What inspired you to write this book?
Mortal was long overdue. The Mental Damnation series
has been the burning flame with my writing for 14 years since its conception as
a single 190,000-word manuscript. Even then, the story wasn't complete and a
second book was fully outlined, which was scrapped entirely. The book had a ton
of revisions applied to it and grew in size. Eventually, the manuscript split
into three books.
The first book Reality was the first professional
release back in 2012. I've taken several detours since then and had also
released two more novels in the Mental Damnation series, which concluded the
original 190,000-word manuscript from 2006. Still, the ending wasn't defined.
Fans wanted to know the ending, and I wanted to too. So the
inspiration was to give the fans and characters the ending they deserved. All
of last year, I thoroughly reviewed the first three books, plotted, wrote, and
spent many hours on the book to get it out.
What can we expect from you in the future?
More writing, of course! In the near future, I am compiling a
wide range of short stories I have worked on into a transmedia anthology, which
includes a musical score, artwork, and a multiverse world of multiple short
stories ranging in genres.
Do you have any "side stories" about the characters?
The Mental Damnation tetralogy has a ton of subplots going
on. I have over a decade's worth of backstory notes, a lot of it never made it
into the series. There are also expanded universe short stories that will
appear in the anthology.
Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in Mortal?
Sure. The characters are a continuation of the Mental
Damnation series. There are a few new characters and others that have been long
foreshadowed since the first book. The protagonist is Krista, a reptilian who
is struggling with being imprisoned by humans. They are racist to her people
and are using her as a political tool while trying to study the brain disease
she has – Mental Damnation. The disease makes her believe she crosses into hell
during her dreams, where she is trying to escape. While all of this is
occurring, she is dealing with her coming of age struggles. She has conflicts
with friends, romance, learning self-defence, making choices on her own, and
developing confidence.
How did you come up with the concept and characters for the book?
The concept came to me from an illustration I sketched out
back in 2006. Krista was already a pre-established character to a story I had
written. The Mental Damnation series was intended to be an origin story of how
she came to be. The sketch was of a younger Krista clutching her head and split
between the real world and hell. The hell side would explain who she became in
that other story.
A few other characters had been defined as well, such as
Darkwing and Malpherities. Other than that, the split reality illustration
sprouted the storyline.
Where did you come up with the names in the story?
I'll add to the previous question; the name came to me from
the initial sketch of the concept I did back in 2006. The sketch which had Krista
and the split world also had a title banner, as I thought this sketch would
become the book cover. It didn't. But seeing her head clutched, the ordinary
world, and the hell world, the title Mental Damnation was self-explanatory and
it stuck.
For the Kingdom of Zingalg and the fantasy aspects of the
tetralogy, I pulled influences from naming conventions seen in Brian Jacques’s
work such as Redwall and the videogame universe Warcraft by Blizzard.
The theory is mashing two words together as a single word or with hyphens
describing what it is.
For Dreadweave Pass (see the mashing of words there?), the
hellish realm and the afterlife, I used some of the same techniques but also
made reference to biblical mythology and Latin names.
What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
For Mortal, I enjoyed writing the conclusion to the
Mental Damnation series. It brought a sense of completeness to me on a deeply
personal level.
Who designed your book covers?
I am a graphic designer by trade and work as a freelancer.
Naturally, I designed the cover and interior formatting. For Mental Damnation,
the series uses a custom drawn typeface seen in the titles and chapters. There
are also glyphs and illustrations within the books that I did too.
For my other novels, I too did the covers and interior
formatting and most of the artwork that accompanies them.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your
latest book?
Of course! Hindsight is 20/20. I almost did third editions of
the Mental Damnation series so I could do more foreshadowing for Mortal.
But perfection is the enemy of progress, and these minor details are only
things that grew in recent years. Fans love the books as is, and I was more
interested in giving them the next book in the series than going back and
re-releasing the first three for the third time to make Mortal slightly
different.
Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?
I did! I learned not to spend 14 years on a series, haha. In
seriousness, Mortal was the first book where I wrote the first draft
with speech to text software. Other authors I know have talked about how much
fun it is to speak your story out, and how much faster it is. I finally tried
it out and quite enjoyed the process.
Anything specific you want to tell your readers?
Thank you, sincerely, for all the years of support. Some of
you have been a part of the journey since I first released Reality in
2012—others, even longer. Finishing Mortal is for you.
How did you come up with the name of this book?
Oh, well, that would be giving spoilers. Let's just say
thematically from the first three, it was bound to be.
What is your favorite part of this book, and why?
Spoilers! Chapters 17 and 24 gave me a real strange hit in
the chest with warmth going all the way through, like when you have a crush on
someone, or your pet dies.
Convince us why you feel your book is a must-read.
Short pitch: Lord of the Rings meets twisted Alice in
Wonderland.
Long pitch: The Mental Damnation tetralogy brings readers
into a dark, surreal, twisted world of Dreadweave Pass and the Kingdom of
Zingalg. Necromantic Rituals. Holy spells. Demons, ghouls, angels, and gods.
The classic good vs evil is shrouded with uncertainty as moral lines blur from
the vast unbiased void of realism.
Have you written any other books that are not published?
I have. Two will NEVER see the light of day. One might, it
needs some T.L.C., but there's an excellent foundation to work with. I also
have a couple of books fully outlined chapter by chapter, but they too are
scrapped.
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