Dreamspinner Press discussion

Chat with Robin Saxon author of The Royal Road, right now!

Hey, what's going on in this here thread--



A thread for me? You like me! You really like me!

Hello everyone! My name is Robin Saxon. I've published three books with Dreamspinner so far - Blood Howl, Blood in the Sand, and recently The Royal Road.

I'm a New Zealander currently living in Australia. I was raised in the South Island which means that I talk like a really slurred mix between English and Scottish accents, and the Kiwi tendency to turn every vowel into a 'u'. I've been writing since I was eleven and I'm still a little shocked that I even managed to get published at all.

Anyway! I'm here to talk about The Royal Road, which was an interesting little book to write. It's contemporary but it also has three chapters set in different genres - high fantasy, 1920's detective novel, and sci-fi. In those, and in the main character Weston's attempts to write, I explore a little bit the stereotypes in those genres. The book as a whole is themed around expectations versus reality, first impressions versus getting to know somebody, and rumor versus truth.

My partner Alex and I are also in the middle of writing the third in the Sanguis Noctis series, Bloodlines, which comes after Blood Howl and Blood in the Sand.

What I'm also going to be doing today is doing a few giveaways and posting a few excerpts! Come ask me stuff :D

Hi Robin. I'm working today so only around for a bit but wanted to say hi. So not commenting on the Kiwi accent LOL as I'm guilty of it myself though I'm not a mainlander like you are.

Can you tell us a bit more about The Royal Road? What you've said about three chapters set in different genres has me intrigued.

Hello! So glad to chat with you! Is The Royal Road set in Australia or New Zealand?

Hi Anne! Thanks for stopping by :D (You wouldn't happen to be from Stewart Island, would you? :P)

The Royal Road was my little experiment if seeing if a book could work with genre-hopping. The main character, Weston Davies, is a struggling writer--in that he keeps having fantastic ideas, but every time he puts pen to paper his writing is riddled with cliches and his characters talk about stereotypes. In the book I include little snippets of his writing to show his thought process, also because they were fun to write.

The three chapters set in different genres are Weston's dreams. At work, he has to deal with a newly hired productivity consultant named Sidney, and Weston's paranoia that he may be fired tangles with his vivid dreams. He starts having dreams that Sidney is an evil dragon burning a high fantasy village - but even in his dreams, Weston's subconscious has ways of alerting him to the fact that Sidney may in fact not be pure evil.

Essentially those dream segments are a way to explore Weston's subconscious in a way that narration wouldn't show. And it was extremely fun to write!

Hi Juliana, welcome :D

The Royal Road is not set in either, no, it's set in America. (There's no hobbits or surfers, that's how you know it's not NZ or Aussie!) I do, however, have a book that is in the planning stages set in New Zealand that is pretty much a partial love letter to the country. It's a story about an ex-conman who's con specialty was exorcisms, and a NZ native who is road tripping around the country to spread his mother's ashes over her favorite places.

Robin wrote: "Hi Juliana, welcome :D

The Royal Road is not set in either, no, it's set in America. (There's no hobbits or surfers, that's how you know it's not NZ or Aussie!) I do, however, have a book that is..."

Haha! I don't know about hobbits but since I'm from Florida we do have surfers! How did you get the idea of this new book?

Hi Robin, did you find it difficult to write a story within a story?

Hi Robin, I recently read your book The Royal Road.
a) That title is fantastic.
b) Yes the dreams Weston has were fascinating as they were a big chance for you to take. The introduction of several types of genre from my point of view was a high risk, because you never know if a reader will be into all those genres.
For me the best part of the book, where it really had my attention was after the dreams were over and the guys started dating. It was then when the guys let me "close" to them. I will admit though, that if the dreams hadn't happen, Weston's personality would be a bit off and lost. And your intention of showing how prejudice and rumors can shadow your judgment wouldn't be so valid if not for them.
In the end, when Sidney asked Weston the question, you know for the reasons he dated him, Weston's explanation was pretty damn good. I feared a they'd have a break up at that point ;)
Bottom end though, this book was pretty unique, risky, but unique.
Your new WIP seems very interesting as well. I love reading about Australia. There's a quality about that country that makes me want to devour every book there is by Aussie authors.

Australian men tend to be stereotyped as fantastically ripped, blonde, tanned surfers who ride wallabies like pogo sticks - which isn't a bad thing to be stereotyped as, as far as things go! - but as a Kiwi I get to poke fun at them for being surfers and saying 'six' like 'sex'.

