And this is the last author interview for the fantasy bundle. Stay tuned for more author interviews and more bundles. Ladies and gentlemen, last but not least, please welcome Lee French!

Where do you live and write from?

I live in Olympia, WA, the wacky heart of the Pacific Northwest. My workspace is a beanbag next to a coffee table and a large window with a view of the incessant rain. Sometimes, the sun comes out. It’s disturbing and distracting.

Why do you write?

I write because not writing is harder. After a few days without writing, unless I’ve been doing physically exhausting work, I get cranky and weird(er). At this point, I’m more or less unable to work at a regular job anymore because my writer brain muscles are so strong.

When did you start writing?

Shortly after I started reading. I was a late bloomer, not really grasping the whole letters make words thing until the later parts of first grade. Once I got it, though, I got it. In second grade, I won an honorable mention in the local Scholastic Book Fair for my entry Adventures in the Mean Old Man’s Backyard. In high school, I wrote a novel-length piece of crap that fortunately no longer survives, and I kept dabbling all over the place. In my early 30s, I started playing D&D online, in a message board format and really found my writing voice. After doing that for several years, I discovered NaNoWriMo and wrote a few horrible novels before finally producing something worth sharing about five years ago.

What genre(s) do you write?

I have trouble sticking to one subgenre and currently have over a dozen titles across epic fantasy, sword & sorcery fantasy, young adult urban fantasy, superhero science fiction, and cyberpunk. I enjoy writing all of them, and have plans for more subgenres in the future.

What is your goal as a writer and what are you doing to achieve it?

My goal when I started in this business was to become a member of SFWA. After achieving that as an indie last year, my new goal has become to make a decent living at this crazy job. The biggest challenge, as with any author, is marketing. So far, my path involves working conventions about half the weekends of every year. I have events scheduled for every weekend of May and October, plus 1-2 every other month of the year. It’s tiring and takes away from writing time, but it works decently well. In fact, I’ve done so much of that my booth partner and I wrote a book about how to hand-sell books at conventions, called Working the Table: An Indie Author’s Guide to Conventions.

What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?

It’s a job. Treat it like one. Writing may be an art form, but earning a living from art works the same as earning a living from any other pursuit. Put in the hours, get things done, give your best effort, and treat your customers well.

Outliner or improviser? Fast or slow writer?

I like the term “plantser,” a portmanteau of planner and pantser. My process is generally to write up half an outline, settle on an end point, and start writing. Experience tells me I will almost always go far enough off the rails with cool ideas by the midpoint that outlining that deep into the book is worthless. My writing speed is on the faster end because I do it full time. Last year, I had 4 book releases, 1 novella release, 4 anthology appearances, plus a 3-in-1 release of a trilogy (with bonus material also written last year). This year will have less because I’m editing an anthology for the first time, along with having various personal issues in my real life.

Tell us more about your book in the bundle.

Al-Kabar is Mulan meets Arabian Knights for grown-ups. The story is one of a collection of standalone novels that will eventually have eleven. Each book follows a different woman in a different culture of my fantasy world, Ilauris, while she deals with problems common to women. The first book of this non-series series, Damsel in Distress, dealt with domestic violence, and this one delves into the strictures society places on women, especially regarding profession. The main character, Fakhira, pretends to be a man to accomplish her goals.

Tell us about your latest book.

My newest release is the fourth book of my young adult urban fantasy series, Spirit Knights. Ghost Is the New Normal continues the story of Claire, a teenage girl whose favorite way to solve problems is punching them in the face. She’s a veteran of foster care in modern Portland who wound up becoming the first female inducted in an ancient, secretive order of knights tasked with hunting ghosts.

Any other projects in the pipeline?

I’m currently working on book 5 of The Greatest Sin, a second cyberpunk novella, book 5 of Spirit Knights, the next Ilauris book, a new book for my superheroes universe, and a handful of short stories for various venues.

Yes, I really am working on all of them at once.

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Lee French

And it’s another bundle author! Her book is the first in the bundle, and it’s a great fantasy romance with two damaged characters who can’t help falling in love… as the world falls down, like in the David Bowie song from the movie Labyrinth. Sorry, digressing. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Karen Abrahamson!

Where do you live and write from?

I live in a lovely small town on the west coast of Canada called Sechelt. I have a home near the ocean with an office that looks out onto a bird sanctuary and wetlands. It never snows much in this area, so the climate is lovely all year long. We have deer, bald eagles and whales as regular residents and bear in the spring and summer.
Although I have a great office, I actually do my first draft writing from an easy chair positioned so that I can watch the sunrise over the ocean. It’s the best way of all to start my days.

