I’ve got an interview today with the author of the Keeper Chronicles, JA Andrews. Her books are a great match for Benjamin Ashwood fans, and during the interview I realized we have almost the exact same influences. A rare occurrence of it all making sense… Each of the series she lists as inspiring to her, I currently have on my shelves!
My favorite quote from the interview, “Growing up, I loved science, math, and writing. No one ever, at any time in my life, treated writing as a possible career path. I was as likely to find the wardrobe into Narnia as I was to ever pay bills from writing.” I think that’s a sentiment that almost every author can relate to. But JA (Janice), is well on her way to paying her bills, and a lot more. And by the way, the boxset for her Keeper Chronicles series is one of the best reviewed fantasy titles on Goodreads, and it’s only $0.99.
I’m bringing you guys gold. PURE GOLD!
Let’s do this interview.
AC: Hi JA, mind if I call you Janice? Thanks for joining us today! My readers may have heard of you from your Keeper Chronicles series, but in case they have not, can you tell us a little bit about those books?
JA: Thanks for inviting me! The Keeper Chronicles are an ode to my deep love for the classic fantasy books I grew up on in the 80’s and 90’s. They have Keepers (storyteller/mages) who travel with gruff dwarves and flighty elves and run into the occasional dragon. Not a cuddly sort of dragon, more like cousin-of-Smaug dragons. I’m a big fan of the old fantasy tropes, and I wanted to see if I could write a book that uses them in ways that feel familiar, but is also full of life. I have had my books compared to some Benjamin Ashwood series, if that means anything to you.
AC: Nice! As my readers know, I’m also a huge fan of classic fantasy stories, and my love of “90’s Fantasy” is what led to Benjamin Ashwood. What inspired you to write your version?
JA: When I started writing, I found myself missing a sense of… something like wonder in the books, movies, and TV I was seeing. I realized that all my favorite stories have that… whatever-it-is in them
By the time I’d written an entire series that tried to capture that whatever-it-is, you’d think I’d have figured out a better name for it. But mostly I describe it with fluttery hand motions and an expectant expression that doesn’t translate well into type. So I write to capture the whatever-it-is.
AC: A two parter — What series from the 80’s / 90’s are your books most like, and if it is someone different, which author do you admire the most? Aka, who’s got “whatever-it-is”?
JA: Excellent question. My first fantasy love was the Belgariad by David Eddings. I had never been so swept up in a story, or so invested in characters as I was the first time I read that series. Anne MacCaffrey’s Pern books, Dragonlance, and Raymond E Feist’s Magician books are more favorites of mine. I think what they all had in common was a freshness and wonder to the worlds and the magic their characters were discovering, and so I do think my writing is a bit like those.
AC: The boxset for the Keeper Chronicles series has some of the best reviews I’ve ever seen! 4.59 stars on Goodreads.com, which is a lot better than any of my books! What is it about this series which you think engages readers so thoroughly?
JA: I would pay a lot of money to know the answer to this question, because then I could lay to rest the lurking fear that I’ll never be able to repeat it. From the reviews, readers seem to connect emotionally with the characters, which I’m thrilled about. I think this is the unexpected result of the fact that I have very little visual imagination.
When I’m writing, I don’t see the story, I hear it and feel it. So my descriptions tend toward the emotions in the scene as opposed to the visual. In fact, my rough drafts have so little visual description that my critique partners probably have “Describe what this looks like!” Programed as a shortcut on their keyboards.
On an unasked for and barely related tangent, my lack of visual imagination is paired with a lack of visual memory. I cannot remember what people look like. I can recognize them, but I can’t picture them. Even people I’m REALLY close to are hazy in my mind’s eye. So I have this terrible fear that someday I’m going to be the sole witness to a crime, and the only way I’ll be able to describe the criminal is with something like, “He had a heavy presence. And his hair was angry.”
AC: Noted. I will be sure to plan any of my future crimes to take place in your vicinity. It’s funny you say that about visualization, though, because I think I’m the same way. I have to admit that I very rarely am self-aware enough to think about these things. In my Benjamin Ashwood series, I never bothered to describe the main character, Ben. It was a bit on purpose, to allow the readers to feel more comfortable putting themselves in his shoes, but also because he had no strong physical characteristics in my mind. I’d dreamed of his actions, rather than his face. A good thing we are not writing romance… Anyway, let’s get a little specific on writing craft. When building your characters, if you’re not assigning eye-color, what are you doing to formulate these imaginary creatures we’re going to want to follow for several books?
