Sourcerer’s 11: Questions for Author Alex Hurst

Welcome to the September edition of Sourcerer’s 11, our monthly interview series. I’m chatting today with fantasy, science, and speculative fiction author Alex Hurst. You can find her on WordPress at Alex-Hurst.com and on Twitter @AlexHurstTweets.

Meet Alex. She’s cool.

Welcome, Alex!

Thank you! It’s an honor to be here. I’ve followed your blog for a long time, and was pretty chuffed when you asked to interview me.

Yay, us!  (Alex is the one speaking in boldface, just so you all know. I am speaking from here on out in italics. And I am pretty stoked about the fact that the word “chuffed” has just been used on my blog for the first time ever. Let’s do this thing!) 🙂 Q&A time!

Q.1: Earlier this summer, you released D.N.A., a serial, illustrated novella. As you know, we love illustrated fiction, sci-fi, and superheroes around here, so I’m intrigued. Can you tell us a little bit about D.N.A. and how it came about?

Art by Kevin Nichols. We almost went with the cover image, but thought the better of it and decided to do something special. We have more art from Kevin Nichols today 🙂

D.N.A. came about sometime in the latter part of last year. The fiction writing group I belong to had a call out for superhero-themed fiction, and that being a genre I’d always loved as a kid, I simply had to try to get a story in. D.N.A. was accepted into that anthology (Writers’ Anarchy III: Heroes & Villains), but is re-released now with minor alterations and a handful of illustrations.

I started the story with a concept (Alta’s “power,” but then decided to also use the world that rapidly developed as a vehicle for discussing feminism, LGBT, and social issues. Alta is a woman, a person of color, and a lesbian, and the story and characters all amount to the big question I hope to ponder with the series: What does it mean to be human?

Q2. Do you have another fiction project in the works you’d like to give us an early teaser for?

I have a few projects on the back burner right now, mainly because I don’t have the knowledge to move forward. My current novel-in-progress is a non-European epic fantasy told from the perspective of the villain, but it’s on a stall because I need to do some serious world building in regard to military and poverty functions within the regions.

Q.3 Since you live in Kyoto, I can’t pass up the opportunity to ask you about Japan. I’ve always had a fascination with Japanese culture, but I think we often get an overly-simplistic view of other cultures in the U.S. Can you tell us something interesting about life in Japan that the average North American could never learn from the television and travel literature?

Hm, I’ll have to think about that one for a second. There are a lot of things that many people find shocking or surprising about Japanese culture, but it really depends on how much the person has studied or what kind of person they are in general.

That being said, I think that most of the world would have the impression that Japan wastes very little. Just last week, I saw a NYT article that discussed the philosophy of “mottainai” or “Such a waste!” In theory, this is inline with what we learn about Japan. They recycle, they take care of their things, etc., etc. So, it was very surprising to me to find out, when I came here, that there are a lot of micro-wastes in the culture, like individually wrapping every cracker or cookie in a package, or triple shrink-wrapping electronics. Even books, when you go to the book store, are all shrink-wrapped with paper “obi,” or belts, which are all thrown away, generally.

Likewise, many restaurants don’t offer a doggy bag option for food that you can’t finish at the restaurant. Grocery stores won’t stock food that isn’t absolutely perfect, and tons of food simply gets thrown out every year. What it comes down to is that they are very good at not wasting some things, but not others, and I think that’s true of any country in the world.

Q.4 Let’s talk about blogging for a bit. Your Archetypes series is one of my favorite blog series of all time, and it seems to be generally well-received. How did you come up with that idea? And if you don’t mind sharing, how long do those posts take to produce?

There’s an archetype to be found in this image, or a few. 🙂 Image by Kevin Nichols for D.N.A.

Well, thank you very much! I have a lot of fun writing those posts. I can’t actually remember much how it happened. I think I was looking at critical analyses of fairy tales and came across the terms “anima” and “animus,” and thought it’d make a good blog post. Then, because I was there anyway, I decided to have a look at Jung’s twelve archetypes, because I find them way more flexible than traditional stereotypes used to fill a cast.

The posts themselves don’t take long at all to introduce, but I did spend two days before starting the first one building the graphics. I decided ahead of time what sort of look I was going to go for, prebuilt the wheels and made a template for the featured banner. Since the images are done, it’s just a matter of filling in the text once a month. I usually start thinking about who I want to use for each archetype a few days before the post, and find the images on Google…. The actual writing of the posts takes about 4-6 hours, give or take, though the Creator post only took me one hour to churn out. I’m definitely a seat-of-the-pants blogger; shame my fiction writing doesn’t work the same way!

