E. E. Knight is a relative newcomer, even though, like most authors, he’s been writing for a LoOoOng time. I was most intrigued by how his path through a series of publishing house nightmares led to a mass market deal. As a veteran of publishing house nightmares myself (see the Cautionary Tales Part 1 page link nearby and the link in the post immediately below), I applaud those authors who are not deterred by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Since he finally shepherded Way of the Wolf into a mass market deal in 2003, he’s released seven novels in his Vampire Earth series and three in the Age of Fire series. He’s a busy guy, but he was still kind enough to take time out from his schedule to do an interview.
TH: Can you give a brief arc of your career as a writer/author?
TB: I’ve been a writer since I was ten or eleven and banged out fanfic on my mom’s old college typewriter, hunting and pecking my way through maybe a page and a half of tribute to Creature From the Black Lagoon or The Mummy.
I first worked with an editor in junior high, when I contributed to my junior high newspaper (it was called Chewbacca because the faculty advisor liked the sound of it – late 70s, don’t you know) . I became a little more serious in high school, where my main extracurricular activity was the school newspaper, Stillwater’s Pony Express. After college, working as a photographer, I dabbled doing a little nonfiction, mostly articles about wedding photography for bridal magazines (which pay a phenomenal per-word rate, by the way, or they did the last time I got a check from Conde Nast).
Fiction didn’t begin to appeal until I had an early-onset midlife crisis at about 33, though I’d written a good deal of dialog and description for my gamemastering of tabletop RPGs.
Since high school, I’d always thought about writing a novel and decided I’d better start one. Nothing else in my life was going particularly well, either personally or professionally. If I had a manuscript or two lying around at least I could fantasize, since I’ve never liked the odds the state gives you for lottery tickets. I wrote a rough novella that I guess you’d classify as “sword and planet” first, then went on to write the world’s worst cyberpunk thriller.
I didn’t become an author until I started following the advice of my aunt, an author of children’s fiction. She told me to write to entertain myself, rather than to an imagined audience or agent or editor, chasing down a hot genre.
By blending a bunch of genres I enjoy (alien invasion stories, post-apocalyptic survival, westerns, vampire hunter tales, pulpy two-fisted action) and working from an old RPG world I’d created in the early 80s after too many viewings of The Omega Man and Dawn of the Dead, I started writing Vampire Earth.
The result was Way of the Wolf, my first published novel. But that only came after a few bumps and bruises.
While Wolf was gathering rejections I continued writing the series. Seeking to improve the first I submitted a couple chapters to an internet venture AOL/Time Warner had started called iPublish. iPublish was a review forum that was a more formal version of the old Del Rey discussion board from the mid-to-late 90s. You’d post a chapter and if enough people liked it a real editor took a look at it. Sometimes they even published titles as an ebook/print-on-demand. AOL/TWBG ended up acquiring two volumes of Vampire Earth and published Way of the Wolf in November 2001, but folded in December of 2001 as part of the widespread internet bubble collapse. Timing’s never been my strong suit. But luckily I had a book in hand with my name on it, and through the good offices of Paul Witcover I met John Silbersack of Trident Media Group at a World Fantasy Con. He liked it and agreed to represent me. He extracted all my rights from the wreckage of iPublish and sold it NAL’s Roc imprint.
I debuted as a mass-market original with Way of the Wolf in 2003. It’s been a fun five years since.
TH: What is The Story of Eric? Is it a novel? A short story? A poem? A limerick? A gritty urban fantasy? An epic saga?
TB: Kind of a sleazy, cynical giallo novella only with a Norman Rockwell cover. Since the story must end with my last breath, I’m hoping for one of those bittersweet deaths where I’ve gained some wisdom and sense of accomplishment.
TH: When did you know that you wanted to be a writer? How did you know?
TB: Well, it’s always been something I’ve plinked at, like music or reading or studying film. I can happily lose myself in arranging words until I forget to eat, which is always a good sign for a calling. I’m not sure I wanted it for the right reasons, though. I didn’t submit to prove I could write a fantastic sentence or organize a brilliant paragraph or make someone’s hair stand on end. I wrote to see myself on a bookstore shelf. It was ego-validation. Well, that and the royalty checks. Lately I’ve been trying to improve my skills so I can make my mark in other ways, like through the parallel plots in the Age of Fire series.
TH: Of course, most writers want to have bestsellers or make some sort of artistic or literary impact. Is there some unrealized accomplishment that you’re striving for in the near future?
