Hi, Laurel! Congrats on your book birthday! Tell everyone
about yourself.
I’ve
always loved nature. Since my dad was a naturalist working for the National
Park Service, I had lots of early exposure to outdoor recreation through
volunteering at the parks, so that’s what I went into to. I met my husband in an
astronomy club. He’s a geologist, so we share the same love of the outdoors. I worked
at a variety of parks until well after I had kids. When they were small, I wrote
a story about a kid avoiding poison ivy at summer camp, but put it aside when
our basement flooded. I pulled it out while homeschooling my youngest, finished
it and went on to write a novel, then several more… Clearly, I love writing. *Grins* We are still very much an
outdoor family: hiking, camping, fossil hunting, gardening…
What are your
favorite and least favorite parts about being a writer?
I
love creating the worlds and figuring out my characters’ lives and problems,
and of course the magic. The magic is really my favorite. For least
favorite…things that take me away from writing, like the paperwork and
scheduling.
What’s one piece
of advice you’d give to other writers?
Persevere.
Early in my writing journey I heard Jo Ann Ferguson
give a keynote speech during a Beau Monde mini-conference in San Francisco. Her
quote from Galaxy Quest really has motivated me: ‘Never give up. Never
surrender.’
That is a great quote. When you're writing, do you prefer
silence or to have music on?
I’m
a silence person, but my husband loves public radio with classical music. It is
so much a part of our household, I often forget it’s on until the hourly
newsbreaks.
How’d you get
the idea for The Unraveling?
A
dream, but also I’d recently read Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan series and
Cassandra Clare’s The Infernal Devices series. So while working out what that
girl in the dream was doing on a farm, I knew I had to make her story a
steampunk. Because I’d not read any steampunk stories with rural settings, I
could make all the ideas for the machinery my own!
Awesome! Steampunk fascinates me--you must have to have a good imagination to write it. And will The Unraveling be part
of a series?
The Unraveling is actually
part of a serialized novel—the complete story is called The Luminated Threads. It’s told in three parts, following the same
characters, a proper city artist and the shapeshifter she comes to love, and
the agricultural magnate who is determined to recruit them into his plans.
So there's lots more to look forward to! Yay! What are you
working on right now?
 |
| Look at this gorgeous cover! |
I’m
finalizing the edits for The Twisting,
Volume Two of The Luminated Threads. It releases this fall. For a short
break at the start of June, I took a Master Plotting class taught by Cherry
Adair and spent a weekend working on the outline of two stories in a futuristic
duet…also with shapeshifters. J
What genres do
you write in? What have your experiences been like? If you write in multiple
genres, how is the experience different from one to another?
I
write fantasy, but it never seems to be pure fantasy, the kind with a hero on a
quest, running into elves, or trolls, rescuing a princess… My settings have
that thread of magic, but also one of reality. I’ve used contemporary settings,
some futuristic and this set of novels takes place in the past. Since my worlds
aren’t completely made up, I always end up researching something. Luckily, I do
love learning new things.
The Unraveling started out in
a made-up land, but I so wanted the atmosphere to be the Victorian period. It
came out English enough a plotting partner said it confused her it wasn’t the
UK. With the help of a British friend, I selected Derby. I wrote happily away,
looking up historical dress and food and transportation and…let’s be honest: I
had to research a lot. The final things to trip me up were simple exclamations!
Here’s one: Shoot. Sounds like
something a lady might say instead of a real curse, right? Not until 1934. On
the flip side, the expression bloody hell
is very English and from the correct time period, yet it was considered a terribly
extreme expression. So I used it once.
What was your
favorite scene to write?
Ah,
I don’t want to spoil anything, but this is a fun question! Annmar, the
heroine, arrives at her last train station and runs into a bit of trouble with
the stationmaster. She’s used to handling difficult clients and remains polite,
yet she’s come all this way and doesn’t want to miss her connection. After a
drawn-out series of questions that are getting her no closer to having a ticket
in hand, it finally becomes clear the elderly man wants to ask a favor of her,
a visiting artist, and she has to offer her services.
What scene gave
you the most trouble?
Ohmygosh—the
first scene! Always the first scene. I must write it a dozen times. I do write
it almost first, and that seems to be my problem: I want to tell so many
things, too many details, too many new terms. For The Unraveling, I originally had Annmar winding her way through
Derby, including waiting for a steam trolley to pass. Then the mechanical
feature became a walking carriage that she stops to draw. Finally, I just got
her to the steam factory…and new readers complained there wasn’t enough
setting. I believe the final-final opening scene has a good mix of setting,
machines and Annmar’s dilemma.
Where can we
find you on the interwebs?
Website:
https://laurelwanrow.wordpress.com/
Amazon
Author central: https://www.amazon.com/author/laurelwanrow
Where can we
find your books?
And the trade paperback, 360 pages, is
available at Createspace (link still needed but definitely should have in a
week!)
Laurel Wanrow loves misty mornings, the smell
of freshly dug earth, petting long-haired guinea pigs and staring at the stars.
She sees magic in nature and loves to photograph it.
Before kids, she studied and worked as a naturalist—someone
who leads wildflower and other nature walks. During a stint of homeschooling,
she turned her writing skills to fiction to share her love of the land, magical
characters and fantastical settings.
When not living in her fantasy worlds, Laurel
camps, hunts fossils and argues with her husband and two new adult kids over
whose turn it is to clean house. Though they live on the East Coast, a
cherished family cabin in the Colorado Rockies holds Laurel’s heart.
Thank you so much for stopping by, Laurel!
xoxo Sarah
Thanks for a great interview, Sarah!
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