Interview With Author Ruthanne Reid

Ruthanne Reid was raised in the woods, but fortunately her isolation was offset by regular visits to New York City. She pursued music for years before realizing she wanted to tell stories rather than sing them.
Ruthanne has lived on both US coasts (she prefers the West one), is distantly related to royalty, and has sung in a thousand-year-old cathedral. Her favorite authors tend to be dramatic (J. R. R. Tolkien, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss), but she doesn’t see this as a bad thing.
Writing in and around Seattle, she owns dust-covered degrees in music and religion, and is generally considered dangerous around household electronics. She belongs to a husband, a housemate, and a cat, respectively.


Ruthanne stopped by FreeBookDude.com to talk to us about writing and how she came up with the idea for The Sundered, her first novel

What is it that inspires you to write?

That's hard to say. I HAVE to write. If I don't, I get grouchy.
As for what inspires me, my core desire is to create a book other people can enjoy the way I enjoy books.  I want to weave the kind of world I love to read, one that absorbs the reader so completely that when we finish, we come up gasping, as if from the bottom of a well.

Where did you get the idea for your book?

One hell of a dream. The kind of dream that makes you immediately annoying, because you have to tell everybody you know whether they want to hear about it or not. (Not that I’d EVER do that, of course.)

What is The Sundered about?

A hard, horrible choice between survival and doing the right thing. Here's what it says on the back of the book:
Harry Iskinder knows the rules. Don't touch the water, or it will pull you under. Conserve food, because there’s no arable land. Use Sundered slaves gently, or they die too quickly to be worthwhile.
With extinction on the horizon and a world lost to deadly flood, Harry searches for a cure: the Hope of Humanity, the mysterious artifact that gave humans control over the Sundered centuries ago. According to legend, the Hope can fix the planet.
But the Hope holds more secrets than Harry knows. Powerful Sundered Ones willingly bow to him just to get near it. Ambitious enemies pursue him, sure that the Hope is a weapon. Friends turn their backs, afraid Harry will choose wrong.
And Harry has a choice to make. The time for sharing the Earth is done. Either the Sundered survive and humanity ends, or humanity lives for a while, but the Sundered are wiped out.
He never wanted this choice. He still has to make it. In his broken, flooded world, Hope comes with a price.

How long did it take you to write The Sundered?

The first draft POURED out of it. I wrote it faster than any story or book I've ever written, which was exhilarating. Then, though, things slowed down (like they do). Editing took a while. A really long while, because there were personal-catharsis issues I’d put into this book that really didn’t need to be there. From first draft to publication, it’s been three years.
And worth every minute.


What do you want readers to take away from The Sundered?

That choices aren't always easy. That good stories can take unexpected forms. That the protagonist isn't always the person you think.

What have you learned from writing The Sundered?

Not to hold to bitterness. No matter what happens, we have to learn to forgive, or we damage ourselves and everything we touch.


Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Oh my, yes. Oh, my. Oooh.
The thing is, it's more editor's block than writer's. Spitting words out is something we all can do (yes, ALL of us, which is why we can chat in person at the grocery store, or around the coffee machine, or wherever). The problem is when we decide those words aren't what we wanted, or going in a direction we don't like, or aren't shiny enough to meet our standards. We choke those words off, blowing up the story our subconscious minds (or muse, or whatever you want to call it) is trying to tell. Then we wonder why we "can't" write.


Do you have any books on the horizon?

That's like asking a beanie-baby collector if they have more than one beanie-baby. Yes, I have more books on the horizon. Spades of them, oodles, but they are, in fact, incomplete, which I suppose is like a beanie-baby collector who in fact collects pieces.
Maybe I should change similes.


What is the greatest challenge of being a self-published author?

Publicity. Getting your name out there. Don't misunderstand: publicity is NOT the part that requires the most work. Putting the book together, editing a thousand times, creating a cover, these things take more work. These things, however, are done where no one can see you.
Publicity requires putting yourself OUT THERE.
It requires daily discovering how much of the personal you is too much to reveal, and how much is too little.
It requires taking – with a smile – any snide comments from people who have no idea what it means to produce a book on your own, and what a challenge it is to compete in a marketplace filled to overflowing with self-pub authors.
It means being prepared for some negative response (though trying to get something worthwhile out of them, even if it’s just “how not to leave a review”).
It requires knowing in the bottom of your heart that all of this is worth the effort. Patience, thy name is.indie.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

DO NOT QUIT.
Seriously. Don't quit – and this doesn’t mean just not stopping. Do one more edit. Go over the cover’s picayune details one more time. Review that blog post again. Submit for one more book review. Incorporate new techniques as you market. Embrace innovation.
Change. Don’t be afraid. It's good for you. I promise.

Where can we find your book?

The paperback is available worldwide from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The ebook is currently only available from Amazon, but only until late November, after which it’ll also be available for Nook, Kobo, and iBookStore.
US/UK links: (Paperback) Amazon (US) Amazon (UK) Barnes & Noble; (Kindle) Amazon (US) Amazon (UK)