Interview with Science Fiction Western novelist, Rachael Clarke, Part 2
Interview with Science Fiction Western novelist, Rachael Clarke, Part 2 – How To Write the Future podcast
“What I’ll tell people is to find your writing group, find your writing family.”
— R.A. Clarke
In this episode, “Interview with Western Science Fiction Novelist, Rachael Clarke, Part 2” podcast host Beth Barany continues her interview with Rachael Clarke where they discuss Rachael’s writing process, including one of the biggest points of struggles. Plus, they share why it’s important to be a part of a writing community.
Listen to part 1 where they both discuss Rachael’s first full-length novel published under her pseudonym R.A. Clarke, Race to Novus.
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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
To follow all of my adventures writing and illustrating children’s books specifically, visit: https://www.facebook.com/rachaelclarkewrites.com
Other contact: https://linktr.ee/raclarkewrites
Transcript for Interview with Western science fiction novelist, Rachael Clarke, Part 2
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] Intro to Part 2 The Importance of Writing Support Groups and Your Writing Process
BETH BARANY: I just wanna underscore for everybody listening, ’cause I’m a writing teacher and a coach and I run my own groups, how important it is that we have support groups and I love that you have your in-person groups, you have your online groups. As many groups as you can handle is what I recommend people do. Places where they get to be with their peers, you get to be with your peers. You’re running a group, which also allows you to learn in a new way. And we learn from our peers, we learn from our students, we learn from our mentors, and which can come in all kinds of forms. I’m really pleased that you’re doing that, and also just to model for other people who might be struggling.
[01:08] One of the biggest points of struggle
BETH BARANY: One of the biggest points of struggle is that they’re too isolated. And actually it’s a huge myth that writers are just these solo- You’re off by yourself. There is that period where we’re writing and it’s just you and the page, and then your story, but then everything else about being a writer like you have shown us is community.
[01:28] Writing Community
BETH BARANY: It’s our peers, it’s our critique partners, it’s our support network, it’s our family.
And then it’s your fans and your readers and the people who buy your books and all that good stuff.
RACHAEL CLARKE: Absolutely.
BETH BARANY: Yeah. So I really love that you are showcasing that because I meet authors all the time who are struggling with the balance that, that you have so beautifully carved out.
[01:48] Rachael’s Writing Process
BETH BARANY: So I am curious also about your writing process. If you find that you infuse parts of yourself into your stories or your characters.
RACHAEL CLARKE: Yes. So I do, I definitely do. Honest, there are times where I actually actively avoid infusing my real life into characters.
There’s the twofold. So that, yes, I a hundred percent do infuse. So like even Finn Finley Rucker from my novel, there’s parts of me in her, like I’ve struggled with my family.
I’ve struggled with- Not necessarily like feeling like myself or like I know myself fully or that like I feel like I need a new start or that I’m struggling. A lot of people can probably relate to those things as well.Some of that, those experiences that I’ve gone through with my family did sneak into to Finn a little bit because I felt like I could relate to that character in that way.
And so in some ways, I could then help that character be realized more clearly.
Also, I love horses, so of course she’s gonna love horses. Maybe a little bit of a quirky sense of humor, a little bit of moxie at times.
I wouldn’t say she’s a, excuse my language, but a ballbuster. But she’s an adventurous girl and she’s willing to get her hands dirty and get in there. I see myself in that same way. I’ve never been afraid of getting my hands dirty.
And, so yeah, there’s bits of me and her, but she’s definitely her own character. She’s not me.
And same there’s bits of people I know in a lot of my characters.
Or my experiences wherever I’ve been, wherever I’ve traveled, anything that I’ve toiled with or whatever, those things can definitely make their way into my novel and be described, because we write what we know, So if we’ve lived those experiences, that’s even better and more clear, in our writing. And I don’t know. I haven’t heard a lot other authors really say this or talk about this much, but I don’t know. That’s the way I am. I try and avoid, making my characters into people I know. I want them to be completely made up and I create them from the ground up. Yeah. Sometimes I go that direction too, where it’s like, no, I don’t need this character to be like anybody.I want this character to be its own thing.
BETH BARANY: Yeah. Yeah.
If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. As a writer myself and also as a writing teacher, It’s sometimes much easier to create characters that are very different from us and can be very challenging to create characters that are very alike. And it’s a great exercise and stretch to be playing with characters that are completely different.
