So I'm Writing a Novel...

In three acts, Oliver shares the outlining of this second story in the sword & sorcery novel's second quarter, an escalating farce built around the theft of a saintly relic from one church within the same religion as the other, who has hired Voe & Tiravam to perpetrate said theft. Ah, if only it were so straightforward as all that...

In this episode Oliver tells you all about how he outlined the origin story for his protagonist's new friendship, a friendship that would be at the heart of a whole quarter of the novel's stories.

Will Oliver succeed in finally naming his dang fantasy city by the end of the episode??? Oliver takes you through the process that got him to where he felt he knew enough about the fictional city where he'd be setting no less than four of his novel's stories in. He covers repurposing research from an older project, choosing when and how to shape setting with theme, when he decided a novel wasn't the story for him to write, figuring out what you need to figure out about a setting/city, feral cities, hyperdense research texts, an interesting lesson he took from his role-playing game hobby that applies here, leaving room for later inspiration, another pertinent Ursula K Le Guin quote, Karl Edward Wagner's Bloodstone, and more!

Oliver takes you with him through the process by which he designed a new best friend for his novel's protagonist, a co-protagonist for the next four stories he has to outline, when Voe and this new best buddy will have swashbuckling, thieving adventures loosely inspired by the Fafhrd & Grey Mouser stories of Fritz Leiber!

A lil' recap of the podcast & novel is followed by Oliver sharing how he figured out the most top-tier planning of his novel's middle, particularly its first half, and how it would fit into the novel as a whole!

Michael Curtis, while Leiber's Fafhrd & Grey Mouser stories have been a great source of inspiration for Oliver's novel-in-progress, you better believe he was excited to talk with Michael about: Why people should read the Fafhrd & Grey Mouser stories, how these characters so defined by their friendship were born of a real life bromance, what defines Leiber's writing style, what makes F&GM's home - Lankhmar - the ultimate fantasy adventure city, how Michael made writing RPGs his career, what it was like poring over Leiber's original papers at an archive in Houston, and more!

Julian Bernick has written across a wide variety of mediums, so Oliver discusses with him getting burnt out on novels, the Appendix N Reading List, writing for role-playing games, Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, writing lyrics as the lead singer of several bands, and more - but the focus of this interview is poetry, gothic horror, and how Julian combined the two in his most excellent book Castle Bash: A Record of the Most Unfortunate Doings at Castle Bash - As Told by an Unnamed Poet who was Never Seen Again!

Oliver and Hoi discuss fantasy book cover art, the origin story of the Appendix N Book Club, the conservative faction of S&S fandom, finding S&S outside the usual Anglo sphere, podcast show notes (do people read them??? ARE YOU READING THIS???), figuring out how to keep the momentum going with longform creative projects, what makes a good podcast guest, thinking critically about genre fiction or "low art", the Thor belly body shaming fiasco, form and substance in genre writing (and emulation), representation in writing S&S, iconic vs dramatic heroes, fantasizing about being an author when it was possible to make a living writing short stories, destroying your influences, writing to pay the rent, the vanished publishing midlist, creative writing MFAs, Game of Thrones having come out George R.R. Martin's rpg sessions, and soooo much more!

Oliver speaks with a host from the popular sword & sorcery podcast Rogues in the House, Matt John, about the genre, gatekeeping vs helping the S&S scene thrive, the trials of buying books online when you're Canadian, working sword & sorcery and role-playing games into the classroom, Army of Darkness hot takes, He-Man, "Good Rudes", letting go of the things you don't want to write and just writing the things your inner child wants to write, good and bad nostalgia, and "more"!

In this interview we're speaking with author and publisher, Milton Davis. Oliver and Milton have plenty of laughs talking about what it's like being both a writer and a publisher, knowing Charles Saunders and what's going on with the Imaro TV adaptation, when the history nerds come for you, origin stories, designing and playtesting an RPG, and so much more!

www.miltonjdavis.com (Facebook and Twitter)

www.soimwritinganovel.com