Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Interview: Author of Children of the Ankh Kim Cormack


1/8/2020
By Alex Ness

(All Images are copyright to Kim Cormack and/or owners of said copyright... 2020).

I've been fortunate to interact and experience the presence of numerous writers on twitter, facebook, instagram.  And I really do like many of them, but few of them move me to wish to read their work, and even fewer for their life as a writer. My experience with Kim Cormack's twitter feed made me appreciate her spirit, feel allied with her work's goals, and am really moved by her energy to write in the face of having MS.  I am happy to present this exchange with her, Kim Cormack, writer.

Hi Kim, welcome to the interview.  To begin with, tell me if you will  a bit about you, where are you from, dogs or cats, kids, family?

I'm from the Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island. I have a Twenty-four-year-old daughter in University and a son in high school. We have two cats in our family. Stormageddon is named after a character on Doctor Who, and Winchester got his name from Supernatural. I also have a breeding tank of carnivorous guppies. If I buy a pretty fish for the tank, they gang up and eat it. After a while, I gave up. It just felt like I was sacrificing fancy fish to a tank of inbred guppies.

I'm someone married to a person from Vancouver BC, so I am aware of the epic beauty of your locale.  Does that plethora of natural beauty and awe inspire your work or just surround your everyday life?

My characters spend a lot of time on the road camping, enjoying the natural beauty. There are scenes about towering trees and warm rays of light filtering through the branches, swimming in lakes etc. Everything beautiful I've always had in my life I use in my books. Sweet Sleep takes place in my hometown. In Enlightenment, they have to keep moving so they don't lose the new Clan Ankh to Trinity or Triad. They can be stolen at random until their 18th birthday when they become sealed to their Clan of immortals. In book two, they travel all over North America, even to another world.

How did you go about becoming an author, was it a native born talent, or did you decide to make it your craft and develop the skill through effort and intention?

I used to write music and sing. I made a rather funny country demo twenty years ago. I became busy with being a mom and ended up letting it go. I still wrote lyrics when whenever I felt compelled to. Jan 28th, 2009 at 1;30 am, I woke up and texted a children's book into my cellphone. I had a dream about holding a baby chick when I was four. I didn't know I'd written it until I took a look through the files before switching to a new phone. Being Four was book one, and it came at the perfect time. This was the year I found out I had m.s. After sixteen years as an Early Childhood Educator, I was given a new path to help me survive in a dream. I wrote Shark Boots on B.C Ferries in April of that year and was all in on the Children's books until I was diagnosed with m.s. I had a nightmare in October that altered my direction again. From the slightly open front door in Sweet Sleep to the creepy lullaby, it was all a terrifying nightmare I wrote down in the middle of the night. I haven't left the universe I created to help myself fight, since.


If a person has a burning desire to write what would you tell them to allow them to seek their goal of becoming a writer?  Is it possible to do it all on your own, or do college or other sorts of training courses make you better aimed as a professional writer?

I took a university English course with my E.C.E training, but that was twenty-six years go, and it hasn't applied to anything. If you have an amazing imagination, you know who you are. Just do it. Write a book. Having a PhD doesn't give you the ability to see the world as an artist does. Anything I needed to know about formatting or marketing I found on youtube. Message me on my website www.childrenofankh.com I'll point you in the right direction. 

What life experiences go into your various works, is it easier to be inspired by your interests, or does life's capricious whims teach you more?

When I look back on those first books, the theme is, stand back up, and when you can't stand on the outside, you must stand on the inside. Sweet Sleep is tragic, funny and beautiful. I ugly cried every day until I couldn't see writing this book. Snot nosed, swollen shut eyes, sobbing like a baby. It's all about acceptance, and I had a lot to process in my life. In Enlightenment, you are dropped into an Immortal Testing. It's like a thousand ways to die with dark comedy and scenes that will make you blush. There also may be cannibalism, dinosaurs, rat spiders, tar lizards and stone lions that hack up ice loogies. Your strength on the outside means nothing in the Immortal Testing; it's about your strength on the inside. You must strengthen the bonds with those by your side during the journey and realise each version of your demise is unavoidable.

Truthfully, everything figuratively mirrors my life in a creepy way. As I was writing Enlightenment, I finished each day with shock and awe. Wild Thing came before the third book in Kayn's series. Wild Thing took bravery as an author and a human being. I was exhuming a traumatic past and owning it. I could have altered Lexy's age but chose to write free of boundaries. The whole book is like striking a match and letting my inner Wild Thing burn as freely as it needed to. Every book in each series follows the evolution of the characters.
  

How difficult is it, as an author or in general as a creative person telling stories, to create from nothing and make them become an actual something?  Do you find such a process more difficult from a perspective of creating unique quality, or are you equally or more interested in following the muse where ever it takes you, i.e. a familiar subject in any particular genre.

I just sit down and write. My imagination takes off by itself and I try to keep up. I listen to music sometimes.

