Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Thomas A. Knight


This week's interview is with Thomas A. Knight who is celebrating the release of his debut novel: The Time Weaver.

You can find out more about Thomas and his efforts Here

And you can buy The Time Weaver for Kindle Here


TAS: Let's get the plug out of the way.  Tell us a little bit about the project you are currently promoting - who will be interested and why?

TAK: The Time Weaver is about an unlikely hero, an ordinary guy working an ordinary job in a small town in Iowa. When he gets in a car accident one day on his way home, that's when things get weird. The accident should have killed him, but instead, time stops, and he is left scared and confused, wandering through his frozen town. But he's not the only one who's noticed the anomaly in the flow of time, and two sides of a conflict in a parallel world send somebody to retrieve Seth and take him back to their world, believing that he is the last of a race that can control time. That's where Seth's adventures really begin, when he enters the world of Galadir and discovers that it was he that stopped time and he must learn to control his powers and fight in order to save a kingdom from annihilation. The story is action packed, and should appeal to gamers, role-players and all types of sci-fi and fantasy fans everywhere.

TAS: What aspects of being an author do you most enjoy?

TAK: Being able to enter my world, to live and breath the sights and sounds, to create new and interesting races, people and places. You can sit down and read a book, and get into the story, and even experience it to an extent. But until you've created it for yourself, you can never truly understand what it's like. There's a certain divinity to it, to the creation of all things in my worlds, but at the same time, some of it takes on a life of its own, and its really interesting to see how it grows and flourishes, or withers and dies.

TAS: What aspects of being an author do you least enjoy?

TAK: Losing a much loved character. It takes a lot of time and effort to bring a character to life, and sometimes those characters have accidents, or they do silly things, or sacrifice themselves in truly selfless acts for the greater good. But whatever the reason, it hurts each time I have to say goodbye to one of them. They may only be words on paper, but each one represents an act of imagination, of creation, a personality and almost a living breathing thing. It's tough to let go of them.

TAS: What moment as an author have you experienced that you are likely to remember 20 years from now (good or bad)?

TAK: The moment I wrote the last words in the first draft of my first book. It was a moment of triumph for me, representing hundreds of hours of time and effort, of struggle to get through the hard parts, and breezing through the easy parts. There was a certain finality to it, to suddenly realize that I'd written 108,200 words and completed a book.

TAS: What bad habits do you have when it comes to writing/promoting your books and/or what do you wish you could do better?

TAK: I don't think I've developed what I would call habits yet. I have a tendency when I'm writing to repeat the same words or phrases numerous times. This is something I work on cleaning up during editing, and something that my wonderful test readers are very enthusiastic to point out when I do it.

TAS: Do you have any authors that you try to emulate? Why or why not?

TAK: J. Robert King is one of my favourite authors, with his action driven books. I would very much like to be able to write like him.

TAS: Do you have clear 'heroes' and 'villains' in your stories or are the lines more blurred?  Why do you choose that route?

TAK: In The Time Weaver, the sides were clearly defined, which made it a pretty easy book to write. But this is not a set-in-stone style of mine, just how it came out for that book. In the sequel (which I'm currently working on) the lines get a little more blurred as to who is doing the right and wrong. I don't think it will be who you expect it to be.

TAS: Do you have any pet peeves related to writing? Are there any things that other authors do that drive you crazy?

TAK: I don't think I could define it exactly, but things that jar me out of the story really bug me. Like, I'm reading along, totally engrossed with visuals in my head, and then something happens, or the way the author wrote something totally disrupts the scene. It's the kind of thing that makes me want to put the book down.

TAS: What's the greatest thing you can realistically imagine happening as a result of your writing? How likely do you think that is to actually happen?

TAK: The greatest thing? The sky's the limit? Being able to do my writing as a full-time job. Not that I don't enjoy my day-job, but everyone's gotta dream right? Being able to write full-time and get paid for it, that would be pretty cool.

TAS: Tell us about the most interesting thing you’ve ever eaten.

TAK: Wow, I've eaten some interesting stuff. Snails? Sautéd in a garlic butter sauce, and served on crackers. If you can get past the “biting down on an eyeball” feeling, they are actually quite good. :)

TAS: If you knew you would be trapped in an elevator for a couple hours and you could choose any living person to be trapped in there with you, who would it be and why?

TAK: Stephen King. The man is a genius, and I'm sure the last thing he wants to do is talk writing with a no-namer like me for a couple hours in an elevator, but it would be the chance of a lifetime to just sit and chat with a legend.

TAS: If you could have any super-power, what would you choose and why?

TAK: The ability to control time would be very cool to have. But I'm biased, because I just wrote a book about a guy that can do just that. So often I find myself stressed because I don't have the time to get everything done that I'd like to get done. Having the ability to slow time down and give myself some extra time to do that kind of stuff would be great.

TAS: Would you cut off your right leg for $500,000?

TAK: Well, considering that my day-job is software development, and I write on the side of that, I don't use my right leg that much. $500,000 would pretty much secure my future, so I would have to say yes.

4 comments:

Connie J Jasperson said...

A good read so far! I am enjoying the Time Weaver as we speak!

Lisa Zhang Wharton said...

Congratulations for tour book coming out, Thomas. Great review.

Johanna Garth said...

Congratulations on your debut, Thomas (and please hold on to that right leg)!!

Kathleen Barker said...

Congratulations, Thomas. Hope Gary's interview gives you a leg up :)