A fantasy for all worlds with Lyndall Clipstone

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Adam Sockel:

You are listening to Passions & Prologues, a literary podcast. For each week, I interview an author about a thing they love and how it inspires their work. I'm your host Adam Sockel, and today's guest is Lyndall Clipstone, fantasy author of the new book, Unholy Terrors.

We had a delightful conversation about basically where she finds her passion for the fantasy genre, and it all started with some truly, truly wonderful RPG video games that you can kind of choose your own adventure and decide the character's arc that you want to be and how the story turns out. It's a lot of fun. I really, really love this conversation.

I used to be a big video game person. I'm not so much anymore just because of timing, but it was fun to talk about some of the video games that I used to play when I was younger, which were very much the same style, these games that it was a very open world and you could decide what would happen with your character and whether they were going to be good or bad and the consequences that they were going to experience.

It was just really fun kind of falling back into that world and uncovering how Lyndall used that to inspire herself to first write fan fiction, and then create worlds completely out of nothing for herself. Really, really loved it.

Love the book. It is a perfect book for this time of year where it's, if you're listening to this when the episode comes out, Halloween was just yesterday, and we're still in that kind of dark and cold time of year where there's nothing better than curling up with a good book and getting lost into a new world.

And along those lines, if you'd like an additional book to get lost into a new world, I just finished The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty or Shannon Chakraborty, which is what she goes by as this prefers this particular title.

If you are a fan of fantasy novels and pirates, you are going to adore this book. Amina al-Sirafi is a female captain of a pirate crew, but she has basically retired. She has put that in her past, but she is very, very infamous and known all across the seven seas.

And when a young girl goes missing, the grandmother comes and basically asks Amina al-Sirafi to take on one last job, and it's an offer she cannot refuse. So, it turns into a bit of a heist story that is all along the seven seas. It has all of the piratey goodness you would want.

There's swashbuckling, there's treasure, but there's also all these fantasy elements about Gods and mortals and big monsters and all sorts of stuff, just a wonderful book. I think you're really, really going to love it. I adored that. That's the Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and it really does pair nicely with Unholy Terrors by Lyndall Clipstone. I think you'll adore both of those books.

If you want to get ahold of me, if you want some additional book recommendations or just see what I'm up to lately, you can always find me on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube at Passions & Prologues. Or you can shoot me an email at [email protected]. I'm always happy to chat with you there as well.

That is all the housekeeping. I am going to let you dive into this discussion with Lyndall Clipstone, author of Unholy Terrors on Passions & Prologues.

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Okay Lyndall, what is something you are super passionate about that we're going to be discussing today?

Lyndall Clipstone:

I'm super passionate about the Dragon Age video games, particularly Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Adam Sockel:

I love it. So, first things first, let's start at the beginning. What was kind of your introduction to video games? What got you into the kind of the thing that made you fall in love with it?

Lyndall Clipstone:

I've always really loved playing games, I think. I've been sort of just a gamer for my whole life since I had a Nintendo. And my partner who I met when I was in high school is also like a really big gamer. So, kind of united in our love for video games, but I was really, really into this video game called Knights of the Old Republic, which was like a Star Wars sort of role-playing game.

And one of the best parts of it for me was that there was this really strong sort of element of you could have relationships with all of the characters and those interactions sort of shaped the story. And that was absolutely … like I'm always searching for more games like that. So, that was what led me to Dragon Age, because it was created by the same game company at the time.

So, yeah, I played like the first one quite a long time ago. And then the second one, and then there was just something about Inquisition, I think because it's been so long between games that I played through it and just everything was so perfect, like the setup.

So, the game starts where there's this sort of … I'm trying to think of the word for it. A coming together of all of the different factions in the realm to do sort of a peace talk. And then there's a horrible explosion and it kills the games version of the pope called the Divine.

And they think you did it because you're the only person who survives coming out of the wreckage, and you've got this weird thing embedded in your hand that can actually coincidentally close the tears in the fabric of the world that have now opened up because of the explosion.

So, it's just the way that you're put into the game as a character is really fun as well. You're like, oh, this mystery around you and now you have to unite everybody together and it sort of goes on where you can make sort of good and bad choices and that sort of shapes it. I really love how you can participate in the world so much.