Who do you write for, the readers or yourself?  I am sure that you love the subject, so when you write or create, does the prospect of a sale or new reader compel you to write, or, absent a need to sell what you do, would you do it regardless?

I have little to no control over what I write. I have a base idea of where I'd like the storyline to go. I start writing at nine am and set the alarm for when my son gets home. It usually goes off in what feels like half an hour. I've had requests for pairings or name to use, and sometimes it lingers in my subconscious and ends up in there. On occasion, I'll use a friend or reader's name from a funny email. I get a hilarious amount of emails from people who want to be murdered during a Correction.

Comic book writer Alan Moore said writers perform magic, similar to God, in that, they create something from nothing.  But is that really true?  How much of what you do as a writer comes from internal structures and artistic energy combining, telling a new version of the journey, and how much is purely new?

Sometimes, I have an idea of where I'd like my writing day to go, but it doesn't always work out as I'd planned. My Fitbit thinks I'm sleeping pulse rate wise so I'd assume it's a dreamlike state. I try to stick with what I wrote and often that takes guts. My imagination travels into dark places and comes out with a lesson. My characters make remarkably sketchy choices while dealing with the aftermath of trauma. At times, it's a raw, brutal experience but my series has three Clans of immortals who were given a second chance as sacrificial lambs for the greater good, so it's not going to be a light-hearted walk in the park. They stretch their partially mortal brains and hearts to the limit, and on occasion, they snap. That's how Dragon's a formed in my series. There are green scaly dragons, but often that word is a reference to a state of mind.

When I write I find it comforting, being able to express what is inside my mind, which has generally not been the case.  True, when I say things I've had people say, Only Alex would say that, not unfairly, I am a direct person who sometimes misses the cues.  Is writing for you more about the rush of telling your own story for others, or is the writing itself the journey for you?

My writing journey took off as a way to deal with my illness, I see it clearly in the rearview mirror. For me, it's an escape from the box m.s put me in. I only go trail running in my imagination now. That used to be one of my favourite things to do. I usually write for six-hour spurts, and it feels like half an hour has passed. I'll have to actually force my myself to stop because I'm so lost in what's happening.

Does the creative artist owe anyone anything as a proper way to share the gift? I.E., people get pissed at members of the 27 club for dying, being unwilling by their misdeeds to make sure their gift goes on for a full lifetime.  I'd argue we try to tame the creatives of society (for instance, I know film professors who say the construction of certain films are brilliant, but the fans of various franchises want to have a say in how or what story is told.) If any of this is true, what is your reply to the question, do you owe anything to others due to you having a great talent?

People with pimped out imaginations tend to live colourful lives. They spend their childhood stuck in a box, unable to pay attention in boring situations because their imagination is always trying to lure them away into an extraordinary world. I'd love to believe future generations of children with wild imaginations will be seen as having a remarkable ability and treated as such, instead of being shoved into a box they aren't capable of fitting in. In this day in age, the artists of the world have paid their dues in being misunderstood. Artistic brains are different on an MRI. We are unique people who have always been told to act a certain way or behave ourselves because our light was disrupting the others.

As far as readers go, we do owe them something for joining us in the universe we've created. We should be thankful they've bought a ticket for our warped and wild ride. I always take the time to respond to fan mail or messages from readers. On occasion, I'll slip in a name or a pairing request will come to mind while I'm down the rabbit hole.

What does the future hold for books?  Will they die off?  Will my giant library of reference and fiction books be considered as foolish as my old 8 track tape collection?

I heard paperbacks were making a comeback.

Do you think self publishing limits your audience, or, do you think having product in hand to show people is a valuable tool, even if your future goals are not self publishing?


A small publisher can't do much for you. Really do your research before you sign with anyone. I have my own small Canadian press label, just as authentic as any of the others out there. I have too much in my imagination to sit there and send out thousands of emails per day, for what? I write what I want with no boundaries. Create your universe and readers will come. My Field Of Dreams has naughty immortals in it. When your series takes off, there's nobody else with rights to your work. My advice to anyone taking back work back from a publisher is, rewrite those books from before they went there and save daily rewrite files. If a movie deal shows up, nobody can mess it up but you.


As a young adult I bought an ankh at a fair, and would still wear it if I could find it.  As the sigil of life I found it to be comforting.  With knowing why I am moved by it, why did you choose it as such a visible part of the Children of the Ankh series you are writing?  Was it for religious reasons, for symbolic reasons, or otherwise?

I wish I could tell you why I chose the symbol of Ankh. I picked the names of the Clans in a dreamlike state writing. I debated switching the names out and spoke to friends about different ideas. When all was said and done, instinct told me to let it ride. The spiritual brand of Ankh as a key to heaven prohibiting entry to the hall of souls giving the Clans time to heal their mortal shells each time they die, fit like finishing a puzzle.

