Name or pen name: Michelle M. Welch Author of: The Sea Between the Worlds (Gbahn & Archipelago series), Confidence Game (Five Countries series)  *Interviewer Comments are in Bold  1. What inspired you to write your first book? I've been writing short stories since I was a kid. At some point my ideas became too long and complicated to fit in a short story. (Believe me, I tried. Some of the stories I wrote as a teenager were so dense and confusing even I don't understand what I was trying to say.) So it seemed a good time to step up to book-length works.
It's interesting when you are younger and you right, the storyline can make complete sense to you, but not anyone else. I can think of a few thing's I've written tha fall along those lines. 2. How did you come up with the title?The Sea Between the Worlds seemed an obvious choice for a book set in an archipelago between two land masses. That's one great thing about writing fantasy - you can create a world exactly the way you want it. Also, there's a cultural conflict between two (or more) societies that encounter each other, and the characters find themselves caught between these social worlds.
3. What genre do you consider your book(s)?My novels are fantasy. I also write short stories in the fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism/slipstream genres.
4. Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life? My novels are not autobiographical. Things in your life always find a way into your writing, though. Writing isn't compelling if it doesn't reflect things you hope, fear, and dream about.
More and more as I read and write, I realize my characters are often reflections of tiny facets of myself and my habits.
5. What books have most influenced your life most? My favorite genre authors are Ursula K. Le Guin and Harlan Ellison - kind of an odd pair - and their books have influenced me for years. I love Le Guin's use of language, her imaginativeness, and her powerful analysis of societies and how they affect the people living in them. Ellison's style of writing is like a brick to the head, and that kind of intensity is definitely at work in my Gbahn and Archipelago novels.
I haven't read either of these authors, but I will have to keep a look out for them.
6. If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor? To be a mentor to me, you mean? Definitely Le Guin. She has so much knowledge and tells such wonderful stories. 7. What book are you reading now? I usually have several books going at once. Two that I just finished are Parasite, a near-future science fiction tale about medical technology gone wrong, and Murder and Mayhem, a nonfiction guide to crime scene and medical facts, for mystery writers.

8. Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest and why? I just picked up an ebook by Trista DiGiuseppi, who came to my attention through social media. I think she started by following my blog, then I followed her on Twitter, then she tweeted that her book was available... It's fun that new technologies put you more in contact with other writers, and you can get more excited about their successes than you might have if they were just a name on a cover in a bookstore.
I personally love Twitter for keeping up with others. I wouldn't have outright conversations on there, but it does make for an interesting way to network. 9. If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book? Probably. I'm one of those writers who's never satisfied. I'd re-edit my first book, which was published ten years ago, if I could. At some point I've just got to say I'm done with it and it's time to go out into the world.
I feel you there, I did twenty plus edits of my first novel and I'm sure I could have done more. At some point you just have to say, "Stop! This is the best I can make it." 10. Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing? Every book presents its own challenges. The Sea Between the Worlds takes place partly at sea, and getting a handle on the seafaring terminology and the kinds of events that would occur at sea was kind of overwhelming. (But a lot of fun!) I've been working for at least fifteen years on a historical fantasy, and I still can't decide exactly how the magic should work in a real-world setting, not to mention the mountains of historical research involved. My new work in progress is a science fiction/mystery crossover, and there's a lot to consider about how a good mystery should work. The biggest challenge, I guess, is satisfying myself, accomplishing the kind of story I'm trying to write.
This is probably the largest reason I'm hesitant to write historical fiction myself, there is a lot of research and interpretation involved. I do have one book that will be in part historical which I know for sure I have to write, but when I take on the task is a whole different question. 11. Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work? If I have to come up with another author I haven't mentioned already, I'd like to go with one I enjoy reading just for the sake of reading, not as a direct influence on my writing. I'm delighted by Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books. I love how they work on so many levels: wild adventure and humor on the surface, a deep portrayal of a really tortured character beneath.

12. What was the hardest part of writing your book? I'm going to skip ahead to book two in the series, The Source in the Desert, because that was the harder one to write. I realized that I left an important character out on the sidelines, and he really needed to be one of the primary narrators. This meant that I not only had to rip out a third of the chapters and rewrite them from his point of view, but I really had to get inside his mind - a pretty dark place to be.