And I did such a thorough playthrough. I was a mage, a human mage inquisitor, which in the world of Dragon Age, mages are sort of, they're forced to live in sort of, I guess a prison, but they don't call it a prison, and it's like they're kind of feared.

And it's interesting because even within the game, that's not kind of interrogated particularly well, I feel like there's so much more that they could delve into with that. But you’re a mage and then you can choose who to romance out of your party.

And I romanced a templar called Cullen, and he was an ex templar, so it was like ideological opposites, which is like my absolute kryptonite. You're like this mage whose kind of come from whatever, and his previous job was enforcing the mages imprisonment. So, that was so fun.

And I did a very, very thorough 90-hour play through, where I split every piece of the world and all of the little extra sort of add-on stories. And there's the side characters can romance each other as well.

So, I got all of them together. And then I played, they had like a epilogue sort of where it's set, I think a few years in the future and it sort of explores where all the characters have got. And when I finished that I cried like somebody had died. I was so bereft. It was the biggest game hangover ever.

But it's just, as a writer, I think getting so immersed in that sort of world is such a good way of sort of directing my brain into the storytelling mode because you're literally playing out the story and it's like, “I love this experience so much, how can I replicate this in my own.”

Adam Sockel:

So, there was a game, oh, gosh, it's at least 10 years ago at this point. I know it's a series, but Fable II is-

Lyndall Clipstone:

Oh, yeah Fable is great.

Adam Sockel:

So, how you were talking about just the idea, I remember that being really the first game that I had played, I know there were many more before that. But the first one that I had happened to pick up were exactly what you said, like your choices in the game, they let you be however you want it to be.

Whether it was like a goodie two shoes or just purely an awful piece of garbage. You could do whatever you wanted, and you could still complete the game however, but basically the choices you made determined your abilities and the way that other people like NPCs perceived you.

Lyndall Clipstone:

And then your physical appearance changed as part-

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. And I just remember being blown away. Like you said, I've always been a book nerd at my heart, but I do have like … I don't play video games anymore. Not for lack of wanting to, but I still have this tangential interest. I'll find myself watching Playthroughs of the new Zelda and stuff just because I'm very fascinated by it.

But I remember that game specifically. Like you said, it was such an immersive experience being like, “Oh, I am not only playing through this story, I'm changing this story.”

Lyndall Clipstone:

Yeah. It was really fun. We always joke about that game because I married the Town Crier in Fable II, and you would be in your bedroom together and then they did sort of fade to black and then he'd be like, “Get your titles.” And I'm just like, “Oh, but that's the thing. I'm like, oh, you could do anything in this game. I'm going to romance the Town Crier and marry him and have a family.” I'm like, “Why would I do that?” But it was just really-

Adam Sockel:

Because you can.

Lyndall Clipstone:

Because you can.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. So, I assume when you got done with your massive game hangover, did you go back and play it a different way or did you just kind of mourn the loss of the game and move on?

Lyndall Clipstone:

I had played it a few times before, so I played it through as a male character because there's a character in there called Dorian who's a mage, and I really wanted to romance him. And he's gay, so you have to play as a male presenting character to romance him.

So, I'd played through like that and then I think I got really invested into the game and I was like, “No, I want to romance Cullen,” so here's the setup. And I have sort of gone back in because one of the best romantic pairings in the game is romancing the Elven character whose name, I have never forgotten, Solas, I can't believe I totally blanked that out.

So, the Solas — is like the core big, angsty, dramatic romance of the game because he turns out to be the big villain of the whole series or that sort of part of the game. So, I started playing again as an Elven character with the thought of romancing him, but I think I did such a thorough play through that. I'm ready for something different.

So, I went on, I played the Witcher 3, which has got kind of a similar kind of vibe. Where you're Geralt but you can still make choices in the game that will affect a thing. And then I got really deeply into f Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which is so cute.

It's like you are the professor at this military academy and you have this little class of students, but it's also got this very matchmaking element where you can romance one of them and then you can also pair up the characters. So, I've just done millions of playthroughs of that being like, “Okay, cool, who am I going to put together this time?” So, yeah.

But I loved Dragon Age and I think if I ever have the time to sit down and the desire, I would love to go back in and just do a really complete sort of play through again. I'm waiting for the new one to come out. They keep sort of delaying it and it's going to be amazing when it is done.

