In June 2006, the featured author was novelist/screenwriter/musician Nathan Long.
Naturally, with jobs like those, he lives in Hollywood.
Nathan's third WFB book in the Blackhearts series, Tainted Blood had just been published by the Black Library (click on the link if you want to find out more). Nathan's first two books Valnir's Bane and The Broken Lance are also worth reading for their non-stop action and vivid narrative.
After Tainted Blood comes Orcslayer, Nathan's first venture into the world of Gotrek and Felix. In this interview he gives some intriguing insights into that challenge. You can read even more on Nathan's blog. It's well worth a visit.
Q: How did the idea for the Blackhearts come about? Could you talk us through the process? And did you think (or hope) it would be a series of novels?
A: This is my first ever interview, so I'm a bit nervous, and I hope I don't bore everyone to tears.
Okay, here we go.
Once I had shown Lindsey Priestley, who is the lead editor over at Black Library, my writing sample, and she had said she was interested in me writing for them, she asked me to come up with some pitches. I came up with five - all ideas for continuing series - and the Blackhearts was the one she liked the best.
Where did the idea come from? Well, the Dirty Dozen, obviously, but also, I have a bit of a problem warming up to the stiff, stern, unbending men of iron that seem to populate a lot of the Warhammer world and some of the BL books as well. I can't take those kinds of heroes seriously. I like rogues and tricksters better, and so I tried to come up with a story where I could feature those types of characters getting one over on the stuffed shirts of the Empire. Thus, the Blackhearts were born.
Q: What are your personal highs and lows of seeing a novel through to publication?
A: Plotting is a high - I love coming up with the story and all the twists and turns. Writing the first draft isn't as much fun. Not bad, but a bit of a slog. But tweaking and editing it, reading through it and perfecting it once I've written it - that's another high. Seeing the proofs for the first time, seeing the cover painting for the first time - those are definite highs.
Waiting for it to be read - that's a low. I get very nervous until I know what the bosses thought of what I did. Finding typos and mistakes in the published book - that's another low, particularly when they're my mistakes, not the proofreaders. Very embarrassing.
Q: Tainted Blood. Did you face any particular challenges, pressures or deadlines in writing this? Does fan expectation become a factor?
A: So far I haven't heard enough from any Blackhearts fans to know what they expect or where they want the story to go.
I did have a few challenges with Tainted Blood, however. I was asked to set it in Talabheim, in order to tie it in to a WFRP supplement that will be coming out around the same time, called Terror in Talabheim, so I had to make sure that my descriptions of Talabheim matched up with what the Black Industries guys were coming up with. Unfortunately, they were writing the supplement at the same time as I was writing Tainted Blood, and I didn't get the info I needed until the last minute. There was a lot of sweat right at the end getting all the street names and locations right, but I think it all worked out at the end. I'm sure someone will call me on it if I got it wrong.
Q: Have you always been a writer? How much of a struggle is it to become one? How did it all come about?
A: I have always written, at least since I was twelve or thirteen. I really started thinking of myself as a writer in college, but it was another seven years after that before I got paid for it.
Becoming a writer isn't much of a struggle. You just have to have written something. Becoming a paid writer is another story. That is a constant struggle - at least for me. Thirteen years after my first sale and I'm still trying to figure out how to make it pay the bills.
I guess I really decided that I was going to be a writer during the year I spent in London when I was 18. I had gone over there meaning to join a punk band. That didn't work out, and I ended up spending a lot of time watching movies in the big theaters in the West End. Mad Max came out that year. So did Southern Comfort, and The Time Bandits. All amazing films. I also saw the Warriors and a bunch of other action movies, and I thought, I can do that. I want to be a screenwriter and director.
