books and short stories were under the pseudonym S.L. Farrell. This does not make me prolific; it makes me, well, older than many other writers. I’ve been writing for a long time. For instance, I’ve done several stories over the decades for George RR Martin’s long-running WILD CARDS series, which started way back in 1984, and that’s not the beginning of my career.
I’ve also been a full-time musician, and I have a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art that I really haven’t used as much as I’d like, and a Masters degree which I do use: I currently teach Creative Writing at Northern Kentucky University, which despite its name, is actually a few miles across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio. I’m married, and we have two kids who are now too old for me to have possibly been responsible for their existence -- at least I like to think so.
And, oh yeah, one reason why I’m here is because I’ll have a new book out next week, of which I’m a particularly proud parent.
2. Give us the "Hollywood Pitch" of your new book, two sentences max. (Such as: "This book is Harry Potter crossed with Silence of the Lambs, with a touch of Dumbo thrown in!")
Two sentences max?!: you are a cruel taskmaster, Joshua! I’m a novelist, not a poet. Okay, here goes . . .
"Imagine an immortal muse whose survival depends on the creativity she nurtures within her lovers, and another immortal who feed not on artistry but on pain and torment. Imagine them chasing each other through time, giving the reader glimpses of the famous and infamous, all caught up in this ages-long battle which will end in current day New York City."
3. Now give us a more in depth description of the book. What makes this book cool? What will make it stand out on the shelves?
The cover will help it stand out on the shelves, and the fact it’s a hardcover will ensure that it can stand upright on its own. (Unless, of course, you buy the e-book version, in which case it’s made of digital bits and will reside in your e-reader, which is probably not on a shelf . . .)
What I think makes the book cool is the structure: we start in current day NYC, then shift back to the mid-1300s to glimpse some of the beginning of the tale. The book continues to alternate between events in NYC and historical segments, where the reader glimpses Bernini’s Rome, Vivaldi’s Venice, Lavoisier and Robespierre in the French Revolution, William Blake and John Polidori in 19th century London; Gustav Klimt in turn of the century Vienna, and Charlotte Salomon in WWII France.
And it all ties together . . . You have a blend of history and fantasy, romance and enmity.
Finally, here’s the Publishers Weekly starred review version: “In this centuries-spanning historical fantasy, Leigh spins an epic tale of love and hate. It starts with French alchemist Nicolas Flamel, and his wife, Perenelle, in 1352. When Perenelle develops an elixir that bestows immortality, they find themselves unable to die. Her eternal existence is fueled by the symbiotic relationships she forms with creative types as their muse; Nicolas is driven by the need to inflict suffering and death. She wants to survive. He wants to torment her. As their paths cross time and again across numerous lifetimes, Perenelle is forced to constantly reinvent herself and take on new friends and lovers. When they meet again in modern New York City, it seems as though their war may finally be over. Leigh seamlessly inserts his two immortals into history, playing with actual people and events to deliver beautifully-rendered glimpses of different eras. Leigh strikes the perfect balance between past and present, real and imagined.”
4. What was the hardest part of writing the book, the part you struggled with most (without spoilers)? What part of the writing was the most fun (without spoilers)?
For me, the hardest part was also the part that was the most fun, as contradictory as that sounds.
As you know from the above, the book has sequences taking place from the 1300s through to current time, and so I had to do a plentitude of research in order to get the “look-and-feel” of the various periods. I ended up reading about dozen or more non-fiction books and innumerable articles on the internet to gather the necessary information to pull out the necessary details that would make the settings (and the historical characters) come to life. My Scrivener file is stuffed with references that I needed in the writing. That was where I struggled the most -- trying to avoid horrible infodumps and attempting to weave the details of the time into the story without stopping the narrative dead in its tracks. One of the dangers of doing a lot of research is that you uncover all sorts of wonderful little things and you want to put every last one of them in the book . . . and you can’t.
