Last winter I initiated a conversation with the author James Inslington. I was impressed with the Licanius trilogy, which I had listened too while going through a series of hard transitions with my family. Some stories come just when you needed them. The pull of the narrative helped get me through some rough and exhausting days. As this is his first trilogy, I am quite excited to see what happens as he hones and develops his craft. In the meantime, I suggest you find the novels and give them a read: they are thought provoking and engaging and well worth your time.
So, I give to you this short interview, which took me a long time to release as I have gone through yet another shift in life. It is nice to be on the other side of the changes of the past spring and summer and a delight to finally put this out into the world.
Continuous Revelations: What did you learn from your experience of writing the Licanius trilogy? I am curious about your insights into the writing process but I’m also interested in how you developed as a person while writing it. I can’t imagine it not having been a transformative process for you.
James Inslington: Yeah, transformative is probably the right word! Life has had its influences as well, of course, but I’m definitely a different person to the one who started writing Shadow more than a decade ago.
I guess to begin with the obvious, and probably least interesting—I feel a lot more confident in my skills compared to when I started. My understanding of story, pacing and character development has vastly improved over the years. I’m far better at self-editing, my prose is tighter, and I can analyze beta reader feedback a lot more accurately. None of that’s exceptional, mind you! It’s like anybody improving at their job: the more you do it, the better you inevitably get.
But it’s certainly been a bit of an emotional journey as well, as writing’s gone from a hobby to a profession. I started off self-published on Amazon with no expectations; a few months later I was making decisions about agents and contracts and locking in the next several years of my life. So, I had the excitement of suddenly seeing this as a potential, realistic career, which was always the dream—but having the equally sudden anxiety of knowing that if I messed up book 2, it could all disappear just as quickly. And I was writing to a deadline then as well, which was an intense but really helpful experience in terms of learning to work with the stresses of timelines and expectations.
Another thing I’d probably describe as ‘emotionally maturing’ is how my response to feedback has changed. When I first published, negative reviews would all but ruin my day, no matter how many positive ones there were by comparison—it’s really hard to see something you’ve worked on for so long be criticized, and that makes it easy to kind of emotionally dismiss what’s being said. Over the years, though, I’ve realised I need to… not switch off that side of things, exactly, but suppress it enough to recognise legitimate critique. Basically, I’ve learned not to be too precious about my writing and focus on improving it rather than just defending it.
I could probably go on indefinitely with this, but I won’t! Sufficed to say, writing Licanius was incredibly educational on a lot of levels.
CR: What can you tell me about the Hierarchy trilogy you are working on? What are you doing differently in regards to the writing process and why?
JI: It’s another epic fantasy series, this time with a loosely ancient Roman setting—maybe a trilogy, maybe longer! The style is a bit different from Licanius: it has a present tense, first-person point of view that follows only a single character. But I fully expect it will still appeal to fans.
The new style has naturally presented some different challenges; writing only from a single POV means limited information for the reader, and requires a different kind of plot structuring to keep the pacing tight. But other than that, I’m not doing anything significantly different in my day-to-day approach—I’m sticking with what I know works.
Not much more to say about it at this stage, I’m afraid; the first book isn’t out until Spring (US) 2023, so we’re not even past editing that one yet. I’m incredibly excited about this series, though—feeling very comfortable with my long-term outline, and really pleased with how it’s all shaped up thus far.
CR: I have read about your literary influences before~ what other forms of storytelling inspire you? I was wondering if you are comic book fan. Have you ever explored role playing games?
JI: Movies, TV and video games all play a role. Honestly, I spend far more time with those than with books these days—the last thing I tend to want to do at night is read after spending the entire day writing!
Unsurprisingly, I tend to lean towards sci-fi and fantasy for what I watch / play. The last couple of things I’ve watched have been Arcane (Netflix) and Foundation (Apple TV), which I thought were both truly excellent. Though I haven’t read Asimov, so I can’t comment on the quality of the adaption of the latter.
I never got into comics and have had pretty limited experience with tabletop role-playing games, but RPGs are probably my favourite genre in video games. The last one I played was Disco Elysium, which is an incredible experience! Amazing writing, I’d highly recommend it.
CR: How do you go about the process of writing? What does your day look like? What is your writing environment?
JI: I have a consistent routine—start at 9am, then work until 5.30pm with a break for lunch, five days a week. I’ve found having a schedule forces me to write even when I don’t feel like it—which can be often, at times—and helps maintain a healthy work / life balance.
At the moment, my office is basically the upper balcony of our house. It has a nice view to the ocean and we live in a fairly quiet area, so most days it’s a very pleasant environment.
CR: What kinds of music do you listen to? Do you listen to music as your write?
JI: Anberlin, Switchfoot, Lifehouse, Yellowcard and Something Corporate / Jack’s Mannequin / Andrew McMahon are probably my favourite bands. Showing my age a bit there, I imagine.
I don’t listen to music when I write—I find anything with lyrics just too distracting. Sometimes if there’s a lot of ambient noise that I need to block out, I’ll put on headphones and play some movie soundtracks, but that’s about the only time it’ll happen.
Thanks for the questions!
You can and should both keep up to date and investigate James and his work further at jamesislington.com
He is an amazing storyteller. I am eagerly anticipating his the release of his next book next year.
Thanks to James for taking the time to talk with me and the infinite patience as I put things together to start unleashing another wave of interviews.
It certainly took me longer than I thought.
I believe that things have turned out for the better, on the other side of the changes, which this go around relate to my professional existence. If you were wondering where I’ve been, I thank you for your patience.
In the meantime, I’ve still been making music, my compulsive improvising and auditory wandering. What does that have to do with my weird habit of interviewing creators? It helps to fund this page. If you feel like offering support to this website (and we are in need, always), check out these links:
Continuous Revelations Bandcamp
The next interview is considerably longer, with the amazing Adam Matlock. I’m really excited to share that with you~ give me a week or two and I’ll get that one posted for you. We’ll see what arrives next~ this is a strange process, this corresponding with people, and even though I have a bunch of interviews in process, I’m not sure I could tell you which one will manifest first. Sometimes they just drift off into the ether, which is just how things turn out, and maybe the way that things turn out is just how they are supposed to.
Best,
C.R.