Welcome Jeremy Rodden

Where are you from and what do you love most about your hometown?

J.R. – I am originally from Philadelphia, PA. I suppose the thing that I love most about Philadelphia is something that I took for granted when living there (I have been living in Chesapeake, VA for about a year and a half now): the history. So much of my country’s foundational history happened in my hometown and I always just glossed over it when I lived there. Having recently visited Philly with a friend who had never been there, I really got a better appreciation for the historical significance of the city.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? How has that childhood dream affected your career?

J.R. – I actually wanted to be a writer since elementary school. I waffled with some other career options as a kid: teacher, lawyer, etc. I actually even thought about being an actuary at one point because I excelled in math.

What I learned, though, is that aptitude for something does not necessarily mean that it is the best career choice. You have to have a passion for it as well. As good as I was at math, I couldn’t imagine sitting at a desk calculating insurance rates or some other mundane probability-related career.

I did become a teacher briefly (high school English) before switching to a role as a stay-at-home dad turned author and all three of those careers are much more in line with both my skillset and passion.

Tell us about your latest book.  Do you have anything new in the works and can you tell us a bit about it?

J.R. – Toonopolis: Gemini is a stand-alone book, the first of a trilogy, and an introduction to my world that will span many books, novellas, and (hopefully) multimedia adaptations. It is a story about a young boy who is transported into a cartoon city (Toonopolis) and begins a quest to defeat the evil Shadowy Figure, who has developed a method for killing cartoons.

I am currently working on the sequel to Gemini, Toonopolis: Chi Lin, where the main character is a unicorn that transports itself and its maiden, Avantika, to Toonopolis in the search for a world free from death. I am also nearing completion of a novella called Toonopolis Short: Anchihiiroo, which is the origin story of a minor bad guy introduced in Gemini, the antihero of Animetown (one of the sections of Toonopolis).

Why did you write this book?

J.R. – I felt I had a unique world in my head and that it was something other people would enjoy sharing. While there are overarching themes and ideas in the book, I really intended it to be a fun story, along the lines of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Many people read into Alice and come up with themes, morals, and other such nonsense, the truth is that Lewis Carroll made up the stories purely to entertain, not instruct.

I feel that too often, fantasy stories are written with ulterior motives (Narnia is a Christian allegory, His Dark Materials espouses atheist ideology, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is heavily satirical) and they don’t just stop to have fun and enjoy themselves.

How did you come up with the title?

J.R. – Toonopolis is a portmanteau of the words cartoon and metropolis and literally means City of Toons. It originated as an interactive fiction game over ten years ago wherein people would create characters, write flash fiction against one another, and then a cartoon fight would be written to determine a winner.

It was an offshoot of similar game I used to play starting in1998 called e-wrestling. It was the same concept but with pretend wrestlers instead of cartoons. Since I wasn’t a big wrestling fan, I created the Toonopolis Fighting World as a new place for people to participate in the writing aspect of the game without the limitations of creating just wrestlers.

Gemini is obviously a reference to the constellation known as the Twins. The main character adopts Gemini as his name because he doesn’t remember his real name when he arrives in Toonopolis at the beginning of the book. Project Gemini is the name of the scientific experiment run by Agent Mimic of the Agency that puts the main character into Toonopolis. It is called Project Gemini because the subject (in this case, my main character) exists both in the real world and the cartoon world at the same time (thus, in a way, becomes his own twin).

How did you choose your genre?

J.R. – I write what I like to read. I am a big fan of young adult fantasy, such as Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Artemis Fowl. I also enjoy epic fantasy by George RR Martin, JRR Tolkien, and Robin Hobb, but I could not envision myself writing in that genre. I just don’t have the attention to detail that those epic worlds require.

I write humorous fantasy because of my inspirations as a writer, such as Lewis Carroll and Douglas Adams. I have a silly sense of humor (some might say a dumb sense of humor, but that would be mean) and this is a venue that allows me to share it with others on a larger scale.

What inspired you to be a writer?

J.R. – Reading, of course, what else?! I have always been an avid reader. If one talks to my grade school teachers, their most vivid memory of me as a child is that I would finish my work and then open a book. One of my favorite authors as a child was Beverly Cleary. Most people know about her famous Ramona books but I recall another book that made me want to be an author: Dear Mr. Henshaw.

Dear Mr. Henshaw was an epistolary novel that tracked a pen pal relationship between a young boy and his favorite author. I remember being really impressed with a lot of the advice of Mr. Henshaw as well as how Cleary showed the growth of the young boy in his writing as he got older in the story.

Who is your favorite character in your books? Why?

J.R. – Most reviewers point out Jimbob the Talking Eggplant as their favorite character. I tend to agree with them because, truthfully, Jimbob is the character that most strongly resembles me. No, I am not a two-foot-tall talking eggplant. I am, however, a bit of a sarcastic annoyance.

I refer to Jimbob as my Fonzie character, to borrow a phrase from the Andy Kaufman biopic, Man on the Moon. He is the breakout marketable fun character that will appear in all of my full-length novels. I often reserve the best gags for him and the jokes I think are funniest. If I get stuck for a line, I often ask myself, “What would I say in this situation?” and insert it as a quote for Jimbob. It seems to be working, if reviews and bloggers have anything to say about it.

Have you ever used contemporary events or stories “ripped from the headlines” in your work?

