Interview with Science Fiction Western novelist, Rachael Clarke, Part 1
How To Write the Future podcast, episode 121 – Interview with Science Fiction
Western novelist, Rachael Clarke, Part 1
“I’m passionate about sci-fi and I was thinking, I just I love horses so much, and I started thinking, what would horses be like in the future? What does that look like? What would happen? My brain started like kind of spiraling and brainstorming with this, what would a horse be like in the future?” — R.A. Clarke
In this episode, “Interview with Science Fiction Western Novelist, Rachael Clarke, Part 1” podcast host Beth Barany talks to Rachael Clarke where they discuss Rachael’s first full-length novel published under her pseudonym R.A. Clarke called Race to Novus. They delve into the inspiration behind the world building for the novel plus the benefits of having a support team around you when working on a novel.
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About the How To Write the Future podcast
The *How To Write The Future* podcast is for science fiction and fantasy writers who want to write positive futures and successfully bring those stories out into the marketplace. Hosted by Beth Barany, science fiction novelist and creativity coach for writers. We cover tips for fiction writers. This podcast is for readers too if you’re at all curious about the future of humanity.
This podcast is for you if you have questions like:
– How do I create a believable world for my science fiction story?
– How do I figure out what’s not working if my story feels flat?
– How do I make my story more interesting and alive?
This podcast is for readers too if you’re at all curious about the future of humanity.
About Rachael Clarke
R.A. Clarke is a former police officer turned stay-at-home mom living with her family in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. Besides raising two rambunctious boys, soaking in much needed lake time, illustrating, and acting in community theatre, R.A.’s spare time is spent plotting, fantastical novels, and multi-genre short fiction. Her tales have been featured in various publications, and she has won international contests, such as Red Penguin Books’ humour contest, the Writer’s Weekly 24-Hour Contest, The Writers Workout: Writer’s Games, and the 2023 Write Fighters 3-Day Novella Challenge. She was also named a finalist for the 2021 Hindi’s Librairies Females of Fiction Awards, the 2021 Futurescapes Award (for “Race to Novus”), and the 2022 Dark Sire Awards.
Website: https://www.rachaelclarkewrites.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/raclarkeauthor
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@rachaelclarke9631
Sign up for my newsletter and recieve an exclusive short story from the “Race to Novus” world (a prequel). https://eepurl.com/ih-3XH
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Other contact: https://linktr.ee/raclarkewrites
Transcript for Interview with science fiction western novelist, Rachael Clarke, Part 1
BETH BARANY: Hey everyone. Welcome to How To Write the Future Podcast. I’m your host, Beth Barany. I am a creativity coach, science fiction and fantasy writer and writing teacher, and obviously host of this podcast. I do this podcast to help fiction writers, specifically science fiction and fantasy writers, but also anyone who cares about the future.
I care about helping you shape positive, optimistic futures because with our imagination, which is such a powerful tool, with our imagination, we can help remake the world, which is my passion and excitement.
[00:34] Welcome Rachael Clarke
BETH BARANY: So I am so glad to welcome today Rachael Clarke, a science fiction author who lives in Manitoba.
Welcome, Rachel.
Hello. Hello. Happy to be here. I’m so glad that you are, and I understand that you just launched your first full length novel. Is that right?
RACHAEL CLARKE: That is a hundred percent right. Yes. Yes. That’s very exciting. I’ve published a couple books before, but this is my very first ever full length, big novel.
So yeah, I’m very excited.
BETH BARANY: That’s so great.
RACHAEL CLARKE: So
BETH BARANY: I see it’s called Race to Novus. Did I say that right?
RACHAEL CLARKE: Yep. You did. He did Race to Novus. Yep.
BETH BARANY: Can you show us, for those of you watching on YouTube, you’ll be able to see this beautiful thing. Awesome. And it’s a woman next to a horse. and your writing name for this novel is RA Clark.
[01:21] What inspired you to write this novel?
BETH BARANY: Fabulous. I’m so curious, I love the premise of this book. Can you tell us a little bit about the book, like the blurb, and what inspired you to write this novel?
