I Get Imaginative and Explosive With Author Ciara Knight

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I’m fairly certain that Ciara Knight and I are the same person. Well, we have different chromosomes, she’s female, I try to be male, she has three sons, I have two daughters (but it feels like three sons). She lives in the American South, I live in the American West. Okay, we might not be physically the same person, though I do have bouts of amnesia and wake up with Star Wars figures in my pocket and fried okra in my hair. But regardless, Ciara and I both are reformed pantsers, we both have huge imaginations that drive us crazy, and we both have books published by Crescent Moon Press. And we both love to write.

Ciara Knight always had a passion for storytelling. Over the past few years she has penned five novels and joined several professional writing organizations to better her craft. Ciara is happily married and enjoys family time. She has learned to embrace chaos, which is a requirement when raising three boys, and utilizes the insanity to create stories not of this world including, Fantasy, Paranormal, Sci-Fi, and Young Adult Dystopian.
For more on Ciara, check out her awesome website.

And her book? The Curse of Gremdon? Holy cow. Be careful. It will draw you in. Ciara Knight is the real deal.

She agreed to chat with me and we chatted and it made my Thursday night spectacular. Because Ciara is a spectacularly positive person. I try to be. Lord, do I try.
So, the interview. Hit me.

Aaron: We talked and you said you started writing after your kids were born and you left the corporate world. What prompted you to take up the pen and heartbreak of the writer’s life?

Ciara: The day I told my middle son he could do anything and my husband turned to me and said, “You’re a hypocrite.” Ah, my husband is so sweet and honest. 🙂 He knew I had a dream to write but was too scared to go for it. My husband knows me best and when the glove was thrown down in challenge, I had to accept.

Aaron: Like I said in the intro, we both have felt cursed by huge imaginations. With me, I still need to sleep with the lights on at times. And I get teased for being afraid of ghosts. For you, what are the drawbacks of having a relentless imagination? What are the benefits?

Ciara: Focus. I NEED to focus! My friends sometime wave their hands in front of my face and say, “You’re in Ciaraland again, aren’t you?” There are way too many characters battling for their spot on paper and it gets a little crowded in my little brain sometimes. What is great about it? I’m never bored. I can be sitting anywhere and be completely entertained.

Aaron: You gotta answer this next question because on the phone, what you said blew me away. I asked if you wrote at night or in the morning. You answered. My mind exploded, man. Totally. When and where do you write?

Ciara: I write at TKD practice, the football field, during violin lessons, and/or in carpool line. I’m a fifteen-minute writer. Give me fifteen minutes and I can give you several pages. 🙂

Aaron:As a reformed pantser, what made you change to flirt with plotting? As for me, I’ve relapsed. I just wrote a 140K rough draft for a novel I have to go back and plot. I go to meetings. It helps. Tell us about your writing style. Pantser, Plotter, or a killer mutant hybrid?

Artwork by Sarah Hartwell

Ciara: I’m definitely a killer mutant hybrid. 🙂 I start off with a detailed outline that includes POV, goals, motivation, conflict, and disaster. Then, I throw it all out the window and write the book. Yep, sometimes the characters take over and tell me I got the outline wrong. What spurred the outline in the first place? A complete rewrite in one of my books. NOT doing that again. LOL

Aaron: The Curse of Gremdon started out as a short story. How did you turn it into a novel? Was it hard? Did you plot that baby out?

Ciara: It did start off as a short story and I received a nice rejection telling me to convert it to a novel, so I did. I tackled it during Nano with no outline. [NaNoWriMo, national novel-writing month.] The book practically wrote itself. If anyone has met Tardon, the hero in The Curse of Gremdon, you know how pushy he is.

 

Aaron: The Curse of Gremdon has a distinctive world with rigid rules that have ignited an emotional fire-storm in some people. Which emotional reactions surprised you the most?

Ciara: I was shocked when I received messages about the fact Arianna wasn’t treated fairly. They didn’t like the male-dominated world. I found Arianna to be so brave for facing that world. Some disagreed and thought that women should be equal. I never expected readers to feel that passionate about the world I had created.

Aaron: How much of The Curse of Gremdon is romance? How much is high fantasy? If it were a mocha latte, how much is chocolate, how much is coffee? I don’t know what the milk could be. So we’ll ignore the milk part.

