Author Interview with S.L Mason Transcript
Author of Trick of Fae
B: I am Bri from Order of the Bookish and I am here today with SL Mason, who is the author of Trick of Fae and we’re going to get to know a little bit about her and get into her head of her writing process and things like that. So, the first question I have for you is: what is something that your readers should know about you?
S.L: I love to curse! Well, just as an important point of reference, um, I worked in the construction industry for more than 10 years. Being one of the few women in an office changes how you behave and so that’s why I curse a lot. And I uh, noticed that one of the reviews actually said that my books were slightly misogynistic and I’m like, but I worked around a lot of dudes and you have to become dude-like to be respected by guys in some cases and so yeah they might be a little misogynistic. I’m not a misogynist, I firmly believe in women’s rights I will kick your butt I’m fine with that you know men are strong and women can be devious that’s our strength.
B: That is so true
S.L: The other thing is I was actually part of a medieval Renaissance reenactment group for about 10 years and uh, cause you know I’m a nerd and I’m proud to be a nerd. I don’t say that I’m a nerd like you know now I’m a proud nerd big time and so I learned a lot about fighting, clothing, habits, cultures, speech… things like that and I don’t know it’s a lot of fun but I do find that every so often like I’ll throw in a piece of armor and when you’re writing, a lot of programs have autocorrect or they’ll have just you know hey that’s wrong and I’m like that’s how you spell Spalding okay are you telling me it’s wrong the other thing is like quick and they’re like quillon is a bad word it’s not a right word I’m like it’s French hello stop correcting my spelling yeah so you’re going to find words from like multitudes of different countries there just because weapons and armor did not come with English words, they just didn’t.
B: There are quite a few references in your book that have to do with armor and weaponry as well that I do remember.
S.L: Yeah, yeah well when you’re getting dressed to go to war you should really be properly attired um, you shouldn’t just put on a down jacket and be like “I’m good, let’s go” and you know you can’t if you’re using magic camouflage isn’t really necessary is it? Just use a “don’t look here spell”. If I had magic I would be like “don’t look here”. I think so is what people have to know about me, it gives you a frame of reference for what I like to write how I got there why did I choose fairies; I didn’t, my daughter chose fairies.
B: That kinda leads into the next question is ‘what was your inspiration for Trick of Fae?’
S.L: oh um so like I mentioned I’m a nerd I was talking to my kids actually about things that you can’t see but that doesn’t make them not real specifically we were talking about radiation you can’t see it but I’ll still cook you to death and cause you know I’m a nerd and I homeschool my children I am not the best homeschooler so let’s not go there. I am not that great of a mom in that aspect I think I could be doing better but one of those people who is always going I can do that better that’s not good enough so I’m always saying that no no my daughter we were talking about things you can’t see and just because you have never seen it doesn’t mean that it’s not real or true and you know like my children have never seen the Eiffel Tower I have I know for a fact that it’s real and true but they’ve never seen it so for them it’s not as real to them and so you’re always trying to point out the difference between reality and fantasy with children cause they get fantastical ideas and my daughter goes well what if fairies are real I mean we haven’t seen them but that doesn’t mean they’re not real I’m like crap why do kids say stuff like this right and she goes what if fairies were real the first thing that came to my mind was were so fucked. Cause we don’t have magic and they do. And Faries are mischievous and malicious and in a lot of cases kinda cruel, um the Disney fantasy is not real that’s a story that Disney recreated from the basis of older stories to make it nice and fuzzy and as I put the first sentence I put in my book cotton candy-ish for children. Cause you know we all love fairies um yeah when were children we all love fairies when we get older you realize that fairies are not nice, fairies are mean, they hide your stuff uh depending on what culture you’re in some fairies will you know make your shoes but you know those are elves ah, and so yeah I was like yeah you know we’re pretty screwed. Uh, cause if fairies decided to come and see what humanity was doing there’s no way for us to defend ourselves, and um most people don’t even think about what it would take to defend yourself against a magical being. So yeah after she asked that question after I went to bed that night by the way I was writing a different book I think I was writing Fates at that time no I was writing Hera from a different series and uh I went to bed that night and I dreamed like the whole first three books and I woke up the next morning and I went so Jillian if fairies are real cause I dictate, I dictate while I drive my kids to school and so they would hear the whole story, like drive to school and drive home from school at that time I wasn’t homeschooling, so drive to school and drive home from school was story time from mom and were in the car I dedicated the fairy book and then in the afternoon I dictated my science fiction book I wrote 15,000 words that day 15728 it was a lot of words my brain felt a little used and anyway I wrote a thousands of words the next day on both books and I finished both books in the same month I wrote 125k words that month it came out pretty easy cause I have pretty vivid dreams really vivid dreams and when I told my daughter at the end of the book what was going to happen that she had to go back she started crying and said but they are so awful and I was like I know and she goes I never knew fairies were so bad.
