On April 30th I was thrilled to be chosen as the reddit.com/r/fantasy Writer of the Day. If you know anything about reddit, you’d know that it’s kind of a big deal because of how many people frequent the site. But what you may not know is that all I had to do was sign up and they gave the spot to me then and there. You may be saying to yourself, “But Dave, that’s probably because they saw who you were and gave it to you based on how awesome you are,” and I would agree. Unfortunately we would both be wrong because it’s really just based on who signs up when.

But enough about the “why.” Let’s talk about the “how.”

I have great friends

I made a facebook post detailing the event so that my reddit post wouldn’t be sad and lonely with zero replies — and boy am I glad that I did. My friends showed up in droves. I’m talking at least single digits. Maybe even double digits.

But the point is that they actually showed up to support me, and asked some pretty great questions that gave me the chance to come up with some really good answers.

Tough questions with easy answers

In case you don’t want to go digging through the whole post, I’ve picked out some of my favorite questions (with my answers) below. Enjoy!

User Ender10011 asked, “If your book was turned into a movie or TV series, who would you cast as your main characters?”

D.L.: I modeled Thornton after myself, so in order to really get it right I guess they would just have to cast me for it. But if I missed the casting call because I overslept, I’d have to say:

• Thornton: Skandar Keynes (Chronicles of Narina). He would be a perfect fit if he bulked up a bit (Thornton is a blacksmith after all. He’s kind of jacked).
• Olson: Vince D’Onofrio (Daredevil, Men in Black). Olson is a big, imposing guy and Vince proved he’s great at a role like that when he played the Kingpin in Daredevil (the series). He’s already pretty beefy, but he’d need to dye his har brown to match the description of Olson.
• Miera: Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones). Miera is a blonde, but Sophie has the perfect personality for her: fearless and headstrong with a soft spot for those close to her. She’s also a bit of a tomboy, but I think Sophie could pull that off.
• D’kane: Gary Oldman. Because, he’s Gary Oldman.

User acesayshello asked, “Many writers have been writing for a very long time. Many start with short stories or other types before embarking on a novel. What is your history with writing? Where did you start? How have you honed this skill and how would you like to get better?”

D.L.: Ironically enough, the first time I wrote anything more than a livejournal entry (oh god, the teen angst that I had), it turned into Gift of the Shaper. I’d always been a voracious reader, and I think that had a lot to do with why I was able to produce a coherent novel/story, but I never did any of the things that most writers do before they set out to write a novel (e.g. work at a school newspaper or major in English). The most encouragement I ever got was in a community college English course on an essay that I wrote about September 11th (this was actually in the year that it happened, too. I’m old). I’ll never forget the words the professor said to me:

“You need to stick with this writing thing.”

Out of context it isn’t as powerful, but to me it was. Hell, 17 years later I still think about it. It meant the world to me at the time.

Also I will say that I’ve always had a love for languages (I absolutely killed it in my Korean course at DLI), and I think my love for and grasp of the English language really helped with my writing overall.

As far as getting better, I actually feel that I’ve greatly improved after just this first book. The feedback I got from beta/test readers and editors was really eye-opening — I even ended up learning a few things that I didn’t know before. All in all it was a great experience and I can’t wait to wrap up book 2 to do it all over again

And finally, user barb4ry1 asked, “Every author mentions how important reviews are. Do you actually read them or just need them so that Amazon algorithms promote your books? What’s your favorite review of your books?”

D.L.: I’ve ready every single review that’s come across on Amazon, and by far my favorite one is the one that starts out “Let me start by saying that I am not a sci-fi junkie like a lot of people who have chosen this book….however, I loved it.” This one actually brought tears to my eyes when I read it (not kidding) because it told me that I had actually written a good book that was worthy of being read and enjoyed by people. By the way, this was an excellent question. Thanks for asking it.

In case you want in on the next one …

If you don’t already follow me on facebook, hop on in and say hi! I really enjoyed this round and hope to do it again in the future when I become immensely more popular. A man can dream, can’t he?

Who knows: maybe YOUR question will show up in my blog next time!

And, as always, let me know what you think.

-D.L.