Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
My name’s Venancio Cadle Gomani Jr. and I’m from the city of Lusaka here within Zambia. I grew up mostly in quite the number of cities around Southern Africa (From Francistown to Gaborone of Botswana). I write Speculative Fiction and Historical Fiction because I love creating and visualizing new worlds and throwing in a few “hints” to make them a little more interesting. Though Christian Education also appeals to me. I’m a first year student and studying for my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering at DMI-St Eugene University here within Lusaka, city. I love to travel a lot and intend to visit Nanchang city in China for a few weeks in February before schools open to see my girlfriend and explore a little of the country. For the most part, I write as a hobby and also simply because I’m insanely infatuated with telling stories in any way I can—I draw comic books and hope to have one out soon to promote a little more of my recent book series “Crest of Dreams”; I play a little piano and guitar; and I write and compose songs like crazy—like I said, I’m insanely infatuated with telling stories in any way I can. I do, however, look forward to becoming a full time writer. I’ve written 3 Christian Education titles and 1 Speculative Fiction novella.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My most recent book is “Quantos Rising” and is the first in my new series “Crest of Dreams”. 4 years ago I endeavored to find the easiest ways to tell diverse stories in a more fun and exciting way and one of the means I discovered was creating fictional worlds. The “Crest of Dreams” world was my best attempt at this form of story telling and I imagined a world that had been split into four civilizations that wanted as much as nothing to do with each other: those who live on land (Damiroo), in underwater cities (Retarctica), in floating cities above the clouds (Anotresphore), and in space cities (Centralis). The “Crest of Dreams” story is long and diverse so I thought to have four short introductory novels to each of the four civilizations before starting out with the the main books to tell the story of the series, and my most recent book “Quantos Rising” is the first of the four short introductory novels introducing the story of Damiroo. The next three releases are T-16 to introduce “Retarctica”, “The Superimposition” to introduce Anotrsphore and “Sons of Time” to introduce Centralis.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I might just be perfectionist…maybe! Okay perhaps I am. I love to take as much time as necessary creating a world before starting out telling it’s story. That’s the reason I would never simply create a story and perhaps plan it out and how I’m going to tell it over the course of a few months, then have it published around 6 to 9 months later. It takes me quite the number of years to fully create a world perfect enough to have stories told within it. I created the “Crest of Dreams world” and planned out each of the stories to be told as novels 4 years before I even started to pen down the first book. The books I write now were ones I planned for at least over 3 years ago. As for those that I created over the course of the past 2 years or less, yes well, the world will probably only hear about them 2 years from now when I’ve fully developed the worlds perfectly enough.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Definitely Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, J. R. R. Tolkien, a little J.K Rowling and I wouldn’t hesitate to add George R.R. Martin on my list too.
What are you working on now?
I’m finishing up the second of the introductory books of the “Crest of Dreams” series called “T-16” while simultaneously editing my first historical fiction novella to be published called “Ghost Tribes” (aslo part of a series). In “T-16” I planned on telling the story of Retarctica (The underwater people) in an epic SF Mystery story. What proved to be of greatest difficulty in writing this book was adapting to the new Mystery genre which isn’t exactly my most preferred genre to write but definitely my top 3 to read.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
In all honesty, I haven’t really found one I would favor the most at the moment only because I just started out publishing my first few books and am currently still searching for the best places to promote my books. Though as it stands for me Facebook and Goodreads seem to be my most preferred though I’m still exploring a few: Facebook for promoting my books and Goodreads to invite people to review my books. I would love to try emailing campaigns too.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Yes, well, my advice goes out to storytellers and I’d say focus on building your stories. It’s too often that I pick up good story only to be disappointing by either its ending or the holes in its plot and it tends to break my heart most of the time. Spend a little more time on creating your stories, build your characters and plots as detailed and as best you can. Don’t get me wrong, timing indeed means a lot and what many wouldn’t want is to spend too much time on something that doesn’t seem worth that much time, but that’s the point of being a storyteller. If you consider a story is worth telling that you would invest writing a book about it then give it your all. Understand that being an artist is vastly different from being an author—to be an artist means crafting pieces to the point you can’t add anything more to make it look or feel better because the focus is directed toward a particular subject; to be an author means every little detail as wide apart as they may be counts because your subject is ever changing and constantly changes location or state hence capturing as many details as possible counts.
A saying that seems to carry weight enough to match up to this is the one that goes “It takes 6 months to build a Rolls Royce and 13 hours to build a Toyota.” I believe the ideal counts even in this case. So take a little more time to build your stories. Not 4 years as some overly stuck-up authors whose names won’t be mentioned (me) would take, but an amount of time comfortable enough to construct a reasonably balanced up world.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I’ve heard so many give advice concerning a tone of different experiences and situations, but personally I find the one that had the greatest impact on me was by one of my classmates in around July of 2013. “Don’t focus on being the best at anything, but focus in being second best at everything.” And the reason that stuck to me so much is because what he was saying was that it’s practically impossible to be the best at every single thing that you do, but it’s more possible to be the second best at every single thing that you do because the best at each may be focused only on the one specific thing that he does the best.
That was mostly helpful to me because above being a writer, I’m a storyteller, and writing is simply one of the many ways I use to tell my stories. I write songs, make animations, sketch comic books and graphic design.
What are you reading now?
The Return of Sherlock Holmes and Teen Titans Vol. 1: Blinded by the Light (The New 52). I tend to read a comic book or two every after I complete a book or series.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I’m going to focus the next decade or so to telling the “Crest of Dreams” and “Ghost Tribes” stories only because they are so long and really complex and exciting. Aside from the first four short introductory novels, the Crest of Dreams series has a total of 9 books while the “Ghost Tribes” has a total of 9 books too.
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?
Two comic books, a Sherlock Holmes book and The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe of course. I’d say Teen Titans Vol. 1: Blinded by the Light (The New 52) because I’m loving it so much, perhaps The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 1892 by Arthur Conan Doyle and The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.
Author Websites and Profiles
Venancio Gomani Website
Venancio Gomani Amazon Profile
Venancio Gomani’s Social Media Links
Goodreads Profile
Facebook Profile
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