TB: There’s that old Haitian proverb: beyond the mountain, more mountains. All I wanted when Roc produced Wolf was to find an audience and be able to support myself writing. I’ve reached that goal, more or less. But from this mountain I see other, higher ones. Someday I’d like to read in a review that a young writer “shows talent for world-building reminiscent of E.E. Knight” or somesuch. I’d feel like I’ve added to the craft were that to happen. The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne…
TH: Through these interviews, one of the things that has emerged is that writers and authors who persevere find themselves, with each success, trading up to different sets of problems. What are some of those higher mountains you envision?
TB: The big one is breaking out of the sf/fantasy ghetto into a wider audience. I’d like to get some men who read Cussler or Cornwell, women who only occasionally pick up a Rice or Hamilton or McCaffrey fantasy title because they like a character or a setting, kids who are looking for something with dragons besides Paolini. . .
Obviously, as I’m becoming more experienced, the publisher expects better books that require less editorial attention and increased sales. While my sales have been growing, it’s not a steep ramp up that insures great promotion or attention from the marketing people. I had my first freestanding riser this summer, and I still don’t know if it paid off for them at the bottom line on the P&L. My gut sense is it didn’t, at least short-term. But we’ll see on the royalty statements a year or two out.
Of course I fantasize about getting more peer recognition, but I don’t know that my books are breaking any particularly new ground or setting trends or slicing along any cutting edges, nor are they brilliant enough to garner votes just on the strength of my prose.
TH: What are some of the things that inspire you?
TB: Walking and thinking. Once in a while an idea will hit and I have to keep my body in motion while I work it out. Or sometimes I’ll blank, and I’ll just go out and walk until a solution comes.
Fantasy and sf art. I’ve been buying fantasy art books for years. I’m friends with a local fantasy artist with a national reputation, Jim Pavelec (we met seeing each other working all the time at the Oak Park Borders), and he’s turned me on to some great artists and graphic novels.
Video games, especially the deluxe versions that come with a disk with a lot of concept art. There are a lot of really great artists working for the video game industry these days.
Music is another. I don’t listen while I’m drafting, but I do sometimes while I’m just musing and writing down ideas. It gets the synapses firing.
Of course there’s the work of other writers. I’m a moderately serious student of Howard and Lovecraft. I’ve tried to collect all their fiction and I still find stuff in there that amazes me. I enjoy the graduates of the old pulp Planet Stories — Leigh Brackett, Ray Bradbury, and Poul Anderson (the Reapers in Vampire Earth were made with blueprints stolen from Anderson’s classic Call Me Joe).
I also take inspiration the writers from the “second wave” or whatever it’s called these days. Keith Laumer, H. Beam Piper, Roger Zelazny, and on into Joe Haldemann, Alan Dean Foster (who was helpful to me in correspondence as an amateur), David Brin and Brian Lumley. But Keith Laumer especially. Laumer expertly blended wry humor and convincing action, a trick I’d like to manage someday.
And John Ford and Howard Hawks westerns, I suppose. Fort Apache and Rio Bravo. It doesn’t get any better than that.
TH: When I attended my first World Con in August, I was so gratified to find experienced pros in the industry so willing to embrace the rank newbie author, and thanks to that I have started building relationships that I hope will continue throughout my career. That sounds similar to your experience with Alan Dean Foster. How did your correspondence with him help you in the early days?
TB: He gave me some great boilerplate advice that I’m still passing along to others. “Write ever day, submit when you’re done.” He also goes back to the early 70s, so he knows what it takes to keep a career alive decade in and decade out, and it was neat to hear that in person from him at a con. Mostly it involved remaining as much a fan as you are a writer, being open to different kinds of stories that may interest you, and experiencing as much of the world as you can because it all turns into fodder. You can’t nail yourself up in your garret and only write.
TH: What about the writing process most appeals to you?
TB: I should say the editing, because that’s where most pros believe the real work is, but honestly, it’s when I get my typeset proof pages. I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment-anyone can write a draft, only a few are lucky enough to see their words arranged to eliminate widows and orphans. The thrill’s only tainted by regret for the bits that should have been better. Soon after that I see the finished covers with the art and the backcover text and the blurbs and my name. That’s an exciting time. It’s like seeing your child all slicked up for a dance.
TH: Do you look back on your earlier work and think, “Wow, I would seriously do that differently now!” whilst wincing at some ham-handed sentence construction?
TB: Yes. I could have structured Way of the Wolf better. But what’s done is done; I still love the book.
TH: How much of a perfectionist are you before firing off your manuscript to your agent?
TB: Oh, I show very rough stuff to my agent. Sometimes it’s just an idea for a world or a couple of chapters in a possible novel. Some of the concepts excite him and he encourages me to pursue it, other times he discourages me because he doesn’t want me sidetracked.
