Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Soul of the World
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.davidmealing.com/
CITY:
STATE: WA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2017020564
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2017020564
HEADING: Mealing, David, 1982-
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100 1_ |a Mealing, David, |d 1982-
370 __ |e Washington (State) |2 naf
372 __ |a Fantasy fiction |2 lcgft
374 __ |a Novelists |2 lcsh
400 1_ |a Mealing, David D., |d 1982-
670 __ |a Soul of the world, 2017: |b CIP t.p. (David Mealing) epilogue following chapter 80 (“DAVID MEALING grew up adoring all things fantasy. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics at the University of Oxford, where he taught himself to write by building worlds and stories for pen-and-paper RPGs. He enjoys board games and card games of all sorts, once spent a summer in Paris learning and subsequently forgetting how to speak French, and gave serious thought to becoming a professional bass player before deciding epic fantasy novelist was the wiser choice. He lives in Washington State with his wife . . . “)
670 __ |a e-mail 2017-04-10 fr. G. Bartels, Orbit: |b (“The author is not the same [as David Mealiing n 95019961, author of Living in two worlds]. His name is David D. Mealing, DOB: 5/1/1982”)
PERSONAL
Born 1982, in Salt Lake City, UT; married August 14, 2005; wife’s name Lindsay; children: three daughters.
EDUCATION:Attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Oxford.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
David Mealing’s family moved several times when Mealing was a child, and he found it easier to play games than make new friends in each new city. Mealing thus grew up playing video games, reading fantasies, and playing role-playing games (RPGs). Mealing continued playing RPGs in college, and he began writing fantasy plot lines and scenarios for his RPG characters. Mealing then started working on his own original fantasy novel, and his debut title, Soul of the World serves as the first installment of the “Ascension Cycle.”
Commenting on his writing process in an online Civilian Reader interview, Mealing explained: “I’ve experimented with several different methods, and I find I do my best work in short bursts of one to two hours each, three to four times a day. I take breaks in between, preferably for physical stuff so my brain has a chance to soak and plan what I’m going to write next. I measure my wordcount output for every session, and have daily output goals of at least 2,000 words/day while I’m drafting.”
Soul of the World switches between the points of view of Sarine, Erris, and Arak’ Jur. Sarine is a street artist, but she is also a binder, which means she has the power to draw on ley lines. Sarine knows to keep her abilities secret, but then the commoners rebel in a manner akin to the French Revolution, and Sarine uses her power to aid them. Erris is far from the action, working as a cavalry commander in a distant colony. Erris is a loyal soldier, but the empire recalls its troops to deal with the revolt. Now, as Erris leaves the local tribesmen, he begins to question his loyalty to the crown. In the meantime, tribesman Arak’ Jur prepares his own revolt, readying his people to face off with the empire’s soldiers.
Mealing shared his inspiration for the story in an online Qwillery interview, and he stated that it “came about after my attempts to meticulously outline a fantasy western. As I mentioned above, that all went out the window as soon as I sat down to write the first scene. I was captivated by the idea of an artist sitting alone, sketching Louis XVI’s court at Versailles. I wrote that, and the rest flowed from there. 100% pure discovery writing.” The author went on to comment: “Epic fantasy in general is just an amazing genre to be working in. As epic fantasy writers we get the space to create lavish worlds and magic systems, and we can explore just about any facet of history or culture that catches our attention, real or imaginary. I want to take my readers all over my world, I want the stakes to be big, I want powerful heroes making life-changing decisions and villains who are just as convinced their decisions are right, even if it sets them against the heroes. Epics have always been my favorite books to read; I can’t imagine writing anything else, at least for now.”
Reviews of Soul of the World were somewhat mixed, and a Publishers Weekly critic offered both pros and cons: “Strong characters and rich worldbuilding are undercut by the depiction of the tribes as primitive and sexualized.” Elloise Hopkins, writing on the British Fantasy Society Website, was also ambivalent, and she found that “the level of exposition . . . is not quite enough for the reader to fully connect, which is a great shame because in terms of concept, setting and initial promise it is rich and appealing.” A far more positive assessment was proffered by Susannah Balch in the online RT Book Reviews, and she declared that “Mealing does a fabulous job with the intricate world-building and leaves the reader wanting to get their hands on the sequel.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, May 22, 2017, review of Soul of the World.
ONLINE
British Fantasy Society Website, http://www.britishfantasysociety.org/ (November 9, 2017), Elloise Hopkins, review of Soul of the World.
Civilian Reader, https://civilianreader.com/ (January 30, 2018), author interview.
David Mealing Website, https://www.davidmealing.com (January 30, 2018).
Qwillery, http://qwillery.blogspot.com/ (January 30, 2018), author interview.
RT Book Reviews, https://www.rtbookreviews.com/ (June 27, 2017), Susannah Balch, review of Soul of the World.
About Me
david
David Mealing was born in Salt Lake City, UT, where he lived for approximately twelve seconds before relocating, first to Texas, then to California. He discovered gaming before he learned to talk, growing up playing Atari, Nintendo, and computer games, as well as war games, card games, and role-playing games of all kinds. His earliest gaming memories include facing down a lion as a four year old in a Dungeons and Dragons game DM’d by one of his cousins, and thinking the Phoenix Hawk was just about the best ‘mech ever designed in BattleTech.