Your books have many five star reviews on amazon for them, do you believe that Amazon reviews help especially, or are you just happy they liked it?  I ask because there is a woman who wrote a good book I know who sent out about 50 copies and asked people to leave a review.  Since the margins of profit for some works are so narrow, I wondered the wisdom of that.

I've sent out thousands of review e-books and more paperbacks than I care to admit to sources. Sadly, that's not even a stretch. Amazon erases legitimate reviews so often, I've stopped caring. I had hundreds of reviews erased. For a long time, It felt like a personal attack. Now, I shrug and sigh. I have scathing reviews out there from reviewers, we all do. Most legitimate review sources don't bother posting if they can't give a book at least three stars.

If a three-star review has both positive and negative comments take it as constructive criticism. Learn from it and move on. As human beings, we don't always enjoy the same things. Brutal one-star reviews usually come from trolls. Look at the reviewer's account, if they've posted thousands and almost none are liked, you know they're just a troll. Now, trolls serve a purpose. Bad press is still going to draw attention to your book. If you go look at a famous author's account, they have tons of ridiculously harsh reviews. My advice for any new author would be to check the source. Never engage, do not respond, they'll follow you around to every format to mess with you.

What in particular makes the Children of the Ankh aimed most at Young Adults?  Do you have to think young, or is it in the subject matter?  I can still read my two favorite books from youth, sooo soooo long ago, and enjoy them, (From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The Mouse and the Motorcycle) so I am not suggesting quality is why, but the particular question is, how does it work as a writer to aim at a certain group of readers. Your press copy for Sweet Sleep says this is not a fairy tale, this is a nightmare.  As a writer do you try to bend genres so to get the reader to have expectations and then deftly switch gears or directions to add impact of the work?  I've almost never sold any large amount of copies of books, so, I am not asking because I think it is wrong, just that I am curious the goal.

The young Adult Genre isn't like it was when we were younger. If there is YA subject matter and it's pg 13, it's YA. Violence doesn't shift a genre anymore, graphic sexuality bumps it up to New Adult. Sweet Sleep is YA, Enlightenment is YA, but at Let There Be Dragons the series crosses over to New Adult. It's a natural progression in a universe of characters. They've grown-up, and readers have been waiting for certain characters to get together since the first book. With my mix of genres, I'm dealing with a sophisticated audience that expects more, they crave out of the ordinary and want to be challenged emotionally. Spoiler alert...I kill off the main character by the end of chapter one in a brutal, unexpected way but all heroes are born out of embers that linger from the fire of great tragedy, aren't they?

If you were to suggest you have a goal for Children of the Ankh, what would it be, and why that?

Emails from people the series has touched, truly make my day. Those messages make it all worth the endless hours. We're starting a new decade with full paperback distribution, so it's poised to take off. You never know, maybe it will.

What books are on the horizon for you in 2020 and beyond?

I'm currently writing book 5 in Kayn's series, Tragic Fools. This book is so much fun to write.

Children Of Ankh Series Universe (YA Crossover)
Sweet Sleep
Enlightenment
Let There Be Dragons
Handlers of Dragons
Tragic Fools   (Coming in 2020)

COA Series (New Adult)
Wild Thing
Wicked Thing
Deplorable Me

Children Of Ankh Universe Middle-Grade Novella Series
Bring Out Your Dead

I have a middle-grade old school sci-fi book, Mythomedia Press may release as an extra treat this year, The Repopulation Project.

What words, if any, of advice have guided you through your writing life?

It's a marathon, not a sprint. Nothing happens overnight. I'm glad it didn't, I've matured as an author in so many ways over this last decade.

Write with you filter off and be brave. Write about what scares you. Be true to your imagination. I could have dialled the trauma these characters face back or changed Lexy's age at the beginning of Wild Thing to make everyone comfortable but opted to stay true to my imagination. I have an excellent review describing Lexy's character as Unapologetically Feral. I was beyond proud. That is precisely what I was going for. Every piece of the puzzle serves a higher purpose. There's a series quote, Someone has to go into the dark to lead the others out. If not me...who?

I'm in a cover contest. Vote for Sweet Sleep here. https://allauthor.com/cover-of-the-month/6716/

1-800-9378200 customerservice@ingrambook.com

https://twitter.com/kimcormack
https://twitter.com/childrenofankh
https://www.instagram.com/kimcormack/
https://twitter.com/mythomediapress


Just a few series twitter accounts it’s a long list

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4456923.Kim_Cormack
https://www.facebook.com/authorkimcormack/
https://www.facebook.com/ChildrenOfAnkhSeries/
https://www.facebook.com/kcormack4u
https://www.facebook.com/MythomediaPress/
https://kimcormack.blogspot.com/
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/kimcormack
https://allauthor.com/author/kimcormack/
https://www.pinterest.ca/childrenofankh/


2 comments:

Kim Cormack said...

Great review. I love it.

alex-ness said...

Thanks for all of your time and attention!