Author Interview: WolfenM, author of The Drosselmeier Chronicles: The Solstice Tales
1. Great to have you here. Tell us about yourself.
Besides writing fiction (original and fanfiction -- find me at Archive of Our Own), I write and am an editor for SequentialTart.com, a webzine written by women, and focused on comics and related media. I've written a lot of different columns for the site, starting with one that recapped and reviewed Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the series; these days, I do a sporadic column following the characterisation of Loki in various Marvel media. I love fantasy (high, urban, and paranormal) and sci-fi -- most of what I watch or read falls under one of those headings. Thematically, I love hurt/comfort, redemption, and shipping (especially when the characters continue *past* the hook-up, showing the full evolution of a relationship; I figure people who insist that stories get boring when the two people in a pairing finally get together just haven't found the right story). I'm also an artist -- mostly, I paint portraits, but I've done some character art and spot illustrations as well, most notably for a couple Dragonlance modules. I'm an eclectic pagan, and pretty much have been since grade school. I'm bi-poly and genderfluid (mostly drifting between female and non-binary, but I have my more male moments). And I love animals, especially wolves and rabbits. All this informs much of what I write.
2. Growing up, was there a book you read that made you go “Man, I just have to do this for a living”?
I think I wanted to create stories because of TV and film, particularly animation, first. Like, I wanted to be the next Walt Disney, create a story and lead a production crew that would help me bring it to life. (I can't pinpoint a specific story, though.) Then, when I was seven, I started reading the fantasy comic series ElfQuest, by Wendy and Richard Pini, and so I thought I might start my story empire with a comic. At 11, Meredith Anne Pierce's novel Birth of the Firebringer (the first of The Firebringer Trilogy) was also a big influence, as was Charles de Lint's Wolf Moon, when I was 14. And I first started reading the Harry Potter books in '99; the story of Rowling's struggle to get them published has been an ongoing inspiration to keep at it.
3. Did you have another ideal career besides writing?
I did want to be an animator or a comic books artist, but it turned out I wasn't really any good at either. I do still try to do both now and then, though, on my own, for personal projects. There were also points where I wanted to be a veterinarian, a zookeeper, and a wolf biologist, but when I thought about the needles and the blood and the need for more math classes in college, I decided on a career in art. I actually went to art school, but I always intended to write too, taking creative writing classes in both high school and art school. Over time, I decided I was actually more interested in writing than art, but I still love both (and learning about animals).
4. When did you first start writing?
I distinctly remember, when I was 6, a day when the "room mothers" in my class satt down with us individually and had us each tell them a story, which they would then write down. I may have crated stories before then, but that's the first I remember, based on a lucid dream I'd had that morning. Something about two mice dancing. I also remember trying to make a comic about The Three Little Pigs, one where the wolf was good -- and I actually revisited the topic high school (but alas didn’t finish it; it's on my Gaiankind to-do list).
5. What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
Read, draw, craft (sewing, sculpture, jewelry-making), take photos, watch TV, sing, go for very long walks (typically eight to 12 miles, sometimes only 4 or 5, but often as many as 15), or swim laps around a lazy river. To be honest, though, I'm spinning story ideas in my head pretty frequently -- my attention will often drift into day-dreaming stories while I do mundane tasks (and sometimes while watching TV). I guess one of the reasons I like walking is because I can daydream while I walk, with nothing to distract me.
via GIPHY
6. What does your process look like? Any rituals? Necessary music?
When I'm sitting down to write, not really -- I just tend to save it for times when I'm alone, because I can get into something of a trancelike state when I write, and it can be painfully jarring to get pulled out of it, as well as difficult to get back in. Finding the time to write without interruptions has proved to be my biggest challenge. When I'm walking and daydreaming, I choose songs that fit the spirit of what I'm writing, as a sort of soundtrack to the scenes I play out in my head. I'll often play the same one out over and over, trying different angles -- sometimes it's really hard to choose which to go with!
