Mur Lafferty has been a podcasting phenomenon, a breakthrough author, and blogger for well-over a decade. Her Shambling Guides series is a quirky, original world that readers love, and she is in the Podcaster Hall of Fame. Mur has also created a podcast called I Should Be Writing, which I've written about briefly before on the blog. I still find it to be one of the most influential podcasts on writing and publishing that is out on the web for novice writers. I say this because for years I've listened to I Should Be Writing, and that is where I discovered NaNoWriMo, which without, I've not have discovered my abilities to write as efficiently as I have, and having allowed me the capabilities to fill this blog with content as often as I have the past decade.
So-to-say Mur Lafferty has been influential on me as a writer is accurate. Her work is original, her podcast is fun, effective, and genuinely informative. Her interviews are chock-full of information from some of the leading industry writers in fiction. Aside from being the creator of I Should Be Writing and Ditch Diggers podcasts, the latter of which she co-hosts with Matt Wallace, she was the host of the Escape Pod podcast, taking over after Steve Eley. This podcast is one that takes orignal science fiction stories, and turns them into old-timey radio broadcast-style recordings. She also co-founded and hosted Pseudopod, a horror-based podcast of the same inkling as Escape Pod.
She has also created shows for many outlets like Tor.com, Angry Robot Books, and Lulu. Mur's very first podcast that was a tribute to everything geek pop culture was Geek-Fu Action Grip. She has won countless awards, and numerous accolades for her podcasting, and becoming one of the highest critically acclaimed female podcasters to date. Her podcasting and writing achievements are parralleled to her education achievements: she graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with an English degree, and as early as January 2014, she graduated from the Stonecoast program at the University of Southern Maine, gaining an MFA in popular fiction.
Mur Lafferty is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Escape Artists' Mothership Zeta Magazine, a digital periodical of new short fiction. She also designed/created role playing games, and specific mapmaking tools. She published The Shambling Guide to New York City in 2013, with Ghost Train to New Orleans releasing the following year. With also being a John W. Campbell award in 2013, she is also the winner of the Manly Wade Wellman award. Her website, murverse.com is updated quite frequently; and hosts her achievements, her blog, and a list of all her podcasts. Once you're done reading this exclusive interview, I suggest you check out her website for more information, and information on her new book: Six Wakes; releasing in late January.
I'm very excited to have this exclusive interview for the Malacast Editorial, and I want to whole-heartedly thank Mur Lafferty for her time, and her insights on podcasting, publishing, and dealing with the preliminary issues that come for novices breaking into the market:
MA-The one question I've always wanted to ask you since I've discovered your ISBW podcast is: with I Should Be Writing, where did the idea come from? Also, the major question I've wondered more than anything: has the podcast made you a better writer, and how?
ML- [At] the time there was only one writing podcast, and that was Michael Stackpole's The Secret, and it was a great podcast, but it was from the point-of-view of a pro, and I had been submitting stuff and have been learning about how this whole thing works, and I would read stuff online and see how people were reacting angrily and personally when they got a rejection, or they were sure that one rejection just meant that they were absolute crap and they needed to quit, and I thought that you know; I was learning stuff, but I could definitely relate to that emotion. Of all that stuff that makes a new writer want to quit. So I started I Should Be Writing because I wanted it to be a for-beginner, by-beginner, kinda-knows-what-she's-doing [podcast]. [So that was the plan.]
MA- So it was to give more an amateur feel than having explanation from a professional writer for X number of years? You wanted it seen from the perspective of someone trying to break into the business rather than someone who's been in it forever?
ML- Sure, because a pro can tell you "oh don't worry about that, that doesn't mean anything, a bad review doesn't mean anything", you know you can say "Well that's easy for you to say" you can get the feeling that a pro is out-of-touch, because they don't remember what it's like to be a beginner.