David’s family moved eleven times before he was in the 4th grade, and he’s always been jealous of people who graduated high school with people they went to kindergarten with. He sucked at making friends and still does, but he learned to love reading, especially fantasy and military history books. David Eddings, Raymond Feist, Orson Scott Card, J.R.R. Tolkien, and above all Robert Jordan were his guiding light through elementary and middle school.
In high school he discovered music, and at one point very seriously considered becoming a professional rock star. He’d played jazz and classical trumpet since elementary school, but devoted himself to playing the bass guitar at seventeen, going from having never touched the instrument to playing shows at the Roxy, Whisky A Go Go, House of Blues, and Galaxy Club within three months. He grew his hair long, lied to bouncers about his age to get them to let him into the clubs he was playing at, and generally didn’t apply himself to anything but music and online gaming for several years. At one point he attended UCLA, where he majored in EverQuest until discovering somehow this degree program wasn’t on file with the dean’s office (wtf?) and he was forced to drop out.
Depression set in, as it is wont to do for early twenty-somethings being told to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Ultimately, David decided to cut his hair, work for a year at a law firm, and get serious about something he’d never taken seriously before: his education. He applied and was accepted to Oxford University’s Philosophy, Politics, and Economics program, and spent the next three years living in England, alternating between murderously difficult courses of study and bouts of extreme MMORPG playing. Along the way he learned to form and defend an opinion – even on topics he knows close to nothing about – as well as rising to become raid- and co-guild- leader for the top North American linkshell on his Final Fantasy XI server. He scored a major coup when he poached an officer from a rival guild, and a second major coup when she for some reason agreed to meet him in real life, start dating, and eventually marry him.
David and Lindsay were married on August 14, 2005 at the actual castle where they filmed the X-Men movies. Their oldest daughter was born two years later, and was named for David’s World of Warcraft character. Two more daughters followed (though Lindsay refused to allow them to be named for WOW characters – not for lack of trying on David’s part), and they relocated to the Pacific Northwest for David’s career in the tech industry, where they continue to live today.
Along the way, David had never stopped reading, and he’d never stopped playing pen & paper RPGs. He loved immersing himself in the worlds of his favorite fantasy novels, and loved creating stories for his RPG campaigns. But for some reason he’d never tried mixing the two. Until one fateful week in Hawaii – on his first actual vacation in nine years – where he brought along a copy of Brandon Sanderson’s WORDS OF RADIANCE, read the whole thing, and asked himself why in the world he had never tried to write a novel himself? The day he got home he opened a word file, titled it ‘SOUL OF THE WORLD’ and started writing. Nine months later he had a first draft. The rest is still being written, but between Lindsay, his kids, and his stories, David has found the great loves of his life, and expects to keep writing until they put him in the ground.
AUGUST 2, 2017
Exclusive Interview: Soul Of The World Author David Mealing
While fantasy, as a genre, has clearly been influenced by Dungeons & Dragons, it’s not often that fantasy writers say their style was impacted by role-playing games. But in talking to David Mealing about Soul Of The World (paperback, digital), the first book in his series The Ascension Cycle, he explained that, “Pen & paper RPGs taught me just about everything I know when it comes to storytelling.”
David Mealing The Ascension Cycle Soul Of The World
Let’s start at the beginning. What is Soul Of The World about?
Soul Of The World started with a scene in my head: a street artist sketching a fantasy version of Louis XVI’s court in the months leading up to the French Revolution. It grew from there into an epic about Gods, magic, and conflict between many different civilizations, but the kernel of the story is in revolution and change, the old order being forced to adapt to the new.
When I first decided to write the book, I spent hours working on an outline for a fantasy Western, a pretty typical revenge story. Then all my planning got tossed as soon as I sat down to write the first chapter. That’s when the image of the street artist came to me. So I’d say the finished book is pretty much 99% different than the original planning; only a couple of the characters and some of the magic system details survived.
Soul Of The World is a fantasy novel, but what sub-genre of fantasy would you call it?
It’s an epic fantasy for sure, very much in the vein of Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. Though I intend to wrap the story in three books rather than ten. My use of firearms and 18th, 19th century era military tactics and technology puts it in the “flintlock fantasy” subgrouping with such folks as Brian McClellan and Django Wexler, but I don’t think of it as strictly flintlock fantasy. For me it’s an epic first; the technology is more backdrop than genre.
There are elements of the story — like how there are food shortages during war — that also could’ve worked in a sci-fi novel, a historical novel, or a real-world novel. Why did you decide to tell this tale as a fantasy novel? Or was it more that you started out writing a fantasy novel, and this is the story you can up with?
I’ve always been an avid sci-fi reader as well as fantasy fan, but I don’t feel confident enough to write convincing sci-fi; hats off to folks like William Gibson and Peter F. Hamilton who can. Once I start imagining how some things might be different in the future, it tends to cascade into many things being different, too many for me to tell a tight story rather than revel in my world building.
The great thing about fantasy, for me, is I can keep the core of the world fairly recognizable by anchoring it in historical analogs, then change only the specific things that help illustrate whatever social or economic, technological ideas I want to explore.
