JOSHUA GILLINGHAM
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Q&A with Desi Mesa

1/9/2021

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​Welcome Desi! Thanks for taking some time to chat about writing. First, a few quick-fire questions: Sweet or Spicy? Skiing or swimming? And if you could jump 1000 years into the future or into the past for a day then which would you choose and why?

​I most definitely prefer spicy. My dad used to pay my brothers and I a dollar for every hot pepper we could eat whole. As far as skiing is concerned, I’ve never gone. It’s on my bucket list, but I do love to swim. I have an affinity for the water. And, the last question is an overly-zealous huzzah for the past. I’m a historical fantasy nerd, and damn proud of it.
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"I’m a historical fantasy nerd, and damn proud of it."

​What is your creative process like? Is it explosive and exploratory? Is it carefully calculated and scheduled? Do you stick to a writing schedule or do you write around other commitments in your life?
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​With three kids and a mountain of never-ending laundry, I have to write around my other commitments, but since my creative process verges on obsessive, I will forego sleep to get it done. I live inside my head, planning and plotting scenes there until I’m ready to put the notes to paper. I’ll often start by researching an era and all of the culture that goes with it. Once the ideas start sparking, it usually takes off like a wildfire. I can’t type fast enough. That’s when the obsessiveness kicks into overdrive to plot characters, arcs, and then scenes. It’s both wild and calculated.
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"Once the ideas start sparking, it usually takes off like a wildfire. I can’t type fast enough... It’s both wild and calculated."

​Besides writing novels you have also written and directed plays for live-stage theater. In what ways has your work in theater changed your perspective as a writer and how this influences your writing?
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​No matter the project, the end goal is the same for me: I want both an audience or a reader to walk through the production or story like it’s their own. I want them to feel something that doesn’t let them go for a while. Regardless of the medium, the satisfaction of tears streaming down an audience member’s face or a review from a reader who wants the next story is something I almost can’t describe.
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​"No matter the project, the end goal is the same for me: I want both an audience or a reader to walk through the production or story like it’s their own."

​One of my favourite writers is Mary Robinette-Kowal who co-hosts the podcast
Writing Excuses alongside the celebrated fantasy author Brandon Sanderson. Her insights on the podcast have really opened my eyes to many of the gender-biases in Sci-Fi and Fantasy that I was blind to before. Are there any glaring biases that you think need to be addressed in the genre right now?
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​Considering that history has predominantly been written and recorded by caucasian men, I find it exhilarating to recover lost stories of women and minorities who were anything but submissive and in the background. They are heroes. They are leaders. They are pillars of history. And, their stories deserve to be told.
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​Your upcoming book
Bindle Pink Bruja is a story featuring elements of Mexican folklore involving a jazz club owner in the age of Prohibition. Honestly, I have a hard time imagining a setting more vivid than that for a historical novel infused with magic. How did the setting and the characters evolve in your mind? Did any particular historical figure or folktale inspire the story? 
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​So as not to give too much away, I will merely tell you that the story was inspired by two things: an old tale involving magic dirt, and my own family’s journey to and within Kansas City’s Hispanic communities in the early 1900s. One of the characters, an old abuela, is fashioned after my own great grandmother while the MC is a mirror of myself. The book also includes a few cameos of Al Capone and an infamously crooked councilman from Kansas City, Tom Pendergast.
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Through the online writing community, particularly accounts like Folklore Thursday (@FolkloreThurs) on Twitter, I have learned about so many interesting characters, creatures, and tales from folk culture all around the world. If someone were to dive into the world of Mexican folklore which story or book would you suggest they start with?
​

​Take a walk through Mexican Gothic, Gods of Jade and Shadow, and The Beautiful Ones if you’re looking for fictional novels. But, there are so many books out there that have everything from ancient Latin American folklore to scary stories, and common Hispanic folktales, it’s hard for me to choose just one.
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​You also work as a managing editor for EveryWriter. As new writers try to break into the literary scene it is important that they query agents with well-polished manuscripts. However, staring at long documents for hours on end can give writers ‘snow blindness’ to their own mistakes. Do you have any sage tips for error-catching while proofreading?
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​I do a couple of things during editing before querying. Actually, I do all of this editing before even giving my work over to beta readers. First, I’ll do a content edit for each scene, making sure they meet their goal in contributing to the story, and cut out unnecessary or clunky prose. Then, I’ll run the scene through Grammarly to find line edits I may have missed. Lastly, I’ll wait a couple of weeks to let my mind rest, and then do a read-aloud edit. Reading your work out loud makes a world of difference.
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"Reading your work out loud makes a world of difference."

