SPFBO 9 Author Interview: Raina Nightingale

What inspired you to write your SPFBO entry? Is there a particular story, personal experience, or idea that sparked this book?

The initial inspiration for Heart of Fire was a picture of Camilla and her dragon Radiance together, of the exceptionally close (in some ways maybe even too close) connection they share. I was only eight or nine then, and I didn’t understand some of the ways it’s too close, or how that imbalance of experiences between a young woman and a hatchling dragon might develop as they’re challenged. But that’s the central inspiration. And I can’t remember if she was a slave yet in the first story. I know she was a human among elves, and that the only dragons on the continent were kept by the elves, even though humans – not elves – are the proper bondmates of dragons. But I think in the first couple stories she was a human orphan the elves rescued. (Now, she knows her Mom.)

How would you describe your writing process? How did it evolve during the creation of this book?

I usually say I’m a seer. I don’t exactly pants without any idea what comes next, though that happens sometimes, and I definitely don’t plot my stories, though I very rarely plot how I will tell them, once I know them. Instead, I see bits and pieces of them, glimpses that are sometimes a chapter or two, and sometimes a mere line or phrase (or even less than that) in the finished book. Often I don’t know how significant a glimpse is – not always, but often; some things are obviously very significant! And sometimes two glimpses seem contradictory, and I’m not sure how I’ll choose between them, only to have them come true in the same chapter, or even the same scene, side by side or intermingled!

But usually I’m just writing the story as it comes to me, trying to keep things in chronological order since I hate weaving scenes together after the fact, and sometimes amazed at the way my visions almost always happen in the story eventually.

It’s hard to categorize how my writing process has and has not evolved since an eight or nine year old first put pencil to paper with the idea of Camilla and Radiance. I think I always wrote much as I do now, but my visions have gotten more reliable, and I’ve grown to trust them more. Or else I’ve learned to tell the difference between the visions and the daydreams about where things might go. I think even though I never really plotted, I used to plot more than I do now, and that got in the way of the visions. Otherwise – I’ve written so many other things during the time between when I first had the idea for Heart of Fire and when I finally finished it quite recently, and I will write different stories in somewhat different ways.

What challenges did you face during the writing or publishing process, and how did you overcome them?

Probably the greatest challenge writing Heart of Fire was that for the longest time I did not have the knowledge or experience I needed to write Camilla’s story! So I kept telling it over and over again, and never getting it right or being satisfied with it ... then one day I saw a major thing that happens in book three, and then it all came together. But then I wasn’t in the best state mentally, and while the story was finally right, my writing was pretty awkward and needed more editing than it usually does!

And now that I’ve published it recently, the biggest challenge is staying positive. I put a whole lot more in this one’s launch than usual – up until this one, I’ve done next to nothing for the launches – and while I’ve got a fair number (for me) of fine reviews, this was my worst launch ever sales-wise. As I write this, I’m at 8 sales, when I’ve made around 20 for most of them. So I’m just trying to stay positive, remember this is the long game, and – who knows? Maybe SPFBO 9 will help with that, but I don’t want to get my expectations up too high.

Who are your biggest literary influences and how have they impacted your writing style?

Probably, my biggest literary influence is Anne McCaffrey, and I have been told that one of my books (Kindred of the Sea) is strongly suggestive of the 80s-90s era of high fantasy. I’m not super aware of that myself. I don’t know whether to think Heart of Fire is a bit more modern in style or not. Certainly, none of the reviewers have mentioned it yet, but I don’t know how much that does or doesn’t mean. Other favorite authors include Mercedes Lackey and George MacDonald, but I encountered Mercedes Lackey very recently and don’t think she’s been much of an influence, though George MacDonald probably hasn’t impacted my writing style in Heart of Fire – though look at Kingdom of Light if you want George MacDonald-impacted writing style!

If my writing style in some of my books is more modern, it’s probably less a thing of one or two big influences, and more that different characters demand that their story be told in different ways – and I’ve been reading a lot of relatively modern self-published fantasy!

How do you approach world-building in your fantasy novel? What elements do you think are essential for a compelling fantasy setting?

It depends. Usually I start with a character or two in a small setting (a village, maybe) and work from there. I world-build by the discovery method: I discover the world as my character does. This leads to very organic worlds with a lot of originality and consistency, as things fit together in their own way and the bits of inspiration I take to it get re-formed.

In Heart of Fire, I did things a bit differently, not that this element was not there, but I was working in a very established world, albeit that it’s been about 50,000 years since the previous stories. But things back then are still impacting the world in some pretty major ways, and so I knew some of the history and setting elements – better, actually, than anyone in the world at the time does, which is a rare experience for me.