So I returned to the states, got a degree in film, and eventually made my way to Hollywood. After four years without any success, I read about a director/special effects artist named Steve Wang, who was into the same stuff I was, and then discovered that we had a mutual friend. I got an intro, convinced him I could write, and we started working on scripts together. None of them ever sold, but Steve got asked to direct a movie called Guyver II (he had co-directed the first Guyver) and he asked me to write the script.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to turn this first sale into a successful career. I sold some TV scripts and some more low-budget film scripts after that, but along the way I came to realize that I might not be cut out to be a Hollywood writer. The difficulty was that, although I enjoyed writing, I didn't enjoy trying to sell the scripts I had written. You have to have a lot of hustle and chutzpah to be a successful writer in Hollywood. You have to network, and kiss up to producers, and stay current with what's hot and what's not. You have to convince people you're the next big thing. You have to pitch stories and go to meetings and smile a lot.
I just wanted to write.
So, a few years ago, I decided I would try my hand at writing novels instead. There seemed to be a lot less song and dance involved. You wrote your book, you sent it to New York. An editor read it, and either bought it or didn't. And, I have to say, I have enjoyed novel writing a lot more than I enjoyed writing scripts. Scripts are very tight, minimalist things where you count every line. Writing a novel allows you to expand, use adjectives, bring in side characters, explore the interior lives of your characters.
Also, when you finish a script, you don't have a finished product. It's merely a blueprint for a film. Unmade, it's nothing. When you finish a novel, even if it's not published, it's still a novel.
So, after not having a lot of fun writing for a number of years, now I'm having a blast, and, with Black Library, some success too! Woo!
Q: Who are or were the biggest influences on your writing?
A: My single greatest influence is Fritz Leiber. I liked a lot of writers before him, but he was the one who made me want to write. His characters, his world, and his voice were so engaging that I wanted live there and know them. He was the first writer I read who took realistic, humorous, human characters and put them in a fantasy setting. Conan's cool, but he's an ideal. Nobody's that hard or tough. I've known big-dreaming small timers like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser all my life.
I have also been influenced by a lot of other writers: George Macdonald Fraser, P. G. Wodehouse, Tim Powers, Michael Moorcock, and the master of swashbuckling adventure fiction, Raphael Sabatini, at whose altar I make blood sacrifices every full moon.
On a more personal level, Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, two fantasy writers who work I love and admire, were also my teachers, and to a great extent, I owe them my career as a novelist. They lived for a short time in Hollywood, and taught a novel writing class. I took it and loved it. They passed along a lot of wisdom and advice and helped me take a cluttered piece of nonsense and turn it into a decent first novel. My years as a screenwriter taught me a lot about structure and plot, but Emma and Will taught me how to make my plots come alive as prose.
Q: So do you see yourself principally as a novelist?
A: Now I do, yes. (see above)
Q: Why Warhammer? Were or are you a fan or player?
A: I was not a player. (I am now, though! I have the losingest Empire army on the planet!) I was a fan. Between college and Hollywood I lived for a year in San Francisco and worked in a game store called Gamescape. We had all the early Warhammer and 40k stuff and I thought it was great. It was so much darker and funnier than all the other games. Although I never played it, it has stayed on my radar since then.
The opportunity to write in the Warhammer universe was a complete coincidence, but when it happened, I jumped at it. It was a perfect fit.
Q: And what was that coincidence?
A: My friend Dave Schow was approached by Black Flame to write a novelization of a movie he had written called Texas Chainsaw Massacre III. He turned down the job, but suggested Black Flame talk to me about doing that and other novelizations. I did some pitches for them, none of which panned out, but when I found out that BF was attached to BL, and that BL was Warhammer, I begged my BF editor to introduce me to the BL folks. I would have been moderately happy writing a novelization or two, but writing for Warhammer? Are you kidding? A fantasy author couldn't ask for a better job! It was a perfect fit.
Q: How does it feel to be taking over writing about Gotrek and Felix from William King? Do you fear shaven-headed, axe-wielding fans stalking you? No pressure there.
A: Nervous? Me? Not a bit. Just because I've installed gun turrets and a retina scan in the bunker and don't go anywhere without my kevlar body armor. Why would you think I was nervous?
Seriously, it is a big responsibility, and I'm doing my best to get it right. I also know that it is impossible to please everyone, and that there will always be a few guys who are going to hate it, no matter what I do. To be handed Black Library's flagship fantasy series after only publishing two books with them is quite an honour. It's also a bit terrifying. Who do I think I am, anyway? All I can do is try to do the best job I can, and pray that my editors don't let me go too far astray.
