In case you missed it, last week the fabulous cover for The Faithless was revealed. If you haven’t seen the cover already, I’m not going to say a word more, because I don’t think there’s a way to prepare you for it, at all, but also. Just look at it. Just look.
And after all that, if you’re impatiently waiting for next March, well, maybe this interview can sate your appetite just a bit. And don’t forget: you can follow Cherae on twitter too!
Have you always known you wanted to be a writer? How old were you when you wrote your first story?
I don’t know exactly…I think, when I declared to myself, “I want to be a writer” and understood it as a profession, I was probably 13 or so. But I’d been telling stories since elementary school, writing horror stories in classes and telling ghost stories on car rides with my cousins. I started trying to write my first novel when I was 13, a very serial-numbers-filed-off Wheel of Time, haha. One of the three boy main characters was named…Zakrim. Eventually, I cancelled that. I was chewing my teeth on Wheel of Time RPG sites, though. I turned those three boys into a girl and her best dude friend, kept the [parent] with a secret past, and threw in some elves for good measure. I never did finish that book, though I think there’s something there…. I wrote my first novel during a NaNoWriMo when I was…19? But that will definitely never see the light of day. You’re welcome.
What are your favourite genres to read and write, and are there any genres or tropes you wouldn’t write?
I’m pretty open to anything in the SFF umbrella, though I’m a bit of a scaredy cat, so I don’t know if I would go full horror. I won’t say I’m not interested in the gothic horror genre, though. Maybe I wouldn’t do it as the primary genre, but letting it infuse one of my fantasy books? That sounds pretty killer. I also like reading romance and have plans to try my hand at that one day. Fantasy is my primary wheelhouse, though, and I have a lot of work that I want to do within the genre, including writing some epic-epic fantasy. I know you asked about tropes I wouldn’t write, but I think I would actually like to write a non-queernorm world myself. I sometimes get irritated at the idea that authors have to elide real world persecution just because we’re writing in a fantasy world; I find myself much more interested in the ways I can explore the real world in fantasy. That’s half of the joy of the writing. Half of the purpose. It can be just as cathartic as the escapism—sometimes moreso.
When you close your eyes and imagine an apple, what do you see? An actual apple, a sketch of one, a blackness? Do you think that impacts your writing process?
Oh, I 100% see the full apple. I can also see a sketch of an apple—literal sketch, shading, light glow—I’m a very visual thinker and sometimes I write with my eyes closed so that I can see less of the computer/desk/window and more of the actual scene I’m writing. The problem with this is that it often results in really bare first drafts because I can already “see” the surroundings in my head so I neglect to put them on the page. I flesh things out in the follow-up passes—again, closing my eyes and walking through the space and the characters’ blocking.
If you wanted to learn about craft, which three authors would you suggest reading?
This is such a subjective thing…what I want from my craft is so different from what other people want; the sentences and devices I think are beautiful or most effective might not be what get other people going. Some authors I like to read for my own craft studies, though…Nicola Griffith, Sofia Samatar, Joe Abercrombie, Seth Dickinson (sorry not sorry, bonus). All of them are so so different, but they do particular things extraordinarily well, from sentence craft to character to narrative structure. I think that any writer can learn from them, even if just to ask why do these authors have such devoted fans? And then to pick their work apart from there.
When you’re building your world, what do you focus on? How do you try to make it come to life?
I try to focus on the people in it. People are what make a world come to life, to me. How they react to the elements of it—speculative, social, environmental. The fun speculative element may come before the characters or after; they may be something random that I pulled out of a card idea deck (obligatory shoutout to The Story Engine), or it may come from a question I have about our world, some unexplored or underexplored “what if” that I want to offer my take on. But it will always come back to how the elements impact the characters. For me and my stories, the worldbuilding is in service to the characters, not the other way around.
What projects are you currently working on? Can you share any details yet?
I’ve just finished the first draft of Book 3 of the Magic of the Lost series, the last in the trilogy! Very excited about that and about how it’s shaped up. I’ll be working on Warmongers, soon, too. I’m also playing around with some shorter projects, things I can be a bit experimental with and explore new things that I might not get to do with longform work and series (like happy endings! or not!). Plus, I like that I can finish them sooner. Stay tuned for more news on that in the new year…
Three songs you would put in your book’s soundtrack?
I have an entire series soundtrack where I dump any songs that make me think of the books. Want to listen? (Note: this is different from my writing soundtrack for the books; though there is some overlap and sometimes I listen to this soundtrack while writing. Usually I write to instrumentals, though.)
What would be your dream project?
I have so many dream projects…I’m lucky enough that the projects I’m working on are also dream projects. One day, I’d like to write that sweeping multi-book epic fantasy, though. Fifty points of view, five different kingdoms, one giant bad thing that’s coming for us all, a prophecy or two, a long journey on horseback with campfires…. I’d also like to bring in the lesbipirates.
Which of your characters would you most want to fight a zombie apocalypse with?
I think all of them would be pretty capable…not Sabine, though. If I brought back Djasha, would she be a zombie, or would she be on my side? Could I have a zombie teammate? Because I think she would be killer. Literally. If not, I would say Jaghotai, since some of her character inspiration came from Michonne in The Walking Dead (which I have never watched past the first 3 minutes, because, scaredy cat).
You’re stuck on a desert island and you’re allowed only three (LGBT) books. What are you taking?
Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar, The Traitor Baru Cormorant, and some steamy lesbi-romance book. I don’t know which, but something to keep me entertained—plus a notebook so I can write my own books. A book to uplift the spirit with beauty, a book to remind me what true pain is, and…well. Y’know. If you know of any queer nature survivalists, then I would replace the romance with one of their guidebooks.
You can collaborate on anything with anyone in the LGBT community: who would it be and why?
SOMETHING WITH LIL NAS X. It would be killer and it would probably be hilarious. Also, he’s a nerd. In all seriousness, though, because I admire him. We have a similar approach to living with our queerness and embracing our favorite things about our art—he’s not afraid to Go There. And if we ever get shit for the collab online, I know his responses would be A+.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C.L. Clark is a BFA award-winning editor and Ignyte award winning-writer, and the author of Nebula-nominated novel The Unbroken, the first book in the Magic of the Lost trilogy. She graduated from Indiana University’s creative writing MFA and was a 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow. She’s been a personal trainer, an English teacher, and an editor, and is some combination thereof as she travels the world. When she’s not writing or working, she’s learning languages, doing P90something, or reading about war and [post-]colonial history. Her work has appeared in various SFF venues, including Tor.com, Uncanny, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
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