7. Has your real life and writing life ever merged?
The art imitates life on occasion -- some characters are based on people I know, and I'll sometimes write out scenarios from life to be the way I wish they'd gone, heh. I can't think of a situation where the reverse has happened. And I'm not exactly a household name, so I haven't had any instances where someone's said they've read something fictional I've written -- yet. I have had a couple times where someone turned out to have read my work with Sequential Tart, though.
8. What kind of research do you do and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
I try to learn all I can about the time periods I write about, and about folklore. I don't have a set amount of time -- it's more like, I will have questions as I go, and keep reading until I feel I have a solid enough understanding. Often, one question will lead me down a rabbit-hole of internet surfing, as I get distracted by other subjects mentioned in the sources I'm reading on the hunt for an answer. I did a lot of reading about general medieval life and Celtic folklore for my Hunt for the Shadowmakers series. I looked up French titles, inheritance, customs and fashion of the era, and several stories about the hunting of killer wolves in France, for my take on "Cinderella". I read up a bit on puppetry for my version of Pinocchio. At the moment, I'm reading about Queen Victoria (said to have been an inspiration for the Queen of Hearts) for my version of Alice in Wonderland.
via GIPHY
9. Where do you come up with your ideas?
I think of many of them on walks or in the shower, or lying in bed as I'm falling asleep or waking up. Some are inspired by dreams, and some are inspired by song lyrics. Some happen when I'm reading a book or watching a TV show or movie, and I get to thinking, I would have handled this scenario differently. With my Gaiankind storyverse, I've done a lot of just general world-building, like how magic works and mapping our family lineages, so when I'm reading about mythology and folklore, I think about how the pieces fit into the world I've built. I think about how things might be explained -- and how the stories, in the eyes of my characters, might have been misinterpreted. A lot of myths and faerietales don't really make sense to modern culture, raising a lot of questions about motivation. I try to fill in the cracks, or ask "What if ...?" I look for similarities, connections, between stories of different cultures. For example, one suggested interpretation I've found for the meaning of the name of the Celtic god Lugh is "cruel strike" -- and the name of Norse god Loki's father, Farbauti, also can be interpreted as "cruel strike", meaning lightning in both cases. Lugh and Loki are both gods of fire (among other things), so in Gaiankind, Lugh is Loki's father, having sired Loki while possessed by an Air Elemental. Loki, a trickster deity, is suspected by some of being a spider-deity (which is a potential explanation for why his son Sleipnir has eight legs, although its not the only explanation), so my Loki is a great-grandson of Anansi, the African spider trickster, on his mother's side. Loki wore winged shoes, while Odin, a sky god, is called the "Mercury of the North", and Mercury, son of sky god Jupiter, was a god of travel and trickery who wore flying shoes, so in Gaiankind, Mercury travelled north from Italy and, in different forms, sired Lugh and The Daghda (an all-father type figure) along the way, and thus was the grandfather of Loki and Odin (who was known as The All-Father). Trickster that he is, my Loki eventually becomes Robin Hood, and then Sherlock Holmes. And my Drosselmeier was born in Egypt as Thot (aka Thoth), the Ibis-headed god of both science and magic (among other things), but eventually travelled north and became Odin's raven Huginn (whose name means "thought"), years before becoming Drosselmeier, a man who melds clockwork and magic. I mean, we're talking about immortals -- it makes sense that they would travel the world and take on different identities over the years! So when I look at figures of folklore, I often ask, "Who else are you?", and build stories by strengthening the connections between the identities. Understanding archetypes and tropes helps -- and it can be fun subverting them.
10. What was the hardest part of writing your latest book?
One of the stories I'm working right now is the second Drosselmeier book, based on Carroll's Alice stories, but in my version of things, Alice (who is part of the Drosselmeier family) has dwarfism -- I wanted to make the size-changing aspect more personal for her (and to have my characters be more diverse -- how many leads with dwarfism can you think of?). The tricky thing with writing about powerful beings is satisfactorily answering "Why don't they just __?" without being too contrived. In this case, there was the added complication of recognising the challenges those with dwarfism face without actually depicting the condition negatively. I had to answer the question of why parents with shapeshifting and healing magic wouldn't undo a medical condition when they easily could, when not doing so would mean their child would struggle with certain things that she wouldn't have had to without the condition. This meant having a very tricky conversation between the child's mother and her faery godfather about trying to decide between doing what one feels is best for one's child, and giving them a choice over their bodily autonomy. The conversation also explores how what some see as flaws aren’t anything to be concerned about to others. One argument the godfather uses is pointing out to the mother that it's not exactly easy to be a woman in (particularly in the Victorian era), either, but the mother didn’t see being female as something to be "cured' ….