RACHAEL CLARKE: Absolutely. Um. Well, a little bit about the book. Basically there’s a down on her luck cowgirl, actually from the prairies on Earth.
And, she’s gotten herself into a bit of trouble. She’s in a lot of death within, in her, on bad terms with her family, and she’s feeling desperate. She also has a bionic horse named Hercules, AKA Herc for short. And she’s, it’s like he’s beloved to her and he is under threat of being sold by the family for money.
And so this spurs her on basically she’s on this precipice. I need to decide what I wanna do here. I can’t stay in this situation I’m in. I need to try and find a new future for myself. And I can’t let my horse be sold. And so she whisks her way to the edge of explored space to a planet,just barely explored planet, and enters this nebulous race. Race to Novus.
Yeah, it’s crazy. It takes them through an uncharted, forest, which morphs into a jungle and there’s like toxic air and there’s creatures that come into the mix and unexpected peoples. And there’s lots of, lots of intrigue and lots of adventure. Tons of thrills.
It’s, yeah, it’s a fun- It’s a fun ride, I guess is how I would describe it.
BETH BARANY: It’s like western science fiction.
RACHAEL CLARKE: Yeah. It’s, yeah, it’s definitely a western sci-fi, sci-fi, western, however you want to say it. And then there is also some elements of fantasy. And also like a hint of romance for those that like a little bit of a slow burn romance that goes on.
So there is that, and it’s supposed to be a trilogy, so I’m actually, working on the next books and yeah, the inspiration for this book actually, funny enough. I don’t know if it’s funny to me, it’s funny. I write a lot of short stories. I do a lot of contests and I love writing prompts.
I really love them. I get a lot of my ideas that way. And through this contest that I had entered called the Writer’s Games, which is held by the Writers Workshop, I participated in this many times and they had big world building episode or event. So I’m like, oh, world building.
Yay. And so I’m passionate about Sci-fi and I was thinking, I just, I love horses so much, and I started thinking, what would horses be like in the future? What does that look like? What would happen? Like it just, my brain started like spiraling and brainstorming with this, what would a horse be like in the future?
And like I thought about genetic refining, like how would they change, would they do full on robots? Would there even be horses? And there was all these things. And of course you go down this rabbit hole, right? And that’s where it all started. It started with the horse and I came up with Herc. he’s a bionic horse with four prosthetic legs.
He’s got an ocular implant that changes with his moods. I call it the mood ring eye. and then I came up with a, who’s gonna own, who’s gonna ride him, who’s gonna love him? And so the dynamic duo of Finnley Rucker and Herc. And then the stories took off from there.
The world started creating it, and it was just a short story, but I couldn’t get it over my, out of my mind. I loved it so much in the world, and I became a little bit obsessed with it. And yeah, I just knew that this was gonna be the novel. I knew it had to be, there was so much more there.
BETH BARANY: Yeah. Love how you love prompts. I saw on your website you have two prompt books, and I know writers really love those. I’ve created a prompt book as well. Oh, nice. Yeah. And yours look really fun. I haven’t had a chance to take a look, but I encourage everyone who loves prompts to take a look.
So cool. I just love that you are so enthusiastic too about world building and just, I offer a world building workbook for people and ’cause that can be a challenge. And it sounds like for you, it’s really a strength and it’s so exciting to hear how you did that and how you just went step by step and imagined horses in the future.
[04:53] Do you have horses of your own?
BETH BARANY: Do you have horses of your own?
Oh gosh. I wish. I was that girl that always asked for the ponies and I collect briar horses, like I’ve got models all over the place. I’ve got all kinds of like horse models and like, no,
BETH BARANY: Show us. What was that? Put a few in the camera in the front of you.
Yeah. Beautiful. Are these, so these are specific kinds of horses?
RACHAEL CLARKE: There’s different ones, yeah, there’s like a workhorse. And then I’ve got, let’s see here’s a Friesian. So Hercules from my novel isn’t a Friesian horse, so this is an actual Friesian.
BETH BARANY: Oh, gorgeous. Oh yeah.
RACHAEL CLARKE: And I actually painted a couple to look like Herc from my book, which is like totally nerdish.