Adam Sockel:

Well, that's the problem with these massive games is, honestly, they're not too dissimilar from fantasy novels where-

Lyndall Clipstone:

I mean, I'm still eagerly waiting the rest of the A Song of Ice and Fire books.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. You and so many other people.

Lyndall Clipstone:

I think Dance with the Dragons had just come out when I was pregnant with my first son, and I was on maternity leave, and I just got completely obsessed and read all of the books. I'd listened to … podcast when I couldn't sleep and I'm just like, “Yes, can't wait for Winds of Winter, and here we are. My son's just turned 11 and I'm like, “Well one day.”

Adam Sockel:

Listen, my favorite author is Erin Morgenstern. I adore her. I got to interview her when The Starless Sea came out, which has since become my favorite book. I have a Starless Sea tattoo; I adore it and she's only written two books. It was that and The Night Circus. And I think those two were seven years apart. And she told me-

Lyndall Clipstone:

I feel like that just about Donna Tartt who wrote The Secret History, one of my favorites. And everybody has all these predictions of like well, about every 10 years she does a new book and honestly good on them because I feel like doing, especially like YA Fiction, there's this kind of, you get on this track of like a book a year and it's exhausting. And-

Adam Sockel:

I was just going to say-

Lyndall Clipstone:

Take a year between … I'm not releasing a book next year and I'm really looking forward to having like a year off because I think you need that sometimes creatively to just have a little bit of time.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah. That's such an interesting, and I want to get into your books in just a second, but I want to ask a few — like why do you think that is? Because you're right. I feel like YA fantasy they're not that much shorter.

It's not less of a lift on you as an author as compared to a “adult fantasy writer.” But why do you think there is such a demand or expectation as a YA fantasy author that you're going to have a book come out every year?

Lyndall Clipstone:

Who puts the demand? Maybe it's a pressure we put on ourselves as well as, I know with a series, I think the publishers like you to … they want to keep people's attention and I'm going to sound all really Scott and grumpy about technology, but I feel like people's attention spans are not — it's hard to keep someone's attention span for a long time because there's so many different things all happening at once.

So, I feel especially with a series, they want to catch you while you're still interested rather than, “Oh, like the first book of that came out five years ago,” but I think there's always room. Like if you're really struggling as an author, I don't think you should feel pressured to turn the book out. I think you can push the deadline if you need to.

But for me, I think especially when I started as a debut author, I think I felt a lot of pressure to just break out. And I think there's also pressure around debuts where you feel like it's your only chance and if your first book isn't this gigantic blockbuster, then that's it for you and you have to keep going because if you stop then everyone will forget about you and someone else will come in and I guess attention span sort of thing.

So, I don't know how much of that is actually truth and how much of it is just me putting pressure on myself. Because I think probably a lot of creative people, I'm a big perfectionist and very hard on myself and try unlearn a lot of that.

But I feel really fortunate to be in a position where I'm not writing a series. I've got three books out in the world now. I'll have a paperback release next year. So, I have a bit of breathing room to go. No, I think I need a year. I need a longer amount of time before I write something next because I want more time to sort of have space between projects, sit with it, and let it be its own thing.

Adam Sockel:

That makes sense. I've never really thought about that, and I have a way author that I'm talking with and I was like, you know what, I'm curious, like you said, if that's demand by others or the self-imposed, I'm sure much like most things is a little com-

Lyndall Clipstone:

It's probably a bit of everything. I mean, and also financially, if you want to keep any kind of creative industry, it's very a weird sort of windfall kind of feeling payment. You'll get a book advance and then you'll get it paid out and then until you sell another book, you're not sort of … so I think financially as well, people kind of like to keep selling books for that reason, which is perfectly-

Adam Sockel:

That's a good reason too.

Lyndall Clipstone:

That is definitely a good reason.

Adam Sockel:

You mentioned before we started recording that Dragon Age has had an influence on your writing of kind of like in a direct through line, you mentioned that you had done some sort of fan fiction. So, can you kind of talk about that a little bit and how this video game that you adore has sort of kind of catapulted you into the creative side of the world?

