Ten Questions About Celebromancy by Mike Underwood

I’ve had the pleasure of hanging out with Mister Mike Underwood on many an occasion and he is a smart, funny, geek-fed dude who also happens to know publishing inside and out while also being a helluva writer. His first book, Geekomancy, got a lot of buzz — and now the sequel’s here:

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?

I’m Michael R. Underwood, and when I’m not subliminally programming readers to buy novels by Chuck and other Angry Robot authors, I’m the author of the Ree Reyes urban fantasy series.

I have degrees in Folklore, Mythology, and East Asian Studies, which basically makes me qualified to write the novels I’m writing. I don’t know how the publishing thing happened. I think it might be that I’m resistant to the Mind Rays. But I’ve said too much.

GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH:

Snarky geek sells her first pilot, but the leading lady’s magic is being turned against her. Plus, fight scenes and pop culture jokes.

WHERE DOES THIS STORY COME FROM?

After writing Geekomancy, I wanted to come up with some magical styles that could complement what I’d already created – and Celebromancy was my best bet. I’ve been interested in modern conceptions and constructions of fame for a while, since in a former life I was a grad student in media/pop culture studies.

HOW IS THIS A STORY ONLY YOU COULD’VE WRITTEN?

The best argument here is likely that I’m the only one who has precisely my opinions and observations about pop culture and celebrity. My lead, Ree, shares many of these thoughts, so it’s through her that I get to talk about the nature of celebrity and how SF/F fandom interacts with celebrity, as well as expectations of women in the entertainment industry and the tension between independent artists and monolithic corporate concerns.

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING CELEBROMANCY?

The hardest thing was finding the balance between striking new ground as a second book in series while still keeping enough of what made book 1 the cool thing that it was. I’d never written a sequel before, so there were a lot of questions I asked myself and reflected on while writing. How much should I re-explain things that were established in book 1? How much should I spoil? How far should I advance the timeline? Can I keep the character balance the same, or do I need to change to a new status quo? Will that status quo become the default for the series?

Thankfully, I had the great input of my editor, who helped me find that balance, so that Celebromancy could stand alone for new readers while still building on what had come before in Geekomancy.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN WRITING CELEBROMANCY?

Romance is really hard to write well. When you slow down and focus on emotional reality and relationships outside the lens of fight scenes and relentless action, there’s an incredible range to play with. This isn’t surprising, since Romance is its own genre, and the best-selling genre to whit, but it was a lesson I learned and processed emotionally with this book, where before I’d mostly appreciated it intellectually.

Now that I’ve written the romance plot in Celebromancy, I’m more confident to write bigger, more complex romantic plots in future works.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT CELEBROMACY?

I love that I am getting paid to take a lifetime’s worth of fandom and geeky experiences, of reading gaming sourcebooks and re-watching TV shows, a lifetime of sharing my enthusiasm, and putting it into prose so that my enthusiasm can be spread around the world and shared with people I may never have the fortune to meet in person. To me, that’s the greatest practice of Geekdom I could possibly imagine.

In less profound statements, other things I love are that I got to write a fight scene where my lead fights a dragon with a light pole, where she gets to Leverage her way into a hotel, and where I get to poke fun at the ridiculousness of contemporary celebrity culture.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?

Ooh, good one. I’d probably throw in more eye-popping Celebromancy action. The style turned out to be a little less eyeball kick-y than Geekomancy, and I probably could have done more to fix that. As is, I like that the styles are distinct, but I think I could have my cake and eat it too on this one if I could go back and do it again.

GIVE US YOUR FAVORITE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY:

“It’s almost like she was a complex person who behaves in a variety of ways depending on her decisions in the moment. Madness!”

The above being Ree’s thoughts about Jane Konrad, the star of Awakenings, who Ree is having a hard time grokking as a person – one day she’s a gracious philanthropist, that same night she’s partying it up, heedless to consequences. I love this passage because it came very clearly, very freely, as the next logical thought that Ree would have, and because it makes a point that people aren’t always one thing, don’t always act consistently.

I think it can become a trap in writing that characters must always be perfectly consistent except along the singular axis of their personal arc. And that’s just not how people are in real life. We’re walking clusters of contradictions, doubts, striving and failing and reacting. Fiction isn’t real life, but for me, this was a place where falling on the side of verisimilitude felt like the right decision.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU AS A STORYTELLER?

Right now I’m working on the first draft of the first book in the YOUNGER GODS series, which will also be coming from Pocket Star (book 1 is looking like a Q4 2014 release). YOUNGER GODS is also urban fantasy, but it’s a big departure from the Ree Reyes series – it’s notably darker, and has nothing to do with pop culture.

The series stars Jacob Greene, the only humane member of a sorcerous cult who flees the family to learn about the real world, until his older sister comes to town to raise one of the unborn gods that their family worships.

Small problem – waking the Younger Gods will signal the end times. So Jake has to make friends (which he’s terrible at) and gather the NYC magic community to stop his sister before she can kick off Armageddon. No pressure.

And in closing, thanks Chuck for having me back on the Terribleminds stage, and thanks to everyone for reading. Now that you’ve been sitting for the alloted time, the mind rays should have sufficiently persuaded you to buy more of Chuck’s books from Angry Robot, so it’s a win for everyone. Thanks!

Mike Underwood: Website / Twitter

Celebromancy: Amazon / B&N