11. Do you have a favorite chapter?
Actually, I really like that chapter I just mentioned! But as for the work already out, I'm pretty happy with the first chapter of the novella "A Conspiracy of Spirits: The Love Story of Jacob Marley and Ebenezer Scrooge", in I which explain why and how Jacob Marley arranged for Ebenezer Scrooge's chance at redemption.
via GIPHY
12. Can you share a sample?
Sure! Here's a snippet from the start of that aforementioned chapter from "A Conspiracy of Spirits":
The ghost of Jacob Marley stood, unseen, in the corner of his old workplace, watching a shabby-looking Bob Cratchit sit huddled in two coats under an old, stained duvet. The clerk attempted to write with hands that trembled minutely with cold. It looked as though candle flame was the only warmth to be had in the room, besides the heat within the living man's own blood. But Jacob couldn't tell through his own senses whether or not this was true.
In the ghost's own world, a half-step from reality, there were only three tactile sensations that he experienced: unending, biting cold; a dull, pounding ache in his jaw; and an immense sense of weight. The latter sensation stemmed from the chains that were wrapped around the spectre, and trailed off endlessly into piles around the room. The chains themselves were adorned with countless trappings of the material world: cash boxes, money purses, deeds, keys, locks, and more, all adding to the ponderous nature of his bonds.
If the ghost had been as visible to the mortal eye as Cratchit was, then when gazing upon Jacob's form, the potential viewer would have found, besides the chains, a man grizzled more than his years on earth had warranted, his frayed hair bound in the practical pigtail that had been his fashion in life, loose strands stirred by an unearthly breeze. His skin was the gray of the dreariest winter sky, yet glowed like moonlight. His eyes were the only colourful thing about him, burning with an eerie blue fire, yet they were somehow lifeless-seeming all the same; Jacob knew this because he had seen other ghosts, and found them all similarly afflicted, save for that their fires were sometimes green or amber, and a scattered few had eyes like black pits. A kerchief was tied around Jacob's head, under his jaw; in life, it had offered a small bit of comfort from the infection in a molar, an infection which had ultimately spread and killed him. And all of him, body and clothes and chains alike, was somewhat transparent—like a watercolour, only devoid of pigment.
If any of the clients that had visited throughout the day could have seen the ghost, then besides all those things, they also would have noted him wearing a sad frown of sympathy while he studied Cratchit. This visage would have changed only slightly as he moved his eyes over to his dear old partner, Ebenezer Scrooge, the change being from sympathy to guilt. Scrooge was a man rich in money alone; he was poor in love and kindness, and Jacob was to blame.
With a heart heavier than his chains, the ghost watched Cratchit fail to coax another coal for the fire from his heartless taskmaster. Watched Scrooge's young nephew fail to coax some holiday cheer and an acceptance to a dinner invitation from an emotionally distant uncle. Watched two generous souls fail to coax a penny from Jacob's old partner's wallet. Watched a caroling child fail to coax a treat from Scrooge with a song, getting menaced with a ruler instead. There was nothing else for Jacob to do but watch; as a ghost, he could no more appeal to Scrooge's better nature than he could sneak a lump of coal into the fire. Of course, even if he had flesh, he was convinced that Scrooge had no better nature left to be appealed to.
via GIPHY
13. How can we get in touch with you?
I'm on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram -- basically, I'm WolfenM almost everywhere.
