When I'm not working or writing, I operate a small boutique press called Bards and Sages Publishing that produces speculative fiction and roleplaying games (no, not video games…the old fashion pen and paper, Dungeons & Dragons style roleplaying games). I decided to publish The Doom Guardian through my own imprint instead of searching for another publisher because, well, I don't think it would have made my authors feel very good to know that their publisher was chasing after some big contract with a New York publishing house!
Besides, I'm a project junkie. I love taking a project from start to finish. I'm constantly looking for projects to consume any free time I might have. By the time I finish one project, I've already got three more lined up in the pipeline. But there are worse addictions, I suppose, and at least this sort of a problem produces something productive.
How long have you been writing and how did you get to this point in your career?
I started seriously writing when I was thirteen. I had found a copy of Salem's Lot in the school library and fell in love with the book. I remember thinking how amazing the story was, and then thinking "I can do that."
I made it a point to learn as much as I can about publishing and writing. I had wonderful teachers in high school that taught the art of writing, not just enough to pass a basic skills test. I worked on the school newspaper. I majored in English in college, where I continued working on school publications and started to take freelance work. I started publishing professionally while I was still in school.
I read a lot of industry publications and attend workshops, conventions and book festivals when I can in order to keep up with changes in the industry and to keep my skills sharp. I think I'm at a point in my career where I am comfortable with the fact that I still don't know everything there is to know, and I'm willing to keep learning.
Tell me what inspired you to write this particular novel?
The Doom Guardian actually started as filler fiction for a roleplaying supplement I was developing called Mythos: Gods of the Dead. It's part of a series of PDF only supplements that provide players with pre-made gods for the game worlds. When you write these types of supplements, you often include filler fiction to illustrate a thematic point. I ended up writing the opening scene that appears in the book, and then going back and rereading it and thinking "I need to tell this woman's story."
But then I sat on it for a year, not sure with the direction to go with it. Then one day it finally hit me, and I just took off with it.
I have a keen interest in dark fiction. Tell me how you would classify this book and what’s dark about it?
It's definitely a dark fantasy. I'm actually a horror writer, and this was my first attempt at a full-length fantasy novel. The protagonist, Nadia Gareth, is a dhampir. In the world of Cambrea, dhampirs are an artificial creation of the Necromancers, who use their magic to breed human women with vampires. The original intent of the dhampirs was to breed an unstoppable army, because when a dhampir dies, it rises again as a full vampire to continue fighting.
But the corrupting influence of the Necromancers' magic made all the dhampirs mentally unstable. Nadia is one of the few that somehow managed to retain her wits and escape. At the start of the book, she is actually in the employ of the Crypt Keepers, who despite the ominous sounding name are actually one of the benevolent groups in the world. The Crypt Keepers serve Nadru, God of the Dead, who shepherds the dead to their proper place in the afterlife. He is at war with his father, Vagruth, God of Undeath, who wants to turn the world into an undead wasteland. Nadia is a Doom Guardian, the sect's equivalent of a paladin. Her primary objectives are to hunt down demons, which try to steal the souls of mortals, and the undead.
Cambrea is a pretty dark place. Besides the Necromancers, you also have the Felsworn, which are demon-tainted mercenaries. There is an undercurrent of a cold war between the free kingdom of Ebernia and the slaver state of Zaronbar. There is a brewing class war between the wealthy merchants and nobility that control the Ebernian interior and the poorer rural areas along the borders. The reader also gets glimpses at some of the political intrigues that plague the world throughout the book, much of which is the reason the Necromancers weren't stamped out long ago.
Sometimes we have to be ruthless in writing/editing. We cut scenes, eliminate characters or even kill them off. Tell me what was the hardest of these in this book.
I had to make a decision regarding one of the characters that I know broke the hearts of quite a few readers, but it was necessary for the integrity of the plot. It wasn't a decision I made lightly, particularly because I had grown somewhat attached to the character myself. But it definitely needed to be done and if I hadn't it would have felt like I was cheating.
This blog is called Random Musings, so give me a random quote from the book – something you’re particularly fond of. Nadia is the primary protagonist in the book, but Nigel, the dark elf con artist, really ended up with all the best lines. I think he sums up Nadia nicely when he says:
"You aren't a monster," said Nigel as he sat on a nearby stool. "You're arrogant, brooding, hypocritical, temperamental, and ever so slightly unhinged. But that doesn't make you any different from most women with authority I've met."Don't worry. The line isn't nearly as misogynistic as it sounds when read in the context of the scene.
What can we expect from you next?
Right now I'm finishing up a modern horror novel titled A Game of Blood. I'm toying around with releasing it for free in instalments. It's a vampire novel about a detective that stumbles upon the truth regarding the existence of vampires while investigating a series of brutal murders. Unfortunately, the vampire he is investigating, a three hundred year old sociopath named Darius Hawthorne, takes a strange liking to him and decides that he will make the perfect nemesis for the bored immortal. The relationship between the two evolves in some rather bizarre ways, and they become somewhat dependent on each other even as they are trying to destroy each other.
Where can we find you on the internet?
My main website is wwww.bardsandsages.com from there, you can find links to my Gather, Goodreads, Twitter and Facebook pages. Just recently, I launched a new forum to help independent authors with the business end of publishing. Folks interested in that can go to http://positivepublishing.freeforums.org to join.
Any final comments or thoughts?
I'd just like to thank my readers. Its fun having a book on the market where one of the characters (Nigel) has his own stalkers! The reader response to the characters themselves has been wonderful, even when those same readers are mad at me for doing "bad things" to their favorite characters.
Thank you very much for dropping by, Julie. Best of luck with The Doom Guardian as well as with Bards And Sages Publishing! You must be so busy!!
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