Hey there everyone.

Have I got a treat for you all tonight……Yes I have and it is not a rhetorical question, I would never do that to you all on a Monday of all days 😉

It is with greatest pleasure that I introduce you all to another outstanding author in the Author Interview series.

Adam Dreece shares with us his writing experiences and inspirations to reveal himself to be a very entertaining and inspiring individual himself.

Enjoy the show folks and happy reading.

 

Hi there Adam, wonderful to have you here to discuss your work, your inspirations and the driving force behind everything that you do.

Let’s start with your very popular steampunk meets fairy tale series, The Yellow Hoods. Can you tell us more about the concept behind the series, the challenges your lead protagonists face across the course of their adventures and the overall themes/premise of the series?

At the heart of it, I wanted The Yellow Hoods to be an engaging series that my kids could enjoy when they were tweens, then again as adults, and once again as parents, seeing it differently each time. That meant writing it on different levels, and having to make sure that older audiences would have enough to sink their teeth into while kids wouldn’t be bogged down. Also, I loved the idea of having a world of wonderous inventions that was grounded enough to be an alternate history version of ours, but with fairy tales woven into its fabric as real.

On the fairy tale front, I was inspired by Ring-Around-the-Rosie and its relationship to the black plague. So I took rhymes like Rub-a-Dub-Dub and made that about a secret society called the Tub, which has always been led by a butcher, a baker, and a candle-stick maker. I took the idea of Santa Claus and deconstructed it, having two brilliant inventors who were in their twilight years, Nikolas Klaus and Christophe Creangle, with the latter having a daughter in her 30’s named Christina Creangle. I don’t make any of the books an explicit retelling of a fairy tale, but rather, I think of the events from each one of the books as being remembered centuries later by a fairy tale.

Tee, Elly and Richy are the main trio, though there are several very well developed secondary characters who have some great personal journeys. At the beginning of Book 1 – Along Came a Wolf, the trio are twelve-years-old and feel like masters of their world, living in a small mountain town. Everything changes as a stranger comes to town hunting for steam engine plans, and the trio start their journeys towards understanding who they are and what it means to be a hero. Tee and Elly, who are best friends and have been since pretty much birth, end up learning how far they will go for each other and what the costs of doing that are.

You also have published two Adult novels – the post-apocalyptic fantasy book “The Wizard Killer – Season One”, and your science fiction novel “The Man of Cloud 9”. What are the concepts behind these particular books regarding the plots and the central themes that influence them?

The Wizard Killer was an experiment gone horribly, horribly RIGHT. I affectionately refer to it as my adrenaline-junkie book. It’s written in a “binge TV show” style, with every ‘section’ of the book being an episode, rather than a chapter, and every episode having its own micro-arc.

The core idea for The Wizard Killer was to create a world that had been at the height of magic as a technology (thinking levitating cars for the regular person), and nations were lead by wizards but not the Harry Potter type. The world then has its apocalypse, and we come into it through the eyes of a man who comes back from the dead for the third time, with scrambled memories. I’m told it has a Wasteland/Fallout feel with a Science Fantasy heart, and Western-twist. One of my critics called it “Harry Potter meets Diehard.” The magic and politics of it have been compared to Stephen King’s Gunslinger. The series has been popular with adults and kids age 12+.

The Man of Cloud 9 is the opposite of The Wizard Killer in many senses. Set seventy years from now, it’s a character-centric technothriller. It follows a genius whose unable to let go of a vision he has for a banned technology, even after he’s revolutionized the world and created the biggest company of the era. It’s not enough to fill the hole inside. Like an addict, he never trusts anyone with the complete truth out of fear that they’ll take it away from him. Through all of this however, there’s one person he’s protected from the very beginning, which weaves down that twisted path of no good deed goes unpunished.

I drew on my 20+ years of experience in software, my time in Silicon Valley and Microsoft, and a lot of dark places that I’d found myself over the years, particularly when my life was largely about finding purpose in endless days of pain.

If your novels were to be made into films (or even a TV series), who would you cast in the lead roles?

For The Yellow Hoods, I wouldn’t have been able to answer until I saw Logan. Dafne Keen could definitely be Tee, though finding the right Elly and Richy to balance things would be a challenge. Another pivotal character in the series would be Nikolas Marcus Pieman. I think for Marcus Pieman, Jason Isaacs could do it justice.

To play Niko Rafaelo, the genius at the heart of The Man of Cloud 9, my first thought is Hugh Jackman. He could communicate the sense of someone with emotions and drive, someone who is locked within a prison of themselves and fearful of the world around them, yet has a vulnerability.

