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Interview with Brieanna Robertson
Mar 30, 2008
Welcome Brieanna I’m so glad you could stop by Manic Readers to chat with us. Won’t you grab a cup of your favorite beverage and sit a spell. I know our readers are anxiously awaiting your answers to our questions, so let’s get right to them.
You say you write fantasy and serendipity. The definition of fantasy can be as broad as you choose to make it. It brings to my mind faeries and other world creatures. How would you define the fantasy you write?
I guess the best way to put it would just be “medieval fantasy.” I have some fairies, some dragons, shape-shifters, as well as other well known mythical creatures, but I really like to make up my own races with their own unique abilities or attributes. What I really enjoy about fantasy is the fact that there are no restrictions. I love having the ability to let my imagination run free. Every fantasy book I write is different. Some of them are crossovers into the contemporary world and others take place in an entirely different and fictional setting. It really all just depends on the book.
The dictionary defines serendipity as “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” Is that a good explanation for your serendipity series? Tell us a little about the idea behind this series. Where did you get the original idea?
That is a perfect way to describe my series. It is safe to say that the entire concept began with The Road Less Traveled. My friends and family have long laughed with me and teased me over the fact that my life seems to play out more like a piece of fiction. If it’s bizarre, insane and generally not supposed to happen in anything but sitcom television, it happens to me. I took a lot of the craziness I had experienced and put that in “The Road Less Traveled”. I’ve experienced a lot of “serendipity” in my life and I think it makes for great stories. I love the thought of finding love where and when you least expect it.
The first thing I notice about your books are the unusual character names. How do you pick your names? And secondly, how do you develop those characters into fully developed three-dimensional people that draw your readers into their lives?
Ah yes, my character names. I don’t know if it’s obsessive-compulsive or what it is, but naming my characters is probably the hardest part of my writing process. Sometimes it will take me all day to find the right one. I am a lover of all things unique. I like my characters to stand out from the masses, so to speak. I also like some character names to have a certain meaning that reflects maybe an attribute, or something that character represents. In the books I’ve read in the past, the characters with the most unusual names always stuck in my head. I guess I want my characters to be memorable.
As far as developing my characters goes, I love psychology and am very interested in the human mind and emotions. I like to take real problems that people may face in their lives and put them in my characters because it makes them real. It enables you to relate to them. Love is a very powerful thing and I like to show how one person’s love can alter a human’s entire existence for the better.
You also write poetry. Some people would say that is the romantic part of your soul that is responsible for poetic renditions. What inspires you to write poetry? How long does it take you to produce what you call a good poem? What was your experience trying to get a book of poetry published like?
If the part of my soul that writes poetry is the “romantic” part, I’m terrified of it! Lol. No, I do have several love poems in my collection and other mild, non threatening poems, but I can usually only write poetry when I am experiencing an extremely intense emotion, usually rage or sorrow. My feelings need to come out and they usually spill out onto the page in some sort of black, depressing thing. Usually that is the only time I can actually produce a “good” poem. If I sit down while I’m placid or content and try to write poetry, it’s awful. Nothing good comes out and it sounds like a fourth grader wrote it. Anything decent has to be fueled by emotion.
My poetry book was many years’ worth of poems as I don’t write poetry that often. Most of them were written during a very dark time in my life. I wanted to compile them and put them out there for people to read so that, if anyone else is going through something similar, they can know they are not alone. I’ve experienced it. I made it through and they can too.
To me, getting my poetry book published was easier than my fiction. Maybe because I’m not as obsessive with my poetry as I am with my fiction. Most people find that strange since poetry comes straight from your soul, but I’ve always been a very open person. I don’t have an issue sharing my own experiences so completing and submitting my poetry book was probably faster and less painful than it is when I’m submitting a work of fiction.
“Beyond Wild Imaginings” is an intriguing story. The premise, some would say, is sheer fantasy—a phantom lover. Tell us a bit about this book and how it came to be.
This book is a story after my own heart. The basic core of the idea came straight from my own childhood. I had an imaginary world when I was little and I thought it was perfectly normal for a sixth grader to still want to play with invisible people. I had stories in my head. I didn’t know what to do with them at the time. My friends thought I was a lunatic. Lol. “Beyond Wild Imaginings”was taken directly from that experience. It is sheer fantasy. It is a story about what can happen if you let the world mold you into something you’re not, and how losing your childish innocence is not a bad thing.