The idea for The Royal Road was actually somewhat different at it's conception, and it's only due to Alex Kidwell that the story got changed into anything remotely coherent. To tell you the truth I don't remember how I specifically got the idea - I think I started getting attached to the idea of trying to fit different genres into one book without mashing them all together, and TRR is what happened!

Or perhaps it came from that awful it's 3am and I can't write to save my life feeling, and I wanted to have a character that knew my pain.

Haha! How far are you into your new WIP? That seems very emotional in nature, is it hard to write books like that?

Thomaidha - you just said everything I wanted to hear from a reader, so thank you so much for that. I'm incredibly gratified to know that the book worked for some people!

1) Thank you! I think Freud is hilarious, and he did do some important work on dream psychology, so I wanted to have a little nod to him. It was a choice between Freud and Jung.

2) I don't want to toot my own horn my saying that TRR was risky, but there were some elements of risk to it, I suppose. I especially feel that way about the gentle fun I poke at the romance genre and the urban fantasy genre - the latter is very short, but it's becoming a very popular niche and I know quite a few authors that write in it, myself included. I only hope that people realize it is indeed gentle fun, and not mockery! I almost didn't include the urban fantasy snippet, but I kept it in the end.

And while I'm not Australian, I'm practically an honorary Australian! Us Kiwis can live over here and get jobs and everything else without a visa, and the two countries have a very friendly mocking relationship.

I'd love to write an Australian themed book one day!

Robin wrote: "Hi Anne! Thanks for stopping by :D (You wouldn't happen to be from Stewart Island, would you? :P)

The Royal Road was my little experiment if seeing if a book could work with genre-hopping. The mai..."

LOL. I'm from Wellington. The story has definitely piqued my interest with your description - I'll have to look out for it. I really like the idea of your WIP too - not enough books set here IMO.

Heading out to work now - will read the rest of the chat when I get home.

Juliana - I've really only written the first chapter of that WIP, and have done some of the planning. I got incredibly inspired on my last visit to NZ during a car trip to Openone, and had to sit in agony for four hours as I mentally wrote but couldn't put it down on paper!

Right now, Alex and I are concentrating on Bloodlines, and I have a book that I'm planning that's a little bit sci-fi, a little bit cyperpunk. So many WIPs!

It is hard for me to write very emotional books, as I admit I'm quite an emotionally reserved person. But that's also a good thing about writing such books; it helps me work on expressing my emotions outwardly through writing therapy!

Hi Robin

Your background is fascinating and the book sounds really interesting and different.

Robin wrote: "Hey, what's going on in this here thread--



A thread for me? You like me! You really like me!

Hello everyone! My name is Robin Saxon. I've published three books with Dreamspinner so far - Blood ..."

Anne - ooh a Wellingtonian. I lived there for a few years, first in Whitby, then Thorndon, and then a sweet apartment at the very edge of Courtney Place in the CBD. I haven't been back in ages, though, I miss it.

And I agree, there need to be more books set in NZ. I guess I'd better get writing!

Thanks for stopping by :D

Jana - thank you! I hope you enjoy TRR if you decide to read it :)

I've decided that it's time for an excerpt from The Royal Road. Here we witness our main character, Weston, attempting to write after having a fantastic dream about a high fantasy world:

His mind was too consumed by ideas, glorious ideas, that seemed to create themselves and get better all by themselves, as though he wasn’t even consciously involved in the making of them. It was intoxicating; he’d never had inspiration like that, and by the end of the day, he had five pages of scribbled notes and a rudimentary map.

As soon as he got home, he eagerly opened his laptop, his fingers hovering over the keys.

And found himself unable to type anything.

A minute ticked by. Weston frowned increasingly harder at the screen.

Five minutes, and he still hadn’t typed anything.

“Oh my God,” he moaned in despair, burying his face in his hands. “I’m a hack. I’m an ideas man. Everybody hates the ideas man because he can’t actually do anything.”

No matter how hard he stared at the screen, the words wouldn’t come. Weston shuffled his notes, read them through again, but though the images and ideas were clear in his mind, he couldn’t translate them into the words of a novel. How did he start it? What was the plot going to be? What growth would the characters go through?

No, he could do this. Weston wasn’t going to give up.

He raised his fingers to the keyboard again, and very deliberately typed:

WingBlade was a handsome warrior. The most handsome in all the land.

No. God, no. That wouldn’t do. Weston deleted it, and started anew.

In times of crisis, the people of the Flatlands enjoyed doing activities such as roasting potatoes and cutting them into the colloquially named “fries.”.

That was even worse, and made no sense whatsoever.