As for The Wizard Killer? I’m stumped.

What do you find the most difficult thing about writing? And what do you find the easiest?

The hardest part for me is finding the ‘it’, the essential nugget that pulls everything together. I feel like an archaeologist digging all over an area, looking for the first signs of artefacts but when I find it, everything starts coming together. Coming up with initial ideas is easy.

Who are some of the authors and historical figures that inspire you?

When I was in high school, I read the Dragonlance Chronicles by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. There’s a death in the second book that really hit me hard, and that was the first time I’d felt loss from written words. That same year, I read Brave New World by Aldus Huxley, and it made me go quiet and thoughtful.

Now, decades later, I paid tribute to Hickman and Weis in The Man of Cloud 9 (one of my Easter Eggs), and Brave New World has been moved to the non-fiction section.

What sort of research do you do to write your books?

I’ll lookup inventions, parts of history, but mostly I pull from my imagination and background. I had a career in taking ideas and trying to find a way to turn them into plausible systems of people and software and processes, and then having to lead teams to create those very things. Every experience taught me a lot about the human condition, and I made time along the way to sit down with people and try to understand who they were. Little did I realize that it would all become a wealth of information for when I would unleash my real self, my writer self.

When I’m dealing with a subject that is well outside my realm of experience, I hunt someone down to share their experiences with me. For example, in a story I’ve recently written, I have a trans-gender character and I wanted to make sure that they were authentic and the way I had written them wasn’t accidentally offensive. So I found a few friends who have been through that journey and they provided great feedback.

I believe that in being a story teller, we need to go explore the unknown and bring it back for everyone else.

Why do you write? What inspired you to become a writer?

I’ve always been an ideas person, someone asking what if, why and how. I could express some of that in software, but I was always limited by time, cost, and the dependency on vast teams (depending on the idea).

It took a serious medical event, months and months of horrible pain, to get me to see that my way of fighting against it would be to unleash my imagination in the most pure form that I could, by writing. My daughter gave me a nudge to start writing the first book, Along Came a Wolf – The Yellow Hoods #1. I haven’t looked back.

What keeps you motivated during creative slumps? How do you deal with Writers Block?

When the well runs dry, I stop trying to get more from it. I try to find things that will recharge me, that will get me thinking about something new. I’ll review my notes or force myself to give people a call and go for coffee. Sometimes I focus on another part of being an author, as writing is only one part of it.

At the end of the day, if all else fails, I go through all works of mine (from when I was a kid) or go through my old comics or role playing games, finding the little ideas that I’d left in there for me to rediscover years later. “Oh, that panel of X-Men 191, I remember reading that when I was 13 and I thought about a robot animal that could juggle. Hmm, HHMMMM maybe I could use that.”

You have access to a time machine. What advice would you give to your younger self?

You aren’t a fraud, you’re dyslexic and a genius, and they are masking each other. Don’t believe the words being pounded into your head, don’t believe those who are jealous of you because they can see your gifts even though you can’t. You will become the mentor that you wished you’d found, and you will change the world for some people by giving moments of your time and through your words. The one can be right and the 100 wrong. You can change the world, one person at a time.

And don’t buy that Iron Man #1, it’s not actually in near mint condition. There’s a slice right through it on the bottom right that’ll degrade its value.

How do you spend your free time when you are not writing?

I’m a stay-at-home-dad, so when I’m not writing, or taking care of my 3 kids, or investing in my marriage which has been the backbone of my success, what else do I do? Is there any time left? These days, I’m DARING to get back into playing some video games. I haven’t played anything since I started writing my first book, in January 2014.

Tell us more about your upcoming projects. Are you working on anything specific or have plans in the pipeline?

I’ve got some novellas in the world of The Yellow Hoods planned, as well as Season 3 of The Wizard Killer. The biggest thing I’m working on is a whole new Dreece-verse, a fantasy space opera that will likely get compared to Lord of the Rings meets Battlestar Galatica, with a hint of Firefly. It’s called Tilruna.

Keep your eyes peeled this fall and next spring as you’re going to start seeing some really cool new stuff!

Finally, are there any nuggets of wisdom that you can impart to other aspiring writers?