14. Where can we find your book?
You can read my original works for free, to try them, at Archive of Our Own ("Kudos", comments, and link-shares are always much appreciated!) If you like any of them, you can buy my books from Amazon. And you can read a lot of concept stuff at Gaiankind.com
via GIPHY
Besides writing fiction (original and fanfiction -- find me at Archive of Our Own), I write and am an editor for SequentialTart.com, a webzine written by women, and focused on comics and related media. I've written a lot of different columns for the site, starting with one that recapped and reviewed Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the series; these days, I do a sporadic column following the characterisation of Loki in various Marvel media. I love fantasy (high, urban, and paranormal) and sci-fi -- most of what I watch or read falls under one of those headings. Thematically, I love hurt/comfort, redemption, and shipping (especially when the characters continue *past* the hook-up, showing the full evolution of a relationship; I figure people who insist that stories get boring when the two people in a pairing finally get together just haven't found the right story). I'm also an artist -- mostly, I paint portraits, but I've done some character art and spot illustrations as well, most notably for a couple Dragonlance modules. I'm an eclectic pagan, and pretty much have been since grade school. I'm bi-poly and genderfluid (mostly drifting between female and non-binary, but I have my more male moments). And I love animals, especially wolves and rabbits. All this informs much of what I write.
2. Growing up, was there a book you read that made you go “Man, I just have to do this for a living”?
I think I wanted to create stories because of TV and film, particularly animation, first. Like, I wanted to be the next Walt Disney, create a story and lead a production crew that would help me bring it to life. (I can't pinpoint a specific story, though.) Then, when I was seven, I started reading the fantasy comic series ElfQuest, by Wendy and Richard Pini, and so I thought I might start my story empire with a comic. At 11, Meredith Anne Pierce's novel Birth of the Firebringer (the first of The Firebringer Trilogy) was also a big influence, as was Charles de Lint's Wolf Moon, when I was 14. And I first started reading the Harry Potter books in '99; the story of Rowling's struggle to get them published has been an ongoing inspiration to keep at it.
3. Did you have another ideal career besides writing?
I did want to be an animator or a comic books artist, but it turned out I wasn't really any good at either. I do still try to do both now and then, though, on my own, for personal projects. There were also points where I wanted to be a veterinarian, a zookeeper, and a wolf biologist, but when I thought about the needles and the blood and the need for more math classes in college, I decided on a career in art. I actually went to art school, but I always intended to write too, taking creative writing classes in both high school and art school. Over time, I decided I was actually more interested in writing than art, but I still love both (and learning about animals).
4. When did you first start writing?
I distinctly remember, when I was 6, a day when the "room mothers" in my class satt down with us individually and had us each tell them a story, which they would then write down. I may have crated stories before then, but that's the first I remember, based on a lucid dream I'd had that morning. Something about two mice dancing. I also remember trying to make a comic about The Three Little Pigs, one where the wolf was good -- and I actually revisited the topic high school (but alas didn’t finish it; it's on my Gaiankind to-do list).
5. What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
Read, draw, craft (sewing, sculpture, jewelry-making), take photos, watch TV, sing, go for very long walks (typically eight to 12 miles, sometimes only 4 or 5, but often as many as 15), or swim laps around a lazy river. To be honest, though, I'm spinning story ideas in my head pretty frequently -- my attention will often drift into day-dreaming stories while I do mundane tasks (and sometimes while watching TV). I guess one of the reasons I like walking is because I can daydream while I walk, with nothing to distract me.
via GIPHY
6. What does your process look like? Any rituals? Necessary music?
When I'm sitting down to write, not really -- I just tend to save it for times when I'm alone, because I can get into something of a trancelike state when I write, and it can be painfully jarring to get pulled out of it, as well as difficult to get back in. Finding the time to write without interruptions has proved to be my biggest challenge. When I'm walking and daydreaming, I choose songs that fit the spirit of what I'm writing, as a sort of soundtrack to the scenes I play out in my head. I'll often play the same one out over and over, trying different angles -- sometimes it's really hard to choose which to go with!
7. Has your real life and writing life ever merged?
The art imitates life on occasion -- some characters are based on people I know, and I'll sometimes write out scenarios from life to be the way I wish they'd gone, heh. I can't think of a situation where the reverse has happened. And I'm not exactly a household name, so I haven't had any instances where someone's said they've read something fictional I've written -- yet. I have had a couple times where someone turned out to have read my work with Sequential Tart, though.