Why do you write?

Is there an option? I have always written. I started with poetry when I was in grade one or two and I’ve been writing ever since except for one hiatus when I threw myself into riding dressage horses. Writing is a comfort and a passion and chance to explore so many things. I think it’s also a way for me to share the things that I’ve seen in my travels across the world. I’ve done a lot of travelling and it is all fuel for writing, whether it’s the people, the culture or the environment. With the world changing so rapidly these days and feeling so much less safe, maybe the writing is also a commemoration of what was. That’s a sad thought.

When did you start writing?

As I mentioned above, I started in early grade school with poetry. I can recall writing stories when I was twelve, but I only started to look at the form seriously when I was an adult. About 20 years ago (my goodness that’s a while ago!), I started to put more effort into my writing and it was fifteen years ago that I got serious. That means that I gave myself permission to put my writing first every day.

What genre(s) do you write?

At the moment I’m writing mystery, but fantasy seems to creep in fairly regularly and I have enjoyed writing urban fantasy. When I need a relief from the dark places that those genres can take me, I enjoy writing romance—usually romantic suspense, sometimes paranormal romance—because who doesn’t need a happily ever after from time to time?

What is your goal as a writer and what are you doing to achieve it?

My goal is to make a living as a writer, or at least to supplement my income with my writing much more than I have. I try to write at least four novels a year plus a few short stories, but these days as an indie author, success requires a lot more than simply writing a good story. So I’m not only trying to improve my story craft through practice, but I’m also taking courses on social marketing—not my strong suit. I’m much more of the reclusive writer-type!

What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?

Write what you love. I know there are indie pundits who talk about analyzing the market and then writing to market and I know that is a good plan for making money, but the writing isn’t just about the money. Writing, for me, is about exploring the places and spaces that interest me. As a result I seem to write mash-up genres. My latest book, a novella published by Guardbridge Books, is a historical fantasy mystery—fantasy because one of the protagonists is a puppet, but the mystery is plainly real world.  The book I’m working on at the moment is a mystery set in an alternate history world.

Outliner or improviser? Fast or slow writer?

Once upon a time when I started writing novels I was an outliner. I completed scene/chapter sheets for each book before I started to write. Then I’d sit down and start to write. The sheets were great, but what I found early on was that about half way through the manuscript the characters and story would take over and the ending was usually something I hadn’t envisioned. What those sheets did was seem to get me through the ‘muddle in the middle’ without stumbling. But gradually the story and characters took over earlier and earlier until now I write into the mist without an outline. The down side is that I often find myself throwing out 25,000 words or 50,000 words because I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere. This isn’t that big an issue, because I’m a fairly fast writer when things are flowing.

Tell us more about your book in the bundle

The Crystal Courtesan is pure fantasy. It came to me as an idea out of an image of a woman with crystals all over her skin. I imagined that those crystals were actually the ‘evil’ drawn out of the men the courtesans were with, that were then extruded and crystalized on the courtesan’s skin. The Crystal Courtesan is about the last of her kind, who has hidden for years after a dark force overthrew the kingdom. It’s a love story, too.

Tell us about your latest book

As I mentioned above, my latest book is a lush historical fantasy mystery set in Burma/Myanmar in the early 1800s. It involves magical puppets, a murder that will have disastrous consequences for the puppet troupe, nature spirits, and courtly subterfuge. It is called Death By Effigy and is available as a paperback. I expect that the ebook version will be available shortly.

Any other projects in the pipeline?

Always. I have the second book in the Burmese Puppet mystery series already written and in the editing process. It is called A Death in Passing. Look for it in June/July.
There is a paranormal romance awaiting editing that involves a woman on the run and a Selkie that should be out in the late summer.
Finally, I am in the throes of completing the alternate history mystery that takes place in a world where the Ottoman Empire never fell. Instead the Ottomans overthrew Catherine the Great of Russia and the remains of Russia only exists in a small country caught between the Ottoman Empire and China. Of course, there are other impacts on the world, too. Like the American Revolution might have succeeded to a point, but the Anglo-German Empire settled most of North America…

Enter political subterfuge, the murder of a teenaged girl, and a jaded detective and that’s the premise of the story. I’m excited about the book, but it has to go to first readers and through the editing process before it will be ready for the public.

Other books planned for this year include a return to my urban fantasy Cartographer series. The second book in the Phoebe Clay mystery series is also planned. This time Phoebe takes on modern day Myanmar.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to share my thoughts and work!

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To find more of Karen’s fantasies, mysteries and romance visit her website

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