I still speak to imaginary people, obviously. I have tons of characters living and breathing in my mind at every moment of the day. They are real to me, and at times, have been the only friends I had. Beyond Wild Imaginings is intended to show people that they can still believe in the extraordinary, and that the people who were once classified as crazy might be the ones who had it right all along.
Next questions of course would be—How much of your life do you find you incorporate into your writing? Are some of the characters in your writing people you know?
There is a ton of my real life in my writing. Every crazy experience I’ve ever had is somewhere in one of my novels. I like to write about what I know. I find that if I try to tackle something that I am not very familiar with it comes off sounding shallow. I take bits and pieces of people’s personalities and incorporate them into my characters. Mostly, my characters are all a reflection of different sides of myself, but I do have several characters I have fashioned directly after good friends of mine.
What was the experience of find a publisher and getting your first book published like for you?
It was overwhelming and confusing. I didn’t know where to begin or what I was supposed to do, if I was supposed to have an agent or be freelance. It was daunting, to say the least. Luckily, I had several very helpful people lead me into ebooks and I kind of just learned everything as I went along.
Did you get rejections first? I’ve heard all writers do, I know I have. If so, how did you deal with them? Obviously, you didn’t let them throw you into a tailspin.
Of course I did. I sent my first manuscript into DAW books when I was sixteen. It was a fantasy book and it was terrible. I admit this. I was actually pretty stoked when I got my first rejection. Made me feel like I was finally a real writer. Lol. I got several more rejections until I found Forbidden. I never let them send me into a tail spin, no. I knew that was part of the industry I was in. I have always been heavily involved in the arts and I knew that to make a success out of any kind of artistic career took perseverance and determination. Luckily, those are two things I have in spades.
Could you describe a typical writing day in the life of Brieanna Robertson?
Not long enough? Insane? Lol. I juggle lots of things in my life. I work a day job, I edit for a publishing company, I have a husband and home to take care of, I sing in a rock band, and I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. There are never enough hours in a day for me and most of the time I’m running like a hamster on a wheel. When I do get time to write, I’m usually so exhausted that the only way I can accomplish anything is to prop myself up in my bed and drool all over my laptop for a couple hours. Lol. The best kind of day is when I have a day all to myself. I can pump out a lot of pages when I don’t have to work my day job.
How did you develop your series? I mean, did you figure out the plot line for several books ahead of time or did they sort of evolve as you wrote? Do you know how many books there will be in your series? Did you know this when you started?
My series didn’t originally start out as a series. I wrote the first three books separately and it wasn’t until I was submitting The Road Less Traveled that I realized the crossover character aspect could work well as a series. It was more a business ploy than anything else. I thought if I submitted Road as the first in the series, I could contract the whole series instead of having to painfully submit each novel.
I have no idea how many books there will be. I guess it will go until I run out of ideas and characters.
Where do you typically get your story ideas? Do you take into consideration reader comments, criticism, or ideas when you continue from one book to the next?
Nine times out of ten I get my story ideas from music. Music helps me see the story in my head. I also get ideas from really random events like a guy sitting alone at The Olive Garden or something. I like to watch people and try to imagine what their story could be. I, of course, take into consideration what my readers have said. I hone the things they like about my stories and make sure I don’t lose that from book to book.
What advice would you give to someone looking to begin a writing career?
The best piece of advice I could ever give anyone would just be to never stop believing in yourself and never give up. You’re going to experience a lot of adversity and, more than likely, you’re going to have to endure lots of criticism and taunting. You have to have thick skin to be any kind of artist, but if you believe in yourself, and believe in the message you’re trying to send, just keep dreaming big and keep going after it. Sooner or later, you’ll get your chance.
Finally, where can our readers find your books and how can they contact you if they have questions or comments?
All of my books can be found at www.forbiddenpublications.com and most can be found at www.fictionwise.com. The Road Less Traveled is also available in print at www.lulu.com.
Read about my works and myself on my website at www.brieannarobertson.com or my myspace www.myspace/brieannarobertson.
I also have a yahoo group www.groups.yahoo.com/groups/brieanna_robertson and feel free to contact me any time. My email address is lady_vash_swiftfire@yahoo.com
Thank you so much for having me here today. It has been a pleasure.
Brieanna it has been a delight to have you here. Thank you so much for taking the time from your busy schedule to help us get to know you and your writing a little better. I look forward to reading more of your books.
Interviewed by: Manic Readers.
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