MA- Yeah, I tend to find anytime I talk to anyone who has published their seventeen book, you know "it's easy!" Yeah because they can afford the agent, they can afford the maker ting, they can afford all of that, and nowadays those expenses/responsibilities that were taken on by the publisher now fall on the shoulders of the writer.
ML- Sometimes, yes
MA- Has the podcast I Should Be Writing made you a better writer, and if so, how?
ML- Well, I get to talk to professional writers every episode, so definitely yes. I was trying to do interviews for my show, but I was learning alongside all of my listeners when I would talk to a pro about their work. So, I've had the chance to Neil Gaiman and Connie Willis, and Chyna Mieville, and all sorts of amazing, award-winning authors, and ask them newbie questions. And that's definitely made me a better writer.
MA- In your opinion, what is the definition of a successful writer, and do you believe you fit that definition now?
ML- It's subjective to every single person because some people want money, some people want best-seller status, some people wants to be able to support their families and they won't be successful until that happens. Some people want critical acclaim, so it's different for every person. Some people want awards, but for me I think I'm on the way because I'm publishing what I want to publish, and I'm proud of the work I'm doing. I'm seeing that as a good sign. That's actually my sign of success.
MA- How often do you write, how much do you accomplish in that timeframe, and where is your favorite place to write?
ML- Well it's difficult to say because I write differently for each project; I'm now discovering. I'm writing a nonfiction book now, and it seems very easy for me to go and write out a thousand words, [whereas] with fiction, it's a little harder for me to do that [many words]. I prefer to write in my office, I have a co-working space that I rent. It just gets me out of the house and away from all the distractions that threaten me here. [However] I am most comfortable in my office at home. I try to write about a thousand words at a time, unless I'm near the end of a book; which is when I'm kinda cranked into high gear, and I try to write as much as I can in that day. Sometimes I'll write until the end of a chapter. If it's two-hundred words, it's two-hundreds words it varies. Ideally I'd like to do a thousand words a day. That doesn't really happen, but that's the goal. I never work within a timeframe, I just don't think that way. I look for a word count, that's how I prefer to figure out everything.
MA- What is your favorite pastime outside of writing?
ML- I'm a big fan of computer games, love console games mostly. I used to do MMOs, but not so much anymore. Tablet games, computer games, they're probably my biggest vice. It's a lovely way to get rid of some anxiety and frustration and all most of times in our lives we don't have problems that we can shoot with an arrow, so it's nice to come across some that you can shoot with an arrow.
MA- I agree, it's also kind of like creative helping creative I feel. You have great storylines in many single-players, and there's such great writing in them too. It al out inspires, I would say, as much as a book does with the writing process.
ML- Yeah, there's some really good game writing going on these days. I'll definitely agree with you there.
MA- Where would you want to travel for fun? Where would you want to travel to research/write a book?
MA- Where would you want to travel for fun? Where would you want to travel to research/write a book?
ML- Well my previous two books were location based. They were about cities, so my goal was, I think it wa as six-book arch planned; and that included Orlando, San Franscico, and London Those all would be great to visit. I'd love to visit Northern Scotland. I went to Austrailia in 2010, I would love to go back there. I gues that is business and fun right there.
I have a little bit of a fear of traveling because one of my basic fears is to be stuck in a place where I don't know how to get where I need to go, and I can't speak the language. A lot of my destination would be to English-speaking, and heavily English-speaking. Which is why in going to WorldCon in Helsinki this summer, and have been reassured there is mostly English-speaking. I'm terrible with languages, I was awful in school, it's not my forte.
MA-Just for fun: if you could meet any person, or mythological/fictional character, who would it be, and why?
ML- Gosh! Any person! The one that really comes to mind right now is I'd really love to know what Joan of Arc was thinking. She had a pretty fascinating life, and she died too soon. I was just curious what was going on , what was really going on in her head.
MA-What are you currently reading, and do you have a favorite author and/or novel?