I know, but I totally did it. So
BETH BARANY: merch.
Merchandise. That’s great.
Yeah. I love it. I collect dragons, so I have them all. Oh, nice.different kinds, different cultures. Yeah. That’s so cool. And yeah. so you, I’m a cowgirl at heart, I guess you’d say.
Yeah. But
RACHAEL CLARKE: I just sadly never actually became one.
Yeah.
BETH BARANY: And are, do you live out in the plains? You live in Manitoba and for those of us in the US may not know, but Manitoba’s in the middle of Canada, right?
RACHAEL CLARKE: Yeah. We’re definitely part of the Prairie Land of Canada. We’re in that zone. There’s other areas that are probably more, cowboy country you might say, but we definitely have lots, we have rodeos and all kinds of fun stuff around here too, Yep. Yeah, the land of the big skies.
BETH BARANY: Love that. That’s so evocative right there. The land of the big skies. Oh, I love it.great.
[06:12] Balancing Your Self-Publishing Journey
BETH BARANY: And so how do you balance you, you mentioned that you’re a stay at home mom. A writer and you mentioned you’re also an indie press owner. Does that mean you publish other people’s work?
RACHAEL CLARKE: I’m just very barely starting. I’ve started my own company. So when I started, when I decided back in 2020 to start self-publishing my books, which started with my children’s chapter book, the Big Old Bike, which I wrote and illustrated. That was my very first foray into publishing.
And so I decided I wanted to create my own imprint, rather than just saying, self-published book. I wanted it to be something, I wanted to create my own company. and so I, I founded Page Term Press, which is my little tiny micro indie press. And I’ve have what, four or five other books now self-published.
And they’re all just by me. So I’ve done a short story anthology, my prompt books.
But this past year, what I started, I just, I bumped up into the next phase and slowly growing very incrementally.
And I, as I said, I’m very passionate about short stories. So what I did is I opened up a call for fellow authors to submit their short stories to me for an anthology, a themed anthology, which was the all about deadly flora.
So if you’ve ever wondered a life where plants are against you, not for you and not peaceful, this book is what you definitely wanna be reading. It’s, sci-fi, dark fiction, lots of different things like that.
So that was my first foray into that. So I’m publishing other people’s work now. I’m keeping it at the short story format right now. So an anthology. So yeah, there’s gonna be more to come.
So that’s exciting. So that’s my little micro press experience.
And, gosh, the balancing is always fun. That’s exactly the right word for it is balance. It can be hard to balance it. So I do have two young kids, one’s eight and one’s five, almost six And they’re the love of my life, but obviously it’s busy. I’m a stay at home mom, so I used to be a police officer for about 10 years.
BETH BARANY: Yeah.
RACHAEL CLARKE: Back in the day. I’ve been out of the game now since 2017 ish. and I did get PTSD, I had some really hard times from that and some health complications that came along with it.
So there were some struggles there, some healing that had to take place and it’s still taking place. but I, over time I started thinking I need to start finding a new passion here. Wat am I gonna do next? And so I moved into I’m gonna chase those old dreams.
I’ve always written, I’ve always painted, I’ve always been creative. Let’s start, let’s do that. and that’s what spurred me on to do all of this and start writing more seriously. And being a stay-at-Home Mom, it was a challenge in a way because all of a sudden I’m splitting my attentions.
And so what I do is obviously I, I think a lot of moms that also write will do this.I find little bits through the day. if there’s times where the kids are playing and they’re busy and they’re, they’re occupado, then I can sneak in and open up my Google Docs and start writing something or working on something.
So I, I take my time where I can. Yeah. But then I also really, I usually carve out that time at the end of the day when they’re in bed, I’ll go downstairs and I’ll write for a couple hours, or whatever. Sometimes it makes for late nights. Yeah. But. We do what we do and and then now that the kids are getting a bit older and they’re starting to get into school-
My youngest is like halftime at kindergarten, so I actually have a couple days a week where I can write and focus on some things like that. I. Once your kids are in school it becomes a lot easier because then now it becomes more like a job. if you’re not working elsewhere, you can make that your job.