That is a huge challange, I write in limited omniscient, but from scene to scene I shift characters. Sometimes I know what character's mind I need to be in, how they will react, other times it's a guessing game.
13. Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it? How to take chances. The character I mentioned above, the one who needed to be a primary narrator despite how dark his headspace was, wasn't the only one who was hard to write. Many of the characters in these two books experience a lot of brutal things; some of them do pretty bad things. But it was all necessary to tell the story I wanted to tell - about how people can overcome their past, hold on to their humanity, and do better. 14. Do you have any advice for other writers? First, figure out why you're writing. This is both on the level of individual books (what you're trying to say with a book, so you can do it convincingly) and on the career level (deciding whether to go for the autonomy of self-publishing or the support and wider reach of traditional). Second, find the right balance between trusting your vision and being critical enough of your own work to really polish it. Your book isn't a precious flower, and at the same time, it is.

15. Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers? Thanks. I'm glad you took a chance on something that isn't the usual fantasy, and I hope you found something worthwhile.
16. What books/authors have influenced your writing? I try to gather a little bit from everything I read - inspiration from other fiction writers in different genres, useful details and story seeds from nonfiction of all kinds.

17. Do you ever experience writer's block? I think there are different kinds of writer's block. There's the kind where you just can't figure out what scene, or even what sentence, comes next. Then there's the kind where you can't get up the motivation to write at all. I have a little of the first kind all the time, and it's why I write fairly slowly. The second one comes and goes in cycles. I once spent most of year not writing a thing.
I completely agree with this! When I get writers block, it's generally, "I'm afraid, because I don't know where I am going. I don't know what is going to happen next."Then I realize I never really know, my characters are constantly surprising myself. It's just how I write.
18. What do you do to overcome writer’s block?The answer is the same for both kinds. In both cases, the problem is that the idea I had isn't where the story really needs to go, so I need to look at it differently. Toss the scene and start over. Try putting it somewhere else, or having different characters involved. In the case of year-long blocks, I was trying to write the wrong project entirely. I had to get over my desire to write something that wasn't working and come up with a better project.

19. Do you write an outline before every book you write? My initial outlines are very brief. The outline for books 2 and 3 of the Five Countries novels was, "At the end of book 2, Aron makes the wrong choice. At the end of book 3, he makes the right one." I had no idea what these choices were going to be when I started writing, but I filled in the details and fleshed out the outline as I went along. 20. Have you ever hated something you wrote? All of my attempts so far at the historical fantasy project. There have been at least five or six of them. One version had 20,000 words and I threw them out. Another had 30,000 words, all crap. I'm still trying to find the right take on the story, and I won't like it until I do.
I have one piece where the MC was so void of emotion and so willing to do anything, no matter how bad it was, because she didn't care. I quickly was fed up with the story. It was just too dark for me.
21. What was your favorite book or series as a child?I read all the usual suspects: Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander. Alexander's book The Kestrel was an early influence on my writing: a story set in a fictional world that looks a lot like 18th-century Europe, where an otherwise good guy finds himself turning into a brutal military leader when his country goes to war.
22. What is your favorite television series?My TV watching habits are as eclectic as my reading habits. I don't have cable, so I catch up on a lot of series on Netflix, and my queue is split between goofy comedies like 30 Rock and heavy mystery/suspense stuff like Dexter and Luther, with some costume dramas thrown in. I like Mythbusters and Doctor Who. I've been turning on network TV only because Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on.
I love Doctor Who. I can't wait to watch this year's Christmas special.
23. Do you have any unique talents or hobbies?I play a variety of instruments, although not as much as I used to. I've been involved in symphony orchestras, Irish fiddling, and Renaissance music for a historical re-creation group. 24. How can we contact you or find out more about your books?My website is at mmwelch.wordpress.com. All my books and published short stories are listed there, as well as some free short fiction and a link to the free podcast anthology that I edited, Theme and Variations. Email, Goodreads, and Twitter contacts are there as well.

25. What can we expect from you in the future?I've got two other projects out on submission, the science fiction/mystery novel and a crossover fantasy/romance series. (I'd like to try several different publishing venues, small press and self-publishing, to gather more experiences and compare them to my prior experience with traditional publishing.) I'm also looking at my backlog of short fiction and trying to find homes for some of the stories.