Quesnel author L.G.A. (Linda) McIntyre is finally going to get a chance to share her newest book with people face to face and in-person this weekend.
McIntyre published The Prince - The Lies of Lesser Gods - Book Four this spring, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she was not able to travel, hold book signings and promote her book like she normally would have.
McIntyre is holding what most likely will be her only book signing of 2020 Saturday, Dec. 5 at Books and Company in downtown Quesnel.
McIntyre said she loves getting a chance to meet her fans and hear their thoughts about her books and her characters.
“It’s probably the best part of my job,” she said. “I think one of the best things for me as an author is when people come up and they’re so excited about telling me how my characters made them feel. I don’t think there’s any compliment as good as that. Sometimes when you’re writing, you’re kind of by yourself in front of a computer, and you’re never really 100-per-cent sure if you’ve gotten it right; you feel like it’s good, but when other people read it, and they respond to it in the way you intended, when they’re feeling the right emotions at the right time, when they’re getting from the story what you’re intending, when you get that feedback from your fans, it keeps you going. It makes you realize that what you’re doing is important to them and you’re doing it right.
“It’s the only time you really get an ‘attaboy.’ You get reviews online, but there’s something about looking into somebody’s face and seeing how excited they are and hearing the enthusiasm in their voice when they talk about how much they love one of the characters. Sometimes it makes you as an author think about your character in a different way when you hear their perception of your character as well. No creativity ever happens in a vacuum, I think that’s what it comes down to. You have to have that completion, that circle of the feedback coming back, and the best way to do that as an author is to go out and meet the people who are engaging with your works. It’s so important.”
McIntyre is happy she has a chance to support a local business while promoting her new book.
“Quesnel is so conscious of being supportive of its people and its businesses, and I wanted to give some of that back as well,” she said. “I really wanted to focus my attention here locally, what can I do to promote and bring people out to purchase or just to support a local business here in town at Books and Company. They were one of the first stores to ever carry my books, so this is a little bit of me paying back as well.”
The Prince is the penultimate book in McIntyre’s Lies of Lesser Gods character-driven action adventure fantasy series. McIntyre is working on the rough draft of The King, the final book in the series. Lies of Lesser Gods includes The Exile, The Rebel, The Sorcerer, The Prince and The King, which McIntyre hopes to complete next year.
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McIntyre says in hindsight, she would not have chosen to publish her first book as a series because it is so challenging. She thinks she would have preferred to write a stand-alone book first, and expects that once she has finished this series, her next books will be stand-alones.
“It can get really stale writing the same characters book after book,” she said. “And the thing with a series that you have to keep in mind is even though you’re changing as a person and as a writer over time, your characters have to be maintained. You have to really careful to ensure that your characters have continuity book to book, while still showing some growth as characters and change as characters, but you have to do it subtly, you have to allow it to happen naturally, and you have to be really careful. You start doubting yourself that you’re not moving the story along at the right pace, that you aren’t hitting the mark at what you want to do. These sorts of things start to consume you after a while, and you have to get out of your own head. Sometimes it means putting the story aside and writing something else for a little while.”
McIntyre encourages writers who are just beginning their writing journey to start with a stand-alone book, not a series, but if someone is starting with a series, her advice is to know where you are going with it and to trust yourself.
“If they do create a series, you have to write the ending first,” she said. “Even if you’re doing five books, make sure you know what the ending is because it’s like throwing a dart from Manitoba and trying to hit a mouse in Vancouver. And it helps if you a guidance system and you know where it’s going to hit, right. You do want to make sure you know what your ending is going to be before you put your first book out there so you know where it’s going to finally going to end up. And then trust your brain. Trust your subconscious is not going to sabotage you, that the ideas are going to flow that are going to lead you down the path that’s going to get you to where you need to be. There’s a lot of trust in your subconscious, which is sort of a strange thing with my process — I let my brain think of where it needs to travel to, and it will find the path for me, and just trusting it will do that. The second you get tensed up, that’s when you get writer’s block.”
McIntyre will be signing copies of The Prince, which has opened to rave reviews and five-star ratings, Saturday, Dec. 5 from 1-5p.m. at Books and Company.
COVID-19 safety protocols will be in place, and masks are required.
“Books make a great gift, especially in this time of COVID-19,” said McIntyre. “It’s better to have an armchair adventure than no adventure at all.”
editor@quesnelobserver.com
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