S.L: So yeah, yeah that was how I started writing Trick of Fae. So uh, what if fairies are real? We’re really screwed, honey. Um, I’m not one of those moms that try to candy-coat stuff so
B: No, that is actually great, so what can readers expect from reading Trick of Fae? Without giving too much away from what happens
S.L: Um, well I wanted it to seem kinda realistic so there is a lot of magical realism in there. It’s like based on a Sudo science in some ways or some people consider it Sudo science um I chose music as a way of tapping into the magic because I know there have been a lot of studies done on the vibrations of sound and how it can affect the real world in more ways than just creating.
S.L: Something pleasant and uh there’s been a bunch of studies on something called the which are different frequencies of music, I play the piano so I am like check this out and I have a girlfriend Brenda, and uh I found a whole article I sent it to her and I go this is so cool and she’s like I know we’re totally musically geeking out on it um, this was years ago. Anyway yeah no the vibrations can actually alter how you feel and um there’s an entire temple in India dedicated to the vibrations of music and they have all these pillars when you touch them they make a different tone and you can actually play music there, and because it’s a building it’s acoustically tuned when you stand in the center like the sounds pounds into you suppose they used it for healing, historically so its super fascinating nerd stuff and I’m like I would make great magic well use music and I kinda just went with nursery rhymes cause they’re kind of creepy if you look at how old a lot of them are you don’t really know where they came from per se you just know a lot of different iterations and so how do we know we have it right and why do so many of the nursery rhymes have the same musical tune? I don’t know.
B: I never thought about it like that
S.L: Well, uh there’s actually a ton of different versions of the Jack and Jill poem and Jack and Jill is supposedly two boys and not a boy, and a girl is considered the oldest I’m sure somebody else who has better research would be like well that’s not true. Okay well, it’s just what I found I didn’t Wikipedia it if you have to know I did real research. Wikipedia is a tertiary source at best.
B: So true
S.L: so yeah, I don’t know to be prepared to have your idea of nursery rhymes twisted around and give you the creepy crawlies because that is what I wanted. And hopefully, that’s what happens.
B: Well, it definitely happened with me when I read your books so…
S.L: Alright um sorry I’m trying too not to be boring.
B: It’s fine your totally fine this is a first interview okay so if you’re watching this just know this is a first interview, she has never interviewed at least with us before were a little nervous
B: Um, what is the meaning behind the title like how did you come up with the title for your book?
S.L: I didn’t really have a different title Trick of Fae was always the title the other books weren’t always the title I changed those around later. The fae are very egotistical very elitist in their mind they are at the top of the food chain so to Trick a Fae is like a feat impossible sir and um, so Sarah needed to Trick a Fae to get out of there, so she had to figure out how to trick them because fairies like to play their own tricks.