ML-I'm currently reading Book 2 of the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey I just finished a women's fiction book called: Where'd You Go Bernadette? The next Expanse book is what I was going to pick up. I was reading it while I was writing Six Wakes, and I got intimidated!
Sometimes you can read for inspiration, and sometimes you can read to take you away from what you're working on. It's an epic space opera. A long, long, detailed story that was enough like my story to make me feel uncomfortable and the space opera-ness of it, but enough [of the] differences seemed so grandiose , so I started feeling bad about my book, so I had to stop reading. Now that I'm done with Six Wakes I can return to the Expanse.
MA-What is your weakness? What is your greatest accomplishment, and what is your greatest failure?
ML-I think my weakness has to do with self-confidence I still look at my own work and think: "How can anybody read this? I let it stop me a lot. Right now I'm dealing with the fact that before I was published; I didn't know what would fail, so I could try anything, and I did a lot of expreeiemtnal stuff, mainly in podcast fiction ten years ago. Now that I'm published; I can see more clearly what it is to fail, and I'm afraid to start new stuff. So that what I'm grappling right now, just letting fear and self-confidence, or lacks thereof stop me from trying new things.
ML- I'd say [my greatest accomplishment] would have to be Six Wakes, because when I was shopping books around, I had three proposals, and Six Wakes was unlike anything I ever written before, and that was the one that sold. So that wa a much bigger challenge than either of the other two books would've been. I'm starting to see that the way the reviews are coming in, I'm starting to realize that it might actually be an okay book, being different than what I've done before makes it exciting, so I say, it's a little bit premature seeing how it's three weeks out before it even hits the shelves, but I'd like to say that Six Wakes is my greatest success.
It's really hard to say what [my greatest failure is] because as I've mentioned before the fear to start is a failure in-itself, but it's not a failure that anyone else can see. It's funny, I'd say this is a weird answer, but I'd have to say my Afterlife series is my biggest failure because it resonated so much with the readers, and it did so well on Kickstarter. A bunch of agents tried to sell it, but it does not resonate with publishers. I have been asked to rewrite it several times in order to [attempt publicstion]. They'd say: "Let's make it a little younger fiction, make it Y.A., okay that didn't work lets peg it back older, but rewrite it. See what you can do to refresh this story, send it out again, and I pretty much hate the world now. I'm really sorry to say that, but I've rewritten it ao many times, and I'm so sick of it, that if a Dan Brown thing happened, and one of my books just blew up,and somebody wanted to publish my backlog; I would have to hire somebody to do the edits, because I can't look at that story anymore. There's nothing else I can write. I can edit the first two books, there's nothing more I can do to them.
I think the fact that people loved them so much, but publishers just did not get on board, it was a really big, strange break for me mentally. I'd say that is probably my biggest failure.
MA- I didn't know that story about the Afterlife series, that's really sad that you had to go through that with publishers, I hope you do blow up, like you've stated, and can just have them published as-is, because you'll know that they'll sell
ML- You know, I'm not sure I'd want them to sell as is, be su they were written ten years ago, because my writing has changed a lot, and improved a lot in ten years. So there's the paradox for you, I don't want to touch it again, but I don't know if I want my writing from ten years ago to go out as something I'm publishing today it's a weird paradox.
MA- If you could do it all over again, and chose a different path, what would you do, or what would you do differently?
ML- I would've majored in history in college, because one of my blind spots in my writing, and frankly, u dress ding the world itself is seeing the very, very big picture of politics , and wars, and how something little that happened way over here, will affect something that happens way over there. It's hard for me to wrap my brain around it sometimes. I realize that if I've been studying History, instead of English, I would've studied historically how those kind of things happened, and learned a lot more about the world. I've learned a lot about books and storytelling, which is great, but historically, I think I would've been better off, or rather with history; I would've been better off.
ML- I've always wanted to be a writer, ever since I was little, I wanted to be a park ranger when I was very you, but I always felt like I've wanted to be a writer, I haven't wasted to be anything else.
