Transcript
[0:00] Hello, and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy.
[0:11] My name is Julia Golding, and today I have the great pleasure of being joined by another author. Her name is Rose Black, and she has just produced, if I get this right, so you can see it if you're watching the YouTube version, a book called Fated Winds and Promising Seas. So welcome to Rose. Rose, is this your debut title? No, this is my second book. Second book. Oh, we must ask you a little bit later on about the problem of the second novel. Now, Rose, people will hear from your accent that you live in the UK. But more specifically, you live in quite a fantastical city. You live in Bath. I do. I'm very lucky I live in Bath. Oh, and you also describe yourself as a mother to a wiggly child.
[1:03] So I want you to cast your mind back to the life when the young Rose, um, herself was a wiggly child. What was the, um, kind of thing that you were reading?
[1:18] On your journey to being an author which were the books that lit the excitement in your mind for words yeah um so when I was very young um it was my dad used to read to me a lot um and he had these books about a boy's boarding school um and the hijinks that went on in that because that was like when I was very young um and then things like the the worst witch books um I could I could relate to Mildred quite a lot she was a bit of a she was clumsy she was a bit of an outcar she didn't quite do things right so she she was very relatable um Animals of Farthing Wood um, loved those books um these are actually these are actually all fantasy titles aren't they yes yeah a lot of them yeah um what else did I like um I can't remember anything about it um but vernacular um has like the title and the vampire bunny just stuck in my head so I don't know anything about the plot but the vampire bunny is has stuck for me and I think the celery stalks at midnight is one of my favorite titles of a book ever yeah so you're obviously drawn to books that have like a quirky approach yeah celery stalks at midnight yeah like you're fighting a duel with celery stalks yeah that sounds great really like that so scrolling forward a few years.
[2:41] That reader became a writer. Were you writing as a child? Are you, like me, the sort of person who had hundreds of stories in exercise books? Yeah, yeah. I had, they weren't very good, but yeah, I was writing certainly as a teen.
[2:54] I had various things written in notebooks. Oh, so the ones you were doing as a teenager, would you say they were more in the fan fiction area? Or were you doing... No, they were, they were, I think they were probably more urban fantasy, I remember or sci-fi.
[3:10] As a teen I read quite a lot of sci-fi Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury and that sort of thing and Star Trek books so I think I moved away from fantasy as a teen and then came back to it as an adult. One of the things I noticed when I look at the stuff I was writing as a child was I would try out different genres very heavily influenced by what I was actually reading at the time yeah same story so something that might be a time slip story like children of green no would suddenly go into outer space because I'd watch Blake's seven it is wonderful an anarchy to it yeah kind of free expression at the same time or were you more organized than me I think each story was its own thing it wasn't so much that I'd, the story itself would go off in places but I'd have a superhero story and I had one set on Mars, and I did have a fantasy one as well so yeah, Anyone who's listening who's got in their household some young person who's trying out all these things, don't try and tidy up their writing too soon. I think it's important to let a child just go through wardrobes and out to space and back in time without worrying too much if it makes much sense. I think it's great just to have that freedom, not like schoolwork, which gets marked.
[4:40] It's a different thing. so um rose talking about fated winds and promising seas i think loosely i would call it a pirate story yeah the term that that comes up i i guess they kind of are pirates is in their anti-authority um that yeah so they're not raiding ships but they are they do have that kind of sense to them so i dare anybody to um try this novel and not want to carry on reading because you have the most wonderful opening set piece, which I'm a bit of a sucker for stories which start with the main character in the lowest point, stuck in jail, no possibility of escape.
[5:25] Several, which I can think of a bit like that, which I absolutely adore. And so I was thrilled when I opened your novel to find that Lucky, our main character, is in jail. And he's clearly, more than that, he's clearly a very damaged young man. I suppose he's had all his social connections pruned off him, so he's very damaged. And the story is one that follows his self-discovery and the blooming of his friendships and in many ways his healing. I don't think that's giving too much away. No, I don't think that's, no. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the book? How it first, you know, sprang to life in your mind and then post it? So with other stories, I can think of things that have sort of triggered them. And I can think of my first book, there was a little Tumblr post and that kind of ended up sparking the story. But this one, I don't I don't I genuinely don't know how to start it. I just sat down. It was a Thursday in October. And I just I started writing about this guy in prison who'd been there for 10 years and didn't know who he was anymore. And I think I had about 10K written in a week. And just the story kind of possessed me. I had to get this story about this guy down.