Your PR peeps have said that the book would appeal to fans of Brandon Sanderson [Oathbringer], Brian McClellan [Promise Of Blood], and Miles Cameron [The Red Knight]. Do you think this is accurate, or do you think there’s other fantasy writers that Soul Of The World is more similar to?
I’m a total sponge when it comes to influences. All three of these comparisons are excellent, but I suppose I’d add a few. Jacqueline Carey’s vision of Renaissance France in her Kushiel novels was a huge influence. Also, if you’ll permit me to wander a bit from strictly fantasy, I have to give credit to Michael Shaara and Jeff Shaara for The Killer Angels, Gods And Generals, and The Last Full Measure, each of which heavily influenced the military arcs in Soul Of The World.
Beyond the military influence of Michael and Jeff Shaara, I’m also constantly reading non-fiction. These days I probably read as much history and philosophy as I do fiction. The religion in the ‘”French” world in Soul Of The World was inspired by G.E. Moore’s Ethics, for example, and the politics was heavily influenced by reading and research into 17th century Native American and American colonial life, with especial credit to Charles Mann’s brilliant 1491 for giving me a foundation for building the history of my Native American analogs in the New World.
How about non-literary influences; do you think any movies, TV shows, or games had an influence on Soul Of The World? Because as I understand it, you’re a big fan of pen & paper RPGs.
Yes indeed. Pen & paper RPGs taught me just about everything I know when it comes to storytelling. Soul Of The World is my first attempt at writing a novel, but I learned how to keep an audience engaged building my own modules and story arcs for Dungeons & Dragons, White Wolf, MechWarrior, Palladium, etc., etc., etc. I think you’ll see this manifest in the way my storytelling tends to skip as much boring downtime as I can. The last thing anyone wants to do when they show up for a weekly D&D session is spent three hours talking about buying supplies and traveling from point A to B. I prefer to kick the session off with the characters already in the thick of things; ditto when it comes to how I structure my chapters and scenes in my writing.
Speaking of influences, you studied philosophy, politics, and economics and the University Of Oxford. All of those things are usually essential to a great epic fantasy tale. But how often did you have to dial back on the academics to keep Soul Of The World from being more scholarly than entertaining?
Hah! Soooo much. It wasn’t a single cut, either. Every draft I cut a little here, a little there for the sake of readability. My early drafts were packed full of philosophy: Sarine would go on these page-length introspective journeys; Donatien and Reyne were given to long-winded dissertations on epistemology, rights, egalitarianism, you name it. It’s a much better book for having this stuff removed. Instead, I tried to capture the feel of the philosophy more in subtext and setting than actually hearing the characters deliver their doctoral dissertations every other chapter. Credit to my advance readers — especially my wife, my agent Sam Morgan, and my brilliant editor Brit Hvide — for helping find the core of the story amidst my scholarly inclinations.
Now, you’ve already said that Soul Of The World is the first book in a series you’re calling The Ascension Cycle. When, in the process of writing Soul Of The World, did you decide it would be the first book in a series, and what made you think that?
I knew from the first scene it would be a trilogy. There are exactly three layers of the “onion” as it were that I want to peel away. I can’t get into specifics without major spoilers, but I’ll leave it at saying structurally, each book deals with one main plot and one metaplot, then the metaplot of the last book becomes the main plot of the next one. So book two, which I just turned in to my editor last week, takes the metaplot of book one and answers all the questions raised there, while simultaneously introducing another set of questions that will be wrapped up in book three.
I asked earlier about movies, TV shows, and games that may have influenced Soul Of The World. But, on the flipside of that, has there been any interested in making a Soul Of The World movie, show, or game?
I would love a pen & paper RPG! I also think a TV show would work better than a movie. There’s just way too much to pack into two hours, and I tend to structure my chapters and parts very similarly to TV episodes anyway, with more rising and falling action centered around smaller narrative chunks vs. a single larger arc.
If it was going to be made into a TV show, who would you like to see them cast in the lead roles?
Hmmmm. The only character I’ve really thought about is Erris. I’d love to see Kristen Bell [The Good Place] play her. Sarine is tougher. I don’t really watch enough TV and movies to have a twenty-something French-looking actress in mind. And Arak’Jur…whew. I’d need a Native American version of Dwayne Johnson.
And if it was going to be made into a pen & paper RPG, is there someone or some company in particular that you think could do the best job?
Well, in terms of shelf space devoted to their books in my house, it’s a close contest between Paizo, Wizards Of The Coast, and White Wolf. But I’ve run so many different systems over the years; it would really depend on finding someone passionate about the source material. The rules ultimately don’t matter to me as much as the love put into crafting the books. I just recently bought some of the old EverQuest Swords & Sorcery books over the weekend, and I’m blown away by how much detail they put in while staying true to the spirit of the original game. Find me someone with that degree of love for my writing and we’ll be in business.
Soul Of The World – An Interview With David Mealing
AUGUST 1, 2017 / QUILLTOLIVE
51vgtpwurcl-_sx322_bo1204203200_I have been really lucky recently, getting the chance to talk to multiple of this year’s debut authors. This week I got to talk with David Mealing about his massive new book, Soul of the World. It was a huge debut novel that impressed me with its numerous magic systems, giant scope, and interesting world: you can find the review here. Due to how big an undertaking the book seemed to be, I had a lot more questions about Mealing’s writing style compared to past interviews I have done, but there is still some great teasers for book two if you are looking for hints as to what is going to happen! Enjoy:
How would you elevator pitch Soul of the World? When I talk to other people and recommend it I find myself just gushing endlessly as I try to explain all the cool things in it. How would you sell it in one breath?
