Release Day Interview with B.I. Woolet

I cannot believe it is already October. Wow. I don't know where my summer went! (Oh yeah--it went to reading some amazing books. Here is to the continuation of good reading.) The leaves are in full force changing to beautiful reds and oranges. My yard is surrounded by a gentle fire. But my least favorite of their activities is actually falling all over my yard. The graveyard of dead leaves just means time to get to raking all over again. Cool mornings and evenings means it is also time to pull out the scarves and pumpkin-spiced drinks, so every dark cloud has its silver lining.

Today is the release of the second book from World of Arcas authors B.I. Woolet. To celebrate this awesome occasion I did an interview with them again. You may remember the duo from their previous interview on my blog as well as a review of The Hunter, The Bear, and The Seventh Sister. We join Jackson again on his adventures in Arrows of Darkness.

A) In our last interview you talked about the joys of having a hobby together. As a partnership of authors, how do you divide up the writing tasks? What parts are inspired by whom?

BI) We usually brainstorm through the overarching plotline together and haggle over the details as we go. Some times, one of us gets inspired about a scene and just starts writing. When a new section is first scripted, the other reads it and either approves or gives a “yuck” face, and thus editing begins! I (Ila) spend the most time physically writing and editing, whereas Benji splits up his time between writing a little, dreaming up crazy creatures and scenarios, researching astronomy stuff, and managing the business side of things.

In Arrows of Darkness, Benji became inspired with the idea to create a Lagoon. He saw a picture of the Lagoon Nebula while researching and thought our characters most definitely needed to get lost in it! I had no clue what he was imagining, so he just took over the keyboard and started writing. He put down one page to cast the vision, and I finished it by making each character’s  nightmares come to life over 3 chapters of wet, foggy craziness.  So, to put it simply, Benji’s more into big ideas and driving action, while I’m more into the literary details of manipulating words and character interactions.

A) With your second book releasing October 2nd, do you feel like seasoned pros in the publishing business? Or are there still things to be learned?

BI) Oh, goodness, no! We still feel like amateurs in the publishing world, though we are getting a little more comfortable being called “authors” than we used to be. We’ve definitely learned a lot about finding our audience, print formatting, and marketing. Hopefully, we will continue to tweak, change, and grow with each book.

A) Are you stopping at a trilogy or are you going for a series?

BI) We aren’t completely sure how long the World of Arcas series will go. We have exciting ideas of stories that would awaken the heroes and wars from ages past, but we also could end up extending Jackson’s story beyond the trilogy arc. We have some other book ideas that we have been thinking about outside of fantasy, but we are definitely going to finish Jackson’s escapades before we tackle any new realms! Nevertheless, the star-studded world of Arcas will probably always be beckoning us back for just one more adventure…

Check back next week as I will have an awesome giveaway for copies of both books from the World of Arcas and a review for the book!!