Interview with Eliza Leone

Lucy: Hi Eliza! Thanks so much for joining us at Introverted Indies. I’m looking forward to getting to know you and your writing. So, to get things started, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Eliza: Hello! I’m an author from the Pacific Northwest and write a range of fiction genres from short fiction, to urban fantasy/romantasy, cozy fiction, and even a few darker shades of romance.

I grew up an only child and discovered that entire worlds were hidden within the pages of endless books very early on. After that, chances are my nose was in one. Over time Friday nights became reserved for bookstore runs with my mom where we’d resupply for a week of adventures and drink vanilla steamers from Starbucks. 

I always wanted to write, but my grammar and spelling was and is…severely lacking. It wasn't until my mid-twenties that I decided if I was only writing for myself, no one would care about a lack of proper punctuation. Ten years and over a dozen books later, my family, both human and fiction, convinced me it was time to share my stories with the world and here I am.

L: Oh those Friday nights with your mom sound absolutely amazing. It's evident you've long been passionate about reading, and the fact you've written a dozen books is wonderful. I understand that it takes something extra to push yourself to share your stories with the world--they're part of you and that is a huge step to take! Was The Final Keeper trilogy the first set of your stories that you then went on to share? Can you tell me more about that process? 

E: Nope, actually the first thing I published was a collection of short stories and micro-fiction. Everyday Adventures is made up of my sprint stories and warmups from when I first began writing. It gave me a way to test different themes, genre, POV, and tons of other options. Aspects of those stories made in into the Alku universe, but not all of them. 

When I first began writing ten years ago, I was still weighed down by my lack of grammar and spelling capabilities. I used these short, 5-10 minutes sprints, to trick my brain into not caring and just writing as fast as possible. Thankfully, it worked and I don’t need to do them anymore. I also learned to turn off the red squiggle (spell check) when writing a first draft. 😉 

L:  Oh I love the sound of Everyday Adventures, and how you were able to test different elements within those stories. It's evident that writing those helped you to challenge yourself and grow as a writer. What did you learn from publishing them? 

E: I think the most valuable learning was how self publishing versus traditional differ. I was querying my first novel, Keeper’s Reign at the same time and it wasn’t going well. My mental health was deteriorating and my depression was returning with every silent day with not responses at all. Not even rejections. Thankfully, Everyday Adventurers was nearly done and kept my mind occupied for a while. 

On a more fun note, I learned I am an extremely character driven writer. I love a good environment description but I turn into a giggling, sobbing, or raging muppet when I’m writing emotional interactions between characters. 

L: The querying process can be absolutely brutal. It does take a lot of mental energy to go through it, and to get used to the huge stretches of waiting. It's great that you had Everyday Adventures to take your mind off that process--and discovered your love of character-driven stories (I'm the same, characters are where the emotional pull is for me!). So you've mentioned that you queried Keeper's Reign; when did you make the decision to self-publish the series? 

E: I wrote Keeper’s Reign in 2014 and was determined to traditionally publish it. I wanted it to have a chance of being successful and even just ten years ago, the self publishing industry was very different. When I realized I wasn’t about to manage the querying process, I shelved the book. Then the US had some political and cultural changes that sapped me of everything. I stopped writing and reading entirely—for nearly ten years. 

In early 2023, my husband learned of Campfire Writing. It’s a writing and world building tool along with a publishing platform. That’s extremely underselling it, but yeah, it changed everything. I wrote 12 books in a year. All of them post-Keeper’s Reign and connected in a single universe and arching storyline. By that point, my mom and two best friends basically forced me to start publishing them all. Guilt, strong arm tactics, and bribes along with a lot more. 

So, I caved. Then in October 2023 I published the first book in the trilogy, Keeper’s Reign. Then I did it again. And again. And a few more times. Truthfully, I’m exhausted but I wouldn’t change my long, meandering journey for anything in the world. 

L: Wow, 12 books in a year! That's amazing. Well done, you. And I'm not surprised you're exhausted!!