And on the other side, the research was also the fun part. I’ve always loved reading non-fiction material, especially of an historical nature, but the real beauty of research, to me, is that it always, always sparks a few dozen new ideas for the story and the worldbuilding of the novel. I love that part. I love how research can send my mind flying off in an entirely new, unexpected, and better direction; how suddenly a character or a place or a time in the novel awakens and becomes solid. I love the “aha!” moment when I’ve been wrestling with some issue in the novel and the subconscious plucks something from the reading I’m doing, holds it up in front of me, and declares “Here’s the answer!”
Those are wonderful moments that spring from the hardest part of writing.
5. Explain your writing ritual: Must have you have coffee or tea or something else? Music or silence? Any special desktop items or totems helping you write?
Tea, thank you. I’ve given up coffee, but I generally have a cuppa on my desk all day. Lapsang Souchong is my favorite: it’s a black tea where the leaves have been dried over a pine fire, and it results in a very smoky smelling and tasting tea that reminds me of an Islay Scotch without the alcohol. Too strong a tea for a lot of people, though. I was walking down the hall at school with a mug of Lapsang, and my colleague walking alongside me stopped, sniffed, and said “Is something burning around here?”
And I generally have music playing: usually iTunes on random play -- and my library has everything from rock to celtic to jazz to classical, so the music can be really random.
But beyond the tea and music . . . I try to make writing a habit and write every day, no matter what, even if it’s just a page or two. When I sit down to write, I’ll generally go over what I wrote the day before, proofing and revising the scene, with the hope that when I hit the blank part of the file I have some momentum built up and am moving downhill well enough that I don’t slam to a screeching halt when I actually have to put new words on the screen.
I’ve found over the years that I tend to write lean in the initial drafts; when I revise, even though I’m deleting words and sentences and sometimes even paragraphs or scenes, I generally find that the net result will be that I’ve added to the word count.
For instance, with IMMORTAL MUSE, the very first draft (which no one but me and my spouse Denise ever see) was less than 120, 000 words. Draft B, a terrifically heavy revision, came in around 167,000 words. Draft C was 172,000. The finished book is roughly 178,000 words. Bear in mind, too, that between Draft C and the final draft, I deleted two entire sections, one of almost 10,000 words, the other about 12,000, because they didn’t seem to me to work well enough. I replaced them with two new sections. That took a long time…
My computer’s a 13” Macbook Pro (currently one with Retina Display and solid state drive), which when on my desk is hooked up to a large monitor and a separate keyboard and trackpad. With the last half-dozen novels or so, I no longer write in a word processor. I abandoned MS Word ages ago, as it began to feel like the world’s worst and most-cluttered writing interface. I then switched to Nisus Writer Pro, a word processor I still like quite a lot, and which I still use for short fiction and correspondence. Several years back, though, I came across Scrivener, a program designed specifically for the task of writing novels, tried it, and realized that the program thought the way I did. I’ve written every novel since (and several novelettes and novellas as well) in Scrivener. When the work’s finished, I have Scrivener compile it into an RTF file, and I take that into Nisus and do a quick clean-up -- and that’s what I send to my editors.
A long, long time ago I realized that if I was ever going to be a writer, I needed to train myself to write in whatever scraps of time I could find -- which is still what I do. The laptop’s generally with me, and if I get a free half-hour or so, I open it up and start banging away on the current work-in-progress. I don’t wait for the Muse (immortal or not); I just start working and trust that the Muse will hear me laboring away, realize it’s work time, and come sit with me for a bit . . . and if she doesn’t, well, that’s what revision is for.
So there you have it: my work habits.
**********
I want to thank you for the opportunity to talk a bit with your readers, Joshua. IMMORTAL MUSE was a four year journey from the time I set down the first sentence to its appearance in the bookstores, and I’m glad to see it finally out there quivering on the shelves waiting for a reader to open it. I hope it’s a book that readers will enjoy quite a bit.
Let’s hope so, anyway!