J.R. – Yes and no. I do a lot of heavy parody in my Toonopolis books, sometimes specific parodies of another work (for example, the Rainbow-PEZ road as opposed to the Yellow Brick Road) and sometimes just genre-based parody (like Leothas, the Chosen One of Adventure Realm).

Since I am not writing in an attempt to be real, or to thrill, or draw out emotions other than laughter and happiness, I don’t really feel it would work for me, at least until I try to write in a different genre.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging about writing?

J.R. – A major difficulty I have is that I cannot write in small chunks of time. I can’t sit down for 20 minutes and write 300 words and be content. I need large chunks of time and anything less than 2000 words in a sitting makes me frustrated.

This is extremely difficult because I am a stay at home dad to a 6 year old and a 16 month old. Finding a large chunk of time where I am not so exhausted that I can’t think is quite a challenge. Often, I end up going a whole week without writing anything only to finally find a 2-hour chunk of time to carve out 5000 words.

Sometimes I wish I could write in smaller pieces but find that it just doesn’t work for me.

What advice would you give to writers just starting out?

J.R. – From a writing standpoint: never stop reading. I’ve found that the more I read, the better I write. I’ve even tried reading more outside my comfort genre of fantasy (usually in writing-swaps with fellow authors) and I think it helps me expand my ability as a writer.

From a practicality standpoint: start building your social network (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.). Even if you don’t yet have a product to sell (in fact, especially if you don’t have a product yet), you will want to start expanding your reach into these realms and get comfortable with them. Whether you plan to go traditional or indie (like me) with publishing, it will be a very important element of your ability to be successful with sales. Don’t think that signing with a publisher (Even a Big 6) means that you don’t have to worry about marketing yourself. It is a crucial part of the game and you will have to play it if you want to win.

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it?

J.R. – I have never had the severe ram-my-head-into-a-wall writer’s block, but I’ve definitely hit snags where a chapter wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be. I’ve found that the best thing to do is to just keep writing. One chapter in Toonopolis: Gemini was only about 5 pages long after the first draft. With rewrites and with information I had to work with later in the story, it ended up being about 13 at the end of the day.

One of the things I find with aspiring writers is that they focus too much on making each chapter perfect without finishing the story. Get to “The End” and then worry about making it perfect. You’ll probably already resolve a lot of your issues by the end naturally and find you were dwelling on issues that were never even real!

Who is your favorite author and why? What books have most influenced your life?

J.R. – I have already mentioned Lewis Carroll a lot but I’ll go with C.S. Lewis. Most people don’t realize that C.S. Lewis was a theologian first and a children’s author second. One of my favorite works of his is The Screwtape Letters, another epistolary novel, this one between a lesser devil and a greater devil, regarding the former’s attempts at corrupting a man’s soul. It was a brilliant work that was entertaining to read and hit on very real theological issues without the condescending overtones that religious literature normally carries with it.

I consider myself a student of religions (one of my undergraduate degrees is in Religion), even though I am deist. I marvel at C.S. Lewis’s ability to run such an amazing range of writing: from fantastical works of children’s literature in Narnia to hard-hitting morality-laden stories like Screwtape.

How did you deal with rejection letters?

J.R. – I created a publishing company (Portmanteau Press LLC) and published myself. When I first completed my book, I started the query-grind. As the rejections started coming in, I began researching self-publishing as an alternative. I was leery of the idea until I came across J.A. Konrath’s blog, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. Konrath is a former traditionally published author who now self-pubs all of his own works. He discusses how the industry is shifting and how authors are much better off doing things themselves and making more money from the higher royalties.

I now wear my indie badge with honor and, at this point, a publishing company would have to tell me what they could do for me that I can’t do for myself to sign away such a large chunk of my royalties to someone else.

What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?

J.R. – Patience and a thick skin.

The process is long and hard and does not end with the final period on the last page of your manuscript. You will either move on to trying to find an agent and/or publisher or begin the work of self-publishing. Either way, it takes time and effort.

Once you do get out there, you are putting your work into the eyes of people that may or may not like it. I will give you a spoiler from now: not everyone will like your work, no matter how good it is. If you can’t handle criticism, you have chosen the wrong line of work. Does a bad review sting? Absolutely. As of answering this interview, I have 28 Amazon reviews. 26 of them are 4/5 stars. 2 are 2-stars. Do those two reviews hurt? Sure, but the 26 other reviews far outshine the two bad ones.

However, if those numbers were reversed and I had far more negative than positive reviews, I would definitely say I’d have to do some serious soul-searching and accept that maybe my writing is not as good as I thought it was. That doesn’t mean it’d be time to hang up the keyboard–just time to go back and retool my work.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in the name of research?

J.R. – I don’t know that it would be considered weird, because I would do it even if I didn’t write, but I watch a lot of cartoons. Obviously, since I write in a cartoon world, this is important for me. The weird stuff is some of the cartoons that I have watched both for research and to review on my cartoon review blog (My Little Pony, for example).

Just like reading outside my genre has helped my writing, I think watching cartoons that I would not normally have watched has helped me open up my writing to be more appealing to a wider audience.

Visit Jeremy On The Web

I can be found blogging about writing, publishing, my kids, and cartoons at Toonopolis, The Blog (www.toonopolis.com). I post a new Saturday Morning Cartoon Review for current cartoons every Saturday. I also have guest bloggers post Old School Wednesday Reviews every Wednesday for older/classic cartoons.

You can also find me on Twitter (@toonopolis) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/toonopolisfiles/). Hope to see you there!