About Em McDermott:
Em McDermott writes every day in a tiny cabin in the woods of upstate New York, where the walls are lined with bookcases brimming with novels and fairy statues. She considers ancient myths and fairy tales to be the world’s oldest fantasy stories, and elements from these tales appear in all her work.
Em shares her home with her two loving partners, a small flock of dragons (cough, cough, pet chickens), and more zucchini plants than is entirely reasonable.
Em writes fairy tale fantasy and epic fantasy. Her stories are dark but are ultimately hopeful adventures of human love and transformation.
What inspires you to write?
I write for the rush.
When I sit down to write, I don’t know what will happen before the words appear on the page. Characters and worlds flow out from the realm of the Muses and I’m shocked and delighted as they materialize. I feel blessed to be a part of them coming into existence. It’s incredible to have a job that allows me to spend so much time in flow state.
Beyond that, writing allows me to spend my days in fantasy worlds full of mythical creatures and heroic friends who save the world. What could be better than that?
What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
Favorite fantasy authors: Anne McCaffrey, Juliet Marillier, Jacqueline Carey, Richard Nell, George RR Martin, Sara Douglass, N.K. Jemisin.
Favorite literary fiction authors (I love a beautiful lit fic novel): John Irving, Madeline Miller, Daphne du Maurier, Kazuo Ishiguro.
Tell us about your writing process.
I am very much a seat-of-my-pants writer. If I know too much about the story in advance, my brain feels like I already wrote it and I get bored.
When I first sit down to begin a new work, I generally have only a very vague idea in mind. Usually this has to do with the theme or the genre. I close my eyes and wait for a picture to appear in my mind, and then I write what I see. I usually have about 30,000 words before I know where it’s going, and I can see the whole shape of the book. I often break at that point to do *a little* outlining. From there on out, I write whatever scene comes to mind that day. I don’t go in order! Somehow the books come together.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
Dialogue was actually very hard for me to get right when I was an early writer, because I don’t “hear” my characters speak. Watching my stories unfold in my head is like watching a TV on mute. I have to really get to know a character so I’ll know how they’d speak and what they’d say.
What advice would you give other writers?
You have to define what success is for yourself. We all want to be successful, right? But what does that mean to you? Without an answer to that and concrete strategies to get you to your goals, you’re unlikely to stumble onto it.
That said, my other piece of advice is: Don’t listen to anyone who tells you you can’t do it. You can.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I explored both traditional and indie publishing, at first. I queried agents even as I watched YouTube lectures by successful indie authors and learned about the amazing careers they were having.
I ultimately decided on going indie, because I like keeping creative control, higher royalties, and I enjoy the variety of work I get to do when I take a book all the way from manuscript to publication myself.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
eBooks have changed the field. Indie publishing is thriving, and the Internet has removed the one-time necessity of gatekeepers to guard the publishing world. While I expect the eBook market to continue to grow, I don’t expect traditional publishing will ever die out. Will they adapt and thrive, or stay the same as the years pass? That, I can’t say.
What genres do you write?: fantasy, epic fantasy, high fantasy, dark fantasy, fairy tale fantasy, fairy tale retellings, adult fiction
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Em McDermott Home Page Link
Link To Em McDermott Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
Facebook
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All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