LINKS:
Stephen Leigh’s website
IMMORTAL MUSE page on website (with links to amazon, B&N, Powell’s, and iBooks)
1. Introduce yourself.
Okay . . . Hi there, I’m Stephen Leigh (my friends call me Steve). I’ve had more than twenty novels published, and somewhere around fifty short stories -- most of those were under my own name, though a few books and short stories were under the pseudonym S.L. Farrell. This does not make me prolific; it makes me, well, older than many other writers. I’ve been writing for a long time. For instance, I’ve done several stories over the decades for George RR Martin’s long-running WILD CARDS series, which started way back in 1984, and that’s not the beginning of my career.
I’ve also been a full-time musician, and I have a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art that I really haven’t used as much as I’d like, and a Masters degree which I do use: I currently teach Creative Writing at Northern Kentucky University, which despite its name, is actually a few miles across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio. I’m married, and we have two kids who are now too old for me to have possibly been responsible for their existence -- at least I like to think so.
And, oh yeah, one reason why I’m here is because I’ll have a new book out next week, of which I’m a particularly proud parent.
2. Give us the "Hollywood Pitch" of your new book, two sentences max. (Such as: "This book is Harry Potter crossed with Silence of the Lambs, with a touch of Dumbo thrown in!")
Two sentences max?!: you are a cruel taskmaster, Joshua! I’m a novelist, not a poet. Okay, here goes . . .
"Imagine an immortal muse whose survival depends on the creativity she nurtures within her lovers, and another immortal who feed not on artistry but on pain and torment. Imagine them chasing each other through time, giving the reader glimpses of the famous and infamous, all caught up in this ages-long battle which will end in current day New York City."
3. Now give us a more in depth description of the book. What makes this book cool? What will make it stand out on the shelves?
The cover will help it stand out on the shelves, and the fact it’s a hardcover will ensure that it can stand upright on its own. (Unless, of course, you buy the e-book version, in which case it’s made of digital bits and will reside in your e-reader, which is probably not on a shelf . . .)
What I think makes the book cool is the structure: we start in current day NYC, then shift back to the mid-1300s to glimpse some of the beginning of the tale. The book continues to alternate between events in NYC and historical segments, where the reader glimpses Bernini’s Rome, Vivaldi’s Venice, Lavoisier and Robespierre in the French Revolution, William Blake and John Polidori in 19th century London; Gustav Klimt in turn of the century Vienna, and Charlotte Salomon in WWII France.
And it all ties together . . . You have a blend of history and fantasy, romance and enmity.
Finally, here’s the Publishers Weekly starred review version: “In this centuries-spanning historical fantasy, Leigh spins an epic tale of love and hate. It starts with French alchemist Nicolas Flamel, and his wife, Perenelle, in 1352. When Perenelle develops an elixir that bestows immortality, they find themselves unable to die. Her eternal existence is fueled by the symbiotic relationships she forms with creative types as their muse; Nicolas is driven by the need to inflict suffering and death. She wants to survive. He wants to torment her. As their paths cross time and again across numerous lifetimes, Perenelle is forced to constantly reinvent herself and take on new friends and lovers. When they meet again in modern New York City, it seems as though their war may finally be over. Leigh seamlessly inserts his two immortals into history, playing with actual people and events to deliver beautifully-rendered glimpses of different eras. Leigh strikes the perfect balance between past and present, real and imagined.”
4. What was the hardest part of writing the book, the part you struggled with most (without spoilers)? What part of the writing was the most fun (without spoilers)?
For me, the hardest part was also the part that was the most fun, as contradictory as that sounds.
As you know from the above, the book has sequences taking place from the 1300s through to current time, and so I had to do a plentitude of research in order to get the “look-and-feel” of the various periods. I ended up reading about dozen or more non-fiction books and innumerable articles on the internet to gather the necessary information to pull out the necessary details that would make the settings (and the historical characters) come to life. My Scrivener file is stuffed with references that I needed in the writing. That was where I struggled the most -- trying to avoid horrible infodumps and attempting to weave the details of the time into the story without stopping the narrative dead in its tracks. One of the dangers of doing a lot of research is that you uncover all sorts of wonderful little things and you want to put every last one of them in the book . . . and you can’t.