Fantasy is *so* hard to pitch. I’m terrible at it. That said, my go-to is: “French revolution with magic, set in an alternate-world colonial America. Think Marie Antoinette alongside a magic-infused Iroquois Confederacy.”
There’s a lot more going on in the book (and thank you for any gushing over it!), but I think that’s a fine starting point.
What is your writing process in general? What is the anchor or starting point for your story and how much of it do you map out in advance and how much is made up as you go?
I’m very strict on process. Three sessions per day, with a spreadsheet to track the output from each session against an overall daily/weekly/monthly goal. I’ve always found it hard to work for long periods on any given day – I need at least a few hours in between each writing session to let the scene and story arcs soak before I continue. Usually I’ll do 700-900 words right after I wake up, another 400-600 after lunch, then 500-1000 in the evening.
On the story side, I’m almost a pure discovery writer. I always know what to expect in the scene I’m writing now, the scene I’m writing next, and where the current ‘chunk’ fits in the overall arc of the book & series, but I’m also willing to let the story surprise me and take me in a different direction than I expected it to go. I’ve killed off characters and destroyed entire story arcs because an unexpected death fit the scene I was working on. And I’ve gone back and re-written 40,000+ word chunks because I had a better idea during editing. I find my discipline with daily output gives me the freedom to explore while also meeting deadlines – the best of both worlds, as it were.
Why so much magic? Did anyone tell you having so many magic systems was a bad idea? Did people think it was a good idea? Please tell me more about what your writing process for your magic was like.
Hah! Yes. This is one of the more common fights between me and my editor. Not that she doesn’t love the magic, she just wants to be sure I’ve fleshed each idea out enough and made it grokkable so it has the impact I want it to. (And incidentally, a light book 2 spoiler – let’s just say my editor and I have quite a bit more fighting to do about the number of new systems and powers introduced in the next volume in the trilogy!)
As for where the magic comes from – I write what fits the scene in my head. If it calls for a new magic system, I make one on the spot and polish it during revisions and editing. Very little to no planning beforehand; all the details, rules, powers, etc come about because a particular scene wants to showcase something new.
If you could only have one of your magic systems, which would it be?
No fair! I need them all to tell the story. And which one is my favorite depends on whichever scene I wrote last, most of the time. So right now, that would be a magic system you haven’t seen yet, from one of the epilogues in book 2… 🙂
All three magic systems were amazing, but I enjoyed Arak’Jur’s totem-esk magic the most. Do you have any magical beasts and powers that you rejected or removed from your novel because they didn’t work? If so, why?
Well thank you. I enjoyed writing those scenes immensely. Arak’Jur’s magic had almost no changes from the first draft, as far as how it worked mechanically. There was one power I gave him in an early scene that I cut and replaced with him using mareh’et instead, strictly to consolidate the number of powers and keep it grokkable. Otherwise it’s all as-originally-written.
One of the most interesting aspects of you magic was the effects of combining the various schools into new powers. Have you mapped out what all these combined effects will do already or are you playing it more by ear?
This was originally *much* more prevalent in the book, for Order magic (the leylines) especially. Originally every binding had different effects when paired with other bindings; at one point I’d mapped out a big matrix of combinations in a spreadsheet trying to keep them all straight. In the final draft though, we opted to streamline this and keep it much simpler – one of my editor’s better ideas, I think. She struggles to rein me in, and most of the time she succeeds, to the book’s benefit.
Where do we go next? The ending of your first novel was fantastic, but I don’t even know where we go next. What is the next stage/arc of your story (if you can share it)?
Again thank you! My goal for the series has always been to peel the onion one book at a time. In book one I introduce a core plot that’s mostly resolved by the end, with a metaplot revealed around the edges of the main story. Book two will fully reveal and resolve the metaplot from book one, but also reveal an even deeper layer, which will then be the focus of book three.
This was your first novel and a huge undertaking, What lessons have you learned from working on Soul of the World that you want to apply to writing book 2?
SOUL OF THE WORLD was my first attempt at writing creative fiction of any kind. I grew an enormous amount as a writer while writing & revising it – with full credit to my editor, my agent, the agency president, and all of my other advance readers (especially my wife!) for helping me get there. As a result, book two’s first draft was a much tighter manuscript than the first drafts of SOUL. I had to rewrite over a hundred thousand words of SOUL before it was ready to shop to potential agents; book two should hopefully see us spending more time on polish and less on fixing rookie mistakes. Otherwise, book two is already turned in and I’m currently waiting for first reactions from my editor. So let’s hope it goes smoothly from here!
In Soul of the World we saw that most of the action in the story is happening in the colonies, but that there is an entire second continent with it’s own countries and people. Since so much of your magic is tied to location, do you plan on visiting other lands in the story or focusing just on the current surroundings?
