With Kaylie Seed
Congratulations on your debut novel! I admire anyone who takes the time to put in the work to write and publish a novel - it is amazing! I’m pleased to be able to do some promotion for The Tao of Flower and to interview a fellow Canadian! If you wouldn’t mind, I have some questions to ask you about The Tao of Flower as well as your writing process.
Where did your inspiration come from to have the main theme be about Tae Kwon Do and fighting in general? Did you have to do a lot of research?
I have always been a fan of stories of determination, perseverance, and competition. My inspiration for this story I cannot pinpoint. The idea came to me fourteen, maybe even fifteen, years ago. My eldest was a taekwondo student at a club owned by friends of mine and my wife. We brought her to classes three and four times a week for a few years. I have always been a daydreamer and the seed of my story I would say was planted there. Beyond that I do not have much intimate knowledge of this specific form of martial arts. Over the years, many story ideas came and went but the story which eventually became The Tao of Flower never left me. It grew, details changed. I have many scattered notes, some I was unable to find, but the story was in my mind for so long that I didn’t feel the need to hunt them down. I chose taekwondo simply because of the Olympic event. There is no martial arts event with a larger worldwide audience than the Olympic Games which was part of Flower’s dilemma. My protagonist was not striving to please an audience, she was seeking to measure herself amongst the greatest fighters due to her relentless contemplation.
I love reading stories about father/daughter relationships because I find that there aren’t a lot of them out there. Being a father of daughters yourself, did you find this to be an easy topic to write about?
Yes, I did for the most part. Particularly with the dialogue. However, it was challenging to create a bond between two characters who were so different in every way. Another challenge was writing about some of the subjects the two conversed about. Some are topics of conversation I have never had with any of my daughters so I worked to make them as fluent and believable as I could not having firsthand experience to help me along.
What was the most surprising thing that you learned while going through the process of creating and writing The Tao of Flower?
For me, the most surprising detail of the writing process was envisioning an event, a conversation, or even plot points and how they are either altered, removed, or added upon through the entire writing process. The story you read, compared to the one in my head before putting finger to keyboard is vastly different but I feel my end product, which of course is the result of my initial ideas, became far more engaging as I wrote and revised portions of the story. A lot of the book was made up of my old original ideas but details came to me as late as my third or fourth rounds of revision.
Now that you’ve written your first book and decided to publish independently, what did you learn and what would you do differently for your next book?
I published independently but could not have done it without the help of the folks at Friesen Press Publishing. They were there to answer all the questions I had - and I had a lot. I feel I got my money’s worth using them, maybe more. One thing I plan to do differently with my current manuscript is edit and revise a little more thoroughly before submitting it to their editors. First time through their editing process, I found a lot of things I was unsatisfied with on my end. Had I been more thorough and a little more critical of my work before submitting my manuscript, I feel it would have made things easier on their editor and in turn on me in the later revision rounds.
Speaking of next books, are you in the process of writing something new right now?
I am currently working on my next book. I have completed a first draft and gone through a round of revision of this manuscript. I have had it read by a couple people who I felt would give their honest feedback and they have. I am glad they did because there are elements I was not happy with and through discussion with the readers my thoughts were reaffirmed and I have to work to fortify these elements of my story. But all who have read it say they did enjoy the overall story which was refreshing. Not sure how many details I should give but my next book is an origin story of another character within The Tao of Flower. It tells the story of this character and the two books intersect shedding light on undisclosed details in the original story. The stories are related but in no way the same. I would say The Tao of Flower would be classified as a light, coming-of-age story. The follow up story is a love story with an ending that none of my readers saw coming. My wife was not happy with me but loved the story.
What is your “must-read” book recommendation and what book has had the most impact and influence on your writing?
Although I can’t call it a must-read yet, I am getting into a book named ‘Mess’ by a delightful young lady named J. Wray. I met her this past winter and overheard her saying she was an author. We got to talking and she really is an inspired individual. As for inspiration from my reading, I don’t know how to even incorporate the two. To this day, my favourite fictional novel is Casino Royale by Ian Fleming and I read it over twenty years ago. Most of my reading interest is given to autobiographies, primarily of athletes. I would not say they inspire me to write but I guess hearing actual figures share their most intimate secrets regardless of the shame or embarrassment they feel makes me feel that there are no boundaries in the fictional world.