And on the other side, the research was also the fun part. I’ve always loved reading non-fiction material, especially of an historical nature, but the real beauty of research, to me, is that it always, always sparks a few dozen new ideas for the story and the worldbuilding of the novel. I love that part. I love how research can send my mind flying off in an entirely new, unexpected, and better direction; how suddenly a character or a place or a time in the novel awakens and becomes solid. I love the “aha!” moment when I’ve been wrestling with some issue in the novel and the subconscious plucks something from the reading I’m doing, holds it up in front of me, and declares “Here’s the answer!”
Those are wonderful moments that spring from the hardest part of writing.
5. Explain your writing ritual: Must have you have coffee or tea or something else? Music or silence? Any special desktop items or totems helping you write?
Tea, thank you. I’ve given up coffee, but I generally have a cuppa on my desk all day. Lapsang Souchong is my favorite: it’s a black tea where the leaves have been dried over a pine fire, and it results in a very smoky smelling and tasting tea that reminds me of an Islay Scotch without the alcohol. Too strong a tea for a lot of people, though. I was walking down the hall at school with a mug of Lapsang, and my colleague walking alongside me stopped, sniffed, and said “Is something burning around here?”
And I generally have music playing: usually iTunes on random play -- and my library has everything from rock to celtic to jazz to classical, so the music can be really random.
But beyond the tea and music . . . I try to make writing a habit and write every day, no matter what, even if it’s just a page or two. When I sit down to write, I’ll generally go over what I wrote the day before, proofing and revising the scene, with the hope that when I hit the blank part of the file I have some momentum built up and am moving downhill well enough that I don’t slam to a screeching halt when I actually have to put new words on the screen.
I’ve found over the years that I tend to write lean in the initial drafts; when I revise, even though I’m deleting words and sentences and sometimes even paragraphs or scenes, I generally find that the net result will be that I’ve added to the word count.
For instance, with IMMORTAL MUSE, the very first draft (which no one but me and my spouse Denise ever see) was less than 120, 000 words. Draft B, a terrifically heavy revision, came in around 167,000 words. Draft C was 172,000. The finished book is roughly 178,000 words. Bear in mind, too, that between Draft C and the final draft, I deleted two entire sections, one of almost 10,000 words, the other about 12,000, because they didn’t seem to me to work well enough. I replaced them with two new sections. That took a long time…
My computer’s a 13” Macbook Pro (currently one with Retina Display and solid state drive), which when on my desk is hooked up to a large monitor and a separate keyboard and trackpad. With the last half-dozen novels or so, I no longer write in a word processor. I abandoned MS Word ages ago, as it began to feel like the world’s worst and most-cluttered writing interface. I then switched to Nisus Writer Pro, a word processor I still like quite a lot, and which I still use for short fiction and correspondence. Several years back, though, I came across Scrivener, a program designed specifically for the task of writing novels, tried it, and realized that the program thought the way I did. I’ve written every novel since (and several novelettes and novellas as well) in Scrivener. When the work’s finished, I have Scrivener compile it into an RTF file, and I take that into Nisus and do a quick clean-up -- and that’s what I send to my editors.
A long, long time ago I realized that if I was ever going to be a writer, I needed to train myself to write in whatever scraps of time I could find -- which is still what I do. The laptop’s generally with me, and if I get a free half-hour or so, I open it up and start banging away on the current work-in-progress. I don’t wait for the Muse (immortal or not); I just start working and trust that the Muse will hear me laboring away, realize it’s work time, and come sit with me for a bit . . . and if she doesn’t, well, that’s what revision is for.
So there you have it: my work habits.
**********
I want to thank you for the opportunity to talk a bit with your readers, Joshua. IMMORTAL MUSE was a four year journey from the time I set down the first sentence to its appearance in the bookstores, and I’m glad to see it finally out there quivering on the shelves waiting for a reader to open it. I hope it’s a book that readers will enjoy quite a bit.
Let’s hope so, anyway!
LINKS:
Stephen Leigh’s website
IMMORTAL MUSE page on website (with links to amazon, B&N, Powell’s, and iBooks)