8. What kind of research do you do and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
I try to learn all I can about the time periods I write about, and about folklore. I don't have a set amount of time -- it's more like, I will have questions as I go, and keep reading until I feel I have a solid enough understanding. Often, one question will lead me down a rabbit-hole of internet surfing, as I get distracted by other subjects mentioned in the sources I'm reading on the hunt for an answer. I did a lot of reading about general medieval life and Celtic folklore for my Hunt for the Shadowmakers series. I looked up French titles, inheritance, customs and fashion of the era, and several stories about the hunting of killer wolves in France, for my take on "Cinderella". I read up a bit on puppetry for my version of Pinocchio. At the moment, I'm reading about Queen Victoria (said to have been an inspiration for the Queen of Hearts) for my version of Alice in Wonderland.
via GIPHY
9. Where do you come up with your ideas?
I think of many of them on walks or in the shower, or lying in bed as I'm falling asleep or waking up. Some are inspired by dreams, and some are inspired by song lyrics. Some happen when I'm reading a book or watching a TV show or movie, and I get to thinking, I would have handled this scenario differently. With my Gaiankind storyverse, I've done a lot of just general world-building, like how magic works and mapping our family lineages, so when I'm reading about mythology and folklore, I think about how the pieces fit into the world I've built. I think about how things might be explained -- and how the stories, in the eyes of my characters, might have been misinterpreted. A lot of myths and faerietales don't really make sense to modern culture, raising a lot of questions about motivation. I try to fill in the cracks, or ask "What if ...?" I look for similarities, connections, between stories of different cultures. For example, one suggested interpretation I've found for the meaning of the name of the Celtic god Lugh is "cruel strike" -- and the name of Norse god Loki's father, Farbauti, also can be interpreted as "cruel strike", meaning lightning in both cases. Lugh and Loki are both gods of fire (among other things), so in Gaiankind, Lugh is Loki's father, having sired Loki while possessed by an Air Elemental. Loki, a trickster deity, is suspected by some of being a spider-deity (which is a potential explanation for why his son Sleipnir has eight legs, although its not the only explanation), so my Loki is a great-grandson of Anansi, the African spider trickster, on his mother's side. Loki wore winged shoes, while Odin, a sky god, is called the "Mercury of the North", and Mercury, son of sky god Jupiter, was a god of travel and trickery who wore flying shoes, so in Gaiankind, Mercury travelled north from Italy and, in different forms, sired Lugh and The Daghda (an all-father type figure) along the way, and thus was the grandfather of Loki and Odin (who was known as The All-Father). Trickster that he is, my Loki eventually becomes Robin Hood, and then Sherlock Holmes. And my Drosselmeier was born in Egypt as Thot (aka Thoth), the Ibis-headed god of both science and magic (among other things), but eventually travelled north and became Odin's raven Huginn (whose name means "thought"), years before becoming Drosselmeier, a man who melds clockwork and magic. I mean, we're talking about immortals -- it makes sense that they would travel the world and take on different identities over the years! So when I look at figures of folklore, I often ask, "Who else are you?", and build stories by strengthening the connections between the identities. Understanding archetypes and tropes helps -- and it can be fun subverting them.
10. What was the hardest part of writing your latest book?
One of the stories I'm working right now is the second Drosselmeier book, based on Carroll's Alice stories, but in my version of things, Alice (who is part of the Drosselmeier family) has dwarfism -- I wanted to make the size-changing aspect more personal for her (and to have my characters be more diverse -- how many leads with dwarfism can you think of?). The tricky thing with writing about powerful beings is satisfactorily answering "Why don't they just __?" without being too contrived. In this case, there was the added complication of recognising the challenges those with dwarfism face without actually depicting the condition negatively. I had to answer the question of why parents with shapeshifting and healing magic wouldn't undo a medical condition when they easily could, when not doing so would mean their child would struggle with certain things that she wouldn't have had to without the condition. This meant having a very tricky conversation between the child's mother and her faery godfather about trying to decide between doing what one feels is best for one's child, and giving them a choice over their bodily autonomy. The conversation also explores how what some see as flaws aren’t anything to be concerned about to others. One argument the godfather uses is pointing out to the mother that it's not exactly easy to be a woman in (particularly in the Victorian era), either, but the mother didn’t see being female as something to be "cured' ….