As the series progresses we’re going to travel a *lot*. Book two will take us west across the New World, across the sea to the Old World, even to undiscovered continents (plural!) that wouldn’t have appeared on any maps in book one. The story gets bigger in a hurry, though I still try to keep things focused on the characters as they respond to the challenges in front of them.
Are you a big reader of fantasy yourself? What are some of your favorite books? What is the last book that you read (of any genre) that you would recommend?
Very much so. Jacqueline Carey’s KUSHIEL’S DART is my favorite book of all time. I grew up devouring and re-devouring Robert Jordan’s WHEEL OF TIME series whenever a new book came out. I adore Robert E. Howard’s CONAN stories and other classic swords & sorcery stuff like Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock. N.K. Jemisin continues to amaze me with everything she writes. Additional plugs for Brandon Sanderson, Pat Rothfuss, Juliet Marillier, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Mary Robinette Kowal.
The last book I read was READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline. I loved the audiobook so much I went and bought a physical copy to read too. Can’t recommend it enough, both the audio version and the printed edition. Some of the most compelling storytelling I’ve consumed in years.
What in Soul of the World are you most proud of? Which character, magic, part of the world, or element were you most excited to share with other people?
This answer could change on any given day, but today I’ll say Sarine and Zi. I’ve been the lonely kid watching the world from a distance, and I would have given anything for a magical companion to share it with. These days I have my amazing wife & daughters, but I hope Sarine and Zi’s story connects with people and inspires them to want to be as creative and fearless as she is.
Thank you David for talking with me, and I am super pumped for book two. If you haven’t checked out Soul of the World yet, I implore you to go give it a shot!
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Interview with DAVID MEALING
June 7, 2017 Civilian Reader InterviewAscension Cycle, David Mealing, Epic, Fantasy, Orbit Books, Soul of the World
MealingD-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is David Mealing?
Husband, father, fantasy author, role-player, board gaming geek, avid esports enthusiast.
Your debut novel, Soul of the World, will be published in June by Orbit. It looks pretty epic: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?
My usual pitch is ‘French Revolution with magic,’ but it gets much bigger as the story gets going. Soul is the first of a trilogy, and I’ve tried to set up deeper layers with each book. So by the end of book one, you’ll have the main plot wrapped up, with a deeper, ‘plot behind the plot’ just starting to reveal itself. I do the same thing in book two, wrapping up the plot behind the plot from book one and introducing a new layer of unknowns by the end. Then (if everything goes to plan!) book three should wrap everything in a nice neat package.
mealingd-souloftheworld
What inspired you to write the novel and series? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general?
The whole novel flowed from two scenes I had in my head, scenes that became the basis for chapters one and four in Soul. That’s how I tend to work: I come up with a handful of scenes that evoke a world or a story arc and I weave the rest of the book around them. I got my start in creative writing as a DM for pen & paper RPGs, where you skip past all the boring ‘and then we traveled for 20 days’ stuff and get right to the scenes that dazzle and amaze your players. It’s exactly the same as an author.
As for inspiration in general – everything is inspiration for me. Everything I read, everything I’ve done. I’m super susceptible to wanting to steal from every piece of media I consume. I’m reading James Clavell’s Shōgun right now and I desperately want to include elements from it in whatever I write next. I just watched Jason Bourne last night and I want to include that too. (Spy/espionage thriller set in 17th century Japan? Yes please.) I’m a thief at heart.
How were you introduced to genre fiction?
My parents and siblings were never huge on fantasy stuff, but my extended family was. I remember the first game of D&D I ever played with my cousins, when I was five years old. We fought a lion, and I was hooked for life. Demand for SFF books flowed from there – I read everything I could get my hands on, then re-read it and re-read it until the covers fell off.
How do you like being a writer and working within the publishing industry?
I’m still a total novice, with so much to learn. Thankfully the industry is full of amazing people who are eager to share and super passionate about their work. I try to live by the mantra of ‘everyone has something to teach you,’ and in the writing world there’s no shortage of lessons to learn. It’s pretty easy to stay humble when there are so many masters working in SFF today.
Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?
Yes! I’ve experimented with several different methods, and I find I do my best work in short bursts of one to two hours each, three to four times a day. I take breaks in between, preferably for physical stuff so my brain has a chance to soak and plan what I’m going to write next. I measure my wordcount output for every session, and have daily output goals of at least 2,000 words/day while I’m drafting.
Research happens in two ways, either on-demand as I encounter the need for details within a scene, or in a more general ‘I’m browsing Wikipedia reading cool articles about awesome stuff from history I can steal.’ Like I said, I’m a thief at heart, and history is the absolute mother lode for amazing stories.
When did you realize you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?
Ah, the halcyon days of three years ago…
I hadn’t written a word of serious creative fiction prior to starting work on my first draft of Soul of the World. My real background in storytelling as I mentioned above was in pen & paper role-playing games. They taught me how to craft satisfying narratives for each character, how to dazzle my audience with setting and drama and reversals and all the standard stuff that works in any medium, whether in songs, movies, theater, role-playing, or books. I’ve always been a storyteller. I think I decided I wanted to be an author when I realized I could invite thousands of people to let me DM for them, all at once.
What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?
