Interview With Author JB McDonald
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I grew up in the Southern California desert (not somewhere cool like San Diego or LA), moved to Toronto for college, moved back to SoCal to get out of the snow, and then hopped slightly north to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I now live.
I started creating stories when I was knee high to a grasshopper, long before I could actually read fluently. (That didn’t happen until my mom bought me a slew of comic books for my 13th birthday.) Now I’m in my 40s, and totally excited to be writing full time.
I wrote and published two m/f romance novels through Samhain before switching to m/m romances. By 2013 I had 6 novels, 1 novella, and 10 short stories (8 of them all in the same series) published, all but two initial books in the m/m romance genre. Then writing came to a screeching halt for crazy life reasons.
Happily, in the beginning of 2022 I started life as a full time author amid much personal fanfare! The publishers I’d been with before had gone under or been absorbed, so I started editing and re-publishing my older works while working on new things. I also wrote and published my first fantasy novella, Warded. It’s been great.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My most recent book was my dark fantasy, Warded. Honestly, I heard about a writing contest; does that count as inspiration? *laughs*
I have this incredibly detailed world for another fantasy novel I’ve been working on, and decided to explore a little of the history and how some of the demon hybrids came to be. See, I had this crazy idea of how demons (nearly immortal predators who live in isolation) could procreate with other species. It needed to be proven. 😉
Warded was born, although the story is less about demons procreating and more about saving people while killing off a demon. But the central character is this great, mostly amoral woman. Trying to figure out how inhuman I could make her without losing my audience’s support was a blast. Luckily, there are two other main characters, so that as readers realize that the warder’s Just Not Right In The Head, they have someone else to cheer for. *laughs* Heck, they have someone else to realize it right along with them!
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
*laughs* Well, they’re all mine, so they don’t seem too unusual to me! I’ve been told that the way I write is unusual. Some scene (or feeling or scenario or banter) pops into my head, and I really want to write it down. But before I can (because, in the way of the world, I’m never at my computer), I start wondering why that scene happened or what could have created that emotion. I work backward from there without quite meaning to (“But what caused that? Okay, why would they react that way? But…”), until I get to the beginning.
By then I’m in love with the characters, so I go back to the initial scene (in my head) and imagine forward until the end of the book.
I’ve never actually told anyone that, so I don’t know if it’s unusual. This next bit, that’s the part where I get some squinty looks.
I sit down to write, usually still with big chunks missing, but that’s okay, I know they’ll come. The big trick is not writing ANYTHING out of order. I learned long ago that if I write that scene in the middle that I first imagined, then I’ll never get around to writing the rest of it! Everything has to go linearly no matter how badly I want to write something that happens later. It’s the prod that keeps me going. 😉
Once started, it usually takes me a few weeks to write a novel. I get a little manic. And obsessed. *grins sheepishly*
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Ha! Probably lots that I’m totally unaware of!
I can’t say that there’s any author that I read and think, “I want to try and emulate that,” although there are plenty that make me think, “I wish I wrote like that,” or, “I need to remember this awesome creative description/world building/timeline skipping/etc.”
Although… comic books influenced me, A LOT. (I named the two male characters in my first m/m romance after a couple of my favorites!) They’re the reason I started writing with any kind of real effort. I spent a lot of time after reading my comics thinking, “How would it feel to have no memory of your past but to be certain it wasn’t good?” or, “If you have super strength you must have some level of invulnerability, because otherwise your joints would tear and your bones would shatter when you lifted a car in the air with one hand or punched a hole in the cement wall. OMG I want to write that story! Mwahahaha, that’s HORRIBLE,” or, “If you had color vision but then had to wear a ruby visor all the time, would that screw with your brain? Would things seem more violent, since red is a violent color? Would your depth perception be flattened?”
In fact, the first shorty story I ever published came from wondering about a villain’s parents. Here was a character who liked hurting people, with razor-sharp claws and a healing factor that makes him basically unkillable. I got to thinking, what would it be like to be his parents? To have a kid you could see getting more and more unhinged, starting to be nasty to their classmates, maybe family members, and watch it get worse? Maybe even know he had these weird abilities? It was a great little horror story. Mwahahahaa.