Lyndall Clipstone:

Yeah, so I'd always written my own sort of work. I did creative writing honors at university, but it was all short pieces, sort of short stories. I found the idea of writing a novel length thing so daunting, I'm sure a lot of people do, where you're just saying, “How do you write that many words? How do you write a story to fans.”

And so, as sort of a challenge to myself, I decided to do NaNoWriMo and I decided to write Dragon Age fan fiction as my thing because I sort of love reading fan fiction and I think that was sort of supplementary to playing the game. I was also very immersed in reading a lot of really detailed Dragon Age fanfic stories and I wanted to write my own ones.

So, it was kind of like a good way for me to creatively train my sort of stamina, I guess because I had these in the world that was already built. And so, I was sort of playing around in this sandbox that was already created and learning how to write a story that would go for 50,000 words or however long it was meant to be and all of that.

And just proving to myself that I could do it as well. So, it was good fun, and it was like, I sort of, as I played through the game, I wrote the story as well. So, it was just this very creatively immersive experience that was really lovely and kind of, I guess put me in the zone of wanting to continue doing that with my own work.

Adam Sockel:

So, how did you transition then from, like you said fanfiction, you have “the advantage” of it's a preexisting world, you don't have to do the world building from scratch. So, how did you transition from that to like, okay, I actually want to make a go of building my own world and creating my own story and trying to query it and all that fun stuff?

Lyndall Clipstone:

I think a big part of it was proving to myself that I could write something that was novel length. So, doing like a fan fiction thing. I was okay, like just I am capable of producing this amount of words, which was something that was really empowering to discover for me, who'd only ever written sort of short fiction.

But the book that became my first book, which was Lakesedge, that was the book that I queried and gained an agent with. That had actually been a short story that I'd written as part of my honors year. And I'd always sort of felt like I wasn't done with it, felt like I wanted to explore it a little bit more.

And so, I was feeling so encouraged after writing this NaNoWriMo piece that I was like, “Well, why don't I try now to do this with my own sort of work?” Because it was just at a time in my life where I was feeling … like trying to pursue publication, it always felt too scary, I think because rejection.

I'm like, “If I don't try, I can't fail kind of thing.” So, even though … because people often ask me, “Oh, did you always want to be an author?” And I'm like, “I did, but I didn't sort of give myself permission to want it,” if that makes sense.

Adam Sockel:

Yeah.

Lyndall Clipstone:

And then I got to a stage in my life where my work contract was finished, my youngest was starting school, and so it worked out to make more sense for me to be a stay-at-home parent. And then I thought I wanted to go back to university and study creative writing again, but I didn't get into the program.

And I was like, “Maybe I could just do this on my own. Maybe I don't need a program. I don't need to go to university to write a novel.” So, I just sort of thought I may as well, I was just at the stage in my life where I'm like, “Now it's the time to be brave and see what happens.”

So, I wrote the manuscript, I was lucky enough to get mentored in a program called Author Mentor Match, where I learned a lot about writing from a very generous published author who mentored me. And then that sort of led into querying and luckily finding an agent.

Adam Sockel:

As someone who is currently querying, it can be exhausting and a bummer and frustrating, but then, I don't know, the way I thought about it when I was writing this book with, it was something where I was talking to a friend of mine who is an author and also a book podcaster.

And I remember talking to her and saying like, “There should be more books like X, Y, and Z.” And she's like, “So, write it.” And I was like, “Well, but I want to read it.” And she's like, “If you want to read it, other people want to read it too.” And if it doesn't exist-

Lyndall Clipstone:

And that's the thing, I've always sort of tried to write the books that I want to read. Because I know, I remember with querying, there's always this pressure of try to predict what the market will want or try to write something, and nobody knows. I wish you could predict what the market would want, how amazing would that be?

But at the same time, I think if you write something that you are so in love with and passionate about, there must be other people out there who are going to love it. And that will shine through with your writing as well.

Adam Sockel:

Well, and the fact that, like you said, the idea, if you try to think of like, “I'm going to write a novel,” yes, it sounds crazy, but it's only crazy until you start doing it. And then once you've done it, and you're an unpublished author who's querying, you might think to yourself like, “The idea that I would ever be a published author is crazy,” but it's only crazy until it isn't.

It's one of those things where, I don't know, I always think that about like, when I talk to debut authors. It's so unbelievable that I'm in this space. I'm like, “Well, maybe, but it's not.”