With Ginjer at Roc I try to only send her polished work that requires a minimum of further review. Or at least I hope so.
TH: What are the most successful ways you have used to promote yourself and your work? Are there any promising marketing avenues that you might yet explore?
TB: I’ve put some effort into being accessible to the readers. I also try to be helpful to other professionals who can introduce me to more discriminating eyeballs. Like you and your blog. I do cons when I can afford them.
TH: How much of a perfectionist are you before firing off your manuscript to your agent?
TB: Oh, I show very rough stuff to my agent. Sometimes it’s just an idea for a world or a couple of chapters in a possible novel. Some of the concepts excite him and he encourages me to pursue it, other times he discourages me because he doesn’t want me sidetracked.
With Ginjer at Roc I try to only send her polished work that requires a minimum of further review. Or at least I hope so.
TH: Have your reached the point at which you realized that you had “made it” as a writer and author? If so, can you describe the milestone or circumstances where you had that realization? Do you recall how that felt? If not, what is the milestone you’re seeking?
TB: No. Almost any author is only a couple of bad-selling books away from having no career, at least under said name, so any talk of “making it” is premature unless your someone like King. I’ve only been published for five years now. Great years but I’d like a few more behind me before I start thinking in terms of milestones.
That being said, the step up to hardcover felt like a milestone. It meant more money. Also, the first foreign sale. There’s something about being translated that makes you feel important.
TH: Some say that professional writers have to look at themselves as a business, a branded commodity. Do you take that approach? Do you write under any pseudonyms?
TB: I suppose I’m a “commercial” writer. I’ve tried to build an audience and keep it fed. I said on my blog recently that I’m the literary equivalent of pot roast. I’m not fancy, nobody oohs and ahhs when I get set on the table, but I’m satisfying and some come back for seconds.
Incidentally, the “Knight” part of my name is a part pseudonym, part accident of culture. It’s my mom’s maiden name. My mom was convinced that I’d have something to do with the literary world sooner or later. She carried me and gave birth her senior year in college, busy graduating magna with an English degree and studying the lives of various writers as I gestated and nursed. According to her, my proclivities literally came down through mother’s milk. Not that it ended there. My parents were on a budget, but they always found money for books for me and my brother. She or my father read to us every night. I took her name in tribute.
(For those of you scoring at home, my brother turned out well. He’s a tenured professor and editor of an academic journal.)
TH: What can readers expect to see from you in the near future? What are you working on?
TB: The continuing adventures of David Valentine on Vampire Earth, of course. The next one is called Winter Duty, and it’ll be out in summer of 2009. I’ll be wrapping up the Age of Fire series late next year and I aspire to move on to something bigger, novel-wise.
My wife Stephanie and I are also working on bringing a baby into the world. We hope to be naming the most important character in our lives in late May.
TH: Aside the obvious impact on your time, how do you expect that becoming a father will influence your work?
TB: More grist for the mill. Or maybe diapers for the pail. It’ll help me with a parent’s point-of-view of course.
TH: What is the most memorable moment (good, bad, or other) you have had in your life as an author?
TB: Well, accepting the Compton Crook Award at Balticon for Way of the Wolf was pretty great. The Balticon folks were wonderful. It was my first experience at a con as a GOH. They made it special, though I must have disappointed them when I received that actual award at the masquerade. I’d never been up on a stage to give a thank-you speech before. I choked out a few words of tribute to my wife and fled after mumbling something about my agent and editor.
Worst moment was probably associated with Wolf too. When the book first came out, it seemed like it wasn’t in any stores. I was in a couple of Barnes and Nobles and no Borders at all in my area. I felt shattered, like my career was over before it had even begun.
In the other category, I had a memorable experience with the publication of my first hardcover. When Valentine’s Exile hit the shelves, I was deluged with email accusing me of stealing from the Halo video game. The artist had depicted David Valentine as carrying the battle rifle from Halo. I ended up going onto a couple of the Halo forums and explaining how covers were made (the artist changed it for subsequent releases) – authors have very little to do with it. But the fracas ended up as a net positive. I started playing Halo with some of the people I met through the whole experience, and I picked up some new readers and made a friend. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, I guess.
TH: Is there anything else you would like to talk about that I haven’t mentioned?
TB: Come visit my blog, Bohemian World Works, at http://eeknight.livejournal.com. Try either Way of the Wolf (post-apocalyptic action-adventure, think WW2 occupied Europe only with vampires instead of Nazis) or Dragon Champion (Bambi, only with dragons).