MA- What are the main differences between your podcastsI Should Be Writing, and Ditch Diggers?
ML- I Should Be Writing is more an emotional show, that has to do with beginners, it's telling beginners that if you get s rejection, it's not the end-of-the-world. If your book will not find a home, then you write a ne one. These are things beginners need to hear. They need to hear it over and over again. I still need to hear it, and when I say it, I believe it until someone else tells me. "Yes, that thing you said, you were right!" You just need to get over it, and move on, because I find emotions is what stops new writers from continuing to go, they hit and wall and thing "well there's nowhere else for me to go. "I Should Be Writing is supposed to help them get around that wall.
Ditch Diggers is business, Ditch Diggers is: okay, you know how to deal with all that stuff that newbies are struggling with now: you know how to deal with reject, you know how to deal with all that stuff. [Ditch Diggers] deals more with what happens when your book publisher shuts its doors. It deals with what happens when your agent dumps you, or your friend asks you to blurb a book, and you don't want to, because while you like them very much personally, you don't like their writing. It's more how to navigate the business of writing. [Ditch Diggers] is more explicit and honest. It's not that I Should Be Writing is dishonest, but it's softened. Dealing with the problems newbies have is different than the problems professionals have, the irony that professionals still have all those self-esteem problems and imposter syndrome, they just know that they can push past it and go on.
MA- it's a whole new mess of problems now!
ML- Yeah! It is! It's a new mess of problems! Newbies don't want to know even if you make a six-figure advance, it's probably not a good idea to quit your day-job. They don't want to hear that because they want to sell a story, and you try to get them to sell a story, and then onto the harsh reality of everything. Sometimes you hear that it's harder to sell a second book than a first book. So if you got somebody struggling and trying rally hard to sell their first book, [struggling to sell the second] might make them stop, because they don't want other that it gets harder. It's not that I lie about it, I just don't [delve] into the harsh realities. I have s lot of listeners that listen to both [podcasts], and so they hear it, and I'll get an e-mail from someone saying: "Yeah I heard that thing you said on Ditch Diggers, and it kinda depressed me." And I'm like, that's the thing, we're trying to talk about the business the way it is, and sometimes it's depressing. It's the audience, Ditch Diggers has a different message, and is intended to have a different audience.
MA-On The Shambling Guide to New York City, and GTNO, will there be future works in-store, or do you not want to turn continue this shambling guides series?
MA-On The Shambling Guide to New York City, and GTNO, will there be future works in-store, or do you not want to turn continue this shambling guides series?
ML- Of course I would! Definitely! I love that world, and I'm very proud of it! Here's some of the things I don't want to talk about on I Should Be Writing because it's depressing; which is: you can have w grand plan, and you can have a book deal, but that does not mean your books will continue to sell. I had a grand plan for six books, and I sold two of them, and [the publishers] didn't want any more. So I have to think: Am I going to write new books that sell? Am I going to spend my time writing , making a new Shambling Guide that either my agent can take to another publisher, or I can self-publish and sell. I don't think it would fail, because I think a self-published success is a smaller number than a New York publishing success. I think I could easily have a successful book if I self-publishe, but I have to think if that's how I want to spend my time.
I thought about self-publishing, but it's hard to say, because it's out of my control whether-or-not there are going to be anymore professionally published. Netflix has the rights to the movies, so if the movies get made, it's possible the books will get popular, and they'll want more. I'm pretty sure, that the Dresden Files were a popular urban fantasy series that got picked-up for TV, and even though the TV streets didn't finish the first season, people like it. Again, self-publishing numbers aren't publishing numbers, and TV numbers are way above publishing numbers, so if only a million people enjoyed the Dresden Files TV show, well that is enough to skyrocket a book to incredible popularity. I heard the book became extremely popular after the television show failed. So I hope that the Shambling Guides TV show could increase the popularity of the books.