[6:43] So I don't know what quite caused it but yeah it took over me and for the next couple of months I was writing that this was my life this story, I had to get it down I had to find out what was happening because I didn't really have an outline I didn't really have a plan it kind of came out and I was exploring what was going on as I was writing it, So that's not always your writing process then You sometimes have more of a plan, do you? Yeah, I often have more of an idea where things are going And what's going on And more of a, there's usually something that sets it off Yeah, Or I can say, you know, it's these two things and I wanted to explore that aspect of it. But yeah, I think this one was very much, it just kind of hit me. So tell us a little bit about the actual story, the plot to sort of tease people into wanting to read it.
[7:46] Okay, so it's about Lucky, who's been imprisoned for 10 years for killing his mother. And he doesn't think that he did it but he can't really remember what happened on that day he's got this vague image of a girl with white hair but nobody seems to know who she was and while he's in prison.
[8:09] A leviathan with a giant sea serpent which live in the sea around the area knocks into the prison and he's accidentally freed into the water and he gets picked up by a ship and the sailors on the ship, and they take him on board this damaged guy and say okay, you can stay here, and he makes friends with one of the sailors, this young man called Gabriel and the book is about the two of them trying to uncover what happened with Lucky's mother and why Gabriel is so familiar to Lucky, Lucky seems to think he knows Gabriel from somewhere but he doesn't remember and Gabriel doesn't remember him so the book is about them uncovering what happened in the past how they're connected and also trying to put a stop to the church who are very much anti the Leviathans anti the magic users, and trying to protect their home from the church yeah so the church is in a sense.
[9:18] Worships now I'm going to get this right Does it worship fate? Yeah. The church worships fate and the magic uses are more to do with the sort of serendipity and freedom. Yes. Yeah. So the fate is about predestination, about this is what's going to happen. And it's very much a way of this is where we can be safe because we know what's going to happen. We know the way things should be. But obviously not everybody wants to live the way things should be. And the way things should be for others isn't always what should be for them as individuals. Yes. So some ways, to me, the story seemed like an example of, well, it was held together by the idea of falling into good and bad crowds. There were those people who make you become what you need to be and should be. And those who want to squeeze you into what they think you should be. I mean, they have a good reason in their own mind for doing that. It's not evil in the sense of malevolence. It's more fear of freedom, I suppose.
[10:28] Would you say that's the right way of understanding? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And I think that there is a lot of that in the world. People think it should be like this, but their viewpoint might be quite narrow or they're focused on things that matter to them. So, yeah, it's about people who make you conform versus people who give you the freedom to take up the shape you want to be. Yeah, one of the things which I thought was very interesting in the way you had characterised the side of freedom and magic is that magic costs, literally costs, in the world of your novel. Can you tell us a bit about your magic system and how you came up with that? Yeah so the magic users are they're able to manipulate water and there's a shrine on an island that they go to and they promise something and something will happen in the future and that what they've promised will be given up in return for their magic powers, and it's always something negative and it's always something you can't cheat, because a couple of characters have tried it and it doesn't work.
[11:38] It's a bit like the fairy tale trope of um having to give something that matters to you in exchange for some sort of blessing yeah yeah and the the fairy tale idea of the first thing that comes to you to breach you and you think it's going to be the dog and it turns out to be the daughter so the price is often a lot higher than you realize it's going to be indeed uh yeah so i think that's important because sometimes if you get magic on tap, like magic that doesn't have any, limits or resource it seems as though why don't you just solve all the world's problems with it yeah yeah i prefer a magic that that's a bit more it either has a cost or a constraint or a.
[12:21] Otherwise it can get too powerful yes yeah i've often wondered for example the most the most famous sort of magic systems of course are things like harry potter doesn't seem to be a limit on the magic in harry potter other than you're magical you're not and i've just wondered why Why don't they just dance the spell and everything? It's okay. It would be interesting to talk about those who know more about Harry Potter, if that actually is true. Anyway, so going back to your book, you describe yourself as, in the sort of back flap, so this isn't private, you describe yourself as bisexual, and the story features a gay central relationship between Lucky and Gabriel. Though I should say to anyone who's listening, it's definitely PG, or um i can't remember what the american but basically nothing for shock in there uh it's in fact very sweet the relationship can you tell us your thoughts on the need for representation in fantasy or all stories but particularly in fantasy stories i think i think representation in fantasy is very important fantasy is often used as an allegory or a metaphor for things and i think, Best ones come out from people who have experienced what they're describing or they are aware of the aspects of it. So they are coming from a place where it is part of them.
[13:43] For me, writing allows me to explore parts of myself that I can't do in real life. Parts of identity and playing with aspects of of myself um and gender and things so i think i think it is important to come from things um taking your identities and your characters as real people and real people are going to be reading it rather than you know i want to do this because i think it's popular or i think this is a good aesthetic um so i think i think representation is important But I think it's also important that we don't pressure people into being upfront about their identities, because a lot of people can't, or a lot of people don't know the right words to explain how they are or how they see themselves.
