I am thrilled to have interviewed author Mara Valderran, who shared with us details of her writing life, her book ‘Heirs of War, Ordained by Fate‘, which was released on 13th October 2013, and answered a few fun questions. This post contains affiliate links.

Mara Valderran is a dreamweaver and storyteller who never grew out of playing pretend. As an adult, she uses her ability to blur the lines between reality and fantasy to spin tales of fearless heroines in fantastical worlds. She’s a fan of more sci-fi and fantasy than she could possibly hope to list, but does hope to one day meet Daniel Jackson from SG1. Or at least the actor who plays him. When she’s not writing, you can find her momming, reading, gaming, and living her happily ever after with her fellow geek in arms.

The inspiration for my book came from the bond between myself, my older sister, and my two cousins. We are all so very different, but yet when we’ve come together over the years, it’s felt like this powerful spiritual bond that I can’t describe. It’s magic and that bond has gotten me through the hardest parts of my life.

So that’s where the inspiration for Zelene, Terrena, Rhaya, and Isauria came from, even though their personalities blossomed from the original inspiration. Ariana came from knowing that there are five points to the pentacle and each one represents an element with the top one representing Spirit.

Me? Plan a plot? HA! Seriously, I’m a pantser down to the very core of my soul. Even though this is a fantasy series, I definitely let the characters take me where they wanted and discovered things along the way. That surprising bit about Kyle? Definitely took me by surprise. After the first draft and my editor got a hold of it, I had to do some rewrites to fix a lot. I outlined everything after the fact.

The original title of the series was Sisters of the Circle. One of my best friends Noped that and renamed the series Heirs of War. I only recently added “Ordained by Fate” as the title of the first book instead of just “Heirs of War” when I rebranded the series.

By doing entirely too much research into the meaning of their names. I wanted their names to mean something having to do with the element they represented. For example, Isauria means “gentle breeze” in Greek (according to those baby naming sites) and Izzy represents Air.

I did a massive rewrite, actually. Like I said, I’m a pantser. So that meant a lot of head-jumping from one character to the next in the same section. My editor definitely taught me the difference between third person omniscient and third person limited. And how many exclamation points are too many. There have been so many drafts of this book since I first started writing it in my early twenties that I honestly couldn’t tell you what original scenes made it to the draft I sent my editor back in 2012.

I love magic and the endless possibilities that come with the fantasy genre. Most of the stories I come up with in my head have those fantasy elements. Also, shooting fireballs from your fingertips will never not be cool in my book.

From the birth of the idea? Probably close to seven or eight years. From the first completed draft to the first published edition? Probably a little over a year and a half. From the birth of the idea to the rebranded and revamped version out now? Probably seventeen or eighteen years. I first published Heirs of War in 2013, so this year is exactly 10 years since the first publication.

…Is this blog PG13? Because I usually say “Magic and sh*t” and book signings. And surprisingly, people still buy it when is say that.

For me, it’s a tie between self-editing and marketing. Editing doesn’t come natural to me, so doing it without guidance is rough. Even doing it with guidance is rough. But marketing somehow always feels self-aggrandizing and makes me feel awkward. I used to be a marketing director for a small publisher, so I can sell the crap out of someone else’s books. But selling mine? Much harder. Which is how I landed on “Magic and sh*t” at book signings. I had elevator pitches, but I felt like a telemarketer delivering them.

You should read Heirs of War, Ordained by Fate if you like books with multiple characters, magic, the bonds between unlikely family, and most of all, snark. Zelene is full of snark.

I did when I wrote Heirs of War. I had my cat Sweetie. Sadly, she is not with us any more. But now I do have a new writing buddy in the form of my baby daughter. My baby definitely kicks the laptop more than the cat did.

I can write on my phone. I wrote the majority of the third and fourth books with my thumbs using the Wattpad app on my phone. I still do that with current projects and blog posts.

Anywhere I can! I used to go to coffee shops, but now I am usually on my couch using my laptop or pretty much anywhere else (like the baby’s playpen) using my phone.

I’m actually a community theatre actress, so I’ve given this a lot of thought and I would either be a character Ariana comes across in the second book or I would want to be one of the Duillaine like Nandalia or Solanna.

“Who’s who?” in his owl voice. Because I have a lot of characters. A lot.

A big thank you to Mara Valderran for sharing her writing life with us and for a wonderful interview.