Meet and Greet Monday: K M Weiland

K.M. Weiland writes historical and speculative fiction from her home in the sandhills of western Nebraska. She is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the recently released medieval epic Behold the Dawn.

~ Interview with K.M. Weiland ~

BRC: How would you describe your book?

Behold the Dawn is a medieval epic, set against the backdrop of the Third Crusade at the end of the 12th century. It tells the story of Marcus Annan, a renowned competitor in the brutal tourneys—the huge mock battles that remained wildly popular despite being banned by more than one pope. Annan, haunted by the secrets of his past, is confronted by a mysterious monk who demands that Annan help him seek vengeance for a wrong committed sixteen years earlier. Against his will, Annan is drawn into the conflict, and he journeys to the Crusade in the Holy Land, where he rescues the widow of an old friend and attempts to deliver her to safety in Constantinople. But he soon discovers that the past he’s been running from is finally catching up, and if he hopes to survive, he has no chance but to face it.

BRC: What message do you hope it conveys?

It’s ironic (or maybe not!) how often God takes the themes I’m writing about and puts them to work in my own life at that same time. The theme of Behold the Dawn is finding the new beginning in each day. Life was a bit chaotic while I was writing Behold and I really did have to learn to take each day as it came. At one point, I was even questioning whether writing was something I was supposed to be pursuing at all. I just had to keep giving my writing to Him on a daily basis. And, day by day, He kept giving it back to me.

BRC: What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

I simply love the characters. Marcus Annan, my main character, dominated every page and absolutely took charge of the story. His strength, his courage, and his haunted past… he was a blast to write. In fact, he’s easily one my favorites out of all the characters I’ve ever written. And that’s saying something, because this story, in particular, gave birth to quite a cast, including Annan’s smart aleck servant Peregrine Marek, the fugitive countess Lady Mairead, a conflicted Templar named Warin, and a triad of very scary bad guys!

BRC: What did you dislike most about writing this book?

The beginning. The first fifty pages of any project is almost always the most difficult part for me. Even though I outline extensively, everything changes when I sit down to begin that first chapter. Acclaimed short story writer Josip Novakovich explains it well when he says, “The plot outline is like a game plan in basketball or football. It can look good on a chart, but once the ball flies, it does not suffice…. The plan is not sacred: it shifts, depending on the position of the players on the field and on the flight of the ball in the wind.” As my writing journal bears out by way of a whole month’s worth of disgruntled, frustrated entries, it took me awhile to settle into the story’s rhythm. For a while there, I even despaired of ever making it work. But, eventually, things started falling into place. Ironically, from about the fifty-page mark on, this was one of those stories that just flowed.

BRC: What inspired you to become a writer?

Stories have run amok in my brain for as long as I can remember. I started writing them down when I was eleven or twelve. Novels were just a natural progression. I’ve written hundreds of short stories, but I prefer the novel as a form, simply because it allows a longer, fuller arc. I wrote four truly horrible (although still dear to my heart!) novels before finally hitting a new stride and churning out my first published novel, A Man Called Outlaw.

BRC:  Tell us about your writing process.

I write for two hours every day, usually from four to six in the afternoon. The first half hour of that time I spend “warming up”: scribbling in my writing journal, reading an article on the craft, and proofreading what I wrote the day before. Then I choose a soundtrack and start writing (which translates to “staring at the blinking cursor for at least ten minutes”).

My perfectionist nature forces me to edit as I go. If I know I have a plot problem in the previous chapter, I have to go back and fix it. Otherwise, it niggles in the back of my mind and drives me crazy. So I edit a page at a time, a chapter at a time, and fifty pages at a time. Once I’ve finished my first draft, I go over it thoroughly two or three times and then send it off to my first round of beta readers. I may go over the manuscript again after receiving their corrections, but then I’ll just let the book sit in the closet for a few years while I start the process all over again with a new project. I’ll pull the manuscript out every couple months and tweak it (or majorly overhaul it, as the case may be), but not until I’ve finished my next project will I have gained enough distance from Project #1 to really see its faults.

BRC: What are you working on now?

I have several projects in the works. I have a completed fantasy, Dreamers (about a man who discovers that his dreams are really memories of another world), waiting for another round of edits. I also just started the first draft of a historical novel called The Deepest Breath about the passion, betrayal, and vengeance that dog two men and the woman they both love through the trenches of World War I, corruption in colonial Kenya, and the criminal underbelly of London.

BRC: What books do you enjoy reading?

If it’s good writing, I’m interested in it, regardless of genre, but my tastes do tend to run to historical, literary, and speculative fiction. Patrick O’Brian and Orson Scott Card are perennial favorites.

BRC: Where can readers find you online?

Website: http://www.kmweiland.com/index.php
Blogs:
Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors: http://wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.com/
AuthorCulture: http://www.authorculture.blogspot.com/


BRC: Where can readers buy your book?

Both Behold the Dawn and A Man Called Outlaw are available in hardcopy and ebook versions on my website or through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Alibris.