Ciara: I think it is half romance and half high fantasy. There is a big story full of twists and turns, but Tardon and Arianna’s relationship is a huge part of that. The story wouldn’t work without their love and they wouldn’t have that kind of epic love without the challenges they had to face.

Aaron: Reviews can be tough on writers, but how have you dealt with the drama? For me, I plan on never reading my reviews and making them all up in my head. Something like, “The voice of a new generation, Aaron Michael Ritchey writes with a fury that will leave readers breathless.” Yeah, my own happy little world. But how do you deal with reviews?

Ciara: I analyze them. Someone thought I was insane when I told them that, but it’s true. I feel like I will never stop learning my craft and the only way I’m going to give my readers what they want is to listen to what they have to say. I do encourage readers to write a review even if they hated the book. I can learn from that.

Aaron: What trap have you seen new writers fall into? What message of hope can you leave us with? Because we need hope. Writers need hope like addicts need dope. Even more so.

Ciara: Don’t take everything so seriously or you will go crazy. It’s a tough business full of up’s and down’s. Surround yourself with fellow writers that understand what you are going through. Let yourself cry over a bad review or call on your friends, but you are only allowed twenty minutes. After that, time’s up and you need to move on. If you dwell too long you could miss a fantastic opportunity.

Aaron: Thanks so much, Ciara. I found our conversation so empowering and I even became an optimist for about twenty minutes. A new record. Then I fell back into doubt, despair, and general angst. But only for twenty minutes, like you said. Onward! Onward! To battle!

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I Had Dinner With John Carter and It Was Just Perfect

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I saw the movie, John Carter, and while I went in afraid it was going to suck like a Hoover-demon, I left overjoyed.

They got it right. I can’t imagine another movie so lovingly done, so respectful of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and so faithful to the world of Barsoom. Maybe not to the actual books, but to the spirit behind the books. The vision.

Keep something in mind. I loved Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring. However, he lost me in The Two Towers, because Sam, Frodo and Smeagol were about to sit down to eat a supper of rabbit and taters, and they were interrupted. No. You have to have them eating the rabbit and the taters. Or it all doesn’t work.

So I am very sensitive about books being translated into movies. And I knew Hollywood was going to try and kill my beloved John Carter. I grew up on Barsoom books, ever since I was an eight-year-old, and I’d get in trouble for bringing the books to school because in my editions, they had half-naked women on the cover. Drawn wonderfully by Michael Whelan.

It was worth the trouble. I adored Dejah Thoris and Thuvia, Maid of Mars. I dreamed of sleeping in the towers of Helium on my dais of silks and furs. To fly across the dying world, a radium pistol at my side, a long sword, short sword, and dagger on my harness.
So I figured the John Carter movie was going to be a lot of fighting, and no rabbits and taters for supper. Then I heard Andrew Stanton was going to help write and direct, and that guy, that guy brought us Wall-E. Which I still can’t talk about without getting weepy.

“Wall-E!“

“Eva!”

Me. Crying.

 

 

I went with hope in my heart, but fear in my wallet. And guess what?  Taters were roasted. Rabbits were eaten.  The movie was wholly and completely satisfying.

Now, I haven’t read all the reviews. And I don’t know what the zeitgeist is on the movie, but I will give you my opinion. And forgive me, ERB, forgive me, but I liked the movie better than the book. I know, I know. But hey, in the movie, Dejah Thoris is a real woman, with strengths and weaknesses. And John Carter? He’s not a cookie-cutter-white-guy-hero coming to save the day. In Andrew Stanton’s story, John Carter is a good man with a troubled soul who has a character arc, who changes, who is heroic, but that heroism came at an awful price.

And dude, they had McNulty from The Wire as the bad guy. Right there, that raises this movie up to the heavens. And don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop, Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas.

“Virgina!”

I laughed. I cried. I loved me some Woola and Sola. And the baby Tharks. I wanna wake up with baby Tharks crawling all over me. Better than puppies. Well, prolly not. But the movie did a great job bringing the Tharks, men, women, and children, to life.

Yes, there were some minor problems. I mean, the swords were wrong. Look at the Michael Whelan covers for how Barsoomian weaponry looks. Long swords, short swords, and daggers. Not curved. Not alien. They should look like how Michael Whelan drew them and how I imagined them for decades.

And the motivation of the Therns was kinda iffy. I mean, part of me dug it—they had that vibe of The X-Files’ smoking man but with more tech and less Camel cigarettes. I also needed a little more of why Dejah Thoris thought Barsoom would be destroyed if she got married. And the opening nearly threw me off the horse. Until we got back to the Arizona Territory. Then, it was magic. Pure, magical storytelling.

