H. P. and Jacob Holowach are the authors of “The Wizard’s Way,” as well as other books. The book’s Amazon page, which links to their individual author pages, can be found here.
Wallace: What made you start writing?
H.P.: As a middle school student, I was shy and over-imaginative, which are the ingredients bored scientists throw together when they want to make young writers. If my experience is any indication, said scientists also place these experiments in schools where teachers like to reinforce students’ learning through creative writing. From 5th grade on, I had a steady string of teachers who assigned several story projects a week, and in those I found a way to express the exuberant creativity buried beneath my very insular personality. Plus it was the one place where I could solve problems with magic and dragons and giant robots and Digimon ripoffs.
When my love of writing became clear to my teachers, they all encouraged it. (Apparently scientists did not often put writing experiments in their classes, so it was exciting.) My 8th grade ELA teacher even taught a unit on the first novel that I wrote, as I wrote it – which is why the first good novel that I wrote, “The Wizard’s Way,” is dedicated to her. Teachers drove my early writing, but Mrs. Diaz was the most pivotal one. To this day I’m still shy and over-imaginative, but I write because of her.
Jacob: I blame my hyper-active imagination. I’ve been writing since the second grade, and I’ve been writing novel length work since high school. Most of it really, really bad, but I’ve always enjoyed taking the stories floating around in my head and realizing them on the page. It’s a passion that has stuck with me.
Wallace: What gave you the idea for “The Wizard’s Way?”
H.P.: I grew up in the first Harry Potter generation, so wizards have always been close to my heart. When it came time to write my own wizard story, though, I wanted to avoid the inevitable Harry Potter comparisons as much as possible, and so decided that wizardry would cause more problems for the main character than it solved – and boy does it! A huge part of Chaucey’s conflict in “The Wizard’s Way” – and really “The Wizard’s Quartet” as a whole – is that he hates being a wizard but has to learn to deal with its challenges.
Around the same time that I had the initial idea, I’d begun to explore the steampunk movement and was also taking lots of Victorian literature classes in college. (There’s another hugely influential teacher – Dr. Rose, my Anxiety and Imagination in Victorian Literature professor.) The parallels between today’s society and Victorian society both surprised and fascinated me. It was simultaneously an era in which modern society as we know it was still being built – when workers’ rights, women’s rights, and endless pieces of science and technology that we take for granted today were only just coming to light on a societal scale – and yet one that shares many of our modern anxieties, especially those concerning technology, sexual issues, and international relations. Given that interest, it was only natural that my wizard story would take place in a Victorian-inspired setting.
I ended up taking a more steampunk than historical angle because, obviously, wizards, but also because I enjoyed the adventure of authors like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells far more than I did the drama of Charles Dickens. When I encountered Phil and Kaja Foglio’s “Girl Genius” comics and Disney’s “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” and “Treasure Planet,” my love of steampunk was clenched. Even though the novel changed significantly over the course of its writing, my fascination with the Victorian and steampunk was always at its core.
Wallace: A great deal of your work is youth-oriented; what made you want to write in this genre?
H.P.: I quite enjoyed being a youth and afterward was continually drawn to occupations that kept me in contact with young people – first as a Junior High ELA teacher (natch) and later as a Teen Services Assistant at my local library system. Teens in particular often get a bad rap, but personally I find them to be some of the most interesting people, with more interesting problems than adults. Figuring Out Who You Are as a Person is much more exciting than Knowing Who You Are But Having to Bury it Under Mortgages and Babies and Responsibilities and Taxes. I’d rather write about a journey of self-discovery with magic and explosions any day. (Though, to be fair, a story about mortgages with magic and explosions could be entertaining, now that I think about it.)
Also, when teens love something, they love it hard. When an adult loves a book, they might tell their friends to read it. When teens love a book, they bury themselves in the fandom – they create art; they write fanfiction; they make costumes; they beg library assistants to hold fandom-themed programs (Nope, no experience with this at all) – and I find that enthusiasm infectious, even inspiring. I write for teens because they’re fun to write about, but also because they’re fun to write for – and because I hope that my writing will inspire teens in the same way that all the stories I loved as a teen inspired me.
Wallace: Are there any notable stylistic influences on this book?
H.P.: Terry Pratchett, all the way. His skill at combining fantasy and comedy is unmatched – and may never be matched – but that’s never stopped me from trying. Similarly, I discovered Gail Carriger’s books halfway through the writing of “The Wizard’s Way,” and her unique blend of steampunk and comedy became a huge source of inspiration. (The audiobooks of her newer titles, read by Moira Quirk, are fantastic.)