So much cool stuff going on in SFF. I’m a huge fan of the taut story & tight narratives in modern writing – it feels like writers are being told to pare their stories down to the bone, and I love it. The dynamic duo of James S.A. Corey does this as well as anyone – Leviathan Wakes blew me away with how much worldbuilding they packed into such a tight story. At the same time there’s room for bold risks in narrative structure, and fantasy as a genre is so wide open. We can explore just about any setting to tell our stories, with any sort of characters we can imagine. Nora Jemisin’s The Fifth Season was an eye-opener for me for where the genre can go. I only hope my books help push fantasy in these directions, but I don’t really consciously try to do anything more than tell the stories in my head. I’ll leave it to others to decide where to put me within the genre as a whole.
MealingD-Recommends
Do you have any other projects in the pipeline, and what are you working on at the moment?
As I’m writing this I’m polishing the second book in Soul of the World’s trilogy, due to hand in to my editor in six weeks. It’s so hard to work 12-18 months behind publication… people are only just now reading Soul and I want to gush about all the amazing things that happen in book two!
I also have another novel I finished while we were shopping Soul of the World that I’d love to come back to at some point. Realistically I’m going to be all-in on book three of the first trilogy for the next year or so, but you might get to see that one a few years down the road.
What are you reading at the moment (fiction, non-fiction)?
I typically have one physical book and one audiobook going on at all times. Right now that’s James Clavell’s Shōgun in physical, and Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One on audio. I’m also listening to Shelby Foote’s The Civil War for non-fiction.
MealingD-Reading
If you could recommend only one novel to someone, what would it be?
My favorite novel of all time is Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey. Nothing else comes close. I’ve read that book probably ten times. It’s an absolutely gorgeous novel – amazing characters, amazing worldbuilding, beautiful prose, intense heroism and romance and war and intrigue. All you could ever want in a fantasy book.
CareyJ-1-KushielsDartUK
What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?
My wife and I are in contention for being the biggest MMO nerds on the planet. We met in Final Fantasy XI when I poached her from the leadership of a rival guild, and we’ve gone on to co-lead some really amazing groups of people over the years. At one point we set up our own private EverQuest server so we could do raid content with each of us playing nine characters at once (eighteen total). We take nerddom to a probably unhealthy level.
What are you most looking forward to in the next twelve months?
My first novel is coming out on June 27th, so it has to be that, right? I’ve watched some early reviews come in and honestly, whether people love or hate my stuff, the most amazing thing about being an author is just having people read this thing I spent so long working to write. I’m so humbled and awed that people give me a chance to tell them my stories. I can only hope I don’t disappoint!
*
David Mealing‘s Soul of the World is out in June, published by Orbit Books in the US and UK.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Interview with David Mealing, author of Soul of the World
Please welcome David Mealing to The Qwillery as part of the of the 2017 Debut Author Challenge Interviews. Soul of the World was published on June 27th by Orbit.
TQ: Welcome to The Qwillery. When and why did you start writing?
David: Pleasure to be here!
I started writing seriously three years ago. The spark came during my first vacation in almost nine years, reading Brandon Sanderson’s WORDS OF RADIANCE cover-to-cover at a beachside villa on the big island of Hawaii. I finished the book, asked myself why I had never tried to write anything of my own, and nine months later I had a first draft of SOUL OF THE WORLD.
Before then I’d never written any creative fiction, but I’ve always been a storyteller. Pen & paper roleplaying games were my primary outlet, and they taught me all the basics of drama – how to keep an audience engaged, how to build lovable characters and create immersive, impactful scenes. I’m still learning the craft of writing, but I’ve been creating worlds and telling stories since my first game of D&D when I was five.
TQ: Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?
David: Pretty close to a pure pantser, which surprised the hell out me. As a DM in pen & paper games, I would spend hours building immaculate worlds, with dossiers on every NPC, long lists of political ties and trade routes, maps of every city, etc etc etc. I tried to do the same for novels and found it just didn’t work for me. I would sit down to follow my outline and immediately be hooked to follow something I found while writing the scene. Pantsing has cost me thousands of hours of rewriting to polish those ideas into a workable narrative, but I’ve found my best scenes come from a place I can’t access while outlining. I have to surprise myself first, then clean up the mess when I’m done.
TQ: What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?
David: Learning the craft. I’m constantly in awe of how much greatness there is in SFF as a genre. Writers like Pat Rothfuss, N.K. Jemisin and Guy Gavriel Kay stun me when I read their stuff. I want to osmose their greatness, steal it and siphon it into my writing. I’m quite relentless when it comes to dismantling my work and looking for areas to improve, and while I try to be proud of the things I feel I do well, I know there is still so very much to learn.
TQ: What has influenced / influences your writing?
David: Everything! I’m a thief at heart. I shamelessly steal ideas, techniques, scenes, character concepts, story structures and more from every piece of media I consume. I watch MAD MAX and I want to write my version of Furiosa. I read James Clavell and I want to write daring pilots navigating ships to the far side of the world. Even music informs my writing – I’ve been listening to a ton of Bryan Ferry lately and I want to find words to capture the romance and softness in his songs. The hope is I combine enough different elements in what I steal to make it mine.
TQ: Describe Soul of the World in 140 characters or less.
David: French revolution alongside a magic-infused Iroquois Confederacy. Big, world-changing stakes. Layers to everything. Nothing as it seems.
TQ: Tell us something about Soul of the World that is not found in the book description.