I felt young again. As when the world was new. And I was eight years old, and my dad’s friend gave me books that changed his life, and would change mine. All written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

In the movie, I cried when I was supposed to cry. I laughed when I was supposed to laugh. I felt hopeful for John Carter, I hated the villains, I loved the heroine.

Bottom line, the movie hooked me, and it’s getting harder and harder to get to my old, jaded heart. Especially with some big, dumb, 3D action movie. This worked for me.

And I hope ERB is looking down from heaven with approval. Because the way the movie treated him was just right. So full of respect, and honor, and love.

I plan on going to see it a second time with my daughter. To pass along the legacy. Because this movie truly feels like the torch of Barsoom is being passed to another generation who will ride their thoats across the empty seas under a Martian sky, looking for adventure, love, and a better world.

 

The 12 Steps to Writing Success Part 3: People Love Artists Like They Love Astronauts

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I read my own books sometimes to cheer me when it is hard to write, and then I remember that it was always difficult, and how nearly impossible it was sometimes.
— Ernest Hemingway

 

 

 

People love to tell artists that they’re jealous of them. Wow, you write, that’s great. I wish I had something like that in my life. Generally, I grab them, slap them a few times, dunk them in a nearby lake, hook them up to a motorcycle battery, and then torture them until they take it back.

It’s like when people say, “You’re so lucky you got recovery early.” Uh huh, so lucky I was suicidal at nineteen, a monk at 20 (celibacy vows intact), and I celebrated my 21st birthday watching a bad movie with people who didn’t really give a crap that it was my 21st birthday. Yeah, so lucky.

I think the reason why people are fascinated by artists is that everyone is an artist, deep down, but doubt, fear, general angst, drive them away from it. So it’s like when you say you’re an artist, it’s like saying you’ve just come from visiting a distant planet. Everybody likes an astronaut because they’re tough, skilled, blessed. Artists, writers, same thing.

These series of blog posts are for those who want to be astronauts of the spirit, who want to overcome whatever madness drove them away from creating. The 12 steps have helped millions of people overcome life-crushing, heart-wounding addictions, and they can help those who want to create art but find themselves caged by their own deluded, self-centered fear. The genius behind the 12 steps is that they give us a choice on what we want to do, rather than having us running away whenever some compulsion hits.

And it’s 12 steps. Just 12. Simple. But not necessarily easy. And for those not suffering from a crippling addiction, they can pretend they are. What are you doing tonight, Ed? Working the 12 steps. For your gummy bear addiction? No, I’m a writer. I have a writing addiction I want to nurture. How cool is that?

In 1955, Bill Wilson wrote a series of essays on the 12 steps and 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous that was published in a book, in AA circles called the 12 by 12, and of course, there are a bunch of fascists who are always there to correct people. It’s 12 and 12, not 12×12, ya drunk yodeling idiot. This series of blog posts is going to have a similar format. Next week we’ll have a brief biography, which of course, won’t be hard for me. It’s the old, “I’m not much, but I’m all I think about.” I know, last week I promised a biography, but well, um, the internet breeds disappointment. I’m just doing my job.

Again, I want to be clear, I’m going to keep whatever fellowship I belong to anonymous because the point of this is not to promote any one 12-step program, but to show how people can use the 12 steps to improve their creative lives. And my story is just an example, a kind of, “If this yutz can do it, you can too.” And the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are in the public domain, though I plan to change them, just a bit, because we’re not dealing with alcoholism, or narcotic addiction, or gambling, or sex, or overeating. Ha, reads like a list of ‘these are a few of my favorite things.’ We’re dealing with the generic problem of artistic angst and how to overcome it.

I’ll be using stories from my own life as well as other writers I’ve met, because at the heart of things, 12-step programs are about storytelling. “We heal through our mouths,” or so the saying goes.

And this isn’t going to be a blog series of advice, tips, blah, blah, blah. It’s going to be instructive. Do this. Do this. Do this. In 12-step talk, we take the actions and our thinking changes. You can’t fix a broken mind with a broken mind. It takes action. Bring the body and the mind will follow.

I’m goin’ biblical, Faith without works is dead. Bill W. loved that little piece of quotation magic.

Next week, I promise, the biography of me, or “Why I should be the one to blog about this stuff!”