Animation in general also has a large influence on my work. I love animation of all kinds – whether Disney, anime, or lazy Internet Flash animation – and as I write, I always imagine my stories as animated movies. This is partly because the exaggerated nature of animation suits the exaggerated elements of my writing. After all, “The Wizard’s Way” is a book with talking bear librarians, sword-fighting pug butlers, and characters who can bounce back from physical trauma as easily as a rubber ball. However, it’s also because good writing, like good animation, creates the illusion of life, only with words instead of pictures, and I find that parallel interesting. As mentioned before, Disney’s “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” and “Treasure Planet” definitely had influence on the origins and aesthetic of the book, but stylistically it was also guided by the sheer ridiculous fun of the anime “One Piece” and “Gurren Lagann,” and particularly the music of “Steamboy” and “Kill la Kill.”
Wallace: You’ve written both science fiction and fantasy; is there any difference in writing either genre in your experience?
Jacob: Not really. I tend to approach every writing project in much the same way, which starts with extensive planning and outlining. Both genres involve crafting coherent and interesting worlds that the characters and the story live in, and the creation and realization of these worlds, while stylistically different between the two genres, still has a lot in common.
Wallace: Your “Seraphim Revival” series goes in a more military science fiction direction; is there a particular reason you wanted to move in that direction?
Jacob: I’ve always enjoyed reading military sci-fi. Even though I don’t consider the Seraphim Revival to reside in that genre – “The Dragons of Jupiter” is our harder military sci-fi; the Seraphim Revival is more action-oriented space opera – what I read and watch and play definitely influence what I write.
Wallace: Does that subgenre have its own difficulties when writing?
Jacob: You better believe it. They’re called spreadsheets. My current project is military sci-fi, and I’m looking forward to the day when I can write action scenes again without using spreadsheets to keep track of everything. I've got a lot of big, complicated space battles in this one, and I use spreadsheets to keep track of things like the weaponry, tonnage, and supply status of each ship along with breakdowns of their attack drone compositions.
H.P.: I only contribute editing to Jacob’s military novels, no actual content. Military science fiction readers are an uncommonly smart bunch with certain expectations of realism, organized logic, and well-thought-out strategic detail. While I enjoy a good military read, I don’t have the proper interests to write one. I’d rather focus on characters, comedy, and magic systems. Not spreadsheets.
Wallace: Do you have any favorite genre to write in?
H.P.: Fantasy, definitely. It’s the most infinite of the genres, and I generally like not having limits.
Jacob: Basically anything that combines science fiction with lots of explosions.
Wallace: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
H.P.: Aspiring writers have probably already heard “Just write,” so I’m going to add this: “Keep writing, even when you don’t want to.” There are multiple reasons for this:
1) If you genuinely want to be a successful writer, you can’t only write when inspiration strikes. If you do, you may never finish your book, much less all the subsequent books you’ll need to write to stay in business. Writing is fun, but it’s also work, and you have to treat it as such.
2) All writers reach a point where they think their writing’s terrible. Sometimes they’re wrong – Sometimes they’re just tired or out of coffee or one sentence just isn’t working or it’s just 4:00 and your novel isn’t done and you hate everything. (Not sure what the bored scientists did at 4:00 that made me hate all writing at that hour, but Jacob has to regularly read that day’s stuff, tell me it’s good, and feed me fancy snacks before I believe him. Which is not actually a bad part of the writing process, in retrospect.)
Sometimes, however, writers are right. Every writer produces terrible or uninspired work. Even Neil Gaiman wrote a biography of Duran Duran on his way to pouring all the profundity in the universe into the humble written word. Which is to say, all writers suck at some point. But if you keep at it and focus on improving, every piece you write will be better than the last piece you wrote. The key is that you keep going.
3) On a much more literal note, sometimes writers just hit a wall and have no idea where to take their story next – in which case, the key is to write whatever it takes to pull you out of that hole. Many of the best parts of “The Wizard’s Way” happened because I said, “Screw it, I’m just going to add dog butlers/rollercoaster public transport/a fork battle,” and none of them would have happened if I’d given up for the day and looked for inspiration on Facebook.
Jacob: So many people talk about writing a novel, but very few actually do it. Make a commitment and be one of those few. Read a lot and write a lot. Don’t get bogged down trying to make one thing perfect. Sometimes you just have to say “good enough” or “I’ll do better next time” and move on to the next project. Keep pushing forward. Keep learning. Keep stretching the limits of your skills.
