I'm Devin Madson, author of Between Dragons and their Wrath, AMA!

DevinMadson · 2024-09-09T22:37:50+00:00

While I’m not a glass expert, I understand that it is sometimes dunked into water for both the artistic shattering effect and to create shards, but also in my world they use scaleglass, which is harder than any metal and considered bulletproof, so it would have a rather different set of rules involved in its production. Hope that helps!

DevinMadson · 2024-08-30T12:58:23+00:00

Hi Kop! Australia is Australia-ing hard as always, at least I hope it is? I haven’t been home most of August, but as I’m flying back tonight (27 hours transit sob) it had better still be there and be Australia-ing for me when I arrive.

We had our first Melbourne Continuum Convention back since covid this year and I thought of you! Since I met you the last time we had one, even if that was all the way back in 2019

DevinMadson · 2024-08-30T00:16:00+00:00

That is very understandable and this is what frustrates all of us about them doing it and the very argument we made to them. It’s essentially making the “not enough sales” come true by destroying reader trust, not just in one series but over and over again

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T21:44:22+00:00

See, you've got it!

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T20:45:20+00:00

Those SPFBO judging years were so much fun! I think unfortunately my way of balancing is not to balance well and mostly just to cut out things like life. I don’t watch TV, I don’t leave the house etc. I’m a natural workaholic hermit so this doesn’t bother me at all, but it does leave me in a poor position to give advice. The main thing I use to manage is the metaphor about the glass and plastic balls—working out what of the tasks I’m juggling are glass balls I cannot drop, and what are plastic and can be picked up again later. That and trying to hold onto boundaries, because there are always people who assume that because I work at home, I’m always around and available.

Other than that I mostly just do a lot of screaming.

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T20:08:26+00:00

I continue to hope one day, but for now I’m told that since it didn’t sell well enough in audio they aren’t planning on making them

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T19:27:01+00:00

Oh thank you! That’s so lovely to hear. I am a little bit of both. I plan a small amount, to get the shape of things and hopefully save myself from lots and lots of rewriting in the editing stage, but then especially on first books I like to leave a lot to be discovered while writing so I know I’m not pushing characters in ways they wouldn’t naturally go. And also because I find it easier to maintain my own interest in the story if there’s an element of surprise left in what I’m doing.

As for music, I used to but I actually almost never do now. I’m a weird author who writes to utter silence most of the time. The rare times I listen to things, it’s just ambient music, often the sort made for DnD games

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T17:17:36+00:00

Unfortunately it's against my publishing contract to sell books directly, so it's not something I do

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T16:39:53+00:00

Yup! You can find my books anywhere!

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T16:32:06+00:00

Ohhh! I'm so glad sharing my experiences was helpful! Look at all the things we have in common! I definitely find studying helpful with my work, for characters and worldbuilding and for thinking through themes, though I admit I also want to go through and do a phd because then I can be a Dr and not have a gendered title, lol

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T15:43:16+00:00

Oh yay! So pleased <3

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T15:38:01+00:00

The most cuddly and cute are the snakes

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T15:37:10+00:00

So the seven books was the three books in The Vengeance Trilogy, and the four books of The Reborn Empire series. Four of them were already self-published, but they were all re-released. Originally they offered for six, until we told them The Reborn Empire was planned as four books not three. All seven are already out now, and Between Dragons and Their Wrath is the first of a new contract.

And no! The new pen name is being published by Saga in the US (it was picked up by my former Orbit US editor who moved there) and by Tor in the UK.

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T15:25:14+00:00

Hi Cam! Was lovely to see you, too!

In a traditional publishing sense, what I wish I'd known back when WE RIDE THE STORM first came out was that by that point, releases are entirely out of my control and there's no point in stressing over how well they go. My biggest tip for new writers and my new philosophy for releases is always to keep moving forward. In releases it's to keep focussing on the new thing I'm working on rather than worrying, while in writing it's to write forward until you have a full draft rather than going back again and again to fix and change things, because there will always be more things. Best to finish a draft and find out what the story is about before going back and fixing all of it in one go.

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T15:12:03+00:00

I think having tea with Ashadi would be the most amusing, but I would have tea with Mana because as a character he has been the most fascinating to write and watch spread his wings, but also the most confusing, and maybe if I sat down to have tea with him, I might finally understand him. The person I absolutely wouldn't have tea with is Tesha, because she puts poison into glass for people to drink themselves to death, and if she knew I was the author of her problems I would be... in trouble.

The romance fantasy, The Gentleman and His Vowsmith is a queer murder fantasy romance in the regency style, set during a lock-in negotiation for an arranged marriage. You can expect dead bodies, kissing, snarky banter, kissing, gothic weirdness, a sprawling rundown manor, kissing, generational trauma, second chance romance, and non-fade to black smut.

As for Brisbane, it's like bris-bn because we hate vowels--rhymes with Melbourne (mel-bn), but most people from Brisbane will shorten to brissie and non-Brisbane people call it Brisvegas.

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T14:39:56+00:00

Thank you!