Lyndall Clipstone:

There's a good case to be made for giving yourself permission to be proud of your creative work without the gatekeeping sort of thing, because publishing is such a fickle industry that does not much to my constant frustration — it's not like a merit-based thing where you have these really clear parameters of, “Okay, now you've made it, now you've done a good thing.” It's always shifting, and you really have to sort of give yourself validation to sort of keep going.

And I remember before I was querying and people would ask like, “What do you do?” And I guess there was this tendency for me to be like, “Oh, I'm just a stay-at-home parent.” But then I'd be like, “No, I'm a writer, I write.” Because that's what I was doing every day when my children were at school, sit down and treat it like a job, even before I was a published author, or I had an agent.

I didn't want to let, like, “Okay, I'm not allowed to take this seriously until X.” So, I think you're allowed to call yourself a writer if you are a writer. You don't have to wait for an agent to sort of choose you out of the slush pile.

And it's hard to do that. It's hard to sort of claim validity of creative work because it's sort of it can feel so frivolous, it's like, oh, not at home trying to cure world hunger. You're just writing books, but at the same time it's important work, so-

Adam Sockel:

Well, and I think it's like because there's this belief … sorry, we're going to get to your book in one moment. I just really love this conversation I promise. I'm so sorry. It's just I love the thought of like you said, people seem to think, because in theory, because we're just sitting at home on a computer, in theory anyone can write a book. And in theory that is true.

But for someone to be able to create whole new worlds, to create entire characters out of thin air and plot lines and build together a cohesive story, that is something that should be celebrated even if you're not “published yet” or you don't have an agent.

Like you said, if you are writing, like if I was going to university, I would call myself a student. I would say I'm studying creative writing. I am a writer because I am writing a story. I totally agree with you, I love that mindset of like, “No, I'm a writer, that's what I'm doing right now.” I love that so, so much.

Lyndall Clipstone:

And it's no small thing, sitting down and having the stamina to finish writing a book, it's a big deal. I often have people ask me like, “How do you write a book?” And I'm like, “Honestly, I think it's just doing it.”

There's no easy way around it, which is kind of unfortunate a lot of the time because it'd be nice to have a shortcut. But yeah, the dedication that it takes, it's a career that really depends, a lot of dedication and self-discipline.

Adam Sockel:

There's no way to cheat that process. So, speaking of your writing, can you introduce my listeners to your new book on Unholy Terrors. And I want to ask you some questions about that, but before I do, can you kind of introduce them to your latest novel.

Lyndall Clipstone:

So, on Unholy Terrors is a standalone, dark, romantic fantasy about a girl who is a holy warrior, and she has to team up with the monstrous boy she's sworn to kill, ostensibly to stop the rise of a terrible eldritch power. But she's also interested in finding out about her origins.

Adam Sockel:

And how did it feel after writing a couple of books, like you said that the first two were in the same world, is that correct?

Lyndall Clipstone:

Yeah. Their geology.

Adam Sockel:

How did it feel to once again be kind of creating a world from scratch after spending so much time in the previous one you had created?

Lyndall Clipstone:

I really enjoyed it. So, it's actually been a story that I'd had sort of like the little seedling ideas for quite a while. Because it was the book which became Unholy Terrors, which was a very different story to begin with, was what I was working on as my like … you know how people say, “Do you write the weight?”

So, while I was querying Lakesedge, this was the project that I was distracting myself with. But I think it was really, really enjoyable to write. Like, this is my first book that I sold after my debut book deal because I sold two books. So, it was my first book, like an established author, my first non-debut sort of book, my first book after writing a series.

It just felt good to be able to sort of prove to myself that like, “Yes, I can do this.” I can write something else other than like the … because there's always this fear. I'm like, “What if this is it? Maybe I could only ever write one book,” but they do continue.

Like it's nice to know that I can continue to sort of find my space. And it was just fun. It was fun after working on the same characters and story for nearly three years to be able to go onto a new character.

Adam Sockel:

So, along those lines for you is character, what kind of comes first when you were building out a new story? Or is it the world or like an action, I guess? What comes to you first as sort of that first seed of how you want to build out this new adventure?