Give yourself permission to make a complete and total mess as you write. I don’t write from chapter one to the end, I jump around, I allow inconsistencies to exist at first. It’s like baking, the whole kitchen becomes a disaster zone, but then I start cleaning up and at the end, I’m left with something that is amazing. Too often we cage our ideas and our ways for getting them out, let go of that. If you want to bake cookies and have a perfectly neat kitchen along the way, you’re going to make it ten times harder for yourself.

And that’s a wrap! Thank you for being a brilliant guest and for sharing more about yourself and your books Adam, you certainly are an inspirational person 🙂

Thanks so much!

Bio:-

Adam Dreece kicked off his indie author career with his best-selling steampunk meets fairy tale series, The Yellow Hoods, which struck a chord with kids 9-15 and adults. After four books in the series, the former software architect put out two more young adult books, the post-apocalyptic fantasy book The Wizard Killer – Season One, and then his science fiction novel, The Man of Cloud 9. The first two novels in The Yellow Hoods series, as well as The Wizard Killer, have been finalists for Book of the Year awards from the Independent Author’s Network.

When he’s not working on his next book, Adam can be found giving talks at schools, libraries, associations, as well as comic-con type events like CalgaryExpo and FanExpoCanada on subjects from how to get one’s ideas out and stepping outside of one’s comfort zone, to how to give a successful book signing.

Along the way, Adam has faced many challenges, including working around his Dyslexia (reading and writing disorder), and needing to be ruthless with his time and energy in face of his severe asthma and chronic abdominal scar pain. He’s become an inspiration to some, and a symbol of tenacious hard work to others.

He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his wife and children. He is an active online mentor at adamdreece.com, and is a busy public speaker, panelist, and author in Canada and the Pacific Northwest.

You can connect with Adam on the following Social Media channels:-

Facebook:- Adam Dreece – Author, Speaker (FB)
Goodreads:- Adam Dreece (Goodreads Author)
Instagram:- @AdamDreece (Instagram)
LinkedIn:- Adam Dreece – Author, Speaker (LinkedIn)
Twitter:- @AdamDreece (Twitter)
Website:- The Website of Author & Speaker Adam Dreece

You can buy Adam’s books here:-

Buy Adam Dreece’s books in Canada

Buy Adam Dreece’s books in the UK/Europe

Buy Adam Dreece’s books in the US/Rest of the World

If you too would like to be interviewed on my blog at TooFullToWrite and you have a book or a series of books that you would like us to chat about then fill out the Contact Me form here with your details and we can arrange a future interview slot.

Still want more? Well, Adam is a determined and tenacious individual to be sure, by his own admission 🙂 For more articles on the theme of ‘Tenacious’ then check out the links below:-