JA: That’s interesting about Ben, because now that I think about it, I have no idea what he looks like. Which is not unusual for me, EXCEPT I feel like there was a freedom to his character. Like I could make him look like whatever I wanted, instead of feeling like I’d just forgotten you said about him, which is what I usually do.
When I am creating characters, it’s usually based around whatever is broken inside them. Which is cheerful. I like my characters to all have some sort of deep ache that they try to ignore during regular life, but the story just keeps shoving it in their face. I generally have a good emotional picture of all my characters, and how they act, just not what they look like. “I’d dreamed of his actions, rather than his face” is a perfect description.
AC: Ok, enough of this woozy floozy writing craft! Let’s get to the invasive personal questions ;) In your bio, you say you’re an unemployed rocket scientist. You’ve got to give us the backstory on that!
JA: Growing up, I loved science, math, and writing. No one ever, at any time in my life, treated writing as a possible career path. I was as likely to find the wardrobe into Narnia as I was to ever pay bills from writing. And, as a girl, everyone was thrilled to help me move toward the sciences. My father is an engineer, so it seemed like a logical path to take.
Unfortunately, not too far into engineering school, I realized that while science was fun, a large part of engineering involved deciding how thick a bolt had to be to keep a bridge from collapsing. Which didn’t really grab my fancy.
Except aerospace engineering. I already had a deep love for fantasy worlds by this point, and working in space is the closest we get to a fantasy world in real life. Yes, there are the same physical laws, but when you have no atmosphere and gravity is weak enough that it’s more of a suggestion than an irresistible force, everything changes. There is such a fantastical aspect to designing things that can travel in such a bizarre environment.
The only problem, which probably wasn’t surprising to anyone but me, is that there isn’t a huge demand for rocket scientists in the work force. So I ended up taking a job as a telecommunications engineer for a few years until we had our first baby and I could bail on engineering and do anything else at all.
My husband is a physician, though, and since “rocket scientist” is one of the few things that trumps “doctor”, I feel like the degree has been put to good use.
AC: And now you’re in Montana with a young family?
JA: We do live in Montana, and I’m torn between saying my children are young, and weeping about the fact that they’re about to move out and leave me. In actuality, they’re 8, 10, and 13. So probably somewhere in the messy middle. I homeschool them and find them to be among the most interesting people on earth.
Also, I write my books specifically so that my kids can read them if they want. So even though they’re written for adults and deal with complex issues like grief and guilt and whether our lives are turning out how we’d expected, they have a solid PG rating. The violence is minimal and there’s no sex, mostly because they tend to be very light on romance.
AC: Being able to stay home and write is the dream for many budding authors, but with little kids in the house, it can also be a nightmare! And I only say that because my guys are 7, 4, and 2 now, and they are nightmares… Can you tell us a little bit about your schedule, and how you manage your work / life balance?
JA: Thankfully my kids are getting older and more independent. I’m thoroughly impressed with authors who can write with tiny, volatile energy balls running around their house.
That being said, I do get most of my writing done early in the morning. A happy side effect of homeschooling is that no one needs to be out of the house early, so kids sleep in and leave me alone until usually sometime between 9 and 10. My productivity does take a nosedive after that, though.
AC: Outside of family and writing, what are your hobbies, and what would you do if suddenly you found yourself with twice as much time?
JA: This made me laugh hard enough that a child stopped by to see what was so funny. Between homeschooling and family—and a husband who works from home as well—I have no hobby besides writing. But I love getting to write, so probably with twice as much time, I’d write twice as much. I’m not sure if that makes me dedicated and focused, or obsessed, but there it is.
AC: Now that the Keeper Chronicles are complete, what’s next from you, Janice?
JA: I’m about to publish the first book in a new series that takes place in the same world, several hundred years before the Keeper Chronicles. It’s called the Keeper Origins, and, unsurprisingly, tells the stories of the first Keepers. If the stars align, I hope to have the entire trilogy out within a year. My practical inner voice has a lot of snarky, skeptical things to say about that goal, but I try not to listen to her too often.
AC: And that’s all I’ve got for today. Reminder, JA’s boxset is one of the best fantasy reviewed titles on Goodreads, and it’s only $0.99 on Amazon. What else do you need to know?? When you’re done reading that, you can find out more about her at: https://www.jaandrews.com.