NOTE: Today’s Q & A is with author Loren Selby. She’s working on a Middle-Grade fantasy story, Don’t Fireball the Neighbors, part of the trilogy series, Tales of Mundus. I’ve enjoyed getting to know Loren since I’m serving as her book coach. She’s witty, imaginative, and resilient. And she can sketch. The featured image is a self-portrait with her two characters, Celebramar and Leon.
1. What inspired you to write your WIP, Don’t Fireball The Neighbors? Share briefly how it came about.
Leon, Celebramar, and the world of Mundus started as an oral story I told to my kid brother. As I grew, the stories grew with me. Before I left for college, I had five short works. Life then got complicated.
Skipping over the traumatic back-story, I now want to become a paid, published writer. However, the older stories aren’t quite a series. There’s lots of inside jokes specific to my family and childhood. That means rewrites. Lots and lots of rewrites. Somehow ended up writing a brand new pilot story. Don’t Fireball the Neighbors is the story of how Leon and Celebramar met.
2. You’ve shared on your blog that growing up, your parents encouraged you to read, re-enact scenes from your favorite stories, and write. How did your childhood spur your desire to write stories as an adult?
Truthfully, that desire never stopped. Stories have always meant safety for me. As a child, I was very bright, but very socially awkward. However, through stories, I could see different ways to behave and act. Make-believe isn’t just escapism, it can be a learning tool.
Also, telling stories was much, much easier than “just get out there and play with the other kids.” I didn’t have to triple check my words and tone. The tale had already picked them out. Listening to other people’s stories was easier than voicing an opinion on clothes I didn’t like or a sport I didn’t play.
I socialize by telling stories because I’ve had years of positive reinforcement from it. I use the written word because it translates my ideas better than me trying to speak or draw. Becoming an author is just trying to turn a lifestyle into a career.
3. What’s a major factor in writing for Middle Grade readers vs. Young Adult readers?
Officially, the difference between the the two genres are how romance, profanity, and violence are shown. I don’t cover those in my work. Instead I touch on fraud, prejudice, and bureaucracy. It’s hard to use some these themes without draining all the whimsy out of Mundus. (Readers that come for light entertainment don’t like it when you soapbox at them.)
Also, I don’t know if I can get away with putting ‘grown-up’ issues in the background of a Middle Grade book. I doubt it’ll be an issue for my preteen readers. However, I worry that the parents of those preteens won’t buy my work because how I present these issues offends them.
3. You’ve got intriguing protagonists in your WIP, Don’t Fireball The Neighbors. Tell us about your two main characters especially with the Middle Grade reader in mind.
Celebramar is a large dragon with a larger appetite. Normally, he has a “live and let be” view about humans. However, they won’t let him and his pile of treasure be. Imagine someone swiping the quilt your grandma made and selling it at an antique auction. Celebramar’s patience is about to go up in smoke.
Leon is a wizard who wants to open a magic items repair shop. He would be happy to spend the rest of his life sharpening enchanted swords and patching flying carpets. Instead, Leon is stuck as an unpaid handyman in a half-finished frontier town. Shortages abound and the townspeople are getting frustrated. Leon’s weary of demands to “just magic it fixed.”
4. Madeline Engle said, “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” What is the main lesson you want your MG readers to take away from this story?
Without spoiling too much of the plot? Basically, walking away is sometimes the better option.
Both Leon and Celebramar deal with several ‘rude’ neighbors. Both main characters have the power to be very dangerous. Leon is a professional wizard. Celebramar can literally spit fire when mad. However, setting your problems on fire isn’t always the best way.
5. What do you have next after you publish this story?
Take the criticism and reviews with a grain of salt. Focus on the next story.
I want to expand on the world of Mundus. So I’m actually rewriting that first oral story. Celebramar and Leon will visit the big city… and Celebramar will mistake a zoo for a buffet.
About Loren
Loren grew up in a truly loving but atypical family in rural Oklahoma. Her mother, a journalist, homeschooled the three children, and her father, a geologist, had a gift for teaching science. (Loren’s the oldest of her siblings.)
Reading was an integral aspect of her family’s culture, so Loren became an avid reader who loved the world of story. Loren and her younger brother loved dragon stories the most.
It felt like a natural transition to read others’ stories to writing them herself. By thirteen years old, Loren wrote fantasy stories to entertain her brother and her family.
Considering writing as only a hobby to “balance the brain”, she pursued environmental engineering in college. When her health along with external factors such as the collapsing economy and lots of funerals and near-misses, college became a nightmare.
But writing was a stabilizing constant during this time. And her imagined world of Mundus and the zoo-devouring dragon lodged deep in her brain for over ten years. She’d see ideas for characters, jokes, and settings everywhere-parks, checkout lines, and textbooks. Realizing that her characters and story demanded time and attention, in 2017, she decided to “join the crowd of starving American writers” and pursue writing as a career. Her dream is to become a well-known storyteller and then a well-paid one.
Follow Loren on her blog, Trilbybard.blogspot.com.
And on social:
Twitter (@TrilbyBard) and Facebook (@TrilbyBard).