We already introduced you to the third book in The Gateway Chronicles - you can read our reveiw here.
Today is the fifth day of The White Thread Blog Tour and we are happy that K.B. Hoyle found time to answer to few of our prying questions.
Q: Third book of The Gateway Chronicles is out. How do you feel so far? Childhood dreams came true?
I'm honestly working so hard most of the time that it's difficult to sit back and just enjoy it. When I can take a minute to simply breathe and think about things, though, I definitely feel a sense of awe and wonder, like, "I can't believe I've already published 3 books!" I'd always said that I wanted to be a published author by the time I was 30, and here I have three books out (soon to be four), and I'm only 29. So, yeah, I feel good about that. It is absolutely childhood dreams coming true... now I just need to hit the bestseller list, lol.
Q: How do you menage to find time for everything? I know that you're raising three boys and working as teacher.
I don't have time for everything. I feel as though I'm always apologizing to people for jobs half done, and my house is rarely clean. We eat too much fast food, and I bitterly lament that I don't have a butler and a maid. I'm someone who needs 8-9 hours of sleep a night to function at full capacity, and I've averaged 4-6 hours a night for the past six months (although I took about 6 weeks off from writing when I had my third baby this May and managed to recharge a little). But you know, nobody ever said that making your dreams come true is an easy job. My husband fully supports me, and we know that this is just a difficult season right now. I'll always have a lot to do, I'm sure, but releasing four books in a year while also working full time, preparing for and having a baby, and mothering two little boys is a situation I doubt I'll find myself in again. I believe in the virtue of hard work, and as much as this is about my dreams, there is also a very practical aspect to it as well. I'm trying to make a better life for my family. We've struggled to make ends meet for a long time, and I really hope that all this hard work pays off in the end.
Q: What about your students? Do they see you in the "new" light?
Oh... I don't think so. I teach at a small school, so everybody pretty much knows everybody else, and there isn't a lot of mystery surrounding having a new teacher at the beginning of the school year. I think maybe the youngest of the Logic School students (that's 6th grade in a classical school) think it's pretty cool that I'm an author, but then they get to be taught by me in 8th grade and realize that I'm just a big dork who loves fantasy novels and Star Wars and who gets ridiculously excited about teaching Herodotus.
Q: Speaking of your job, I can't resist to ask you if you have same advice for young teachers.
Two main things come to mind, and the first one may be hypocritical of me considering the rundown I just gave you of my workaholic schedule, but here goes. Teaching can become all-consuming really fast. There really is no such thing as leaving work at work when you are a teacher. Even if you don't have any grading or lesson planning to do (which is rare), you still become so invested in your students that they can consume your thoughts and energy even at home. So I would advise young teachers to remember that family comes first. And if you don't have your own family yet, you still need to take some time for yourself where you are not working on or thinking about school stuff. You will be a better teacher, ultimately, if you can learn to force yourself to have a life outside of school. My second piece of advice would be to make sure you have a passion for your subject material. You may have a degree in teaching, but that means very little if you don't have a passion for WHAT you are teaching. To single out history teachers (since I am one), if you tell your students every day to open their textbooks and read and answer the questions at the end of the chapter while you sit at your desk and answer e-mails or grade papers, you are doing both yourself and your students a disservice. If you don't have a passion for your material, your students will not have a passion for it either.
Q: Did your job help you with writing in any way?
Oh sure, especially with teaching history! It takes a lot of personal discipline to be an historian, and it likewise takes personal discipline to be a writer, so there's an obvious parallel there, but aside from that, history is full of stories that people couldn't make up even if they tried. Many of the best writers throughout history have looked to actual events for inspiration. Knowing history also helps a fantasy author, in particular, to create believable worlds, which aids in the reader's suspension of disbelief.
Q: I've been wondering where did you find inspiration for character's names?
There is a story behind almost every single one of my character names, honestly, so I certainly can't go into them all. Generally speaking, I bought a good baby name book, one that included many foreign names (foreign to me, being an American) and gave meanings. One of the first tasks I completed in planning for the first book in the series was to go through that baby name book and start making a bank of names. Most of the names have meanings significant to something about the character or significant to some of the literary devices I've used. I also have nods to every single one of my favorite authors in various character names. The other major thing I decided in regard to names for the series was that I wanted to use Greek as the basis for what the language of Old Alitheia used to be. There are more Greek, or Greek-ish (lol), names in the story than any other language. I have a good Greek Lexicon that I use to translate certain words into Greek to form names (I'd like to say that I speak Greek, but alas...).
Q: How many books will there be anyway?
There will be six books in the series.
Q: Can we get tiny spoiler for the next book?
Hmmm... tiny spoiler... I'll just say that the next book after The White Thread, The Enchanted, is a more romantic installment in the series. So if you like a little romance mixed in with your fantasy, you should look forward to that!
If you want to read this amazing book you can find it on Amazon or on The Writer's Cofeee Shop webpage. If you want to win free copy of the book visit other tour stops - you can see full schedule here.
Until next time,