[14:36] So I think that's also an important side of it. yes i think that there's a there's a tension isn't there between the desire of us as authors to have a diverse series of characters in our books which will obviously mean they won't all be yeah of our own experience because that would be incredibly limiting um whilst also being authentic to the experience of somebody who reflects that identity whatever it is um yeah so did you have a sort of think about that because you're choosing two young men as your yeah I mean I my identity my how I see myself as it has come my, how I've changed, how I see myself has come out from my writing. And I think that is one of the good things that even if I can't always explain it or I can't put on the right space, I know myself better that way.
[15:39] I think there's quite a lot of fear out there of being told you've done the wrong thing. Yeah, I think there is. And I think there is the risk that you force people to come out when they're not ready or they're not safe so I I think it's important that writers question themselves rather than, you know um editors or or publishing or or even readers I think it's important that it's it's the writer who goes yes this this is something I I I feel I can write about rather than oh it's okay I can write about it I'll just get a sensitivity reader to cover it that's fine um so I think it's important it's something that gets questioned internally yes i mean i think i should probably do a podcast about sensitivity readers because that's that in itself is fraught um we have a different set of sort of judgments and morality and what have you coming in to a world which was the author's own i uh i think i think it's we're in a difficult patch at the moment but maybe we'll just get more at ease with it in a few more years time yeah i think i think honesty and and approaching things from a you know, um, I want to do this right, but also I want to give space to other people as well. And I don't want to take up places from people who have traditionally been not as easy to get into publishing as well as important.
[17:05] Yeah, that's the issue, isn't it? But that also suggests that there is a limited number of places in the lifeboat of publishing. Um and the decisions about the lifeboat places are given are made by publishers not by the writers yeah yeah i think that we as writers are sort of being told to imagine how many places there are on the lifeboat and only do what you know yeah and whereas actually it's to do with publishing and to readers buying that where the response yes yeah that's that's the other thing is you've got to get these books out you've got to publishing has to make people want to read them as well yeah okay so away from that rather contentious area um i don't think we've said anything we'll get ourselves cancelled but no hopefully not um shouldn't really joke about that um pirates good and bad so what are your favorite pirate yarns and which ones are fed into your particular take on pirates for this um so my my favorite bit of pirate media has to be Arflag Means Death.
[18:09] Which is a comedy series with Taika Waititi and Rhys-Davies about Steve Bonnet who was the landed gentleman who decided he was going to run away from home and become a pirate I don't know this one but I know Taika Waititi yeah is that John you're talking about sorry it's a it's comedy it's very loosely historical comedy ah yeah, And it's still on BBC iPlayer.
[18:43] And what I really liked about that was because it's very sweet. It's very funny. And it's a very weird group of people coming together. It's a big found family thing set around a comedy and pirates. And it's that kind of aspect that I really liked.
[19:00] So your own pirates. Tell the listener a little bit about what's going on board your pirate ship. Okay, so the ship is the Dreamer, and it's run by a woman called Millhaven, and her wife is the first mate, and they're also Gabriel's adopted mothers. So there's some literal found family and then there's some more sort of fancy standard metaphorical found family and the ship, the purpose of the ship is largely to work with the Leviathans who are giant sea creatures in the sea and cause a major shipping hazard so they're there to sort of guide the Leviathans out of the way of passing ships so that they don't cause travel and that's that's mostly what the ship does so the word dreamer obviously has a context in america about people who wish to become naturalized citizens and there is i don't know if that was in your mind but there is an element of these are refugees from.
[20:10] Ordinary society yeah finding their place yeah i didn't i didn't make that um the association with the American term actually when I was writing it but yes it is it is people who are dreaming of a better life or a different life or somewhere where they belong and that is a big part of it, there's various characters talk about you know how they've, left their previous life and this is their home now and this is where they feel they belong and they can be themselves. So you've just touched on the fact that there is a theme running through this about caring for nature in the body of the leviathans and there's quite a distressing episode later on which I won't spoil where humans are not caring for these leviathans. Yeah. Leave it at that.
[21:00] Is this something... I sort of come to the view that almost everything we write must have an element of an environmental story in it at the moment because it is a story of our time. Yeah. That's what you feel. Yeah. I mean, a lot of fantasy, you have sort of sentient creatures, dragons and things. And I wanted to do something that you couldn't reason with, you couldn't explain the situation to. You didn't have that kind of intelligence. um i think learning to live with things that are dangerous um things that you can't reason with is i think an important topic and how we how we do that and how we meet conflicting needs.
