The below is a copy of the interview post over at Star's Books and Tea.
Click here to view the original post.
This Week’s Author: H. Gorlitz Scott
Book Spotlight:
In a desert kingdom, a sixteen year old girl is determined to escape a vile sorcerer, but is challenged by the maneuverings of an unseen insurrection.
Home to the largest library in Sivoa, Libris Del Sol is a wonder to behold. It has stood since before known civilization and is the most desired Kingdom in the world.
Dragonira is desperate to leave it behind.
Tormented by a lifetime spent at the mercy of her abusive father, she steals an escape spell that puts her face to face with the prince. Surprised by her appearance and wary of an underground rebellion, he and his family force her to stay within the palace walls.
Meanwhile, a troubled oracle struggles to cross the continent to warn of the kingdom’s demise before it is too late to save them.
Do you know a child who loves Halloween? Do you remember that one haunting house where the fear was not worth the candy? Move over Great Pumpkin! Children will have fun trick-or-treating with the fearless, mysterious Captain Halloween!
Schoolchildren taunt and tease Peter “Pumpkinhead” because of his love of pumpkinseeds, which ultimately leads to a schoolyard dare: to trick-or-treat at the haunted house of the wicked witch on Halloween night. Peter never returns. For a generation, Halloween is all but banned. Until a brave schoolgirl named Clare takes the same Halloween dare Peter once took. In costume eerily similar to Peter Pumpkinhead long ago, a school-age Captain Halloween, along with a black cat named “Boo,” saves both Clare and Halloween from the wicked witch, forever!
About H. Gorlitz Scott:
H. Gorlitz Scott was born somewhere between orange groves and raised amongst the alligator people of America’s most phallic of states – Australia Lite. There, she and her sentient hair have taken to drawing a land of make-believe to live in so that she did not become one of the zombie hoards.
This hobby turned fully professional after she and her husband spawned a swamp elf that constantly needs to be fed. In addition to publishing her own line of comics, Scott has provided illustrations for gaming companies such as Aldorlea Games, Rose Portal Games, and The Historical Game Company.
Not wanting to leave the make-believe adventures of her early life behind, she turned to writing them down; a process that was significantly faster, and more effective, than interpretive dance (which she is terrible at).
Scott continues to write, draw, and stare at spaceships from her home in Orlando, Florida to this day. “Hey, somebody has to live here.”
Interview With H Gorlitz Scott:
Tell us about the books you’ve published so far. Can you tell us about some of your upcoming novels? I’ve had a hand in quite a number of publications, but I’ve only a couple of novels that are totally mine – those being Sivoa in its various forms.
This setting and story was originally published as a comic series, but because I was a single person doing all of the things that a small team would normally do, it took me an uncomfortable amount of time to produce. Switching to a strictly prose format sped things up considerably.
The first book in the series, Sivoa: Sunrise, covers the comic from the beginning on past where it left off. In a nutshell it’s about Dragonira – a teenaged girl trying to escape an evil sorcerer, while indirectly contending with a secret insurrection.
The mini-sequel, Sivoa: Mourning takes place a short time afterward and features a bunch of Sivoa: Sunrise side characters that don’t continue on into Sivoa: Zenith, which is the proper second book in the series. As a reader, it drives me nuts when I don’t know what happens to a character outside of the main timeline, so I decided to write about them a little.
Sivoa: Zenith continues with Dragonira’s story and features a drastically different world than the one she grew up in (not that it would take much). She finds herself having to deal with life in magic-using capitalist society, crazy religious factions, culture shock – all while having to hide who she is. It gets pretty nuts.
This novel is still in progress, but because I’m not restricted by the exclusivity rules of a publishing house, I have been sharing some work-in-progress snippets from it to patrons at http://patreon.com/dragonmun
What was the moment you knew you wanted to be an author? I can’t say that I actually had an aha! moment, but it definitely stemmed from comics. I read comics and I liked to draw, so I started creating comics. At first they were these weird one-page things involving aliens trying to sort Earth shit out (which made my kid brother laugh immensely), then they went one to more, uhhhh, structured things like a webcomic about samurai vegetables being idiots. Eventually – and in response to my BFF asking me endless questions about characters that appeared in my sketchbooks -I started drawing Sivoa as a comic.
10+ years later I had something of an emotional meltdown, where I realized that I wasn’t enjoying making comics anymore – even though I still wanted to get this story told. I guess that was when I wanted to become “an author.”
What are some things you do to overcome doubts about your writing? This is going to sound egotistical, but I focus on the good reviews that the book has received. Most of them are by close friends and fans of the comics. The fact that they like my writing in that form as well is a pretty huge confidence boost. I mean, jumping from comics to prose is a pretty big leap for the readers as well and that they liked the story enough to do that means a lot to me. I love my readers so much and I appreciate their patience more than I can put into words (ironically).
Who was your easiest character to write about and why? What was your hardest and why?
I’m going to out myself as an extreme nerd here, but because I spent so many years “role-playing” villains online, Flag was actually my easiest character to write. He is nothing like me and I definitely don’t relate to him on any kind of moral level, but I learned how he thinks in all this time, so I can drop right in and write him without much issue.
Dragonira, on the other hand, started off as a fighting game character concept that then morphed into a coping mechanism for things that I witnessed dear friends go through. I had to learn who she was for the comic and then even moreso for the novel. It’s been a lot of fun figuring her out, but there’s also been a lot of prose thrown out because it wasn’t exactly her.
Have any actual life experiences reflected in your writing? Indirectly, yes. Certain interactions with toxic people has led me to realize that people can indeed get fixated on horrible motivations for extended periods of time and that interventions don’t always work. My going through the process of having and raising a child informs a viewpoint I need for Sivoa: Sunset, the third book in the series. I also learned that family doesn’t necessarily mean blood and that reflects a bunch in Sivoa: Zenith…
I feel I must stop here to say that my own family life isn’t reflected in the story at all. My parents are amazing and my brother is awesome. My extended family is dear to me and I am totally blessed to have such wonderful people in my life.
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