B: I never put two and two together I just thought it was a really good title and I never put two and two together have read this book several times
S.L: Well and that was just my thought process that the only way she was going to get out of there is if she could trick them like the trick everybody else I actually reincorporated the title into the third book and there’s one of the faes who says “ you cannot trick a fae” and I’m like Haha yes you can um and uh I think Sarah does the same thing like Sarah snickers to herself like I did and so yeah no I always had that title it was the second book Test of Fae, I wanted to name it mushrooms round because they do a lot of traveling with the mushroom rounds but it seemed kind of confusing I was worried someone wouldn’t make the connection so just for better branding every title starts with Trick of Fae and uh I was like, uh, well it’ll make it seem like all of them go together so I created this huge list of words that could apply and they all began with the letter ‘T’ I was like well test seems good uh I wanted to call the third one a thorny crown but uh which I thought would be a great title either way if I had gone with it it’s a great title for any book fairies involved or not especially if you’re doing fantasy. But I went with Thorns of Fae because it kinda fell into that branding thing similar to people like the similarities.
B: Yes, the same all across
S.L: Yeah, uh, and uh the title for a Twist of Fae, I always knew it was going to be Twist of Fae I just had no idea what the book would be about. I was like I’m using that title no matter what I’m writing a book for that title.
B: If you guys don’t know she has 7 books in this series you can get them all on Amazon I believe
S.L: Yes, uh the print books should be available via a lot of other sellers I know it’s on Barnes and Noble but the e-book is only on Amazon in Kindle Unlimited.
B: Okay, um what did you learn from writing your book? Or books?
S.L: Um, a lot of the stories you think are original to Ireland about fairies are not. Um if you dig deeper cause of the character Ceranos actually resembles Pan, and he’s like a more modern version of Pan who was a Greek God um but the green man also I use out of a conglomeration of Ceranos, pan, and the green man and blended them together to create Ceranos. Um, the green man is actually found all over the world everybody has a version of a god that lives in the forest with leaves for a face and uh because I was already doing research for my Killing Gods series I was doing a lot of heavy research on religion uh because you know were killing gods in those books. A lot of religion and uh in doing so you learn about mythologies of various cultures and so you think all the fairy stories belong to Ireland and fairies and elves are just kinda interchangeable terms un depending on where you go I’m sure there’s some other purist out there that would go sacrilege there’s no truth to that elves are different from fairies okay whatever we all got our own opinions here honey I mean you can call them dwarfs the Hawaiians call them Menehunes I mean they’re just little people anyway uh yeah no I learned a lot.
S.L: About the interchanging’s of the mythologies and similarities from one country to the next and if you follow a lot of the religion migrations you see how an idea from Greece got carried to Rome and from Rome to what they call gall which was Franch and Germany and all of that got carried over to England and the various surrounding islands there and so its uh a big mixing poit of theories and ideas um Puca, a Puca are shapeshifters they can present themselves as any shape they want to be for the most part predominantly they show up as horses, wolves, or white rabbits and they talk to you in Ireland Puca’s were mostly notorious for showing up as a horse at a most convenient moment when you were walking home drunk and they were willing to give you a ride only they took you everywhere that you didn’t want to go and then dump you off at your house early in the morning and uh, one of the stories i read was that your wife would say where have you been, i went for a ride on a horse i think it was a Puca and she’s like likely story you were out drinking with your friends all night. So uh, shift changers like men changing into wolves is not original to Ireland or Germany or any of that actually if you dig way way back there’s stories of them in Greek mythology and there’s also stories of vampires in Greek mythology of course you know Zeus invented them all as punishment your forced to drink blood because i hate you uh, Zeus is really a jerk and serial rapist but yeah so that’s what i learned is that a lot of them are all connected if you dig deep enough
B: Okay, what is one piece of advice you would give to an inspiring writer?