I love the characters Bill has created, and I've done my best to come up with a story that highlights all the aspects of them that the fans have come to love.
Q: How is Orcslayer coming along? What stage are you at?
A: It's almost done, and I think - at least I hope - that it's pretty good. I am reading through the proofs at the moment, looking for mistakes and typos and what-not. Funny how you can read a story twenty times in manuscript and not catch a screw-up that you spot as soon as it's printed out in book form.
Q: What is the difference between writing completely original fiction like 'Tainted Blood' and picking up where someone else's stories left off?
A: Well, strictly speaking, Tainted Blood and the rest of the Blackhearts books aren't completely original fiction. They are set in the Warhammer world, which I didn't make up, but I know what you mean. It is indeed easier to invent one's own characters and story from scratch, but I like a challenge.
I did a lot of homework when I started writing the Blackhearts series, boning up on the Warhammer world, reading the army books of the enemies the Blackhearts would be facing, reading other Warhammer novels to get the feel for the kind of stories other authors were telling.
I did a lot more homework when I was asked to write Orcslayer. I read all the other Slayer books, found as many references to Gotrek and Felix in the background books as I could, and talked a lot with Marc and Lindsey about what was and wasn't Gotrek-y behavior.
It is a definite challenge to pick up somebody else's characters. I don't write like William King. I can't. Our prose doesn't have the same rhythms, our plots aren't structured the same way. No matter what I do, the book isn't going to read like the other Slayer books. All I can do is try my best to stay true to the heart of the characters, and hope the readers can get used to the style change.
Q: You live in Hollywood. You write screenplays. You have your own band, Dead Horse. Is your life as impossibly glamorous as everyone else imagines it to be?
A: My friend Christa suggested that there was only one possible answer to this question.
Yes.
Q: Dead Horse. Tell us about the band, the music and where those who want the complete Nathan Long experience can go to hear or buy it.
A: Dead Horse is the honky-tonk country cover band I'm in. We are a loud, obnoxious, red neck rave-up. We cover Johnny Cash, Willy Nelson, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, as well as some southern rock like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Charlie Daniels. I play bass and sing. If you want to check out our music on-line (and hear me sing, god help you) go to...
www.myspace.com/thathorseisdead
We play at a club called Highland Grounds in Hollywood, the third Wednesday of every month and have other gigs every now and then. Times and dates are on the myspace page. so come on down!
Q: Your writing for BL is in the WFB genre, so do you see yourself as a fantasy author? Would you ever be tempted to write 40K fiction?
A: Yes, I think of myself primarily as a fantasy author. I don't have a scientific mind. I'm no good at coming up with gadgets and futuristic concepts, so science fiction is pretty much out.
I like telling old fashioned swashbuckling adventure stories, and fantasy is, I think, the best genre for that these days.
I am occasionally attracted to the 40k world. The imagery and the over-the-top fascist/religious background would be a lot of fun to mess around with, but then I think of all the homework I'd have to do, all the fluff I'd have to keep straight, and I slink right back to Warhammer with my tail between my legs.
Q: What other work do you have underway?
A: Well, let's see.
I have two unpublished original novels I am trying to sell. One is a contemporary urban fantasy with a noir edge. The other is a parody of sword-and-raygun Barsoom-style science fantasy.
I am currently world-building an entire planet from the continents on up, which will be the setting for a series of fantasy novels I'm dreaming up. I'm working on inventing religions at the moment.
I am developing pitches for more Gotrek and Felix books, more Blackhearts books, and another possible Warhammer series which I'm not at liberty to mention at the moment.
I am working for
Black Industries on a super secret
WFRP project - my first venture into writing for RPGs!
I'm developing a zombie movie script for a friend in New Zealand.
And last but not least, I'm polishing up a Gotrek and Felix short story that will be available at Games Day UK when I come over to meet everybody in September.
Whew!
Q: What do you think is the most common misconception of a writer's life?
A: That once an author is published they can live off their writing from then on. Steven King's doing all right. JK Rowling's not hurting. The rest of us have day jobs.