Hmmm… how about some writing trivia? The most-rewritten chapter of the book is one of the interludes, the one given to The Nameless, aka Axerian. I rewrote it nineteen times from scratch. My wife is the only person to have read all nineteen versions of the chapter, some of which included spoilers and reveals for plot events that won’t happen until the third book of the trilogy. Partly as a result of this, Axerian is my wife’s favorite character by far. I’ll leave it to the readers to puzzle out why as they finish the trilogy!
TQ: What inspired you to write Soul of the World? What appeals to you about writing Epic Fantasy?
David: SOUL came about after my attempts to meticulously outline a fantasy western. As I mentioned above, that all went out the window as soon as I sat down to write the first scene. I was captivated by the idea of an artist sitting alone, sketching Louis XVI’s court at Versailles. I wrote that, and the rest flowed from there. 100% pure discovery writing.
Epic fantasy in general is just an amazing genre to be working in. As epic fantasy writers we get the space to create lavish worlds and magic systems, and we can explore just about any facet of history or culture that catches our attention, real or imaginary. I want to take my readers all over my world, I want the stakes to be big, I want powerful heroes making life-changing decisions and villains who are just as convinced their decisions are right, even if it sets them against the heroes. Epics have always been my favorite books to read; I can’t imagine writing anything else, at least for now.
TQ: Your bio states that you "...studied philosophy, politics and economics.." How did this help or hinder the creation of the world in your novel?
David: PPE gave me a foundation for understanding how the world works, or at least understanding a bit better than I did as a teenage kid growing up in Southern California. I’ve learned as much and more in the years since college, but my academic studies taught me to pick apart traditions and power structures and try to find the motivations behind why people and nations act the way they do. It’s part of why SOUL is as layered as it is – there’s plot, and metaplot, and meta-meta-plot that will all be revealed as the trilogy progresses. I think PPE helped me see that humans and human-created tribes tend to layer motivations on top of each other, often rationalizing and obscuring from themselves the truths that are there for the finding, if you dig a bit deeper. I’m an analytical person by nature and PPE honed that aspect of my personality to a sharp edge. It stands to reason those aspects of me would find their way into my stories.
TQ: Please tell us about the cover for Soul of the World?
David: I love the cover! It’s not depicting any specific scene, more evoking the sense of a lone girl standing against a threat she barely understands. It’s meant to convey mystery, danger, military, and defiance – all core themes of the book. I think it succeeds beautifully, and give full credit to the wonderful team at Orbit for putting it together.
TQ: In Soul of the World who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?
David: The easiest character was probably Foot-Captain Marquand. He’s a side character in Erris’ arc who steals just about every scene he’s in. Something about him just clicks in my brain – whenever he’s on ‘screen’ so to speak, the words flow and I find his actions and dialogue without trying. Almost every Marquand scene is untouched from the first draft – something I can say about virtually none of the other characters in the book.
The hardest is Zi. Every word he says is dripping with meaning. I have to be careful not to trip up and reveal too much to readers inclined to parse the text close enough to catch me!
TQ: Which question about Soul of the World do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!
David: How about: ‘why set the book in an era with gunpowder instead of more traditional (for fantasy) medieval weaponry and tactics?’
And the answer: until about midway through the first draft, SOUL *was* set in an era of high medieval military and weapons tech! Erris originally wore mail and Jiri wore barding. In fact, my wife even commissioned some art depicting the three main POV characters as a birthday present for me while I was writing the novel, where Erris is dressed in this style. I’d initially made the decision to juxtapose 18th century French fashions & politics with a more traditional medieval military setting, and opted to scrap it in favor of Napoleonic-era weapons since just about every reader would naturally expect it in a French-revolution inspired story.
TQ: Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from Soul of the World.
David: Ooh fun! Here’s one, from the end of Alouen’s interlude:
“You get to be a hero now, Alouen,” Jeanette said. “I’ll tell stories about you.”
He felt numb. He didn’t want to be a hero anymore.
I’ve always loved Marie d’Oreste’s story. She’s a side character from Erris’ arc who gets almost no direct screen time and has no POV chapters in the book. But if you follow along between the lines, you’ll see her lose her son (Alouen, from the quote above) to the King’s orders, her and her husband Philippe captured as prisoners of war, and watch her strive for goodness in spite of witnessing so many horrors and losing almost everything in her life. I’m fascinated by heroes and I try to find their stories everywhere I can, even in side characters like Marie.
TQ: Will there be an Ascension Cycle pen and paper RPG? Do you have any favorite RPGs?
David: Oh my god. I had honestly never thought about it before you asked this, which is weird considering my background. Wow. Yes, please? Someone make this and I can die happy.
My favorite RPGs… AD&D 2nd edition was the start of everything for me, and I still love it, even with all the rough edges. I own just about every White Wolf core book, and especially adore Vampire, Mage, and Changeling. Palladium rulesets (Heroes Unlimited & TMNT) were huge favorites for me in junior high & high school. Iron Crown also had some great books. Shadowrun is amazing. I ran some great Mechwarrior campaigns alongside Battletech miniatures games. Even 4th edition D&D, for all the flak it gets, was a fantastic ruleset for me. I have a dozen Pathfinder books on my shelves that don’t see enough use for how wonderful a system it is...
