Hello and welcome to InkyBlots, Mr. Furman.
Let’s start with getting to know you a little better. List five things you feel define you as a person.
No “I’m a people person” answers I’m afraid. These are my five shaping stones: Faith, Family, Fidelity, Friendship, and Freedom.
I was fortunate to be born in a country that allowed me to pursue my own path, practice the religion of my choice, raise a family and develop some of the best friends imaginable – not a fair weather one in the bunch. I’ve been in my share of third world countries, and each time my boots hit the ground in the good old USA the same feeling rushes over me: How lucky to be an American.
What inspired the initial idea for Sam’s Quest for the Crimson Crystal and the Sam’s Quest books?
I was dazzled by the real Samantha the day she walked into my fifth grade class. I tried my best to get her attention, but nothing had worked. I decided to spin a fantasy tale with her as the heroine, did the drawings, wrote the story and slipped it on her desk during recess.
I waited in agony as she read it, shoved it inside her desk without acknowledging me, and turned to smile at Johnny, sitting behind her, who had just tugged on her hair. Darn, I wish I’d thought of that! Feeling like a complete dunce I retrieved the story the next recess. Thankfully my embarrassment ended when she moved away at the end of the year.
I had returned home to help pack the essentials my mother would need in the rest home and the original story was found in her things. I’d thought of writing a series of young adult stories that have flawed heroines and heroes that succeed despite their illnesses or handicaps. My sister gave the shove I needed to get started.
Tell us about Sam.
Eleven year old Samantha Mae Costas, called Sam, hates her middle name. She hates her birthmark, she hates her red hair, her freckles, her glasses and she hates her asthma — she had to give up soccer because of it.
Now she sits and practices her piano endlessly. She’s pretty good at it, but she’d rather be out playing with her friends. She doesn’t resemble any of her large Greek clan of dark-haired, dark-eyed relatives. The only Costas physical characteristic Sam can claim is the red, diamond-shaped birthmark on the nape of her neck.
Her parents are archaeologists that spend their summers searching for the Lost City of Atlantis. They drop Sam off at her grandfather’s farm on Mile High Mountain. She goes out for a walk in the woods and discovers a beautiful mirrored pool surrounded by trees.
What she discovers next takes her on a wild adventure she could never have imagined — a prince from another land, the size of her thumb, caught in a spider’s web. When she rescues him, he tells her he’s been sent to bring her back to his world, for only she has the power to save it. As it turns out, her red hair and birthmark are signs that she is the chosen one.
Sam goes with the prince to battle against the evil Zogs and save the Awokian world from destruction. She learns that all the things she hated about herself are the very things that make her a heroine.
What process did you use for creating the Land of Geffen and all the creatures that inhabit it?
When I’m painting, before the first brush stroke on a blank canvas is made, I’ve decided the color palette, composition, etc. and in short, I’ve visualized how the painting should look when it’s finished.
I saw the Land of Geffen before painting it with words, and the same is true for the other lands, worlds and creatures that exist in the Sam’s Quest series. It’s crucial that the creatures inhabiting these worlds must look and act like they belong in their settings.
I imagined that the Land of Geffen was originally a land dominated by two super volcanoes. When one exploded and snuffed itself, the cataclysm split the land in two – leaving one side searing hot from the active volcano, the other a sheet ice that swirled around the dead volcano. There is a sun and moon for each side. They remain fixed while the lands rotate.
It’s a desolate, hostile place of molten rock and jutting metal spires, totally devoid of vegetation. Mechanically, I wanted the two parts to move much like giant gears of a clock and in opposite directions to help with visualizing the separation of the continents and to add reader interest.
The Geffens are cold blooded flying reptilians that require extreme heat to function. To us the Land of Geffen would be hell, to them, heaven. The silver sea that surrounds the land masses is much like liquid metal, though cool, such as the touch of mercury.
Sea serpents turned silver from the sea have struck a symbiotic relationship with the Geffens to keep them safe from the other monstrous creatures that inhabit the depths, in exchange for special kelp that’s provided by the Geffens. The monsters of the mineral flats turn out to be tiny purple frogs with big voices that strike fear in all that hear their nightly “hunting” calls. But as we know, not everything that goes bump in the night is a monster. Suck it up, step forward and face your fears. Sam does.
She’s drawn by the Crimson Crystal, the object of her quest, and she must brave the wasteland, reach the ice rim of the dormant volcano and descend to the Land of Seven Waterfalls, a tropical paradise that exists on the volcano’s floor.
What is it about writing for the young adult market that draws you? Are there any difficulties that are specific to writing for this market?
Personally, the young adult genre is a time machine that allows me to be a kid again, and to see the world from a kid’s pristine, open perspective. I thoroughly enjoy writing stories about less than perfect kids who continue to churn away and overcome seemingly impossible odds. I want the characters to be positive beacons for other kids.
What are the difficulties?
To steer around this genre’s inherent land mines I follow the KISS Principle: Keep it simple stupid. I put my thesaurus and two-bit words on the shelf, keep the sentence structures simpler and the vocabulary less complex than in an adult novel.
With few exceptions most preteens don’t read on the same level as adults. But if I do my job right they don’t have to, and I don’t dumb down my writing to keep them interested. Flowery prose doesn’t cut it with kids, so why show off and make the book difficult for them to read? I try always to keep my audience in mind.
Book two, The Royal Trident, is coming out soon, correct? Could you tell us a little about that book?
We find in her newest challenge that her experiences in book one have changed her. She’s now very different than her friends in New York, and she’s not sure how to cope with this. Sam is also learning to deal with the horrific loss of her parents. She has to give up everything she’s ever known, and live with grandpa on Mile High Mountain. Sam is called back into action by Prince Buznor, called Buzz, the Awokian she befriended in the first adventure.
In searching for Buzz she outwits the intimidating Telegu the Red Dragon with a riddle, securing his loyalty to her in the future. Once she finds Buzz, who was wounded during a surprise attack, he tells her of the greatest evil force ever to face the World of Bergeron.
She must use the power of the Crimson Crystal to defeat the evil-doer, a being as powerful as she, to save the Originators, who are the people of Bergeron. At the conclusion Sam realizes she’s found the lost civilization her parents had searched for, and she struggles with the decision to remain or return to her world.
What are your dreams for your writing? Where do you see yourself in five years both as a writer and as a person?
As a pragmatist, I’ve never thought I’d make a ton of money writing. My goal remains the same as the day I started, to make enough money to break even. So far so good – I’m in the black! I try to improve my story telling each day, and I suspect I’ll be doing so until I hang it up.
Where I’ll be as a person? I’m comfortable in my own skin, and I don’t think I’ll embark on a soul finding mission soon. Probably, I won’t be a great deal different in five years than I am now.
What is the most valuable piece of advice you have been given/learned in your life as a writer?
Listen to your editor! Don’t rely on family members or friends to tell you the truth about something you’ve written. I’d labored long and hard on the great American novel and I was certain, based on the feedback that I’d received that is was wonderful. In fact, it was junk – didn’t think so at the time and I considered putting a “hit” on the editor. She was right, it was junk. Great door stop, though.
Is there anything else you would like to share with the readers here?
Be a serious writer, but don’t be too serious! If it ain’t fun, then find something else that is – time has a way of rushing by. Take advantage of each day.
Thank you very much for coming by this blog. I wish you great successes with the Sam’s Quest Trilogy.
A lot of people will debate about whether writer’s block truly exists and so on. 