BACK to the topic. Bad writer. Ahem. My dad introduced me to Anne McCaffery’s Dragon Rider books when I was a teenager, so I’m sure those went hand in hand with my comics in influencing me. Those and Walter Farley’s Black Stallion series which was, at heart, a series about adventure and growing up and embracing who you are. (…I kind of want to go re-read them now.)
Martha Wells is one of my favorite authors for her broken-not-angsty characters and amazing world building. Greg Bear and Ben Bova were my go-to for sci-fi early on. Well, them and Star Wars movies. 😀
This funny little book of fairy tales, Fractured Fairy Tales, maybe? There were a bunch of them that came into my life at the same time. Jane Yolen’s Sleeping Ugly was one. The musical “Into the Woods” was another. They helped me look at things we think we know in a new way.
Kim Robison’s Sword Dancer series and Carol Berg’s everything are delightful for mental and emotional anguish. I think that’s what I like about Anne Bishop, too!
The Dies The Fire series made my brain start noting and focusing on odd little details that can make something real, with the whole bit about big cats escaping the zoos and sanctuaries when civilization fails. (I actually fact checked that, and there are more big cats in the US than in most of their native countries. So, if civilization falls, we might have to worry about being eaten by tigers!) Tanya Huff’s earlier works ranged from slightly dark to very twisted, and I still love them.
More recently, Rebecca Roanhorse re-ignited my fascination for myths, religions, cultures and stories that didn’t come out of western Europe and/or Christianity.
I’m always being influenced, even if I’m unaware of it. I think we all are, for good or ill.
What are you working on now?
I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED! Most immediate (but less exciting) (don’t worry, it’s only less exciting to me because I already wrote it and editing is UGH) I’m revising my newest m/m romance, an urban fantasy titled “Incubus.” It should be out late this year, unless my editor or marketer tell me to wait until next year, and then it’ll be out early next year. I’m a child of instant gratification, so I won’t wait longer than that. *laughs*
What I’m REALLY excited about is re-writing that fantasy book I mentioned, the one set in the same world as Warded! I wrote it over those ten years when I was MIA from publishing and… well, it shows that it took ten years. Not in a good way. >.> I looked at it with an eye for revising, and after doing that for a couple of months (with limited success; even the stuff I revised wasn’t entirely working, and I only got through the first 9000 words or so) I realized that it would be SO MUCH FASTER (and a lot more fun) to just re-write it, now that I’m writing full time. So that’s my project for the end of this year, and I’m completely over the moon! I’ve been working on this world and some of these characters for 15 years, fine tuning and adding complexity in the back of my head. This story is so over-ready to come out. Heck, I have ideas for a series! I’ve been posting sketches and things to my blog. 😀
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Ohhh, way to take the wind out of my sails. *laughs* I’m still figuring that out. When I published before I let the publishers handle it. Now things have changed, and the small press (including the m/m romance) publishers let their authors mostly handle it. Since I have a private editor of awesomeness and a cover artist of amazingness and those are really the only other reasons I would publish with a publisher, I decided to self pub.
So I’m getting a crash course in marketing. (Oh god, someone help.)
I’m finding that my best method is, like bathing my dog or cleaning the house, hiring out. (Too bad I can’t hire my stepkids for marketing, like I do for everything else!) I found a woman who does marketing for novels, someone I can afford, and she’s been amazing. She takes care of a lot of it, and sends me links with a, “Here, go do this” message.
I’m practically a hermit, even online. I don’t tend to read reviews or blogs or participate in FB or Good Reads groups, so I’m very clueless as to where I might find, say, people to review my books. Consequently, my marketer has opened up my world and now I’m aware of sites, well, like this one. 😀 I’m even FOLLOWING them and COMMENTING. I know, it shocked me, too.
(My marketer of fantasticability, even if you do most of your own marketing, can be found on fiverr.com under the handle akerr8787)
(My cover artist of amazingness, who branched from romance into fantasy and dark fantasy when I asked, is LC Chase, and can be found at LCChase.com)
(My editor of awesomeness is mine to keep, as she mostly retired but kept me on. Mwahahaha!)
Do you have any advice for new authors?
If you’re so new that you haven’t started writing original stuff yet, write fanfic. It doesn’t matter what your favorite thing is; just write. Find some fan groups and ask where to post it (or post it there). Put it up on An Archive of Our Own (aka Ao3). Cut your teeth, get some feedback, try different things, get more feedback. Build a little fanfic clique.