TQ: What's next?
David: I’m two weeks away from turning in book two of the Ascension Cycle to my editor. Then on to first drafts of book three!
Other than that, I finished a completely unrelated novel while we were shopping SOUL OF THE WORLD that I’d love to come back to. You might get to see that one in 2020. After that… who knows! I’m constantly writing, constantly looking to explore new ideas. I did 40,000 words of exploratory writing for a re-telling of some of Robert E. Howard’s CONAN stories last year, and another 20,000 of a French/Celtic dark fantasy inspired by William of Normandy and Le Morte d’Arthur. This time next year I’ll be close to wrapped on the Ascension Cycle and I’ll pick one of these – or maybe something completely different! – to move on next.
TQ: Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.
David: My pleasure! Thanks for having me.
Soul of the World
Publishers Weekly.
264.21 (May 22, 2017): p77+.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Soul of the World
David Mealing. Orbit, $15.99 trade paper (656p) ISBN 978-0-316-55233-2
War has invaded three lives in Mealing's imaginative and elaborate epic fantasy debut, the first in the
Ascension Cycle. Sarine, a street artist in a troubled imperial city, is a binder who can tap into the power of
the ley lines. She knows the importance of laying low and keeping her powers secret. But when commoners
revolt over having their supplies shipped off to soldiers, she gets embroiled in plots to overthrow the crown.
Erris, cavalry commander in a distant colony, has done what any good solider is expected to do: follow
imperial orders, no questions asked. When the empire plans to abandon her colony and leave them to face
the local tribes unsupported, Erris begins to wonder whether the empire deserves her fealty. Arak' Jur, a
tribesman and guardian who communes with the spirits of beasts, seeks peace but knows only violence
awaits him, as the spirits are demanding that the tribes go to war against the colonists. Strong characters and
rich worldbuilding are undercut by the depiction of the tribes as primitive and sexualized. Agent: Sam
Morgan, Foundry Literary + Media. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Soul of the World." Publishers Weekly, 22 May 2017, p. 77+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A494099066/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c6ca0215.
Accessed 14 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A494099066
Fantasy / General Fantasy
Image of Soul of the World (The Ascension Cycle)
RT Rating:
Genre:
Fantasy, General Fantasy
Published:
June 27 2017
Publisher:
Orbit
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1: Severely Flawed. Pass on this one.
SOUL OF THE WORLD
Author(s): David Mealing
The first book in The Ascension Cycle is an impressive fantasy debut by Mealing with three main compelling characters and a unique magic system sure to capture a fantasy reader’s attention. Since there are three distinct protagonists, the story switches points of view throughout and readers might find themselves drawn more to one character than another. Readers that enjoy detailed battle scenes are in for a treat as there are plenty here and they are epic battles. Mealing does a fabulous job with the intricate world-building and leaves the reader wanting to get their hands on the sequel.
Soul of the World introduces three heroes, the last hope for their people, who will usher in a new age with their abilities and magic. There’s Sarine, an orphaned artist who survives on the streets through the use of her street smarts and her talent. There’s Erris, a cavalry officer on the war front trying to defend her homeland from an advanced enemy who knows how to use magic to their advantage. And lastly, there’s Arak’Jur, a native who knows how to use the power of beasts and will do so to protect his people. Will these three be able to learn how to fully use their powers to defeat an enemy and protect their people? (ORBIT, Jun., 656 pp., $15.99)
Reviewed by:
Susannah Balch
Soul of the World. Book Review
Posted on November 9, 2017 by Phil Lunt in Reviews
SOUL OF THE WORLD by David Mealing
Orbit, p/b, 640pp, £12.99
Reviewed by Elloise Hopkins
Sarresant nobles are her subjects, Lord Revellion in particular, and pictures of them always sell well. Sarine captures them in their play. Unseen, she hides herself well; after all, the likes of her would never be allowed into the grounds of the Royal Palace of Rasailles. It is a good job her Faith and her faithful companion, Zi, keep her well concealed as she works, yet the arrival of a priest signals her time to leave, magics or no.
Arak’Jur is hunter and protector of his tribe. The Sinari seeks the gift of ipek’a to protect his people, yet it is past time he took an apprentice and prepared to hand his mantle onto another. The shamans do not see everything, but Arak’Jur sees the coming of the fair-skinned man well enough, even if he does not see what this arrival will truly mean.
In Soul of the World we are granted three main characters who all take point of view roles, and three different magic systems – binding, tribal magic and powers granted by companions such as Zi. The principal characters themselves are well formed and every reader will find one in particular that speaks to them.
To take the magic systems; however, there are difficulties. That they are all three unique, from different origins, and that their intricacies and the explanations of their usage and capabilities are kept quite a mystery from the reader will appeal greatly to some, but for others their lack of grounding and the limited detail provided about what they are and how they work will be a barrier to complete immersion in the story – you could argue that only through true understanding can come true empathy.
In this series opener of an epic scale the author brings us a pleasantly not too unfamiliar world on the brink of a civil war with an underlying danger, but unfortunately there is a sense that it is all too big – there is too much happening and the level of exposition that makes it into the book is not quite enough for the reader to fully connect, which is a great shame because in terms of concept, setting and initial promise it is rich and appealing.