World of Writing - Author Interview
Today we are featuring an interview with Mark Tierno, a "full-time writer" he explains, "with a Masters in Physics, the soul of a poet, and possessed with a unique descriptive voice."
The result became numerous books in fantasy, Sci-Fi, cyberpunk... weaving words into the creation of alien vistas, deeply woven plots, characters with distinctive personalities, and dynamic and realistic dialogue.
Mark invites our readers to drop into his Website (www.maldene.com) or visit him on LinkedIn ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-anthony-tierno-author-of-the-maldene-series-07ab47a ). His current, & upcoming, books can be found on his Author Central Page ( https://www.amazon.com/stores/Mark-Anthony-Tierno/author/B007PTKI74 )
Mark invites our readers to drop into his Website (www.maldene.com) or visit him on LinkedIn ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-anthony-tierno-author-of-the-maldene-series-07ab47a ). His current, & upcoming, books can be found on his Author Central Page ( https://www.amazon.com/stores/Mark-Anthony-Tierno/author/B007PTKI74 )
Q: Tell us a bit about your passions in life?
A: Pretty much writing… and of course reading. I mean, to love what you write, you have to love what you read. And you should never try to write what you wouldn’t love to read. Yes, there are people that say “write the market”, but I say “write your soul” because that’s the only way you’re going to hit that 100% mark or better.
Also, yoga; helps keep me fit, and if there’s one thing you need for a fit mind is a fit body.
“They say that a picture is worth a thousand words,
but it is the goal of a great writer
to make one word worth a thousand pictures.”
Q: Do you practice writing exercises to help generate creativity?
A: Yes... Let's look at this one example:
“Day at the beach.”
Now, that is just four words, yet how many different pictures does it conjure up for you?
How many pages could you go on just describing everything going on at the local beach with your family and everyone else there within sight?
Okay, now let’s add to it: “Day at the beach, 1890s.”
All I did was add a date, but now you’re already visualizing people wearing those long white and red striped head-to-foot bathing gowns, and those little popup tents they used for changing into their bathing suits with. And all I did was add a date.
You may not find that one word to conjure up those thousand pictures, but how few of just the right words can you get away with?
Now put that skill into the descriptions of your world and the actions taking place therein.
Q: That sounds like a great exercise to try, myself. I've challenged myself lately with trying to describe things I'm seeing, feeling, smelling or hearing while walking on the dog trails near our home. The scent carried by the wind at that moment, the sounds I am hearing from day to day. I might try to describe the sound of walking through leaves - when wet, when they are falling, when they are dry, covered with snow or a thin layer of frost. Now I want to try yours ! ...You seem to be a well-educated person - Did you take any writing classes?
A: A writing couple once asked me this question at a party many years ago (No, it wasn’t a writer’s workshop; just a bunch of yoga students getting together), and my answer kind of intimidated them.
That said, I did have my teachers. Heinlein, Asimov, Norton, Clarke, and many more. Every book I’ve read (which is a lot), every movie I’ve seen, contributed to my skills.
In fact, starting when I was 13, I got into the habit of while reading a book I’d analyze what I did and didn’t like about how the author wrote the story, the plot elements, and everything else. What I liked I squirrelled away into the back of my head for the future. Now mind you, I had not yet decided to become a writer. In fact, I got my degree in Physics.
Q: Any special memories from your writing journey so far that you would like to share?
A: There’s a couple, and both involve my parents.
First a brief bit of background. My Dad got Parkinson’s Disease while I was still in high school, so for the last 25 years of his life I was helping my Mom deal with that. This involved still living in the house through my college years and beyond (since you can never predict when help is needed to get him back on his feet again, and this way my Mom could get out of the house every now and then). So when it came time to start writing the stories I’d been secretly crafting in my head the prior 15 years, I was doing it at home with my parents in the other room. I’d be burning through that keyboard, then suddenly stop as I felt a presence. A slow glance over my shoulder and there was my Mom standing on the other side of my bed, on tippy toes, trying to see what I’m writing from 3-4 feet away. I appreciated the attention and support, but “Mom, I can’t write while you’re looking.” She’d then smile, make a clicking noise with her mouth, and go back to doing other stuff. She probably read about a third of my “Maldene” series from 3-4 feet away.
The other thing concerned my Dad in what became a humorous running gag (at least to me). Yes, before this he was with the old: “When are you going to get a job?”