S.L: write, write anything, write everything, keep writing uh, even if you write poorly you’ll eventually get better supposedly you need about 10,000 hours to master something and so if your spending time watching Netflix vs writing, Netflix could be useful for giving you ideas for writing and or seeing story tropes stuff like that if your using it for that but if your just watching it mindlessly just to watch the office which is funny and enjoyable but not necessarily going to help you with your writing especially if you’re doing fantasy, um your wasting time stop wasting time don’t watch shows that don’t contribute to your writing I mean you can do it every now and again I wouldn’t do it regularly cause that time is precious and you could be using it to become a better writer by reading books on writing or actually writing and if your gonna write and you know what your gonna write in read everything in that genre that you can find read it all good, bad, ugly, and indifferent because you need to know what is bad to tell what’s good and if you’re not reading it and you don’t know what the tropes are and you can write for yourself you can totally write stories for yourself that’s what I did I don’t know if anybody likes it but i wrote them but if you’re trying to sell your books than you need to write what everybody is going to like and that’s what tropes are that’s what people expect from a genre and you kind of have to give it to them because that’s what people like. Um, write a lot, just keep writing, like Dory instead of keep swimming just keep writing, just keep writing because the more you write the closer you get to the 10,000 hours to master the craft whatever it is.
B: Okay, is there anything else that you’d like to share with our audience about your book, or possibly anything new happening with you soon?
S.L: um, these hallowed hills is the series name I wrote 7 books I actually didn’t plan on writing 7 books I planned on writing the 3 but then like I said I found the title twist of fae I was like oh goodness I gotta write a book for this one but then when that one was done then I was like oh you know I started writing traits but I had no idea it that I was going to make a fairy book so like the first chapter so the first part of the first chapter doesn’t seem magical at all its more like military assassin uh and I was like hey I know what to do with this, that would be cool, um go like this I have a very good idea for you a fairy assassin just like her mom and anyway and I didn’t realize it was going to become a dystopia but it did, I don’t know I do have 3 prequels that I have partially started writing for that series. Um and will eventually finish but I’m not making any promises at the moment.
S.L: But I do have a series of books that I’m working on rather adamantly called techno witch because you know if magic meets technology oh my god cause you know I like to destroy worlds with magic so let’s do this thing. Um, yeah no so I’m writing techno witch uh, Katie has the ability to control technology um, that’s her magical power and um it’s a little bit of energy and a little bit of data um so there’s lightening involved there too cause you know one of the purest forms of energy is a plasma breakout which is lightening and I like to take all my magic back to a science base because I’m a nerd um anyway yeah no I’m writing the first 3 books for techno witch and I plan on writing probably 9 or 12 because she has a sister they eventually meet up and save the world with magic and technology cause why not? Um because if I could save the world with magic I would anyway I’m very excited about that series um I don’t know I probably have about 15 projects going on and that’s not even including all my crafts I’m a very busy person, I can’t like sitting still here I yeah, I can sit still to write but for the most part I like to be doing something I don’t just watch tv I crochet while watching tv that way I don’t feel like I waste my time. I’m telling you I’m just one of those people.
B: no, I totally understand that I have to have something going on to where if I’m sitting down and writing then I need to have something on in my background just so I can hear it, and I have noise I need to have noise I can’t sit still and it’s silent I go crazy that way. And so.
S.L: Well if I’m writing I can sit still but generally I have a button on my butt, I tell my family I know I have a button on my butt you must have heard me sit down on the button cause if I sit down there like mom and I’m up again uh so I’m used to constantly moving to do something somebody needs something, somebody wants water, somebody is hungry, somebody needs help with homework, somebody needs my foot up their backside to do their homework, do your homework, read the book, I don’t care we are readers in this house, uh my son tried to change in his book the other day so he’s like this is a difficult book can I change it and I’m like no it doesn’t work that way we don’t finish books in this house. There’s no DNF pile here you finish the book he’s reading the great Gatsby come on man that’s a great book. Uh yeah anyway he tried to trade it in I was like yeah man read the book.