And that’s where I’m at, yeah, I’m looking at, I like my part-time job.
So It’s worked out nicely that way, and I do drive my family crazy. Sometimes I get a little bit obsessive with my writing. You get into a zone and you’re going like, ah, yeah.
So I do have to reign myself in a bit, It’s that balance word again, right? Yeah. but I do Nanowrimo, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Oh yeah. National Novel Writing Month. Okay. So I do that and that’s like I barter with my husband for that month.
BETH BARANY: So it’s
RACHAEL CLARKE: Okay, I won’t be as crazy with my writing if you let me go nuts in November, you know?
So anyway. Yeah.
[09:42] Writer Support
BETH BARANY: I love it. I love that you barter, because I was, my next question, or like a follow on question was what kind of support do you have around you so that you can be continually working on your writing?
And it sounds like you, you barter with your husband and do have other forms of support?
Some people have writing groups or teachers or coaches or where you can say, Bye-Bye. I’m going to class. Or bye-Bye. I’m going to critique group, or whatever it is. Or Bye-Bye. I’m having a podcast interview like you’re doing now, right?
RACHAEL CLARKE: Yeah. obviously yeah. they’re all about, if I’m podcast interviews, they’re excited.
They’re like, woo, go ahead. I, my husband’s I got the kids. Just do your thing.
I’ve been really blessed in that way with having a supportive kind of family, like helping me. Cheer me on and all that fun stuff. I also have writing groups, so I really encourage people. Writing groups are amazing, so both online and in person and I think in person is really valuable too.
Like sometimes depending on where you live that can be a challenge ’cause not everywhere has writing groups.
I live in a smaller city, so there’s not a lot of writing groups, but there’s a couple and I’m part of both. So yeah, I, once a month we meet up for both of these groups and I try and go whenever I can.
And it’s nice. Everyone writes different stuff. There’s really, it’s not like a sci-fi or fantasy group, it’s just a writing group. Yeah. so it’s good in a way too, because you can broaden your horizons and hear all kinds of different writing styles and different like genres or poems or just like anything.
And, we get to learn from each other and support each other and also get to know, and also uplift other creatives that they’re living in your community.
Yeah, I really like that. and I do have some pretty, like a pretty awesome writing group. A couple of them, I’ve, I have my own Facebook group that I’ve started, called Write State of Mind.
So if anyone’s looking for, a little writing group, feel free to pop on over. We’re small and we’re, we’re there and we’re a decent little group, I also part of a group called WAB, just WAB. But anyways, I’ll give them the shout out here. I’ve been in that group since I started back to writing, and it’s my writing family. We really support each other. So no, I don’t think I would be half of where I am maybe today without having found them, to be honest with you. it’s it’s been good that way.
RACHAEL CLARKE: That’s really great. And is a WAB also on online, or that’s the in person? Yeah they’re definitely findable for sure.
They have limits on how many members they have and whatnot. But yeah, people can find it WAB and feel free to apply if you’re wanna get involved.
BETH BARANY: That’s great. we’ll make sure both of the links are in our show notes. So folks can check those out
[12:02] Resources
Be sure to check out Rachel Clarke’s website. And her fabulous, thrilling. sci-fi western called Race to Novus, the book is now available. You can buy it on Amazon. You can get a hard copy and a signed bookplate plus swag. I really think you will enjoy it. And if you’re not sure you could always click to read an excerpt here.
BETH BARANY: Also, I invite you to check out my World-building Resources for Fiction Writers, the PDF report. Just go ahead and use the link in the description and come on over here and sign up to get your own copy. You can download that and use as a guide to help you overcome any overwhelm that you might have in world-building for your science fiction or fantasy novel. I have over 30 prompts in the report, and it’s actually a workbook for you to use.
That’s it for this week. Write long and prosper.
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ABOUT BETH BARANY
Beth Barany teaches science fiction and fantasy novelists how to write, edit, and publish their books as a coach, teacher, consultant, and developmental editor. She’s an award-winning fantasy and science fiction novelist and runs the podcast, “How To Write The Future.”
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