A warm welcome to author Rowan Speedwell joining us today to talk about her newest release “Night and Day”.
Welcome Rowan 🙂

Writing Night and Day was a weird experience for me. I normally write in third person, with occasional forays into first person – though only ever for short fiction; I don’t think I could write an entire novel from a first person point of view. I like being able to get into other characters’ heads too much for that. And I almost always use past tense.

But for some reason, Nate had a very clear idea of how he wanted to be heard – not as a first or a third. He wanted to be immediate. He wanted to be the sole focus of the story. He wanted the reader to be him. And so I had to write him that way.

He’s a very strong character. He’s fierce and stubborn and a fighter, and he wanted to be heard.

So it’s in second person. And it’s in present tense.

I’ve never done that before. I had to, because the character, the story, required it.

That happens, sometimes. Sometimes you have an idea of what you want to happen, and the character comes in and turns everything upside down. Suddenly the story’s going in a completely different direction. Or the character starts making demands (J.P. Barnaby’s character Aaron insisted that his story be written by hand, not typed on a computer). Sometimes the story just behaves and the characters do what they’re supposed to. But sometimes they don’t.

You can fight with them: rewrite, refocus, rename. If you’re really stubborn, you can get them to do what you want them to do. But sometimes that doesn’t work, and everything goes flat. Halfway through the story you realize you’ve got a character that’s gone one-dimensional. Or a love interest that nobody cares about. Or a relationship that’s failing. Or a plot that’s petering out into the ether.

Sometimes you can fight it. But most times, you have to listen. You listen to the characters. You listen to the plot. You listen to the breeze that whispers in the grass. You find the path the story needs to go down, and no matter how dark and overgrown it looks, you tie up your sneakers and take the turn. It’s scary – but it’s also rewarding.

People ask where writers get their ideas, and we never know quite what to say. They’re like atoms – they zoom around everywhere, sometimes negative, sometimes positive, sometimes zipping through the air and never striking. But once in a while, there’s an impact. Or something burbles up from inside you like a volcano or a belch or gravy from a pot pie, and you’ve got an idea. (I had a pile of clothes once like that. Every once in a while I’d look at it and there’d be a new thing that had been lost in the pile suddenly on the top, and I’ve have a shirt to wear that I hadn’t worn in months. It was the Clothes Volcano.)

I guess that’s what they call inspiration. You need that in your writing, even if writing is only 2% inspiration. The rest: 68% perspiration and 30% arguing with your characters.

Oddly, though, actually writing Night and Day was one of the easiest things I’ve done, despite Nate’s obstinacy. Maybe it was because I love mythology and the music of the twenties and thirties. Maybe it was because Rick was such a joy to write, and his relationship with his sister so funny and warm. Maybe because I loved playing with the characters and sneaking in Easter eggs for fellow mythology lovers to find.

But I think it was because Nate had such a firm sense of self. He was kind of a mess, but he knew who he was, and what he wanted. And what he wanted was to be heard – in second person, and present tense. So as you wander along the path with Nate, I hope you enjoy the magic through his eyes.

Blurb:

Nate Pederowski is about as far down as he can go when he’s tipped to a job as a singer in a speakeasy. Dishonorably discharged for being queer, broke and homeless during the Great Depression, Nate is embittered and lonely. The club’s handsome owner, Rick Bellevue, and his sister Corinna are wowed by Nate’s voice and offer him the job.

But the Starlight Lounge is much more than an ordinary supper club, and Rick and his sister much more than just the owners. And it’s not ’til Nate gets caught up in a gangster’s plot that he discovers just what secrets they’re hiding. Nate’s life is going to change in ways he can scarcely imagine, let alone believe.

Buy Links:

Dreamspinner Press

Amazon

An unrepentant biblioholic, Rowan Speedwell spends half her time pretending to be a law librarian, half her time pretending to be a database manager, half her time pretending to be a fifteenth-century Aragonese noblewoman, half her time… wait a minute… hmm. Well, one thing she doesn’t pretend to be is good at math. She is good at pretending, though.

In her copious spare time (hah) she does needlework, calligraphy and illumination, and makes jewelry. She has a master’s degree in history from the University of Chicago, is a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and lives in a Chicago suburb with way too many books.

Twitter: @rowanspeedwell

Email: rowan.speedwell@gmail.com

Website: www.rowanspeedwell.com

Rowan brought along a giveaway for a backlist title of her books

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