Oh damn, I'm not very familiar with Kiwis/Australian differences, I hope my ignorance (and I totally mean it, I'm ignorant about the continent) didn't insult.
As for Freud, you do mention at some point that Freud and Jung would have a field party with Weston and I so loved that.
More than anything, the first 2 pages cracked me up to the point of tears. When Weston wakes up and reads what he'd been writing at night, his reaction at all that was just epic. I imagine that's how many authors feel while in the process of writing something and that not being what they intended.

Fact is that in this book, you made some very valid points about expectations. We are so wrapped up in our own dreamland that often we expect people we meet and surround us to be like the "romance heroes" we read about, or in this case dream about, and that causes alienation to most of us today. So very rarely do people wake up and walk away from their fantasy bubble, and I was glad to see that your Weston did get a grip in the end. However I wonder, if you weren't reaching for a HEA in TRR, it would have woked out perfectly with the background you wrote. It'd be sad, but a hell of a dramatic (deserving) ending.

Robin wrote: "Jana - thank you! I hope you enjoy TRR if you decide to read it :)

I've decided that it's time for an excerpt from The Royal Road. Here we witness our main character, Weston, attempting to write a..."

Haha! Poor guy! I feel like writing may wind up including a lot of moments like this for authors! I hope he can get started. ;)

Thank you for posting the excerpt. It seems fascinating and I'd like to read it but will have to wait until I finish Blood Howl, which is wonderful.

Thomaidha - Haha, no worries! After living in Aussie for five years I'm practically an Australian too, by this point (although I haven't absorbed the accent yet).

And oh yes, sometimes we go on 3am writing benders and are absolutely horrified by what we've written when we wake up in the morning. I apparently tend to get a lot more purple-prose-y.

Expectations are a funny thing. I think that it's especially evident in the teenager generation right now that consumes more media than any other generation, it seems like. All over Pinterest and Tumblr I see people saying I want to find a man just like the Doctor, or whoever their favorite character is, and the expectations are just completely unrealistic.

That's no problem, I suppose - the problem comes in when people are so tied up in these expectations that they fail to see the good qualities people do have, even when they're not as handsome as a movie star or as brave as a zombie apocalypse survivor.

So that was really what I wanted to explore with TRR, and I had a lot of fun doing it!

(I do agree, though, the book definitely could have worked with a non-HEA. I wasn't deliberately angling for it, I write books however they flow most naturally to me, so it did wind up being HEA. An interesting thought for a future book, though!)

Juliana - Authors have many terribly embarrassing moments in life, it's fun to write about them!

Andrea - Hello! Ooh, I'm pleased to hear you're reading Blood Howl :D Alex and I greatly enjoyed writing that, and I hope you enjoy it too.

Time for another excerpt! We'll get to know Sidney in this one:

In a sharp contrast to Weston’s hesitant steps to avoid the moving crowd on the street, Sidney’s stride was much more confident, making Weston pick up his pace to keep up. They chose a small corner café that boasted an all-day breakfast and some of the best coffee in town.

They picked a table, and Sidney unhooked his messenger bag from over his shoulder, and set it on the ground. Only when Weston caught an accidental glimpse of its contents did he say something that wasn’t lunch related. “Is that Lord of the Flies in your bag?”

Sidney looked briefly startled, but an abashed smile crossed his lips. “I reread it occasionally.”

“I’m more of a Tolkien guy myself,” Weston replied.

“Is it the three-page- long ramblings about a made-up language?” Sidney’s smile turned sly. “Or the five-paragraph environment descriptions?”

Weston put on an insulted expression. “It’s better than pig heads and young boys running around killing each other . I had to read that in school; I think it traumatized me.”

“It’s always about the pig head when someone doesn’t like the novel,” Sidney sighed dramatically. “I thought someone like you would like Lord of the Flies.”

Weston wasn’t sure if he should be insulted or not, mostly because he had no idea what Sidney meant by that. “Someone like me?” He hesitated. “What, do I give off the air of secretly being a murderer?”

Sue wrote: "Hi Robin, did you find it difficult to write a story within a story?"

Sue - I'm so sorry, I didn't see your comment until now!

It did find it a little difficult, yes. TRR essentially has three smaller stories set within a larger story, but I really enjoyed doing it. For me the fun (and the challenge) was fleshing out the story as much as I could within one chapter, and making sure that the worlds felt as real as the contemporary does.

And since we're on the topic of stereotypes, everyone, what are some favourite stereotypes of yours? :D

Mine is probably the whole, 'Young peasant from rural village learns he has a great destiny and becomes the most important person in the world' in fantasy. It can be done so well - but it's still everywhere!