[03:54] World-Building Science Fiction and Fantasy
BETH BARANY: I wanna touch a little bit on your world building and I’m curious if we can, if you can tell us a little bit like what draws you and has drawn you to write science fiction and fantasy.
RACHAEL CLARKE: That’s a good question. Gosh, it’s hard to actually pinpoint that. How do you nail that down? I write a little bit of a lot, especially so say with my short stories, when it’s themed and prompted contests, you get everything and you really step out of your comfort zone and you’re trying all kinds of different genres.
And so I have written a lot of things. I also quite enjoy fantasy.but I always gravitate to sci-fi.
All of my long form works, like all my ideas for my novels, which the list is quite long at this point, and I never have enough time. I’m never gonna be able to write them all, but they’re all sci-fi and yeah.
I honestly think it’s just my desire. Escapism is big for me. Because I have had some struggles with PTD and different things, diving back into that writing world and really going into a whole new place. And it’s not even real. It’s not the real world, it’s future. It can be whatever I want it to be.
I can think about what things could be and how they can affect things and how they interact with things. And just using my imagination. I really like that and I’ve always been a sci-fi enthusiast, like I was a movie buff. My first job was at a movie store at the corner. And I prided myself on being that person that people would ask and I’d be able to tell them the most obscure, they’d be like, oh, it’s that movie with that guy that had the toupee and like he rode the horse. Remember that? Do you know that what I’m talking about?
And I’d be like, oh yeah, that’s this and this, And like I had 1500 VHS at one time in my collection. anyways,
I love movies and I love sci-fi, like Stargate, was a huge influence. I’m trying to think. Obviously Star Wars, Star Trek, love, Star Trek, and like a lot of different things.
BETH BARANY: And yeah, definitely a sci-fi person. So I think that just sets me up for it, I love watching films like that. I love reading books like that. And obviously I love writing it too, so yeah, I don’t know. I think that’s great. Just the notion that when we write about the future and we can write about anything. And really explore some things. Yeah. Like your, how your current novels came from What-If.
What would horses look like in the future? What modifications might they have? And yeah, I just love that.
[06:01] Warrior Women
BETH BARANY: So can I ask you some questions about being a police officer?
RACHAEL CLARKE: Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, go for it. I’m an open book. Yeah.
BETH BARANY: The reason I’m very interested in that is because I have a passion project about writing about warrior women. Both of my protagonists, my heroines, have a past in the military and one of them was a military cop and the other is a fantasy setting, so she was a soldier. And the other was in like a future version of the Space Force that I’ve invented and also military cop and has a science background. I too am very interested in science and I’ve always been interested, I think in like how things work.
And I’m also curious in your perspective, if being a cop influences- the fact that you were a police officer, if that influences your writing in any way or if it influences the questions you wanna explore or the stories you wanna tell. Just exploring.
RACHAEL CLARKE: For sure. it will and it does. Okay. And I do have other writer friends that ask me questions too, if they’re writing a story and they’ll be like, Hey, would this happen?
Or can I bounce something off of you? And I love helping them if I can.
Obviously, policing is different wherever you go geographically. Yeah.
But yeah, it does influence how I work because there’s some, I find there’s some scenes that maybe I could write that might automatically- I know things, some things, right?
So when I write a story, a chase scene with a police officer or something, or anything of that nature, I can use some lingo or use some descriptions I would say would be mostly plausible, across the board for the most part.
So that has helped me and definitely does influence my stories. But that said, I don’t actively pursue writing police stories and it’s not because I would ever do it.
But I don’t know, part of me has put that in my past. Yeah, because of the challenges that were there. And so that’s why I think I like the wild creativity of fiction and speculative fiction so much.
And I don’t know, I don’t want to dive back into that world too much, I guess if that makes sense. ’cause sometimes it can trigger me to be honest. Yeah. But I definitely, it definitely does get, I definitely use it. It’s definitely there. And if I have to rely on that knowledge, I do, I don’t run away from it, but I don’t actively dive into it either of that.
BETH BARANY: Yeah. When I’m writing, it’s a leap for me. I’m writing about murder mysteries set on space stations, so I’m entering a world that I don’t know, but I do a lot of research for,
which is part of the adventuresomeness of being a fiction writer. You get to enter worlds, you get to research things that you don’t know as best you can.
