The Princess Key by Rick Clogston
What led you into writing?
A lifelong love of reading and an unquenchable creative urge. I mostly look back on three people.
First was my Dad, who was that guy your Dad probably knew, always with a new joke or story. He was a long-haul trucker who had been to almost all of the lower 48 states. I loved nothing more than to ride around with him when he was home, listening to him go on about growing up during the Great Depression, all the places he’d been, and the interesting people he knew. He taught me how to be a storyteller.
The second person was my 5th-grade teacher, whose name I’ve sadly forgotten. Every Friday, she would read to the class for an hour. In that year, she read us “The Hobbit” and “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” She got me addicted to science fiction and fantasy, and I’m glad to say I haven’t recovered yet.
Third is a gentleman named Jerry Folmar, who is still the best songwriter I’ve ever known. I played guitar in his band for a while. When I showed him some of the songs I’d written, he gave me the gift of complete honesty. “Quit trying to imitate Neil Young or Lennon and McCartney,” he said. “Write what you feel.” I’ve found that applies everywhere my pen lands.
How does a typical day look?
I’m retired, so when I wake up in the morning, I often spend an hour or two reading. (Currently at the top of the pile on my nightstand: “Rules of Civility” by Amor Towles.) Get up, feed the cats, and let the chickens out into the yard. The routine might get disrupted if I wake up with the next bit of my current story running around in my head. My wife, Lynn, is a substitute elementary school teacher, so if she’s left me a honey-do list, I take care of that. Then I go run any errands that need to be done. As much as I love music, Spotify has gotten me into the habit of listening to either podcasts or audiobooks while I drive. (Most recently, “Dial A for Aunties” by Jessie Q. Sutanto.)
When I finally run out of excuses, I fire up the ol’ laptop and dive into whatever I’m writing or revising. That only stops before I go to bed if I have a gig. (I’m still a semi-working musician.)
In what ways do your characters test your abilities?
I tend to see my stories as if they were movies playing in my head. I slap them onto the page stream-of-consciousness style as long as they flow. Then, at some point, I go back and revise, revise, revise. How can I put this scene into a single point of view? What does this look like to them? How would this person say this? Often, a character resembles someone I know, so I shift gears a little and see them as my cousin Russel, my good buddy Steve, or whoever. I confess, I love reading my own writing.
It’s become habitual to see each character as an individual. Lisa might say something one way, but Ciji would say it another. Doctor Dan would do something in such a fashion, but Nurse Akemi wouldn’t dream of doing it at all. Sometimes I’ll like a scene, but realize I have the wrong people in it. When I’ve bought into a scenario enough to believe it, the characters insist on being themselves. They’ll sometimes slap me beside the head and scream: “What did you just make me do?”
In the original draft of The Princess Key, the sole main character was Ciji, a space alien from a species called the Dholamites. I finally realized I needed a Human for the reader to more easily identify with (thank you, beta readers), and so Lisa was born. This opened up the story in ways I hadn’t anticipated and, in my humble opinion, improved it dramatically.
What’s your setup?
A refurbished Dell laptop with an outboard keyboard and mouse (I hate laptop keyboards) on a table next to a window. I live in rural New England, so there’s plenty of nice, distracting beauty outside. I have a Yamaha Silent Guitar on a stand next to my table. (I need to change the strings.) I often have to jockey for position with the gray cat, Ringo, but the tabby, Shemp, is getting too old and stiff (and fat) to get into my lap.
What lasting effects have your favourite authors had on your writing and style?
Tolkien taught me that the entire world can fit between the covers of a book, and that everybody is significant. The first time I read The Lord of the Rings, I thought the middle of The Two Towers–when Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas are chasing the Orcs to try and rescue Merry and Pippin–was tedious. Now, after four or five re-readings, I find it’s one of the sections I look forward to most, and it even seems too short now. (Hey, I was 14.)
Tom Clancy taught me that anyone can write anyone. There’s a scene, a cocktail party in (I think) Sum of All Fears, in which Jack Ryan’s wife is talking to a politician who had made spurious accusations against Ryan. The conversation, on the surface, seems pleasant enough, but there’s an acidic undertone in which Ms. Ryan cuts her adversary off at the knees. My wife assures me that Clancy wrote this conversation between these two women perfectly.