One of the most common things I hear from other authors is that it’s incredibly difficult to write in a void (and a good editor will mostly just critique you). I haven’t ever felt like I was writing in a void. I think the years of fanfic, the feedback from fellow comic book lovers and the glee with which we’d throw around ideas, created a buffer for me.
AM I writing in a void? Oh, yeah. I spend months on something, posting about it on my blog (which, at best, gets some likes) but with no one to actually read it, then I send it to my editor or a publisher. My editor sends it back saying, “I like this!” and that’s the last positive thing I hear. By the time I’ve read through the comments I’m moaning, “I’m a hack and this is a piece of crap!” If I’ve sent it to a publisher, I’m probably going to collect rejection letters before someone likes it.
I amend my statement. Writing in a void might be better. *laughs*
But the thing is, I never FEEL like I’m writing in a void. I feel like my fans are just outside my reach, giggling and chortling and bouncing, waiting for me to hand over the next thing. I’m certain that has to do with fandom.
Fandom might also gently point out some spots where your story could be even better amid the squealing, which is also good!
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Wow, I have two! I thought I didn’t have any. Ha!
1. The advice from my Dad: When you get those rejection letters, remember that it’s just one person’s opinion. It isn’t the whole publishing house, it isn’t that your work is terrible, it might just be that that one person who read it wasn’t in the mood for your epic steampunk m/m noir novel set among Russian politics circa 1706.
…Okay, that last bit is mine. My dad stuck with the first sentence. *grins*
2. I have this quote up by Thomas Edison: “I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
It’s not about writing, but when I see it, I smile. Or I gird my loins and get back to work. Or I nod and know I’ll come back tomorrow to find another way that might work. It reminds me that writers can collect hundreds of rejection letters before getting… a rejection letter with a personal one liner attached.
3. (I know I said 2. This one isn’t mine.) The usual advice is good: don’t stop, find a community of like-minded people to support and be supported by, keep going.
There’s a lot of advice I’ve bucked: “remember you’re writing for yourself.” (I’m NOT writing for myself, let’s be real. Yes, I write the stories I want to tell, but I want to TELL them. I’m writing to get a reaction from my audience, because that brings me glee.) “Write x words every day, even if they suck.” (Sometimes this helps. Sometimes it backfires.) “Write for x amount of time every day, even if writing means “staring at your computer.””(Again, it can help or backfire.) “Don’t get discouraged.” (HA! Everyone gets discouraged sometimes. It’s okay. It’s life, it’s human. If you decide to keep writing, give yourself some discouraged wallowing time, as much as you need. Then get up and start again when you’re ready.) Oh, my most hated advice: MAKE THE TIME. I’m sorry, but there are only so many hours in the day, and staying mentally healthy is more important. That may or may not include writing.
Maybe I’m the black sheep, though. I do look at things from a vantage point of ADHD, clinical (but managed!) depression, anxiety, and a panic disorder. So maybe for people who are more neurotypical, the above advice is good.
But let me tell you, that Edison quote? It helps me every time.
What are you reading now?
Ooh! I started a new book last night and I’m in love with it. Gideon The Ninth, a science fantasy novel by Tamsyn Muir. She’s a new author for me, and I’m totally hooked.
What’s next for you as a writer?
…Writing is next? Yeah. Writing. *grins* Seriously, my goal is to be paying my bills via writing by 2027. Not romantic, I know, but important. Some of those books will be my re-releases, but most of them will be new. Now that I’m learning about marketing, I think I have a solid shot at succeeding. 😀
My other “next” is to find an agent for my fantasy novels. I’ll probably keep self-publishing my m/m romances, but for the other stuff… definitely an agent!
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Oh… that’s just mean. Can I assume I’ll only be stranded for a little while?
No?
Damn.
Nobody’s Son by Sean Stewart, for the days I want to think.
The first 2/3s of Dangerously Happy by Varian Krylov, for when I need some romantic escapism (or fuzzy feelings… or smut…) (Sure, the last 1/3 is the climactic end of a major plotline, but now I know how it ends, so I just want the character and relationship building parts.) (And the smut.)
The First Days by Rhiannon Frater, to get me fired up.
and
How To Escape A Desert Island For Dummies. I don’t know who it’s by, but I’m sure it exists!
Author Websites and Profiles
JB McDonald’s Social Media Links