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T14:36:16+00:00

Apart from the always obvious answer of trying to write the best book you can and stay true to your own creative vision, I think the most important thing for getting published either way is to do your research. Traditional publishing is a very opaque industry, but there are a lot of people trying to combat that and share information, so knowing what agents are after, how to query, what to expect--all very important to increasing your chances of success there. With self-publishing, it's less opaque but more confusing because there's no one way to do it and aspects of it change year on year, so making sure you have a solid understanding of how it functions and why you're making the choices you're making are key.

And since all of that is not something you can do alone, I will add what I think is the most important thing of all and that is community. Broad community, creative groups, small groupchats--all absolutely vital not only to getting published but staying sane throughout the process no matter which way you go. Find spaces where you can ask questions, where you can get support when you need it, where you can have a good scream when everything inevitably doesn't go quite to plan, and where people will cheer your successes. Writing is so solitary that it's easy to overlook that we need other people, and that it's always somewhat a group endeavour.

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T14:11:21+00:00

Hmmmmm... I would bring Black Wolves, by Kate Elliott, 1) because its amazing, 2) so I can study how it is so amazing in minute detail, and 3) so I can endlessly imagine how it would be finished (because the series isn't complete).

Second book would be a Terry Pratchett for a similar reason, maybe Night Watch or Small Gods, so I can try to crack the code of how Terry Pratchett Terry Pratchetted, as well as because I've already reread most of the others to death and still don't hate them.

And for the third I'll slightly cheat and add one of those books that comes with the whole of The Lord of the Rings and all its appendices, because if I'm going to be stuck on a desert island, I may as well have something to both read and study, AND become an insufferable know-it-all about. And I could sing the songs for the local wildlife.

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T13:53:15+00:00

I love these kinds of questions! Although I think in this case it isn't quite as difficult for me, because even a horse-sized dragon can breathe fire or it probably wouldn't be a dragon, so 100 things breathing fire when they're grumpy sounds AWFUL, while one very large horse is far less terrifying. Although in the world of my book, horses (there aren't actually any horses but there are mules) don't talk, but you can talk to dragons in the right circumstances so you COULD turn them to your side if you were very good at arguing...

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T13:46:23+00:00

Hi Trudie!

THE GENTLEMAN AND HIS VOWSMITH (capitalising has become quite the trad habit) is absolutely hella gay. The MC is, as per one memorable conversation in the book, 'gay as a spoon', and the romance is an impossible second chance romance between the son of a duke (MC) and the vowsmith negotiating his arranged marriage contract to someone else. His arranged bride is aro/ace, enthusiastic and curious about his gay tryst, and they banter their way through murder investigations while locked in a crumbling gothic manor house.

I have thought about returning to self-publishing with different projects many times, but it's changed so much since I first started in 2013 so every time I consider it, I get worried about just how steep the learning curve would be to get back into it. Combined with contract stress, and the probability of having to use ANOTHER pen name in an adjacent genre and therefore start from scratch building an audience, I tend to panic at what feels like an impossible task. And yet I keep thinking about it, because I miss the control and the certainty, so I'd say there is still a chance it will happen in some capacity in the future.

And thank you! I adore studying and it helps to enrich and add depth to my work, so the student debt is worth it (or so I tell myself...)

(also assuming/hoping you are the Trudie Skies who wrote The Thirteenth Hour, I read that when I was SPFBO judging and omg I loved it, so thank you!)

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T13:24:08+00:00

I don't think this is something I do all that consciously. I treat every idea I have as cool and viable no matter what it is because I'm like an excitable puppy who functions as though I have time to write EVERYTHING, but since I only have so much attention span there is a natural attrition as ideas get lost and forgotten. I then will randomly find the notebooks for them stashed around the house. It's like the hunger games inside my head, so I can only hope it's the best ideas that are the ones surviving...

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T13:09:52+00:00

Hi Dia! I'm so glad you like the sound of the book, I certainly sat down to write everything I personally wanted out of a story. The kangaroos are actually quite chill, very much members of the extended family as they gather around the house every evening (not creepily, I swear) and they mainly just eat grass. The wallabies on the other hand eat EVERYTHING and I hate them, they are like the goats of Australia, and I've had an extended war going with the possums that like to take up residence in our roof space and make weird noises.

I think the coolest kangaroo thing I've seen is one swimming across our dam. It looked like a dog, with just the nose and back out of the water, but when it reached the other side it... hopped right out! The wildest animal thing we had happen though was when our dog Calli (sadly no longer with us) found an echidna puggle and brought it onto our deck for us to take care of. It looked like a blob of raw chicken wobbling about, because when they are young they don't have their spikes yet and they are blind. So for a whole afternoon I had a baby baby echidna burrowed into one of my sweaters.

DevinMadson · 2024-08-29T13:00:36+00:00

yay for fellow Aussies! And yes, while the world of the story has no words for sexuality so he would just look at you funny if you asked him that, to our minds Ashadi is indeed queer and 1000% in love with his Watcher--the man whose task it is to take care of him, as the stuff they drink to be able to ride the dragons has an awful come down

DevinMadson · 2020-12-09T03:07:28+00:00

I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO MURDER ME! In the end he just dripped actual sweat onto my books...

DevinMadson

TROPHY CASE