B: That is a great book. Okay, so we were talking about um anything new that was happening you mentioned techno witches and a little bit about that um is there anything else that you are working on that maybe your readers would want to look into?
S.L: I have taken the plunge into Vella’s uh, just cause there are a thousand stories rumbling around in my head. And uh a lot of the times when I get a new idea I try and write it down and put it on the side that doesn’t always work sometimes I have to write a few chapters and then I’m like okay I can walk away from this for a minute. I have 3 vella’s out um two of them are dystopias and 1 is about cyberbullying it’s called Whisper we’ve all had trolls in our lives this is about a teenage girl who is being cyberbullied for a reason she couldn’t understand until much later. Anyway, that one’s kind of fun well I mean it’s not fun for Chichi but it’s fun to read, and then I have a dystopia called Royal Death Mark and that’s about a girl whose boyfriend wins the lottery and becomes the new prince of America and overnight tosses her out without a word and she has no idea why. And then suddenly she’s being hunted by the royal guards because she’s been death marked. She doesn’t know why she’s running away and she knows if she doesn’t get away in this dangerous dystopic post-pandemic world where everything is very controlled and very sectioned off uh if she doesn’t find a way to get back to him to find answers that she’s gonna die because once your death marked your cut off from all comers, you can’t work and earn money, you can’t get food, you can’t cross zones you can’t do anything and there’s a price on your head so it’s worth for people to turn you in. uh, if you want to live you have to get it removed and there’s only one person who can do that. Anyways I like Royal Death Mark. And the other one is called Chosen, it’s kinda like A Handmaiden’s Tale in a different world. Grace is uh, every year on the summer solstice every girl between the ages of 18 or 16-19 stand on the edge of a field and wait for a man to come and chose them and if he chooses them, they become his wife. And if they don’t, they have to wait another year, you’re only allowed to do it until you’re 20, so once you’re 19 you’re not allowed to hit 20 and stand on the side of the field, you called an old maid and nobody in town has been turned into an old maid. Grace has been standing there for 4 years she’s now 19 years old and this is her last chance to entice a man to marry her or else.
B: wow
S.L: yeah, it’s kind of depressing yeah like what the heck would you do
B: yeah
S.L: and you’re not like, not so much like an ultra-Christian society, but it’s a controlled society like women have specific roles as do men and their technology is different because they are actually on a different planet. Uh instead of governments they have powers and instead of having a sun they have a star uh Grace doesn’t have a dowry she has nothing to offer someone if they wanted to choose her. So, her only hope is love, someone has to fall in love with her or I’m gonna be dead. Um, it’s like well how do you make some guy fall in love with you when every guy in town is younger than you. Uh, so that’s Chosen, I’m actually having fun with it, it’s disturbing, I don’t know what that says about me I like writing disturbing stuff I like writing stuff that makes you sit there and go oh that’s fucked up. And I want that reaction. Um so yeah that’s what I got going on if you’re interested, go check out Vella it’s pretty cool you get like 200 free tokens it’s mostly available in the US you get 200 free tokens for your first try at it. Um if you have an iPhone or anything that is not Android buy your tokens through amazon.com do not buy through the app actually, you don’t get as many tokens for the same price um but yeah the first three episodes of all 3 are free so you can read the first 3 chapters on all of them um and you know I try and release 1 or 2 a month usually at the end of the month when I’m scrambling to get it in. but yeah, so that’s what I have going on.
B: Okay well that was all I had for our interview today thank you so much for joining us on OrderoftheBookish and we look forward to doing this again with you. I will be writing up a blog on Trick of Fae as well as S.L Mason so once that is dropped I will go ahead and blast that on all my socials so make sure you’re following me @brithebookishboss on Instagram it’s the same on my Twitter as well and also my TikTok my tag is the same I will also be tagging S.L Mason in all of these videos that way you guys can follow her as well. And thank you so much for joining me today.
S.L: Thank you