Keith Robinson is an independent author whose work I've admired for years. A transplant from across the pond, he began cranking out quality YA reads almost as soon as he got here. He's currently doing a giveaway of
Island of Fog over on his Kindle page so check it out if you want to get a great book at a great price (free!).
Here now, seven questions for Keith Robinson:
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Keith Robinson |
1) I know you're originally from the UK. Can you tell us a little
bit about your background and what brought you to the US?
I spent fourteen years working in an office in England drawing floor
plans and organizing office refurbishments and relocations. It was a
different life, wearing a suit, carrying a briefcase, driving or
flying to offices all around the UK. It was during this time that I
met my future wife from America. We were penpals for five years
between 1990 and 1995 -- the traditional sort, sending handwritten
letters by mail -- and then she decided to come and visit me in
England for a short visit. We hit it off and, six months later, I
went to visit her in Georgia, USA, and we got engaged. As you do.
She moved to England and we bought a house, and in 1999 (with an eye
on the future) I left my job and became a self-employed website
designer. I made half the money but was twice as happy. In 2001 we
sold the house at profit and moved to America, and I took my website
design business with me. Thus, our five-year plan came to fruition!
2) What made you decide to take the plunge and write your first
novel?
Looking back, this probably came out of loneliness. I'd left my
family and friends back in England, and while I was very happy
living in Georgia, in a house with more yard than I ever dreamed of
owning, I was pretty isolated as well. I continued building my
website design business while my wife went to work, which invariably
left me alone, often with very little work to do. So I started
writing "seriously," something I'd only done as a hobby from time to
time. I decided I'd make a go of selling short stories. That didn't
work out at all, because selling short stories is really, really
hard... and I found that I preferred writing novels. There were a
few projects on the go, but ISLAND OF FOG (or ISLAND OF MIST as it
was originally called) came into existence around February 2002.
3) I always like hearing about an author's process. What's involved
in taking one of your books from idea to publication?
The first in the FOG series took a long, long time. Six years, to be
exact, finally published in April 2009 -- although that was mostly
because I still wasn't taking myself seriously as a writer and only
writing as a hobby. This particular book went through numerous
revisions before I even got to Chapter Nine. Then, once I'd pushed
though, I got to Chapter Thirteen and realized it wasn't going where
I expected, so I rewrote that last section as well. This was when I
started learning that a detailed chapter summary is probably a good
thing to have. Subsequently, all my other books have had a detailed
chapter summary that allows me to explore and write the novel
without actually writing it. It's a no-brainer. The long-term
thinking process is the same, only with fewer words. Why write eight
full chapters and then realize I'm going wrong when I can write
eight paragraphs and come to the same conclusion? So now I always
use chapter summaries, and I end up saving a lot of time.
Once the first draft is written, I go through a slow, detailed edit.
This is like rewriting everything I've written, one paragraph at a
time. Sometimes I think "Gah!" and delete a whole page of pointless
drivel. Other times I'll go through half a page without a single
correction and think I'm a genius. But mostly I correct and tighten
and reword and flesh out and generally do it better.
Then it's time to print it out. I find a lot more typos when reading
printed text, and that sweep is well worth doing. After that, I send
the manuscript (now Version 3) to a few proofreader types who are
willing to not only look for typos but suggest improvements and
generally mention anything they feel is worth mentioning. After all
those edits are complete, Version 4 is ready. This version is for a
bigger selection of ARC readers, those who don't look for typos and
just want to breeze through it and enjoy it as a finished book.
Sometimes I'll get back some comments that suggest I fix something,
and then I'll do some rewrites as necessary.
Finally it's ready, and I'm sick to death of it. I publish it with a
sense of pride and excitement, but at the same time I'm SO over it
already and moving on to the next project.
4) Who are some of your favorite fantasy/sf authors and what, if
anything, about their style has influenced your own writing?
I enjoyed Piers Anthony when I was around 16-20. I read most of his
back then. I also read Terry Brooks' first three Shannara books. I
soon realized that I hate reading "high fantasy" with the weird
made-up names and thousand-year-old back history and traditional
medieval (middle-earth) setting. It's all too serious and plodding
for me. I love the Game of Thrones HBO series but could never read
the books. It's the same with Tolkien. I've actually read very few
"famous" fantasy books; I prefer to read the facts about the myths
and legends and make up my own versions of them in my own way, and I
prefer starting out in a contemporary world with characters we can
all identify with who are thrown into fantastically weird settings.