Lyndall Clipstone:

I think for me it's definitely character because I adore writing very character driven stories and reading them. And so, I'll sort of start with a character dynamic. Often it'll be like a romantic dynamic. So, with Unholy Terrors, I was like, okay, I want it to be an enemies to lovers romance with sort of forced alliance between these two characters who have an ideological opposition.

So, what would be a really good setup for that? And then the idea of this unholy holy dichotomy, it's so classic, but there's such a rich sort of well of emotions to draw from. And then the next sort of sage will be, I think like the aesthetic of how I want the book to sort of feel to the reader.

What I want the world to feel visually more so than like, what sort of do I want to set it in like a medieval fantasy world or whatever. So, I think I wanted it to feel different to Lakesedge, which had been very sort of foresty, gardeny.

So, after I'd read Wuthering Heights, I really wanted to set something in a moorland kind of — because I wanted to feel different as well to my previous book. So, I came up with this idea of this desolate moorland that was full of ruined cathedrals and how that could sort of become an influence on the type of story that would happen there and that sort of thing.

Adam Sockel:

I think I saw it described somewhere as gothic fantasy, which I adore like a perfect description of it. I love that. You mentioned starting with characters and for me that's the same way.

You can give me a 220-page book about a small town in the States, or you can give me a sprawling 900-page fantasy book, but it doesn't matter what the world is and the actions at its heart, for me, I need to care about the characters. I always talk about, I don't love thrillers often because so often it's just like a cast of characters who are all just jerks and it's like, I want to feel the-

Lyndall Clipstone:

I think where they've done well though, like I'm a big Gillian Flynn fan and I think she is a really good example of how to write a thriller with compelling, non-two-dimensional sort of characters.

Adam Sockel:

And to be clear, there are some I like for sure but there are different-

Lyndall Clipstone:

I know what you mean, I think … and there's definitely like different for me, I'd often, like I really crave this intersection of fantasy and romance and prosy writing, it’s like the holy grail. And I'd often pick up a book and be like, “Oh, this one looks good.” And I'd start flipping through it. It'd be like, it's so and so has to sort out the political situation between the — I'm like, “No, no, I don't want that. I want the hot villain.”

Adam Sockel:

Well, but that's the thing is like you said, people may fall in love with the world that you create, a fantasy world that they can, like you said, they can do their own fan fiction and they can play in the space. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to read, like you were talking about before, like all the Game of Thrones. I'm not going to read 1000-page book just because there's dragons in the background.

Lyndall Clipstone:

No, I think my favorite part of The Game of Thrones series was the relationship between Jon Snow and Ygritte where, again, it was the reluctant enemies to lovers’ team up. And so, I think even when people use that as an example of a big sweeping fantasy, he does character dynamics and character driven stories well, and that's always what's drawn me in.

Adam Sockel:

Like those small stories within the massive.

Lyndall Clipstone:

Yeah. There's like this huge, big worldwide scale thing going on, but you're more interested in who's Jon Snow’s father and are these people really like the same person? Are these people going to …

It's great.

Adam Sockel:

So, for you, what, if anything was the most challenging part about writing a new world and new characters and new adventures? Was there anything that you found challenging about this? Or was it all really just excitement to get at a new project?

Lyndall Clipstone:

I think a lot of it was excitement, but there was also I think a lot of self-confidence in there's always this fear of … with the series, people knew what they were getting into with the second book because they'd read Lakesedge.

So, I'm like, “Will, people like this new world as much? Will it be something that readers connect with?” I think it was mostly like, it wasn't so much like the actual act of storytelling and writing the book was kind of straightforward and enjoyable for me as a creator.

But the sort of worrying about how it would be received and if people would love it and I think that's probably something all authors fear. And also knowing the whims of publishing are so uncontrollable and wanting the best for this book because I want it to be able to reach as many readers as possible because I'm so proud of this story.

And you want it to be able to connect with the people who will enjoy it. And so, much of that is outside of your control. You can't go around and follow the book everywhere and make sure you have to trust the publisher to sort of do that end of things. So, I think a lot of it's like letting go of what I can't control and accepting what I can.

Adam Sockel:

I'm laughing because having interviewed authors for a decade now, like I said, I've interviewed debut authors who no one had heard of, I have interviewed the most successful authors in the world and everything in between. And everyone has that same feeling.