MA- Having wet your beak in so many different creative mediums, like board games, podcasting, writing, and much more, what one medium that you've not had a chance to work in, would you want to? E.g., television, play acting, game developing, etc.
ML- I would love to write for games, actually one of the things I've mentioned I was kinda afraid to try is interactive fiction writing. So I'm working on, essentially getting the courage to work on an interactive fiction game. Writing for w video game would be fun, but I know that the dynamics for writing for a game is tougher because of the team atmosphere. Some of the things you dream up that would be child's play to put into s book is not easy to put into a game. I used to work at acomputer-game company, so I'm used to those limitations. (Side note: Redstorm Entertainment is the name of the computer company where Mur wrote for marketing, but would've like to have been moved up to game writing.)
MA- With the difficulties of writing, what is the hardest part outside of the rudimentary issues (Staying on topic, procrastinating, meeting deadlines, etc.) of writing for you? Out of all your published works, both online and in-print, which was the most difficult to complete and why?
ML- Probably procrastinating, I'm pretty good with deadlines. I'm very easily distracted, but in-terms of actually writing, I balk when I get to a scene that needs a lot of description, because I don't think visually, that's not something my mind does very well. I get a little worried when I have to describe something Ina book, that's my weak spot while writing. [The hardest book to have written, or published] is probably Six Wakes. It was my first mystery, and it's a locked-room mystery, so I had to make sure that I fulfilled all the rules needed in a locked-room mystery, and the payoff has to be enough, but I worked with a really good editor who helped me finesse the ending to be something that works. [ Six Wakes] would have to be it because that was a mystery; my first one, and I needed a little bit of guidance towards the end.
MA- Finally, Is there anything you can tell us about Six Wakes, your latest novel? (Release date is: January 31st 2017) Also, what is your next project(s), anything you can elaborate upon at this time?
ML- Six Wakes is a story of six clones whose job it is to operate a generational starship for 400 years. The way it's set up is when they die, a new clone is woken up, and they do backups of their memories frequently, so their new mind can be as close to the old mind as possible. The problem is all of our clones wake up at once among their own dead bodies, and they know because they're on a ship with no one else there, one of them has to have killed them, but they remember nothing since the launch of the ship. So they have to try to find the clues to figure out what happened, and who did the deed. It takes place in space, and they have to colonize new planets. There's a whole bunch of humans in cryo, and there are w bunch of clones in w database who are waiting to get new bodies when they get to the other side of the journey.
ML- [Currently] I'm working on the book for I Should Be Writing! So I got a contract from a publisher that wants to publish a book based on the podcast. I'm working on that right now, and that's due at the end of the month. [After that] I'll be working on new book ideas for my agent to sell.
When asked if she had any words to would-be writers, Mur added: "We put a lot of emphasis on talent, and that's why a lot of people quit because they sort of reach the end of their talent, and they fail. And we don't realize like snything else in life, hard work matters more, because someone working hard and values their own hard work over their talent will keep going if they fail.while a 'talented' person will say:
"If I'm talented, and clearly can't do it, clearly it can't be done by me, so I might as well not do [the work]. I fell prey to that too, and that's why I stopped writing for so long. So that's why I try and tell people all the time don't quit because you fail, just keep going."
You can send any questions for Mur Lafferty and her podcast I Should Be Writing to
mightymur@gmail.com. Also feel free to check out her newest novel Six Wakes, which is available for preorder right now, and releases on January 31st, 2017!
I would like to thank Mur Lafferty for taking the time out to discuss her podcasts and upcoming books. For more information on Mur Lafferty, feel free to visit murverse.com, her official website.
You can follow Mur @mightymur on Twitter as well
You can send me a message @mcasteditorial on Twitter. Feel free to follow for more updates on the blog, and little quips here-and-there. Thank you for supporting the Malacast Editorial.
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