So I guess that's Urban Fantasy.
On the flip side, I used to read a lot of hardcore sci-fi from
Stephen Baxter and Asimov, and lighter sci-fi from Harry Harrison.
In fact, Harry Harrison (creator of the Stainless Steel Rat series)
probably sent me to more places than any other author. Stephen
Baxter, though, is something of a genius (brilliant physicist, etc)
and I'm frequently mind-boggled by his expansive ideas.
And then there's Douglas Adams. Who isn't inspired by him? Of
course, I also read Dean Koontz and Stephen King and all those other
authors that everybody else reads.
5) On a related note, I know you're a devotee of Enid Blyton. Who
was Enid Blyton and why should folks outside the UK know about her?
Ah, yes. I grew up on Enid Blyton books. She died in 1968 after a
very long, very successful career. Some of her most popular series
were like England's answer to the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Three
Investigators. The difference is that Blyton wrote all her own
stories and churned out something like 185 novels in her career, not
to mention ten thousand short stories. She's world famous, just
strangely absent from America, because although she did have some
books here a few decades ago, her stories were in direct competition
with the aforementioned Hardy Boys. Oddly enough, despite her fame,
the only award she ever got was for MYSTERY ISLAND -- the American
edition of THE ISLAND OF ADVENTURE. How ironic!
Was I inspired by her? Yes, but not in terms of genre. I loved
playing at "mystery solving" when I was young, as did all my
Blyton-reading friends, and I still like the idea of a set of
mystery novels beginning with "The Mystery of..." -- but it's been
done to death, and besides, I like to inject some weird stuff in my
writing. So I grew up on children's mystery and adventure, moved on
to light (and some heavy) fantasy, read a lot of hard sci-fi and
horror, and ended up writing my own brand of fantasy.
6) You've had a very successful run with your
Island of Fog
novels. Can you give us a thumbnail of what happens over the course
of these books and talk about the challenges of writing a multi-book
YA series?
Short answer: kids turn into monsters, kids save the world. The
longer answer is that there are a group of children living on a
perpetually foggy island with their parents, and now that they're
twelve-years-old, they're starting to question what's Out There
beyond the fog. Is the rest of the world really "dead" as they've
been told? Best friends Hal and Robbie build a raft to sail out to
the hidden mainland... but don't quite make it. Things really start
to happen when one of the "annoying" girls, Abigail, shows Hal her
secret -- that she's growing wings! She says they're all turning
into monsters. So the question becomes, "Are we freaks of nature? Or
subjects of a sinister experiment?"
The arrival of a stranger -- itself a remarkable thing since there's
supposedly nobody left alive in the world outside the island -- sets
everything in motion. Now the kids are mad. They're determined to
find out the truth no matter how much trouble they get in.
This is all in the first book, and it sets the stage for a 6-book
series in which they get to test their shapeshifting abilities
against real fantasy creatures and uncover deeper truths about what
went wrong with the world. And Hal and Abigail find that they
actually like each other a little bit.
Writing for a younger audience is, frankly, not a problem. I firmly
believe that writers have a niche, and mine is to write for a
young-ish audience but with adults in mind as well. In other words,
edgy but clean, dark but not graphic, fun but not childish. I don't
talk down to my readers, but I keep it family-oriented.
7) What are you working on these days?
The sixth and final FOG book. Actually, it's the final book for now
but not necessarily forever. I'll be starting on a prequel in a few
months, plus a series of short stories. In a year or so I might
yearn to come back with Book 7.
But aside from that, right now I'm working on a collaboration novel
called FRACTURED with author Brian Clopper. Then I have a novel
called QUINCY'S WORLD that I want to finish editing and put out for
publication. And I have a whole slew of ideas for future projects,
which my fingers can't keep up with. If only I was famous and rich
so my wife and I could give up work, hire a nanny, cleaner, and
gardener.... oh, and pool girl for the pool we'd install. My wife
insists on a pool boy, but I vote for a pool girl. A show of hands,
please? Roger? Help me out here.
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Thanks, Keith! Personally, I'd go for a pool robot, but that's how I roll.
If you'd like to learn more about Keith, check out his website,
Unearthly Tales, or his
Facebook author fan page.