Amor Towles is reminding me how beautiful the English language can be. He has a gift for elevating the most mundane scenes into virtual poetry.
Jesse Sutanto shows that there may be no such thing as too over-the-top, and that it’s possible to find humor in the most outrageous and frustrating circumstances. Even accidentally killing your blind date the night before a big, important job. Don’t try this at home without some serious Auntie intervention.
Arthur Conan Doyle had a gift for presenting the tiniest details in ways that would have the most devastating consequences. His characters are always well-rounded, and he artfully gives Holmes the ability to see the truth behind the lie and the person behind the mask.
What do you do for inspiration?
I read a lot, of course. I also enjoy sitting quietly in a place full of strangers, and I read them, too. (Thank you, Sir Arthur.) I love cataloging little details: what they’re wearing, their shoes, their mannerisms, how they interact with others, what shopping bags or other things they might be carrying. I’ll pick one or two people and try to figure out what their stories are.
What repeating themes do you find yourself pulling into your stories?
There’s an apocryphal tale in which the great philosopher, Voltaire, is supposed to have said that, in fifty years, Christianity will have disappeared from the Earth. The tale further says that 100 years later, the house he was living in when he wrote that had become the headquarters of the Swiss Bible Society.
It turns out not to be true, but the point remains that many in the science fiction community believe that, in the future, humanity will have become too sophisticated to believe in religion. It was believed when Jules Verne imagined the nuclear submarine, and it’s believed now.
I disagree. I believe, should humanity ever be fortunate enough to meet people from other worlds, we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that they, too, have a deep inner longing to know their creator. I also hold to the idea that, like any creator–whether they’re a novelist, a songwriter, a painter, a chef, a carpenter, or what have you–they love their creation and feel a great sense of personal accomplishment in the act and the result of having created. Genesis 1:31. (There’s your homework.)
Another repeating theme is that of small people doing large things. There’s a reason that characters like Frodo Baggins and Harry Potter are so popular, and they’re certainly favorites of mine.
How do you wind down?
When Lynn sees me getting antsy, she tosses me my car keys.
What sort of challenges do you regularly overcome while designing your world/setting?
I think a lot about what kind of people would develop on different kinds of worlds. I know that science spends a lot of time searching for Earth-like worlds, where there might be sentient, sapient beings that are at least somewhat similar to us. I think about what kind of people might develop on a planet like Neptune? Venus? Jupiter? How would technology develop on a world that’s covered with water? Or hydrochloric acid? What would a species be like whose only means of communication was tactile telepathy? Or a humanoid race with no eyes?
I have two characters who recur throughout the Shattered Worlds universe and its spinoff series, the Pathfinder Chronicles, who are so old they don’t even remember where they come from. They automatically, involuntarily assume the shape of whatever the dominant species is on whatever new planet they arrive on, so they currently look like Humans. The first scientists they met on Earth asked what species they were. They shrugged and said, “We are what we are.” The scientists laughed, and one said it reminded them of the Great Dictum of Self-Awareness, as expressed by the great philosopher, Popeye the Sailor: I yam what I yam, and dat’s all what I yam. So, the scientists dubbed them “Yams.”
What are you reading at the moment?
Whew. Okay, give me a minute.
The Bright Empires series, by Stephen Lawhead
Play Nice, by Rachael Harrison
Within and Without Time, by D. I. Hennessey
Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles
The Automobile Girls at Newport, by Laura Dent Crane
Redstone Missile Creature, by Maria Sanders
K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, by Tyler Kepner
What’s the most useful advice you could give to an aspiring author?
Same as what Jerry Folmar gave me: Write what you feel. Don’t worry about anybody else liking it. If you like it, tell it.
Tell us about the book you’re promoting.
The Princess Key is the story of two teenage girls, one who’s lost everything, and one who’s never had anything. They’ve both been through hell and aren’t looking for heaven, just a meal and maybe a shower. They have the good fortune to come across some kind people and begin building new lives. What they don’t realize is that the hell they escaped is looking for them.
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