1. shame – The containing of it all
2. A Pleasing Passport – My Daly Bred
3. Tenaciously going uphill – Run and Travel
4. pray, eat, sleep, repeat – How do I blog…
5. Nostalgic. – The Dusky Woman
6. Something New – Reactionary Tales
7. Quick Tip & Pressed Flowers – Pink Leaves or a Baggie, Camera & Notepad with Pencil – MINDING MY P’S WITH Q
8. Should The LGBT Community Be Legalized In India? – Motivation Unleashed
9. Mainline_Matter – Methodical Thorough Tenacious
10. Bonkers Away! – Tenacious
11. My Mixed Blog – Totaly Tenacious
12. Branching Out – April 1st to Easter – {16 Daily Prompts} & my 2017 Goals UPDATE !
13. Sometimes it takes a big ego – Truer than true
14. Prompts: Measure/Timely/Pleased/Blindly/Unravel – LMTP Journey
15. GRACE, FAVOR & FAITH – How to MAXIMIZE the POWER OF CONCENTRATION in your life
16. GRACE, FAVOR & FAITH – 5 REASONS WHY YOU NEED A KNOW-IT-ALL ON YOUR TEAM!
17. When You Crash and Burn but Win Anyway! – Braver Than Before
18. My Personal Blog – Tenacious Student
19. Le Drake Noir – Weird angle of prompts
20. 3 Reasons Why You are Beautiful
21. Phillipians 3:14 – “pressing on” – PIAGET – INSPIRATIONZ
22. yochet – Off to the Renaissance Faire!
23. Invisible Illnesses – Tenacious – Daily Prompt
24. Security Under a Corn Tunnel – The Chicken Grandma
25. Come At Me – Girl Writing
26. Myammy! Moving in together at 50… – San Francisco Hero: Joe DiMaggio
27. Broken Channels – Asma
28. Success Inspirers World – Carvings on the Soul: “Prosetry”
29. Putting My Feet in the Dirt – Tenacious
30. NOT MEANT TO BE – Rainbow
31. “A child’s blind tenaciousness, and a parent’s denial.” – Nomadic Adventurer
32. Awl and Scribe – Tenacious
33. tenacious – erintypes
34. Is it or is it not? – kittysverses
35. Live Free 2 Sail Fast – Updates and Info
36. A Personal Success – Sunken Thought
37. Such Old……. – emotionsoflife2016
38. Even It’s Hard, Speak Up
39. Palms – Dear Terrence
40. Carvings on the Soul: “Prosetry” – atrangizindagieksafar
41. all but dead – Tiny Fawns Writings
42. The road to success – Dimitra Pyromali’s Blog
43. Eden of Knowledge – Tenacious Sun
44. Like a Dog with a Bone… – Mum’s the Word Blog
45. Poetry Moments – Impatient Waist
46. The Dragons Have Returned! – silvergargoyle
47. sonja benskin mesher – holdall
48. The Chart – Liretranger
49. If At First You Don’t Succeed… – Leigha Robbins
50. Tenasciously Tested – Live Free & Love On Purpose
51. Let Me Be – The Moving Finger Writes
52. Life-Colours – awesomeloopy
53. What Tenacity Wants – Redstar Review
54. Hot chocolate – Anxious Annie
55. witchlike – The Difference Between Cats and Dogs
56. Sagesse :|: Oblige – The W/ill of God
57. Travel & Food Delights… – Nomadchasingwaterfalls
58. Tenacious Q&A with Boxer Ali – On a mission
59. Tenacious – Daily Prompt – Fearless
60. Blink – Phantoms In My Mind
61. MY ENDURING BONES – Write You
62. The Showers of Blessing – Don’t Judge Me
63. Making it write – Her Tenacious Spirit
64. Gender neutral God-like Beings – Art and Life
65. Against the Odds – Full-Time
66. Tangled Webs – When the Heat is In You
67. A Caregiving Marriage – Steadfast
68. Sorry, Syria. – Dangerspouse
69. Maine Forest Cafe – What’s the big deal?
70. Pro of a Con! – thinkinkadia
71. Sascha Darlington’s Microcosm Explored – I Won’t Back Down #amwriting
72. Artistic Tenacity – Mindflight
73. Haiku 19 : Tenacious – TheGyrusaurus
74. Just Brittany Moments – “You Have To Believe Me”
75. tenacity – jacey caitlyn speaks
76. Determined Artist – Heaven’s Sunshine
77. Musings of a Random Mind – The Mountain May Be High
78. Sascha Darlington’s Microcosm Explored – Why I Write — Day 9 #NaPoWriMo #AMWRITING
79. Zachary W Gilbert, Author – Web Repair
80. Swell Time – Bad days are okay
81. The Last Leaf – Wings Of Poetry
82. Sea, Pastel and Squares this Tenacious Week – Dysis Design
83. not letting go – Dream Desire Achieve
84. Tenacious – The Bag Lady
85. B_ live – Some Shooting
86. A Tenacious Haiku – Creativity for You
87. ExplorewithMafaza – Green Almonds
88. The Tough and Tenacious – rupalislale
89. the tenacious pages of youth – In2Lauren
90. Tenacious memories – /Suzhalgal
91. Never Give In – Combat Medic
92. Another Remarkable Day – Lesson in Tenacity
93. Ms. Santa: The Role of An Elf – The Harlem Experiment
94. About The Guy Who Openly Said “He’d Steal Me” – Meet Mitchell
95. Jibber Jabber with Sue – A Play On Words
96. Zombie Flamingos – A few things I saw yesterday
97. Our Addiction – Dear Terrence
98. Honing skills and loving the ride – Tenacious, The Ninth
