Author Interview With RM Wilburn

An Interview With RM Wilburn…

What exactly  do you write? (Fiction? Genre? Novel? Short story? Series? Technical or nonfiction? Articles? Reviews?

I suppose my official genre is YA fantasy, but unofficially, I write books about magic & stuff that generally anyone with a sixth grade reading level will enjoy.

 How would you describe yourself in a short third person bio?

 To be completely honest, talking about myself in third person kind of creeps me out, like I’m a ghost looking down on myself, or like an out-of-body experience sort of thing!  Yikes!  No, thank you, please!  (Can’t risk jinxing myself when there’s so much left I must do in this life!) 

So, here’s simply me blabbing about me:  I am and have always been endlessly curious, easily fascinated, and hopelessly distracted.  (Note to self:  go back & underscore distracted!)  I’ve made up stories ever since I first learned it was a completely acceptable (and often honorable) means of telling the most outrageous whoppers without a painful consequence.  I consider this a license to lie and have always declared myself abundantly blessed because of it.

Do you have a day-job (other than writing)? 

A real, paying job?  No.  But I am currently enslaved to five dogs, two cats, and five very bossy pygmy goats.

What made you initially want to write? Has your motivation changed since then? 

As I said earlier, the license to lie was a strong motivator early on and continues to be so now.  After all, who else can get away with the most egregious falsehoods imaginable and never have to pay the piper?  Life is good, I say!

What do you think is the most important part of writing?

Trust.  A reader must be able to trust a writer to take them from this world into another and to do that successfully, I think a writer needs to employ at least a small (even if microscopic, as in my case) amount of truth.  That one small grain of truth upon which we base our tales is, in my opinion, crucial.  Whether it’s in the language itself or in what the words are showing us, just that tiny bit of truth is the hook by which we make believers out of cynics, and readers from the unread.

Tell us an interesting fact about you.

I’m an ultra-early riser:  2-3 AM at the very latest, and most times, my eyes spring open and I giggle deviously.  I often feel my feet hit the floor running, but I am always careful not to disturb my mutts so that I may enjoy the quietude… (aside from their snores, of course.  Weiner dogs are the worst, in case you didn’t already know!)

Do you prefer a physical book or an ebook? Why?

Mostly, I prefer ebooks for several reasons: 

1.)  I can easily drag hundreds of books with me via my phone or reader.

2.)  Ebooks are very easy on the eyes which means I can read for days on end rather than mere hours.

3.)  I can simply download ebooks as opposed to actually tromping to a brick-and-mortar (probably in the rain or snow), or (gasp!) waiting for delivery!

4.)  And, lastly, the cost is usually better.

On the other hand, there are times when I prefer printed books: 

1.)  My own books (What writer doesn’t prefer their own books in print, eh?)

2.)  Picture books

3.)  Reference/text books

Are you a self-published author/indie author or did you go down the ‘traditional’ publication route? Why?

I am a happily independent author/publisher mainly because I’m far too impatient and distracted to follow the course set by standard publishers.  (Note to self:  go back and underscore distracted!)  I live life rather randomly, so it’s unlikely traditional publishing would tolerate me.  I will not, however, rule out the possibility of pestering them once in a while just for fun.

Tell us a little about your Buggy Crenshaw Adventures. What are they about and who are they aimed at?

In a rather large and cumbersome nutshell, Buggy Crenshaw is a 12-year-old girl (a writer, of course), who is both wildly curious and dangerously imaginative.  Her series of adventures, In Search of the Nexus, begins at a point in her life when she thinks her imagination has nodded off on her because all she’s been able to write about lately is how she somehow manages to save the world from some great and perilous evil. 

Buggy, of course, has no idea how prophetic this is until one of her father’s bizarre inventions explodes, destroying house and home, and getting the Crenshaw family practically run out of town on a rail!  They wind up in a peculiar place called Lloyd’s Hollow where Buggy discovers not only that magic is real, but also that it wasn’t by chance her family wound up in this secret pocket of the world. She learns rather quickly that the world is about to be overtaken by an ancient evil that is not only familiar to her, but has been expecting her arrival.

