Q&A with Rachael Bell-Irving

 Welcome Rachael! It’s great to have you on. First, a few quick-fire questions: How do you take your coffee? What are you currently reading? Who is your favourite villain of all time?
   Thank you for having me! I love tea but will never say no to a latte. I’m currently taking a pause on reading to work on a NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) project. I will be picking up A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab in December. Moriarty from the Sherlock TV show, who was played by Andrew Scott. I absolutely love that intelligent, calculated, but a little crazy character and it has helped to inspire one of my villains.

What does a productive day of writing look like to you? Do you have any particular writing habits or rituals?  
   A productive day includes accomplishing anything to do with the novel whether that is writing, world-building, or marketing. On a really good writing day, I will have 3 to 4 hours and can get between 1000-1500 words written. I really enjoy working where there is a bit of a buzz. If I am at home I’ll have a candle and some background music. Most often you will find me writing in a cafe. No matter where I am I always have to have a hot drink in hand when I write.

Do you have any advice for writers trying to distribute or sell their work online?
   Be an active and genuine contributor to the community. Nobody responds well to the person with the megaphone shouting buy my book. By being consistent and yourself you can build a genuine following of readers who you can then appeal to. It is also important to learn how to talk about yourself, which I’m still trying to improve on. There will be times when you need to sell yourself and your product, so having a good concise elevator style pitch is very useful for all forms of marketing.

"Be an active and genuine contributor to the community. 
​Nobody responds well to the person with the megaphone shouting buy my book."

   Your novel Demons at the Doorstep sets the threat of an Incan god of death in modern day Toronto. What are some of the challenges and/or advantages of story-telling across cultures and across time?   
   I have been fascinated by ancient mythologies for a long time. Since I have worked a lot with Greek and Roman myths, I wanted to explore a character from a mythology that isn’t highlighted very often. Working with ancient mythology takes a lot of research. It is crucial to ensure you use proper sources. The fun of working with ancient mythology as a writer is that you have a background and sometimes even purpose for the character, but how you bring that figure into the modern world and form their personality is up to you. We see this done really well in the Percy Jackson or Magnus Chase series by Rick Riordan. Mythology can give us an insight into what an ancient civilization valued, and I hope it sparks readers’ curiosity to learn more for themselves.

Your background in Zoology and Classics is quite unique. Are there any interesting intersections between those two subjects that most people don’t know about?  
   My friends at university used to joke that my future career would be teaching Latin to cows (LOL). The skills that I learned from both disciplines have been incredibly useful both in writing and in my career. Arts and sciences are far more intimately intertwined then I think many people realize, across a wide variety of careers. My favourite topic to discuss is how mythical creatures could have hypothetically survived. Applying zoological concepts to myths, and examining how humans have interacted with animals for centuries is always really fascinating.

   Given your background in Zoology do you have any advice for writers trying to create fantastic creatures or monsters in terms of physiology or biology?
   Animals adapt and develop characteristics based on environmental pressures. For example, a fish living on the bottom of the ocean has a mouth positioned under its body so that it can find food in the sand. Or a fish that lives in a coral reef is more likely to be colourful to help it blend in with its complex surroundings. When creating your own creature, think about the environment that organism is from and what features it would need to survive there: how does it get food, how does it protect itself, how does it reproduce? It is a fun creative exercise, and you can find inspiration from real animals to start you off. Nature already defies our imagination.

"When creating your own creature, think about the environment that organism is from and what features it would need to survive there: how does it get food, how does it protect itself, how does it reproduce?"

   
​Are you currently working on a sequel or an entirely new project?  
   I usually have a few projects going at once. The most exciting thing I am currently working on is an extended version of Demons at the Doorstep for release next year. Stay tuned for that! It is the first in a series and so I do have drafts in the work for the following books in the series. I am also working on a pirate fantasy as part of NaNoWriMo, and I hope to be able to explore that more in depth in the future.

   Where can we find more about you and your work?
   You can follow me on Instagram for lots of fun things - @rbellirving. I also have a website and blog where you can learn more about the series, the characters and lessons learned, at www.rbellirving.ca.
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Also, find a sneak-peak of Rachael’s novel Demons at the Doorstep here.