[21:42] Is is a very topical thing yes even just in europe i was uh looking at the reintroduction of wolves and bears and then some days they're already saying that's too much you know they're already carrying off the livestock so when does the pushback come it seems to be we're in a continual battle saying yeah nature to be natural but when it turns out to be very natural and destructive to what we do it becomes a problem it's very hard yeah so i was given the little hint that you might have another fantasy interest that does influence your writing which is that you are somewhat in the world of Dungeons and Dragons is this right yeah tell us about you and Dungeons and Dragons um so I haven't the last time I played Dungeons and Dragons was at um Comic-Con last year um we had a little session with a group of authors and we we'd ran a little um little session where we were our characters in a you know all working together in a fantasy setting but um my longest running campaign was based on the first book not not the first book i published but the first book i finished and was set in that world and that ran for several years um so i was i was a gm in that one um but i've also played in various settings um.
[23:02] So what does the experience of playing in a Dungeons & Dragons narrative, which you're sharing with others, and presumably open to their decisions, which ones you may not take yourself,
[23:13] what does that do when it comes to you as someone who's plotting and writing a book? Yeah, I mean, it does teach you that everybody's got their own sort of agendas and thoughts and does show you how different characters with different ideas of how to approach something can come out and make that feel right in the world. So you don't want your characters to feel like they're railroaded. You want their decisions to feel organic. And I think being in a group and having different people approaching things in different ways can give you an idea of how that works. So when you're writing fantasy, do you find yourself naturally tending towards the, I wouldn't call them stock characters, but character types that Dungeons & Dragons encourages you to invent? I think my first book did because it was kind of, it gives sort of D&D feelings so that you have got the classic fighter, you've got your bard, you've got the necromancer. I don't think Fated Winds is quite the same.
[24:19] It's not quite the D&D standards. standards um but the first book definitely that that was one of the things i wanted it to have what was the name of the first book so we can just the first book is called uh till death do us bard oh yes i think i saw that in the notes a great title so um you've written this book what is the plan going forward is there another book on the stocks happening at the moment rose the the we're hoping to sell another book which again is another standalone and there's another one featuring sailing ships but these ones fly um and it's the story of the last job um so it's a captain who's just lost his wife and his crew have convinced him to take on one last job and the job turns out to be looking for his um missing ex um who he left sort of 30 years ago on not terribly good terms and the the hunt for this guy leads them to um a forgotten city of amethyst in the desert and a cult that's trying to raise a dead god so it's got an element of romance in it it's i've called it a post-romance because it's the the romantic relationships both with the wife and with the ex are both over so there's not there's not um going to be a sort of happily ever after the characters getting together but it's it's exploring what happens with people who have.
[25:47] Had a relationship but now that's over and how they have to.
[25:51] Overcome their feelings and work together in a difficult situation,
[25:58] Well, I don't think that is an interesting idea in the romance world. I wonder if you'll be pressured to get them together at the end. Yeah, we'll have to see. Yeah, I mean, very clearly, if they don't, then it won't be a romance. Because I know that if you don't have your happily ever after and you call it a romance, then, you know, that's not right. But hopefully, you know, I'll be able to note that it's not a romance like the other two. This one's a bit different. Right. So thank you, Rose, for talking to us. We always end with our guests with just imagining our way around all the fantasy worlds. It could be from film or television series or from books or plays. It doesn't matter.
[26:43] And we imagine where's the best place for something. So in previous episodes, we've talked about where's the best place to go for a drink, you know, or best place to be a singer-songwriter, that kind of thing. But I thought in your case I suppose we could have done where's the best place to be in prison but no I'm not doing that, there isn't many good places where's the best place to be rescued by pirates and you can actually define your pirates you don't have to keep them on sea you can I was thinking sea pirates I was actually thinking, Robin Hood's Brain Wilds might be quite a good place because you don't want to be in the water there very long, but going around that area on a ship and seeing things from a distance might be quite interesting, because it's tropical forests and there'll be lots of wildlife. That might be quite nice.
[27:33] Yes, definitely not to stay in the sea very long. I could have seen sharks and things coming along. I was thinking that actually in a way Han Solo from Star Wars is a pirate. Yes, yeah, he's definitely a pirate. I wouldn't mind being rescued by him from some kind of, you know, back to my childhood self remembering the first Star Wars film so I think maybe I'd like to be rescued by pirates in the world of Star Wars so thank you so much and all the best with this book, as it is launched off.
[28:08] You're hoisting the blue Peter and off you go thank you very much thank you.
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