And so, as you may have surmised, the Buggy Crenshaw books are along a vein similar to Harry Potter or The Bartimaeus Trilogy, along with the Artemis Fowl and possibly the Percy Jackson books.  Although suitable for readers 12+ I’ve talked with some as young as ten and more who are far older than I am (don’t ask, thanks), and have been both pleased and flattered by their reviews (some are available on my website). 

Which projects are you working on at the moment?

Well…remember how distracted I can get?  All right, then, here’s a brief list:

*Of course, another Buggy Crenshaw book (In Search of the Nexus series) is in the works:  Buggy Crenshaw and the Infinite Sisterhood:  The Seventh Sister.  It picks up where The Deadwood Priniciple: Revolution! ended and goes on to give Buggy’s account of what happens when you come up against another of the D’Evil’s most evil henchmen (or henchwoman, in this case).

*Also, another novel in my second series, A Nexus Series Tangent.  As happy as I am about the first book in this series, Magpie & Dilly (crazy-happy), I’m especially excited to write the second, tentatively titled The Mysterious Egg.  After that, there will be just one other book in this series.

*And, lastly, something entirely new and different:  a sort of “picture book” for middle grades and beyond, based on my illustrated blog Ponderous Things.  I’m also very excited about this project and have been drawing almost daily in preparation for it.  On my blog, I refer to this venture as Mary Morgan’s Journal.  (Mary Morgan was a character  in Buggy Crenshaw and The Bungler’s Paradox, the first Buggy book.)  I’m hoping to have a reasonable draft of this book by the end of summer (yes, 2012).

How long, on average, does it take you to complete a first draft? Average word count?

That depends entirely on which series I’m writing.  Magpie & Dilly took far longer than the Buggy Crenshaw books because of the different style, but I actually prefer this method rather than the first person narrative I used for the Buggy books.  I don’t generally put a time constraint on my writing mainly because life happens and I am an active participant.

How has writing changed your life?

I think it’s made me happier.  I’m one of those people who can sit and write for hours while laughing devilishly at how clever I think I am.  (No, it doesn’t matter if no one else thinks this.)

Have you ever written under a pseudonym?

Not yet, but I won’t rule out the possibility.  Anything is possible, isn’t it?

Where do you get inspiration for writing from? Do you listen to music whilst writing or have a ‘writing cave’?

Nope.  No music (I’m already distracted enough, remember!), and no cave, although I do love caves…Frankly, I have absolutely no idea where these thoughts come from, but am mostly grateful for them.  (I stress, mostly, because, let’s face it, not all ideas are good ones!)  I suppose inspiration can find us far easier than some of us find it, eh?  Having said that, maybe that’s my answer:  I don’t get ideas as much as ideas get me…er… so to speak.

Is there a particular form, style or genre that you’d like to have a go at writing? Why?

As I mentioned earlier, my project Mary Morgan’s Journal is an entirely new thing for me.  The idea of illustrating a middle grade picture book is, at the same time, both daunting and exhilarating!  I’ve been especially pleased with the compliments I’ve had about my illustrated blog Ponderous Things, and so I do look forward to presenting this project in the (somewhat) near-ish future.

Favourite book and/or author(s)?

I have many favorite writers and most are within my genre such as J. K. Rowling, Jonathon Stroud, Eoin Colfer, Rick Riordan, R. L. LaFevers, and so on. But I also am a Stephen King fan because of his wonderful, friendly style, as well as an Anne Rice reader because of the beauty of her words (few are more lyrical).

What would you say to those who want to become a writer?

Make writing a habit.  Do it daily, good or bad.  And read what you want to write.  Learn from those who’ve published before you.  There is method to their madness.

Buggy Crenshaw and The Bungler’s Paradox: http://goo.gl/HBstu

Magpie & Dilly: http://goo.gl/jJMcK

(These links are to the paperback editions, but Kindle editions are also available.)

RM Wilburn’s Website.
RM Wilburn’s Blog.
RM Wilburn’s Facebook.
RM Wilburn’s Twitter