And, check it out; GIVEAWAY DETAILS

I'll be giving away two free copies of The Royal Road to two people in this thread, randomly selected (from people that haven't already read it). Chime in and tell me your favorite stereotype, and maybe win a free copy!

Oh my, I'm sorry for coming in so late. Overslept much, lol.

Marta - Hello! And no worries, it started an hour late, so technically we're all latecomers :D

Aww, good to know :)

I told you my least favourite stereotypes on your page here. But generally...it's "the least one to get it easy/good, gets it and all "forces of dark" are slayed" stereotype that gets to me and makes me roll my eyes/gag.

And a question! Is it hard to mix in sci-fi, fantasy and historical into contemporary? I'm trying to master contemporary right now so still answering my own question based on authors with more experience's replies. In a way it's the apprentice technique of learning, lol.

Perhaps ironically, I actually found the contemporary genre hardest to write! I tend to favor urban fantasy or genres like sci-fi, which are easier to me for some reason - I can throw in fun details like a descendant of Medusa or mechanical lions in a sci-fi circus, but with contemporary you have to rely on, you know... reality.

I also think it might be one the hardest genres to master, so kudos to you for practicing it!

I don't really have a favorite stereotype but I have a lot of least liked ones if that counts. First would be older characters who are assumed to be old in mind as well as body. I say that because the older I get the more I realize that mindset doesn't change as you get older. This is the time of my life when I've finally realized that what older people told me when I was younger actually made sense and it shouldn't have been disregarded because of the white hair of the person telling me.

Robin wrote: "And since we're on the topic of stereotypes, everyone, what are some favourite stereotypes of yours? :D

Mine is probably the whole, 'Young peasant from rural village learns he has a great destiny ..."

I guess one stereotype I see too much in MM is of the small stature bottom and large stature top. It does happen in real life but I like it mixed up a bit! I love when the small guy is the more dominant or 'masculine' of the pair.

I know exactly what you mean, Andrea!

Older characters get such a bad rap in books sometimes, very often being shoved into the 'funny old doddering person with outdated beliefs' role. People do have 'outdated beliefs' sometimes, true, but many people can also change them. And a long life more often than not brings a whole lot of common sense!

Juliana - Haha, oh man, didn't that come from Japanese manga? That cracks me up. The bottom is always girly and effeminate and the top is huge and masculine. Never mind that many, many gay relationships don't have such things as 'tops' and 'bottoms'.

Hello Robin,
I too already told you my least favorite stereotype on your author page.
Now that I have read about your book's experts here I can understand why you asked that question.

My most favorite type of stereotype.. that is hard because I really do not like stereotypical characters that often.
Actually I am quite a snob in that I like to read about original characters that are fully fleshed out as I find them to be more relatable.
I find it exciting to meet the characters in the books and get to know them. New characters are as important to me as original (as much as possible) plots.
But if I had to take a stereotype and run with it, then I think I like the private detective or police officer. Because those characters usually are in story lines that have some other excitement in them.

Robin wrote: "Perhaps ironically, I actually found the contemporary genre hardest to write! I tend to favor urban fantasy or genres like sci-fi, which are easier to me for some reason - I can throw in fun detail..."


Thank you :)

And I agree that reality is hard to recreate because everyone knows what things are about and if there's a mess up...you get it >.>

The older chars stereotype is actually quite interesting because in some cases it can be head-on while in others it's just ridiculous. After 50 people don't often update "their ways" so the outdated believes and them being "stuck in time" is true. I see that in real way too often. However there are the people who at 70 act more like 30 so no stereotype can be applied there.

Robin wrote: "I know exactly what you mean, Andrea!

Older characters get such a bad rap in books sometimes, very often being shoved into the 'funny old doddering person with outdated beliefs' role. People do ha..."

I was a teenager in the '60's and about as liberal as you can get. That hasn't changed and my adult, relatively conservative son thinks I'm nuts. That's okay because I think the same of him. We love each other, though. I'm hoping he'll get more liberal as he ages.

Hey Tammy :D And I finally know why you wanted to include the officers :D I have to read through all you wrote since the 8th.

Robin wrote: "Juliana - Haha, oh man, didn't that come from Japanese manga? That cracks me up. The bottom is always girly and effeminate and the top is huge and masculine. Never mind that many, many gay relation..."

Those yaoi always make me giggle! Like the most effective guy always literally fall into some rich dominant man's arms! Um, not likely! And they are never gay just like sex with dudes. :/ Wah?

Tammy - I totally agree, original characters are a lot more fun to read. Unfortunately, us authors know that, well, everything has already been done before. Every basic story has been told. The real challenge is finding a different way to do it.

