Ask the Author: David E. Barber
Answered Questions (9)
David E. Barber
I would go to Middle Earth. I would travel to Rivendell, to the house of Elrond Half-elven, and I would never leave.
David E. Barber
Having accepted a dare from his friends to enter the decaying and supposedly haunted house at the very stroke of midnight, the boy stood proudly in the open doorway, waving to his friends who looked back at him with open mouths and looks of shock and horror distorting their youthful faces. What the boy couldn’t see, that his friends could, was the enormous, grotesquely formed figure standing just behind him, its impossibly large maw, filled with dagger long teeth, hanging agape, and its long-fingered hands, each tipped with a razor-sharp talon, raised and ready to strike.
David E. Barber
I read as much as I can, and nothing inspires me more than reading the work of a really good author. When I first read the Lord of the Rings I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I couldn't imagine I would ever find an author I loved as much as J.R.R. Tolkien. I must have read his trilogy 20 times, and The Hobbit more times than that. But then I discovered Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber and Jack Vance, and a whole host of other great fantasy writers. Then I started to stray away from fantasy into other realms. I discovered Stephen King and Dean Koontz. I read Robert B. Parker and Dick Francis. I read Issac Assimov and Orson Scott Card. I read Flannery O'Connor and Dorothy Parker. I read the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Sylvia Plath, and I just kept going. In my mind there is nothing more inspiring than good writing, and I discover more great books and extraordinary authors every day. More than anything I want to be one of those authors. I want to be that good, that insightful, that profound. I'm not there yet. But I am inspired to keep trying.
David E. Barber
Writing is the one thing I have always wanted to do. It just took me a long time to figure that out. When I was in high school and considering what to do with my life I was on the fence between writing and art as careers. Back then I thought of it in terms of Journalism versus Commercial Art, and I just wasn't in love with Journalism. After years of working in advertising I finally found my way back to writing, and I relish every minute that I am able to sit in front of my computer and dream of things that never were. I haven't found the kind of success it would take to give up my day job, but the few hours I spend writing are the best part of any day. Regardless of what happens moving forward, I feel blessed to be a writer and plan to keep doing it for as long as I possibly can.
David E. Barber
I work through it. I don't really believe in writer's block. I believe everyone can have a bad day, or a day where you're not feeling particularly motivated. Sometimes you just need to step away, or work on something else for a while to renew your enthusiasm, but I don't really consider that writer's block. Just human nature. I am one of those writers who likes to thoroughly outline my stories before I begin writing the actual book or short story. I still have a day job and limited time to write, so I try to make the time I do have as productive as possible.
David E. Barber
Always a difficult question for me. There are so many book I want to read! I knocked one off already. I just finished reading Skullsworn by Brian Staveley. Wonderful book. Thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm currently reading Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale. Wasn't even on my list, but after seeing the show on Hulu I had to read it. Next up on my list is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. This one has been on my book shelf for a while, but I keep getting distracted by other things. Soon, Mr. Rothfuss. Very soon.
David E. Barber
The greatest piece of advice I can give any aspiring writer is simply this: you have to write. You have to write every day, no matter what. Make it a priority, like exercise, or breathing. Set yourself a goal of writing 1,000 words a day and at the end of a year you’ll have enough material for a novel. But, that’s not all. Along with writing every day you have to read. In his book, On Writing, Stephen King said, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” Embracing this philosophy is probably what helped me the most on the path to completing my first novel.
David E. Barber
The plot for The Fabled Beast of Elddon initially came from a random role-playing game. I played with a couple of friends one weekend and, as I often do, I chronicled events on my laptop. The basic story was about a couple of heroes who go into the mountains to confront a dragon that has been plaguing a small village and end up making a mutually beneficial deal with the monster that ends the attacks on the village, but also ensures the dragon’s survival.
I tried writing the tale as a short story, but it didn’t work very well. Later, long after the game, I ran across an image of the chimera from Dante’s Inferno. I was fascinated by the illustration and started thinking, what if I replaced the dragon in the story with a mythological beast of some sort? At the same time, I was reading a book called Life in a Medieval Village by Joseph and Frances Gies. In the book the authors use a village called Elton as an example of a typical medieval village. The name stuck with me, but I eventually changed it to Eldon, and finally to Elddon, which is a Swedish word that means tinder box.
I tried again to write the short story, but the tale kept growing in my mind. I decided I wanted to use the story to bring together two characters who would play a significant role in another book I was writing, and have since finished, called A Way with Magic, the first in a series of books called the Chronicle of the Dragon Shards. But there was still something missing. I needed a compelling reason for my heroes to get involved. I needed characters that would have a vested interest in the outcome of these events and who would care more about Elddon even than my two heroes. In wandered a pair of young lovers called Tristan and Ryia, and they demanded to be part of the story.
I ultimately decided the story had to be a novella, not a short. I put all the disparate pieces together and somehow, magically, they all seemed to fit—with a little tweaking of course. Thus The Fabled Beast of Elddon was born.
I tried writing the tale as a short story, but it didn’t work very well. Later, long after the game, I ran across an image of the chimera from Dante’s Inferno. I was fascinated by the illustration and started thinking, what if I replaced the dragon in the story with a mythological beast of some sort? At the same time, I was reading a book called Life in a Medieval Village by Joseph and Frances Gies. In the book the authors use a village called Elton as an example of a typical medieval village. The name stuck with me, but I eventually changed it to Eldon, and finally to Elddon, which is a Swedish word that means tinder box.
I tried again to write the short story, but the tale kept growing in my mind. I decided I wanted to use the story to bring together two characters who would play a significant role in another book I was writing, and have since finished, called A Way with Magic, the first in a series of books called the Chronicle of the Dragon Shards. But there was still something missing. I needed a compelling reason for my heroes to get involved. I needed characters that would have a vested interest in the outcome of these events and who would care more about Elddon even than my two heroes. In wandered a pair of young lovers called Tristan and Ryia, and they demanded to be part of the story.
I ultimately decided the story had to be a novella, not a short. I put all the disparate pieces together and somehow, magically, they all seemed to fit—with a little tweaking of course. Thus The Fabled Beast of Elddon was born.
David E. Barber
I am currently working on a series called the Chronicle of the Dragon Shards. The first book in that series, A Way with Magic, is done and is being submitted to publishers. The Fabled Beast of Elddon is a prequel to that series and tells how two of the characters, Ander and Loth, first met. The nice thing about writing a series of books is that I don't have to spend a lot of time agonizing over the next project. This should keep me busy for a very long time.
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