Personally, I find fantasy settings most compelling when they aren’t too obviously based on the real world or cultures in the real world. I like that fresh take on things, new, original cultures that combine or work with different elements. I’m also very into magic that has a sort of fairytale, mythological element to it. In the end, what makes a fantasy setting most compelling though depends on the story. I gravitate towards worlds that are mostly like ours (you coud live in them and hardly notice you weren’t on earth), yet are very original and fresh at the same time, with rich magic.

If you could give a piece of advice to the main character in your book at the start of their journey, what would it be?

You mean if she’d listen to me? Because Camilla absolutely wouldn’t listen to me anymore than anyone else! Basically, it would be, “Listen to your dragons better, and be a little less angry, at least sometimes. Your anger isn’t wrong, but some of it masks fears that only you can figure out, and if you let those drive you, you’re going to make some very big mistakes in the things that matter most to you.”

But Camilla would not listen, and as good as it would be if she would, it’s also better that she doesn’t listen, than that she listen to everyone who mixes a little bit of truth with wrong.

As a self-published author, how do you navigate marketing and promoting your work?

This is something I’ve barely even tried until Heart of Fire. I interacted a bit previously, and got to know other authors and communities and get an idea of what that might mean, but I didn’t do that much. Now with Heart of Fire – it’s difficult. I hate it. I always siad I hated the marketing and promotion aspect, but I don’t think I really knew how much until I spent weeks doing almost nothing but prep for the launch and contact book bloggers, etc! (No offense to the book bloggers; it’s not their fault I hate these things, and some of their lovely reviews have given me a fair bit of joy!)

But this is something I’m kind of figuring out right now. How to balance marketing and promotion with writing – and publishing? Because marketing and promotion takes away from the time required to take my story from “beautiful and perfect, I love it!” to “polished, proof-read, formatted, published.”

What made you decide to participate in the SPFBO competition? How do you think this experience will benefit you as an author?

So this is my third time in SPFBO. I joined first in SPFBO 7. That was critical to knowing what I do now about promotion. It got me into the self-published author community, led to me finding some great books I’d never have found otherwise, meeting other people and seeing what they do. Without that – I’d still have no idea what I’m doing with any of it (though given how my launch went, I wonder if I know anything now).

I don’t really think about it “benefiting me as an author.” Though I suppose author includes the marketing/promotion aspects. As much as I’ve loved seeing the reviews on Heart of Fire, I try to keep a relaxed approach to feedback though – sometimes people really do have a point, but reviews are mostly for readers, and before you take someone’s opinions too seriously, you have to consider whether they’re the audience you are writing to. Whether their advice really applies. Then, when you know you have that person who sees the same vision you do, and they tell you something doesn’t work – why then you listen to them, and you might not always do what they suggested, but you know you can trust their thoughts and really put a lot of weight into what they say.

So I’m hoping for benefit in some way, but I’m not going to tell it how or where it can come!

 If you were to win SPFBO, what impact do you think this would have on your writing career?

I’m honestly not sure. I’d hope it means I have a number of readers who love my books, to encourage me to keep publishing and promoting them to others! Goodness, maybe they can promote my books, and I can only have to publish them, so that I can write and get them out there to them faster? Not too fast, though! That’s the dream. And I hope I don’t have to win SPFBO for it. :D

What's next for you after SPFBO? Are there any upcoming projects you can share with us?

Oh skies, there’s a lot. As I may have let drop already, I’m working on the sequels to Heart of Fire. I’m actually writing Dragon-Mage book four right now (just started), and two and three are in that stage where what they need is a bit more polish and proof-reading. And interior art! But I have more upcoming projects than there are years of SPFBO so far. I’ll probably be publishing my one and only fantasy romance (why did romance-hating Raina ever even write that book? I have no idea sometimes) next Spring, and by then I should also have published Scars of Fire (that’s Heart of Fire’s sequel, Dragon-Mage Two). Right now, among other things, I’m writing a cozy fantasy about a minor princess who’s husband is framed as a spy and their family has to flee, set in the same world (Areaer), but this one has almost no magic or fantastic creatures in it at all (a good bit of new cultures, though, including a pirate people), another cozy fantasy about a boy who finds and bonds to a dragon hatchling without wings, a dark/cozy-slice-of-life/epic fantasy about a boy from a nomadic Plains people who is captured by what’s oddly enough the most advanced civilization in any of my books to date, and is eventually chosen by his God of Storms – largely in response to his prayers to her, and ... and a whole lot more.