To which I would naturally reply, “I’m looking” (never mind that my ‘job’ at the time seemed to involve parental care, but that’s a whole other long story). Well, after I’d knocked out my first couple of books, his line changed to, “When are you going to get a publisher?”
He would say this is that same serious semi-scolding tone of voice; he never knew how funny I found it to hear him say that. Then years later, after he’d passed away, my Mom told me something that my Dad never mentioned: that when they were dating, my Dad wanted to attend the local community college to learn how to write.
He had always wanted to become a writer.
He would say this is that same serious semi-scolding tone of voice; he never knew how funny I found it to hear him say that. Then years later, after he’d passed away, my Mom told me something that my Dad never mentioned: that when they were dating, my Dad wanted to attend the local community college to learn how to write.
He had always wanted to become a writer.
Q: Have you had, and how did you handle, writer's block?
A: Writer’s what-now?
Seriously, I’ve never had it, but I do have a few tricks to keep the creativity flowing. First is the prep work. People ask if you’re a ‘plotter’ or a ‘pantser’ to which I say: both.
Before starting on a book, I’ll map out all the general beats of the plot, who does what where, and so forth. Picture the result as a sort of really detailed table of contents. Then I prep the characters; I keep track of all the characters in a database (the ‘Maldene” series alone has over 300 entries), filling in everything from descriptions down to hair and eye color, backgrounds, notable items, and so forth. My database has something like 18 different fields for each character to fill in. This also helps me develop the character so by the time I’m writing I already know him quite well.
Thus, by the time I start work, I’ve answered all the questions that might come up. That’s the plotter part; the pantser part comes up when I’m going along and I get a sudden idea out of left field for a given character or plot-point (and this has happened quite regularly). Well, as long as that idea doesn’t lead anything too astray from the basic plotline I’ve previously outlined, then I’ll go for it. In fact, some of these seat-of-the-pants ideas have added quite a bit to the carefully plotted outline.
When it comes to a multi-book series (of which I’ve written several), it’s the same process, only I’ll have a very general outline for the whole series of books, then before starting a given book I’ll create a lot more specific outline for that novel that then also takes into account whatever other random elements have created themselves in the previous installments.
Then is what I guess you could call the work environment. I write with music playing; exciting upbeat tunes, usually from some movie soundtrack I like. Nothing with words I can understand, because then I’ll be listening more to the words in the song than the ones in my head. The music keeps me focused, and helps me visualize what I’m typing as if it’s a movie playing in my head. Let me put it this way: I dare you to not come up with an exciting battle scene while The Imperial March is playing around you. It’s impossible. In fact, John Williams makes regular appearances in my play list.
And then of course there’s my imagination; it won’t ever quit. And the music only make it work that much faster.
Q: I adore your sense of humour :) ...Do you use certain tricks that keep you motivated and on track?
A: (cue the phony German accent) "So, you vant to know vhat my zecret is. It could not be zzimpler."
In a word: Passion. That and a whole lot of native discipline.
Have you ever had a real passion in your heart?
The kind that will motivate you to touch the stars to fulfill it?
The kind of passion that will not be denied?
That’s what drives me. It goes beyond a mere goal and becomes a reason to wake up in the morning. You have a vision in your head, hanging in there for years, decades, and you really want– no, need to see it given form on paper. With this backing you up, staying the course is child’s play. You have a dream in your head that you can feel with your heart.
This starts you to initially clattering away for a couple hours on the keyboard, then the excitement kicks in and you’re finding excuses to devote more time to the project. Maybe if I just get up an hour earlier, then work an hour later. Oh, I need more music to fuel this pace. You have a sick parent to take care of, and let’s not forget to stay in shape if that brain is going to keep working, so work in time for both while writing even more. You’re teaching yourself as you go along, divining new ways of wording things, better strategies. This isn’t simply a job, you know, and it may be more than a career. Then you finish that first novel and it’s like– Wow! Want more! You can feel your eyes begin to glow, the keyboard is starting to smoke from the usage. Then before you know it, you’re putting in 8 to 10 hour days of straight writing, kicking out between 12,000 and 14,000 words a day, then later to edit what you wrote during and after dinner.
That would be where the native discipline comes in. Where I came by this discipline is another long story. But my original motivation?
So, I started piecing together my ultimate villain; what made him so bad, what he was after, which also meant that I had to create the world that spawned him. I’d gotten into gaming by then, and so used the game and my players as a sort of testing field for my ideas. This was the 15 year period during which I developed “Maldene”, its history, characters, and the 13-book plot. This is what I’d been holding in my head all that time so of course I had to get it out. I’d developed my own writing style by then, I just needed a reason to begin.