​Where can readers keep track of your latest writing and stay up to date on the publication of
Bindle Pink Bruja?
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Both my website and Twitter are good places to check on my work and announcements.
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Look out for the release of Bindle Pink Bruja in 2022 from Harper Voyager!
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How to Take a Punch: Tips for Surviving the Editing Process

3/22/2020

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I had a Russian professor in university with who opened his third year class with the bold claim that the best part about physics is that it can help you win bar fights. Though I have never been in a saloon-style rumble, I must confess that it was an intriguing introduction. And so I thought I would draw on that experience and open with this claim: physics can help you win bar fights and survive the editing process.
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"​And so I thought I would draw on that experience and open with this claim:​ physics can help you win bar fights
​AND survive the editing process."
Know that this article was inspired by recent and very real events. A few weeks ago I received an edited manuscript from a very patient editor, almost three-hundred pages absolutely covered in red-slashed edits. Flipping through it was like fast-forwarding through a B-grade slasher film. A few days later, I got a review back from a female beta-reader who said that the mother in the story wasn’t landing properly and that a risk I took near the end, a scene that was meant to be the narrative climax of the second book, bored her. Double ouch. So let’s get real about what the editing process is like and how to survive it. 

"...almost three-hundred pages absolutely covered in red-slashed edits.
​Flipping through it was like fast-forwarding through a B-grade slasher film."
​

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​First off, editing is brutal. It is taking a scalpel, a chisel, a sledge hammer, and a chain saw to something you crafted with care and diligence and love. Then you open the front door, toss it outside, and call on everyone in the neighbourhood who has a spare moment to come over and beat on it. That is the part where you cross your fingers and hope it emerges in some recognizable form as something you wrote. So if you are about to step into the ring, or you feel like you are going down in the third round, there are three physics/bar fighting/editing principles to help you through. 
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"First off, editing is brutal. It is taking a scalpel, a chisel, a sledge hammer, and a chain saw to something you crafted with care and diligence and love."

Principle 1: Force equals mass times acceleration.  

Application to Bar Fights: Big people (i.e. big mass) don’t have to move very fast (i.e. low acceleration) to throw forceful punches. Small people (i.e. small mass) need to strike extra fast (i.e. high acceleration) to hit with the same kind of force. 
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Application to the Editing Process: If you are really sensitive to honest criticism (i.e. fast acceleration) then don’t get people whose opinion matters a lot to you (i.e. big mass) to read your work. Instead, get strangers or friends-of-friends (i.e. small mass) to review it in order to lessen the force when those criticisms hit. Alternatively, if the reviews are not forceful enough then get people who you really care about (i.e. big mass) to read your work and give you some honest feedback. 
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​​By the way, this rule also explains why sugar-coated feedback (i.e. low acceleration) is not helpful. It doesn’t matter if you are dealing with a big mass or a small mass; if it’s moving really slowly it isn’t going to hit with noticeable any force. 
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"...get strangers or friends-of-friends (i.e. small mass) to review it in order to lessen the force when those criticisms hit."
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Principle 2: Force can also be viewed as change in momentum over time.

Application to Bar Fights: Bones don’t break because they are moving really fast. Bones don’t break because they stop moving. Bones break because they go from moving really fast to a complete stop really quickly. It’s the difference between being shoved up against a wall and being thrown into it.
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Application to the Editing Process: Making major changes (i.e. change in momentum) is easier if you do it over a longer period of time. Madly tearing into your MS for four hours on a Friday night will likely have some serious repercussions for the state of the narrative, not to mention your mental health. By spreading your edits out over a longer period of time you can effectively make the changes that need to be made without giving yourself creative whiplash.
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"By spreading your edits out over a longer period of time you can effectively make the changes that need to be made without giving yourself creative whiplash."
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Principle 3: Intensity of impact is proportional to an object’s rigidity.

Application to Bar Fights: If you tense up your shoulders and neck as that burly barbarian takes a swing at your jaw it just might end up being a knock-out hit. However, if you let yourself go slack before impact and ‘go-with’ the punch then your body can spread out the force of impact. This principle is also the reason you can go diving into a pool of water but not into a pit of gravel.
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"This principle is also the reason you can go diving into a pool of water but not into a pit of gravel."
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Application to the Editing Process: The more nervous you are about others critiquing your work (i.e. rigidity) the harder their criticism is going to hit you. This is unfortunate because that means your own fear of criticism is proportional to how much it is going to hurt when it inevitably comes crashing into you. 

So don’t tense up. Pretend you are someone else looking at your work. Even better, treat the work as if it was someone else’s story or poem. The more you can relax into the idea that your story is going to take a few hits, the more efficiently you can spread the impact of that criticism around. 
​
"Pretend you are someone else looking at your work.
Even better, treat the work as if it was someone else’s story or poem."
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So there it is. If this article refreshed your knowledge of physics, turns the tables in your favour the next time you are in a tavern brawl, or helps you manage the punches thrown at you during the editing process, then I will consider that a solid win. Good luck, be brave, and never, ever give up. 
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For more on how to stay resilient through the editing process, Joshua recommends The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. 
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    Joshua Gillingham is the author of The Saga of Torin Ten-Trees Series.

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  • Welcome
  • Educator
    • Codegogy Workshop
    • Upcoming Conferences
    • What I'm Reading
  • Creative
    • Book 1: The Gatewatch
    • Book 2: The Everspring
    • Old Norse for Modern Times
    • Althingi (Card Game)
    • Appearances & Interviews
    • Writing Blog
  • Contact