RACHAEL CLARKE: Absolutely. Yeah. yeah. And I was gonna say, especially like with when it’s fantastical, when it’s not like contemporary based. then I don’t think I would ever get triggered by that, honestly, in that regard because it is so different.
You can make cops into anything you want in the future. And I’m trying to think of- what’s his book? Oh, it’s The Expanse. Yeah. Think of like the investigators in the Expanse.
it’s so far removed from anything that would ever be what I would’ve ever done, So it’s in some instances, yeah. It just, but it’s just fun.
BETH BARANY: Yeah. And he’s still investigator and he is still asking questions and he is still going where he shouldn’t be going.
It’s still the core of what an investigator doesn’t change.
RACHAEL CLARKE: Exactly. Yeah.
[09:10] What’s Next for Rachael Clarke
RACHAEL CLARKE: I am so excited for you. I wanna really encourage folks to check out your book.
BETH BARANY: And it’s fabulous that you’ve got a trilogy, or two more books coming. And speaking of that, so what are you working on now and,what’s next for you?
RACHAEL CLARKE: It’s all exciting. I’ve got a few irons in the fire, just like you said, you’ve got a bunch of things on the go. I’m the same. I’m taking a bit of a break right now from writing a lot of short fiction and trying to focus on bigger projects.
So I am definitely writing the sequel to Race To Novus. I’m almost done it actually the first draft.And it’s gonna be called Fight For Revaru, which is the name of a location in the book, which I cannot disclose too much about.
So, yeah. Um, and then after that, I’m hoping this NaNoWriMo, I’m gonna dive into book three and start drafting that, but I also have a couple novellas that I’ve been working on.
One of ’em actually is called, Becoming Grace, and it actually won, the Right Fighters Three-day novella challenge last year, which was like, woo-hoo, yay. But it needs some more, obviously you can only write so much in three days, so there’s gonna be things that you wanna, flesh it out some more, So I’m working on that actually slowly right now, and I’m hoping to put that out at some point, maybe next year. I don’t know. Yeah, so I was just working on little things here and there, but the novel, I’m really focusing on getting my Race to Novus trilogy done.
BETH BARANY: Yeah.
RACHAEL CLARKE: And then, and then yeah, we’ll go from there. Pick another idea and run with it.
BETH BARANY: And if people wanna find out more about you, where can they go?
RACHAEL CLARKE: Absolutely. So I’ve got lots of social media, but the best way, I guess the easiest way would be to hop onto my website, which is RachaelClarkeWrites.com.
[10:42] Connect with Rachael Clarke
BETH BARANY: Rachael, it’s been so much fun chatting with you.
I definitely wanna have you back when you get book two out. I wanna encourage everyone to check out Rachael’s book, Race to Novus. I will have the book cover on the screen if you’re looking at YouTube. And all of Rachael’s links will be in the show notes or the show description, blog post, wherever the details of this podcast episode are.
[11:04] Advice for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers
BETH BARANY: Just to finish up, is there any piece of advice that you would like to offer other writers who are writing science fiction or fantasy? Any like hot tip or top of mind tip that you would like to offer other writers?
RACHAEL CLARKE: I think we already touched on it. Usually what I’ll tell people is to find your writing group, find your writing family.
That’s really important. But also to go along with that, I would say try and find critique partners. People that you can exchange reads with people that are on the same wavelength as you. It doesn’t have to be, you know, rewriting the exact same thing, but that you can get each other and work well with each other.
it’s worth its weight in gold. I do so much beta reading for people and and. I learned so much from other people. And also you make invaluable relationships and connections with other writers that way. It truly is a kind of a family thing. You need people around you and you’re gonna share their work, and they’re gonna share yours.
And it really is a family thing and just to uplift each other. yeah, I would say that would be my hot tip, is find yourself, a few good critique partners.
BETH BARANY: Yeah. That’s so great. I would just underscore that about a million times. You’re so right on. And we write alone, but we succeed together.
Yes. So I wish you much success and thank you so much for being a guest on how to Write the Future.
RACHAEL CLARKE: I love it. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a blast.
That’s so great. All right, everyone, thank you so much for listening to this episode of How to Write The Future.
Write Long and Prosper.
That’s a wrap. All right. Do you, how do you like my sign off?
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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.”
Learn more about Beth Barany at these sites:
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