That was my goal for Redford Reed in the Sanguis Noctis books - I wanted to take him being a werewolf in a direction that's not often touched upon in books. (I could post a whole lecture here about how wolves are actually quite timid creatures, alpha/beta/omega dynamics don't exist at all, and the whole stereotype of 'bloodthirsty wolves' likely came from diseases wolves, but I'll restrain myself!)

Marta - Haha, exactly. If you write about a plague that dissolves everything on a sci-fi world, nobody questions it. But if you put that into contemporary, it becomes a question of finding ways to make it scientifically fit.

And for the old person stereotype: I've always thought that I was born with the soul of a grumpy old man who just wants to yell at kids to get off my lawn, so age is definitely in the eye of the beholder!

Marta wrote: "After 50 people don't often update "their ways" so the outdated believes and them being "stuck in time" is true..."
You want to know something Marta, my oldest son is 26 years old and he is so buying into the liberalist party lines that he has not gotten his own views/experience in life yet.
I think people can get stuck in ruts of thinking at any age. Sometimes it can be because they are just plan lazy to experience something themselves, Sometimes its because they believe the hype of a stereotype and again its easy to keep believing it. I have a friend who was a hippy and is now in her 60's and she can not get past the idea that country music is no longer the country music that it used to be. She exaggerates its older style traits and denies that her older music from the 1960-1970 has the same kinds of lyrics that she complains about the older country music songs of having.
She also thinks that today's Republicans are the same Republicans of the past. That today's Christians are the same as the past and so on.
Getting stuck in the past is as much about personal pride and refusal to be open minded as it is about age.
It takes work, a willingness to let go of past ways of thinking, to keep ones mind open to knew people and acceptance of change.
So many people want to hold onto what they know because it is familiar and comfortable and they can feel justified in those beliefs...
OK I am slipping way off topic, sorry my bad.

Question - any tentative date for the release of Bloodlines?

Juliana wrote: "Robin wrote: "Juliana - Haha, oh man, didn't that come from Japanese manga? That cracks me up. The bottom is always girly and effeminate and the top is huge and masculine. Never mind that many, man..."

I actually draw mangas and helped out some managakas to do the toning on their books (for publishing) and yaoi (it's BL in Japan, yaoi being made by women for women) has a lot of stereotypes. However, the most stereotypical are from the 80s-90s (also the most dramatic) and if you think about it their bodies do have something to do with the skinny 80s and the Asian build. Nowadays they are becoming better. Ike Reibun does some of the most beautiful yaoi with a plot. And the bara (rose or muscle meaning) is stories about masculine gay guys.

Andrea, I'm afraid I can't give a solid answer for that! I estimate it'll take one or two months more to finish writing, so, if we're really on the ball, perhaps in four or five months.

Tammy K. wrote: It takes work, a willingness to let go of past ways of thinking, to keep ones mind open to knew people and acceptance of change."

Well, we are discussing stereotypes and sometimes finding out the reason for the stereotype's existence is more important than formulating the stereotype itself :)

I agree to you saying it's often a lack of that experience and relying on "tested ways" or being plain lazy about some things.

Alright, and I have gone well over my two hour time. Whoops! I was having way too much fun chatting with you guys, I completely forgot to look at the time.

As for the eBook giveaways - I'm gonna pull names out of a hat :D

Andrea and Juliana, you're up :D (If you've already got TRR, my apologies!) I'll be messaging you both shortly.

Everyone, thank you so much for this. It was incredibly enjoyable and I loved having the chance to chat with you guys about stereotypes and my book. As an author it's pretty much the greatest thing in the world to have people tell you they're curious about your book.

Thank you again, you were all amazing <3

Marta wrote: "Juliana wrote: "Robin wrote: "Juliana - Haha, oh man, didn't that come from Japanese manga? That cracks me up. The bottom is always girly and effeminate and the top is huge and masculine. Never min..."

I'll have to look that artist up! And I am guilty of reading some of the really stereotypical 80s ones!

Thank you for the chat Robin.

Robin wrote: "Alright, and I have gone well over my two hour time. Whoops! I was having way too much fun chatting with you guys, I completely forgot to look at the time.

As for the eBook giveaways - I'm gonna p..."

Thank you so much! Can't wait to read it.

Robin wrote: "Alright, and I have gone well over my two hour time. Whoops! I was having way too much fun chatting with you guys, I completely forgot to look at the time.

As for the eBook giveaways - I'm gonna p..."

Thanks so much! I had fun! Thanks for answering our questions!

Aww ty for the chat :)

And Juliana - can PM me ;) I'm not a fan-girl but more of a conesiour, lol.

Sorry I missed this! What was I thinking? ;-)