Q.5 Everyone who’s blogged for any length of time has favorite posts, and in my experience, bloggers’ favorite posts are rarely their most popular. In your own opinion, what’s the best post you’ve published so far?

Another hard question. I think my favorite post is another series that hardly got any love, Tackling Poe. I made that series my first year of blogging, though, and didn’t know anything of what I know now. I’m actually going to be repackaging the whole series over the next couple of years, now that I know how to push it properly.

Q.6 Most bloggers make a lot of mistakes in the early going, so those of us who have been at it for awhile usually have a list of things we’d do differently if we could go back to the beginning and start all over again. Do you have any tips to offer bloggers who are just getting started and want to be successful?

If I could do anything again, it would be deciding FIRST if I want a self-hosted domain or WP.com domain, because I switched three months in to self-hosted, and lost so many of the followers I’d struggled to gain in the beginning. 

I would also say participate in a couple, but not too many, weekly memes in order to meet people. However, the most important thing, to me, for any blog, is that your blog have something personal to say. Personal not just in the stories you tell, but in the voice you use to get them out there. Don’t be afraid to offend people, or not be interesting… just be you, and be honest.

Q.7 Since you write both fantasy and sci-fi, I’m curious to know which you prefer as a reader. Which do you read/enjoy more of, and do you have any favorite stories you’d like to share with us?

I’ve gone in and out with the genres I like. I was heavy into fantasy when I was younger, but I ended up finding so many problematic themes (mythical creatures as pets/pedestals, women having no other conflict than to be raped, etc) that I simply stopped reading the genre after 14. I’ve picked up some science fiction novels since then, but I mostly enjoy science fiction in short stories (see: Lightspeed: Women Destroy Science Fiction)

As far as my favorites, those are also variable. I’ve come to really enjoy the idea of Roger Zelazny’s Book of Amber, even if I found the writing ineffective. Right now, my heart is more with speculative fiction, as in Gaiman’s Neverwhere, or with fantasy, Brust’s Jhereg or Abercrombie’s First Law Trilogy, though I didn’t like the entirety of the end in the latter!

Q.8 You mention in your WordPress profile that you volunteer as an admin for the online community Fiction Writers Group. Since many of our readers are fiction writers, I think some of them might be interested to know what that community is about. Would you give us a brief run-down?

Sure, I’d be happy to! Fiction Writers Group is a Facebook community of authors from all around the globe. We currently have over 8,500 members, and we produce 2-3 anthologies a year that are only open to those in the group. I admin, I keep up with the website (writersanarchy.com) and do the proofreading and interior design for the anthologies. Definitely check out the website, because there’s way more information there, but my favorite part about the community is how generally helpful everyone is, and the mock publishing process we have for our Writers’ Anarchy series, which boasts no form rejections and the opportunity to resubmit after feedback. I think it really helps people take baby steps to a thicker skin!

One more from Kevin Nichols. If this ain’t good art, I don’t know what good art is.

Q.9 Any advice for writers, artists, and other creative folk who are struggling to break in and find a large audience for their work?

Have an idea for your audience, but don’t write with the intent of reaching a large audience. Write first with the intent to tell a good story, and have that story edited — not just proofread, but truly edited. Indie and self-published does NOT mean do everything yourself! There are a ton of resources out there. 🙂

Once you have your story the best it can be, then think about platform. I think there’s nothing for it but blood, sweat, and tears. Unfortunately the work isn’t over once you type The End. There will be many, many more hours of marketing and reviewer searching ahead of you…. but, don’t give up!

Q10: Give us your best elevator pitch. In four sentences or less, why should we read your stories?

I like to write about the human condition, and what it means to be human in an unhuman world. My works, no matter the genre, are character-driven more than plot -driven, but that doesn’t mean the plots are lacking! I like diversity, not just in skin tones and gender and disability, but also in personality, and the reactions and actions people who aren’t me would take in any given situation. If you’d like a free set of stories to read, check out my works on Out of Print. “Scalawag” and “Passing Over: The Handbook” are, I think, the best stories to read to get an idea as to my range. 

Q.11: If you could own one magical artifact or piece of out-of-this-world technology, large or small, from the simplest magic wand to a Death Star, what would it be?

I think Jim C. Hines answered this best with his Libriomancer series (imagine, pulling any loved item from any book ever written!), but If I had to choose one, and it couldn’t simply be a magical or supernatural skill, I’d want a wand from Harry Potter… a common answer, but there’s so much you can do with it! (As long as the Ministry of Magic isn’t on my trail, too!)