That reason came when my Grandpa’s old house burned down (he’d been dead over two decades by then), supplying us with a much needed infusion of insurance money which helped with what my Dad needed, and meant that I had the time to work in some work on my book. Side effect: my parents were thrilled to see what I was working on, and in the dark time of The Parkinson’s Years, this passion project brought some much needed positivity into the house.
Q: What is your favorite genre of writing?
A: Fantasy and Science-fiction, or more specifically various combinations thereof. I love combining genres! There’s enough people out there writing the straight stuff, I figured my thing would be mixing it up a little. Thus, my ‘Maldene’ series is more epic fantasy with liberal splashes of science-fiction mixed in, while ‘Cyberdawn’ is cyberpunk with some dark fantasy and supernatural conspiracy. I even have this guy named Inspector Flaatphut that lives in a world of futuristic detective noir mixed with anthropomorphics. Even the Science-Fiction aspects go a little bit beyond. Remember that degree in Physics I have? Toss in some wild ideas I have that I’ve detailed in a research paper and– well, why not toss them into things? It’s my multiverse, after all.
Q: What keeps you writing while getting rejection letters?
A: Since I began with the first ‘Maldene’ book, I’ve applied to hundreds of agents over the years; one was a crook, another incompetent, and the rest could care less; ten percent of them might bother with a form rejection letter. Seems as the combination of ,“Hey, I write Fantasy and SF,” along with, “And nobody’s heard of me,” reads like death on wheels to these people. I guess they’d rather not work for people that actually need them to earn their pay.
Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of rejection, but then why continue?
Part of the reason is that passion thing again, another part is not wanting to have wasted my entire life and giving up, but then there’s something else that comes from, of all things, a nearly fatal lack of self-confidence.
Some would ask, after seeing what I’ve done, why in the world I would ever lack confidence. Well, it goes back to my childhood and some other things, and is the reason why I’ve never had the nerve to ask a girl on a date and why I absolutely stink at marketing, but a funny thing happened on the way to the keyboard. I began using that lack of confidence as a tool in my writer’s arsenal. You see, lacking confidence means you’re willing to edit and tweak that text “just one more time to be certain” and that one more time turns into several more times. You want more than perfect, because you’re expecting everyone and their grandmother to come at you with a long list of objections.
Then you finish that book, and re-read it, and your first remark is “Oh my God, this is fantastic! Who wrote this stuff?” Then you remember, “Oh yeah, I did.”
So, if a guy with a fundamental lack of self-confidence can look back at his own stuff (and mind you, I can be very self-critical) and feel like he’s on Cloud 9 reading it, even feels like he’s reading something from some other classic author, then suddenly a burst of confidence explodes out from within and you don’t care what the rejection letter says, you’re going to keep going after that brass ring. Then with the next book, the process start all over again, only now you’re wondering it you can do it again, and become even more critical with yourself.
It’s a rollercoaster ride of mood swings and not recommended for the faint of heart.
Q: How many unpublished or half-finished writing projects are sitting on your "to-do" shelf?
A: Let’s start with what I already have in the chamber. Currently I have 36 novels completed, divided up into four or five different series. Of all those books, I am currently self-publishing 4 of them plus one short story. In total, all my stories add up to over 10 million words (I got some long novels), with around 540 different characters (I recently counted). That’s a lot of material awaiting the tender embrace of the right agent and publisher.
Waiting in the wings for me to write is another series that I’ve completed the world notes and detailed outlines for, and this one should be about another ten novels (11 if one goes a bit too long). I also have the rough background sketch of another world that I drew up at the instance of a friend that was getting real tired of grinning twenty-something vampires, werewolves with perfect abs, and zombies; she asked me to come up with some thing different, so I did and combined it with an idea I’ve had in the back of my head along the lines of “What if ancient Rome never fell?”
The only thing stalling me from diving straight into all this is my critical need to keep the creditors happy, and thus my need to ghostwrite (I think I’ve ghostwritten over another 90 books, but the wordcount’s a lot lower). That little financial pole-vaulting aside, I have no trouble coming up with new ideas and seeing them through to completion (unlike a certain other famous author seems to have, not that I’m mentioning any names).
A last remark, if I may. If ever asked, what would success mean to me (besides the appreciation, that is), it would mean that I finally get to return to crafting my own novels, one after another, and keep fuelling that passion. Because that, folks, is how you can achieve the impossible!
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