11. Do you have a favorite chapter?
Actually, I really like that chapter I just mentioned! But as for the work already out, I'm pretty happy with the first chapter of the novella "A Conspiracy of Spirits: The Love Story of Jacob Marley and Ebenezer Scrooge", in I which explain why and how Jacob Marley arranged for Ebenezer Scrooge's chance at redemption.
via GIPHY
12. Can you share a sample?
Sure! Here's a snippet from the start of that aforementioned chapter from "A Conspiracy of Spirits":
The ghost of Jacob Marley stood, unseen, in the corner of his old workplace, watching a shabby-looking Bob Cratchit sit huddled in two coats under an old, stained duvet. The clerk attempted to write with hands that trembled minutely with cold. It looked as though candle flame was the only warmth to be had in the room, besides the heat within the living man's own blood. But Jacob couldn't tell through his own senses whether or not this was true.
In the ghost's own world, a half-step from reality, there were only three tactile sensations that he experienced: unending, biting cold; a dull, pounding ache in his jaw; and an immense sense of weight. The latter sensation stemmed from the chains that were wrapped around the spectre, and trailed off endlessly into piles around the room. The chains themselves were adorned with countless trappings of the material world: cash boxes, money purses, deeds, keys, locks, and more, all adding to the ponderous nature of his bonds.
If the ghost had been as visible to the mortal eye as Cratchit was, then when gazing upon Jacob's form, the potential viewer would have found, besides the chains, a man grizzled more than his years on earth had warranted, his frayed hair bound in the practical pigtail that had been his fashion in life, loose strands stirred by an unearthly breeze. His skin was the gray of the dreariest winter sky, yet glowed like moonlight. His eyes were the only colourful thing about him, burning with an eerie blue fire, yet they were somehow lifeless-seeming all the same; Jacob knew this because he had seen other ghosts, and found them all similarly afflicted, save for that their fires were sometimes green or amber, and a scattered few had eyes like black pits. A kerchief was tied around Jacob's head, under his jaw; in life, it had offered a small bit of comfort from the infection in a molar, an infection which had ultimately spread and killed him. And all of him, body and clothes and chains alike, was somewhat transparent—like a watercolour, only devoid of pigment.
If any of the clients that had visited throughout the day could have seen the ghost, then besides all those things, they also would have noted him wearing a sad frown of sympathy while he studied Cratchit. This visage would have changed only slightly as he moved his eyes over to his dear old partner, Ebenezer Scrooge, the change being from sympathy to guilt. Scrooge was a man rich in money alone; he was poor in love and kindness, and Jacob was to blame.
With a heart heavier than his chains, the ghost watched Cratchit fail to coax another coal for the fire from his heartless taskmaster. Watched Scrooge's young nephew fail to coax some holiday cheer and an acceptance to a dinner invitation from an emotionally distant uncle. Watched two generous souls fail to coax a penny from Jacob's old partner's wallet. Watched a caroling child fail to coax a treat from Scrooge with a song, getting menaced with a ruler instead. There was nothing else for Jacob to do but watch; as a ghost, he could no more appeal to Scrooge's better nature than he could sneak a lump of coal into the fire. Of course, even if he had flesh, he was convinced that Scrooge had no better nature left to be appealed to.
via GIPHY
13. How can we get in touch with you?
I'm on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram -- basically, I'm WolfenM almost everywhere.
14. Where can we find your book?
You can read my original works for free, to try them, at Archive of Our Own ("Kudos", comments, and link-shares are always much appreciated!) If you like any of them, you can buy my books from Amazon. And you can read a lot of concept stuff at Gaiankind.com
via GIPHY
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