Q: Books. Who is your favorite non-BL writer and whom are you reading at the moment?
A: The list of authors I gave earlier as my biggest influences are also generally my favorite authors. But I have also recently read and loved:
'Perdito Street Station' and 'Scar' by China Mieville
'Fingersmith' by Sarah Waters
George R.R. Martin's 'Game of Thrones' series
'The Prisoner of Zenda' by Anthony Hope
and...
'The White Company' by Arthur Conan Doyle (which is pretty much a textbook for anyone who wants to write about day to day life in the armies of the Empire.)
Q: Any practical advice for aspiring BL writers?
A: Don't aspire to be a BL writer. Aspire to be a writer. Black Library is a great company to work for, but there are a lot of other markets out there, and you can only sell Warhammer and 40k stories to BL, and then only if they ask for them. Write stories for the contests, but otherwise, do your own work.
I didn't get the job by writing fan fiction. I got the job because I was a professional. I wrote well, knew how to get the job done right the first time, and could make a deadline.
So, how do you become a professional? I had a nephew of mine ask me that recently, and I wrote out some advice - some of which I wish I had followed better myself back in the day. These aren't all the answers, and they aren't sure-fire answers, but they're steps in the right direction.
1 - Write every day. A writer writes. He doesn't just talk about writing. He sits down and does it. I write four to six hours a day, six days a week - sometimes seven. Even if you only write for an hour, do it every day. And blogging doesn't count.
2 - Finish what you start. Don't start twenty different stories and give up halfway through all of them. Pick one and finish it. No one buys ideas. No one buys half-finished stories. They buy completed works.
3 - Show people what you've written, and LISTEN to their criticism. A writer only grows by getting feedback. Remember that, if you want to make a living as a writer, you must write to please an audience. If you show somebody a story and they don't get it, it's not their fault, it's yours. You didn't make your point clear enough. Try again.
4 - Read. Read the kind of stuff you want to write. If you want to write fantasy or science fiction novels you should read them. All kinds. Read other stuff too, different genres, different styles. Read lots of different books on how to write - not just one. They all have good advice, but it's best not to get trapped in one way of doing things. No one guy has all the answers.
5 - Send your work out - to agents, publishers, producers, and when they reject it, send it to somebody else. Everybody gets rejected. If you let it discourage you, you won't get anywhere. I have 3 produced screenplays. I have written more than 24. The means I wrote more than 21 screenplays that were rejected. You have to keep trying again. If the person who rejected your work gives you comments, LISTEN to them. They're not always right, and sometimes their reasons have nothing to do with how good your story is (for instance, "Sorry, we're already doing a horror movie about giant hamsters.") But if they make story comments, LISTEN!
6 - Network. This is a piece of advice I wish I had listened to years ago. Meet and get to know the people who buy the kind of work you want to sell. Make friends with them. When I came to Hollywood I thought that all I had to do was write and the work would sell itself. I was wrong. You must write, but if you want to make money at it, you have to learn how to sell it too. In this town that means getting to know agents and other writers and producers, and hanging out with them. I didn't do this. I locked myself in my room and wrote, and consequently I didn't know very many industry people to show my work to. A lot of my scripts never got a real chance because they were only seen by a few people.
There you go. My nephew was asking about screenplays, but the same sort of stuff applies to novels as well. Good luck.
Q: Do you have an agent? How does that work, how important is it to you?
A: I do not have an agent. I am looking for one. The way I'm hired for my work for BL is pretty straight forward, but for my original stories, I think having an agent would be very advantageous. Just getting read at a major publishing house can be difficult. Having a good agent can at least move you higher up in the 'to read' pile.
Q: When you become Evil Overlord for the day, what rule would you impose on the genre (apart from giving yourself a lifetime's worth of already-optioned-for-the-movies novels to write)?
A: No more fantasy novels about the ultimate battle between the ultimate good the ultimate evil. There is nothing more boring than noble people on a noble quest acting nobly. Blackhearts are much more interesting.
And no more talking cats. That has to stop.
So that's it. Thank you Nathan for making the time to do the interview.
- Martin Belderson
