Interview with Award-Winning Author and Creator of the world of Perilisc Jesse Teller

FS: Welcome to Forward Scribes! I’ve read your works on the world of Perilisc and they’re amazing. First, tell us about yourself.

JT: Things got interesting when everything slowed down and stopped being exciting. For the first thirty years of my life, I ran chasing something I had no name for. As soon as I stopped looking for it, I found it. And I was able to concentrate on building a life for myself. Years of insanity peeled back as soon as I started building a world to write in, a life with the woman I love. I could talk about her forever. And in my work, I think I’m trying to make sense of her, and why it all worked so well. But once everything slowed down, I was able to build the world I work in now, and over years and years, I’ve managed to detail it out really well. Things didn’t start getting exciting for me until they got a little boring. 

Author Jesse Teller 

“Jesse Teller is a talented author with the future in his hands.” —Peter Tr, booknest.eu    

“A very strong author who boldly builds the world he has created with strong themes and no apologies.” —Dianne Bylo, Tome Tender Book Blog

FS: What made you want to write? 

JT: Since fifth grade, writing was on the table. I discovered I had a talent for it, and it gave me an outlet. But it wasn’t until I saw Kathy Bates standing in the corner of my bedroom that I knew I wanted to be a writer. I had read Stephen King’s book Misery in two sittings. I remember at one point I got up, pacing in my bedroom as I read, because I couldn’t sit still during that book. And I thought it was a good book. And I thought it was a fun read. And then I turned off the lights and went to bed, and in the corner of the room, standing there with a chef knife, was Kathy Bates staring at me. I had this clear moment where I realized words on a page did that, and the idea thrilled me. I told myself, “One day, some crazy person, after reading one of my books, is gonna see one of my characters sneaking up on them.” It’s been a life goal ever since.



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FS: How did you go about creating the world illustrated in your books? 

JT: Well, the groundwork was laid with Dungeons & Dragons games. My wife made maps for me, and things started to come into focus. But then it was just one page after the next. I was talking to a martial artist once, and he was a black belt in a few different disciplines. He said, “It’s all just moving paper. Every day you go to a class or do a workout, it’s like picking up a piece of paper and putting it in a stack. At first, you don’t see any progress. But you keep going, one piece after the next. Pretty soon, you’ve been through a ream of paper.” It was very much like that, one book added to the next. Once I had a book down and complete, I built the next one around it. At this point, things are just so involved, so intricate. Building a world is just like building anything else. Focus and dedication. Commitment, not just to the work you’re doing today, but the work you’re going to be doing tomorrow. 

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FS: Tell us about Song and the beginning of The Manhunters series. How did it come about?
JT: Oh man, I’m really excited about Song. Song is about a prison break. The worst criminals in the world are set free, and a man’s entire life becomes about chasing them down. We’ve met him before. His name is Rayph Ivoryfist. He was a character in the book Liefdom, a powerful wizard with an unrivaled mind, and dogged determination. But in this, we get a good look at him. We get to see exactly what he’s about. He just unwraps in our hand. We get a look at his friends and the people he counts on. We get to explore his country and the institutions he’s devoted to. The Manhunters series is an exploration of a country we haven’t seen before, a completely separate section of my world, with a distinct flavor of its own. There are things I am getting started in this book that will make ripples through the rest of my world for ages to come. Here we see the beginning of things that will rock my world to its very foundation. 

The Manhunters, Book One
Release Date: October 5, 2017
    
Some of the darkest minds in Perilisc attacked Mending Keep, releasing all its prisoners. Despite his strained relationship with the crown, Rayph Ivoryfist calls old friends to his aid in a subversive attempt to protect King Nardoc and thwart terrorist plots to ruin the Festival of Blossoms. But someone else is targeting Rayph, and even his fellow Manhunters might not be enough to save him.

“Jesse’s newest project, Song, is part of his Perilisc fantasy world: a richly detailed setting, ripe with legends, magic, and secrets whispered but not yet explored.” —Bookwraiths.com

Pre-order Song at Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

FS: What’s your process as you write? Does it change by book or is it about the same? 

JT: It’s very, very uniformed now. I’ve been honing my process for years, trimming back the fat, sanding down the edges, and I’ve made it a pretty streamlined endeavor. I don’t start writing until I see the beginning, and I know how it ends. But I don’t take the time to think about the middle hardly at all. I build one scene after the next completely on the fly, throwing the tracks down in front of a speeding train. The first stage of the book is 3,000 words a day every day. That’s a pretty healthy clip. That’s moving at a quick pace, and I just coast along doing that speed until the story starts to pick up, until the momentum has built to a point where I just can’t write 3,000 and walk away anymore. Then I dedicate myself to it completely. My wife takes over the house. She asks nothing of me. There’s one thing she says every time I come to her, every time I come to her to apologize for working too much, one thing she says every time I come to her to ask if she needs my help, one thing she’s beating like a drum at a steady beat. She says to me, “Baby, just finish the book.” Because she knows that until it’s done, I can’t rest, I can’t think, and I’m not at peace. 

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FS: Any funny or interesting stories about the road to Song? 

JS: I guess we can thank Tommy Lee Jones for Song, and Harrison Ford to a lesser degree. I was a young teenager watching the movie The Fugitive. I enjoyed Harrison Ford’s character. I don’t know anybody who can watch that movie and not root for Richard Kimble, but it was the marshals, it was Tommy Lee Jones that set me on fire. At one point, he turns to one of the marshals on his team and he says, “You go down there and take that operation over. And don’t let them give you any crap about your ponytail.” He had just sent a guy from his team to a police station to take it over, a member of his team was sent to take over a police station. That idea set me on fire. A team of people so powerful with minds and abilities so agile, that they could take over entire institutions and bend them all to the mind of their one leader for one dedicated purpose. Blew my mind, and it was from that the Manhunters were born. 



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FS:  Where can we find you? 

JT: The best place to find me is on Facebook. 

You can also visit my Website to find out all about my work and follow my blog.

Here are a few more links:

Goodreads
Amazon
Twitter
Reddit
Smashwords

About the Author

Jesse Teller fell in love with fantasy when he was five years old and played his first game of Dungeons & Dragons. The game gave him the ability to create stories and characters from a young age. He started consuming fantasy in every form and, by nine, was obsessed with the genre. As a young adult, he knew he wanted to make his life about fantasy. From exploring the relationship between man and woman, to studying the qualities of a leader or a tyrant, Jesse Teller uses his stories and settings to study real-world themes and issues.
He lives with his supportive wife, Rebekah, and his two inspiring children, Rayph and Tobin.

Recognition

SPFBO 2017 entrant

Literary Titan Gold Book Award Winner, April 2017

Drunken Druid Editor’s Choice, March 2017

Drunken Druid 2016 Book of the Year Short List

Hungry Monster Gold Book Award Winner, September 2016