Like I remember interviewing V.E. Schwab, and this was not when her career had just started. It was for The Invisible Life of Adie LaRue, a book that has now sold like 3 million copies.

Lyndall Clipstone:

I know. It's so funny because I'm like, well, I guess if V. E. Schwab feels like that, then I'm like — because I can say something like, “What if nobody ever reads my book?” And I'm just like, “Oh, it's not just me.”

Adam Sockel:

She literally told me a story and she told me I was welcome to share this, but she literally told me a story. I got to interview a couple of times, she was talking about how she had a manuscript of a book that hadn't seen the light of day and she's like, “And I was sitting on Neil Gaiman's table pitching him the story, wondering if anyone would like it.”

And I was like, “Did you just hear the sentence you just said to me?” Of course, people are going to … but this is all to say, I think what you're feeling is natural.

Lyndall Clipstone:

I think so too. And I think it's really hard to get out of your own head as well because there's such a disconnect from you're sitting at your desk. I mean, I'm in Australia on the other side of the world, sitting at a desk writing a story that's coming out all over the world. And it's so easy to feel like, “Does anyone even know that this is happening?” But it does.

And actually, speaking of V. E. Schwab, she made this really cool post where I think she talked about like, “Here's all the things that I worry about and here's all the things that are in my control,” and in my control was the work. And it's really … I think especially now, there's all this pressure on authors where they're like, “Oh, you should go on TikTok and then you'll go viral and that'll make your career.”

And I'm like, “Yeah, but you're not going to have a career if you don't write a book in the first place. And it's not my job to make TikTok content, my job and what I want to do is to write books.” So, I think we sort of feel like, “Oh, but if we do this thing, if we go viral, if we go on thing and whatever.”

But at the same time, it's like maybe we can't control so much of publishing, but we can control the writing. And I feel like it was V. E. Schwab, I feel like she knows what she's talking about, so she's very inspirational and that was really good advice.

Adam Sockel:

And to your point before, I think it part of that like being on TikTok and being all over the place, there's just this need, people feel this need, if I'm not in front of people, I'll be forgotten. And then what? But like you said, you did a-

Lyndall Clipstone:

I definitely feel that as well. I mean, when Twitter was big, I found it really not great for my mental health as an author. And I struggled for a long time because I was like, “What's going to happen if I leave? Am I going to ruin my career by not being on Twitter talking to people about my book?”

But in the end, I left, and it was quite cathartic to sort of let that go. And I think I'm a big believer in only doing the kind of social media interaction that brings you joy as an author. I don't think anyone should feel pressured to be doing things that make them uncomfortable or takes time away from the creative process.

Adam Sockel:

No, I, wholeheartedly agree. The less social media I can do, the happier I am.

Lyndall Clipstone:

I think I enjoy it in a way, but I've definitely had to constantly sort of navigate how much time I want to give to it.

Adam Sockel:

Speaking of time, you have been super, super gracious. I have one last question for you. I always end every discussion by having the author who has come on give a recommendation of any kind. It can be a book, it can be a recipe, a TV show, it can be a video game. Anything you would like to recommend for people to check out, now is the time.

Lyndall Clipstone:

Now is the time. You know what I think I'm going to recommend … this has made me think too hard now.

Adam Sockel:

I know, I'm sorry.

Lyndall Clipstone:

So, I have been completely immersed in a Finley Fenn’s Orc Sworn series, which is a romance fantasy book. Not YA it's definitely adult about orcs and the women who love them. And it's been a complete delight to read.

They're so beautifully written, so romantic, so spicy. And it's just been a complete joy to work my way through all of these books, why I've been stressed about my upcoming release. So, I feel like if anybody loves fantasy romance and is looking for an excellent distraction at a stressful time, then I recommend those books.

Adam Sockel:

That is absolutely perfect. People will absolutely get lost in Unholy Terrors. It is such a wonderful story, and I can't thank you enough for coming on.

Lyndall Clipstone:

Thank you for having me.

Adam Sockel:

Thank you for joining me today.

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Passions & Prologues is proud to be an Evergreen Podcasts. It was created by Adam Sockel; it was produced by Adam Sockel and Sean Rule-Hoffman. And if you are interested in this podcast and any other Evergreen Podcasts, you can go to evergreenpodcasts.com to discover all the different stories we have to tell.