99. Tenacious foreign policy agenda needed – Your Nibbled News – 2017 YNN
100. Fiction: The Tenacious Hold – CEOLSIGE
101. LadyLebz – MY APOLOGY FOR FALLING PREGNANT OUT OF WEDLOCK
102. mycreatorscreation – A Tenacious Hold On His Garment
103. Tenacious Jio – Saint Monk
104. The Cat Chronicles – Daily Feline Prompt: Feline Tenacity
105. Flowers and Breezes – Tenacious
106. mylocalweb – Delivery: from natural towards artificial
107. Hail Bloggers!! – Welcome to the World of Wellness
108. Ladyleemanila – Tenacious – Daily Prompt
109. The Flittering Soul – The face behind the mask
110. Back Again – Debbie Gravett
111. Half – absurd.lucid
112. Grammy Writes – In the Gloom
113. Hold on to that Tenacious Spirit – Sumyanna Writes
114. Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss – Tenacious – hold on
115. Clinging to the Impossible – Beautiful Mind
116. In The Backyard – Redux Of Rex
117. Cahlas Tawkin – Taurean Tenacious Light
118. Na’ama Yehuda – Tenacity
119. Covert Novelist – Tenacious
120. Cerebration – Thoughts of Words
121. Timeandreflections – Junkeri
122. Little Miss Independent – neilsworldofenglish
123. the Brooklynian Joneseses – Oiseaux Words
124. The Stars Doth Move (poem) – stephentotheplate
125. Madeline Scribes – Small towns gossip, but shhhh! we don’t Talk about that
126. Never give up – CD-W, Author Flawed to Perfection
127. Memos from a Retired Hippie Chick – Exploding with Enthusiasum
128. Tenacious and Strong (Precious Metal) – koolest1uknow
129. HOW TO DEAL WITH A STUBBED TOE – rhymeagination
130. Chronicals of The Black Files: The Apocalypse – The Harlem Experiment
131. hanging on despite the reality of the situation ⋆ Obsolete Childhood
132. Tenacious – Inner Whispers
133. Giselle Lynette: An Ordinary Woman – Harlem Cafe
134. SHE- Caught up in a web of deception: – Storysite
135. Fossils in language – Don’t hold your breath
136. Katt Leya: The Eye of The Storm – The Harlem Experiment
137. lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown – Open Hand
138. SERENDIPITY – ANTI-FASHIONABLE FOREVER
139. juantetcts – Daily Post
140. tenacious D-epression – Migraines From Hell
141. theempathyqueen – Tenacity Gets the Job Done
142. Exploring the World around us – Innocent Smile
143. Tenacious Tendencies… – A Place to learn and grow together
144. Why can’t I have more? – THEGIRLVERSUSWORLD
145. I wrote a book. Now what? – Labor of love
146. Don’t Mess With the First 30 Minutes… – I’m a Writer, Yes, I Am!
147. tenacious? – Love it Now
148. y – there are many hows
149. MISPLACED PEACES – Tenacious
150. Think for your selfie – fades in…
151. Fit in your skin – The Dusky Woman
152. It’s All in Finding the Right Words – King Henry VIII, I Am
153. Dandelions – I Wonder about That Weed – Cottage Garden Living
154. Relax– – You will, I will
155. Tenacious?? Maybe.. -stoneronarollercoaster
156. Divorce Dojo – divorce rewards tenacity
157. Faith Unlocked – A Steadfast Spirit
158. To each, his own! – Emotions That Matter.
159. Dreams: Epic Selfie – Success Strategies
160. This Morning – S. Thomas Summers
161. They, You and Me – holding on……
162. sixty, single and surviving – Tenacious Complainer
163. MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO – Be Tenacious
164. Tenacious (Haiku: A tenacious glue) – Write Ally! Write!
165. tenacious particle – Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky
166. Azalea Frost – Tenacious Grip
167. Hot Dogs and Marmalade – Tenacious
168. inspiration – Be Tenacious…
169. I am just a girl. – The Dusky Woman
170. Indefatigable – As I was saying…
171. Beginners Guide to Riding with Crutches. – HorseAddict
172. Tenacious – Book Meets Girl
173. CopyCat Cafe: Simon Rocks The Robin – Redux Of Rex
174. Finding Hope Ness – On the cost of Boomer lessons unlearned
175. Tenacity – aroused
176. Loving in Hiding – NOOKS&CRANNIES
177. Scrambled, Not Fried – Tortured By Alien Technology
178. A king refuses to die – Sarahs Crazy Mind
179. A LETTER TO A NUBILE LADY – LifeBlog
180. A Tenacious Perfectionist – My Screaming Twenties
181. Anotherbloggertbh – Tenacious
182. No Turning Back – The Psalmist
183. Purposive Writer – The Need for Healing
184. ARE BLOGGERS AUTHORS? – LifeBlog
185. Tenacious – All About Writing and more
186. My Dress: Triumph over Low Self-esteem. – Chronicles of an Orange-Haired Woman!
187. The Flittering Soul – My four-leafed clover
188. Frank Prem – rising blue
189. A bride in pride.. – Poojannn.blogs
190. Lantern Words – Tenacious Faith
191. Lost Property Repository – The Day The Music Lived: Back At The Funny Farm