Campfire Writing sounds like it really had a huge impact on you. How do you even go about writing that many books in such a short space of time? Can you tell us about those books and where readers can find them?

E: Campfire is incredible and honestly it’s the only reason I was about to write that much so quickly. It has deep organization capabilities and a tagging feature. It’s one of my favorite features. It lets me click on Gabe’s name in the text and his entire character profile pops up on the side. Then I can quickly check what color his eyes are or whatever and get back to writing. No more searching or flipping through notebooks. 

Besides that, I learned to turn off spelling and grammar check for my first draft. I write incredibly fast and can finish a first draft in a little over a week, but they are ROUGH. Being able to ignore mistakes allowed my brain not to step out of flow state helps immensely though, and since I’m a pantser all I have to do after that is type up what the characters tell me. 

L: Wow, it sounds like it really streamlined the writing process for you. Being able to draft in a little over a week is amazing! First drafts are always rough, but you've got that story to polish then which is the main aim. 

So you've got several published books under your belt at this point. What's the biggest thing you've learnt in that journey that you'd want to pass on to new authors setting off down the self-publishing road? 

E: Write what you love. 

It’s not an exaggeration to say you’ll reread your books dozens of times. If you write to follow a fad or to please others and you don’t actually enjoy the book you wrote, everything will be a million times more difficult. 

Personally, I love my books which is why I wrote them. I read them constantly, purely because I want to. It also makes it easier to fan girl with my readers and friends. My books and characters are and will be my life for years to come, and I’ve made sure I love each and every one of them.  Even the jerks. 

L: I completely agree. Writing to a fad or trend is just going to make you miserable, long-term (unless it's one you particularly enjoy). Plus they're constantly changing. 

It's great that you feel so passionate and connected with your stories. I had a chuckle at your comment about loving all of your characters--even the jerks. I don't know about you, but I find writing the jerks the most fun! Do you take inspiration from anywhere in particular when writing your characters? 

E: Everywhere. I follow the “be nice or you’ll end up in my novel” mantra. That said, I put the nice people in too. Many of my characters are based off of people I know, or situations I’ve been in. Even down to the naming of people and places, all of them have meaning. I’ll often include a situation, detail, or phrases in my writing. They won’t always go into a single character, but they are there. 

Character development and interaction is one of my favorite aspects of storytelling and I enjoy making them broken, or bent, or…flawed. Sometimes they heal, or learn, or get worse, but they always change. 

My two main universe characters are still changing twelve books into the series and they are still not done. I remember once I wrote a disagreement between them in book 7 and told my beta readers how it turned out. Everyone went off on the character, Gabe, for being an doofus and that he better get his act together. He did, but it wasn’t until book 8. It was really touch and go there though, I genuinely thought their relationship might not survive the argument. 

L: I love that. It's so true that we writers can find inspiration anywhere. 

I'm totally with you on character development and interaction, to me they are the most important elements and most interesting to write. Writing main characters across such a long series must mean you are essentially growing with them, and it also means readers really get to know them (case in point that argument you mentioned and how your betas responded!). What's been your favourite (and least favourite) part of those characters? 

E: I think my favorite part of Onnie is that she genuinely cares. Even if she’s hiding her expectation of betrayal, she gives people the benefit of the doubt and lets them make their own decisions. She gives them space to make up their own minds. However, if they chose the wrong path, like hurting someone for example, she doesn’t hold back and takes care of business.

Gabe on the other hand is a hot head. Well intentioned, but too often he sees a threat and eliminates it in cave man fashion. Or he tries to. Dany and Onnie often cool him down, but his instinct of protect first drives me crazy. Does he really think Onnie and Dany are incapable of taking care of themselves? No…but he doesn’t take the time to think before he acts. The amount of times Onnie has to lie or obfuscate the truth, which she hates, is far too many, but she does what she has to to avoid needless drama.

L: They both sound like great characters, and ones you know so well. I love how you speak about them as though they're friends--your fondness and frustration for the different parts of them. And I suppose, in a way, our characters are our friends, because we get to know them and spend so much time with them, telling their stories. 

And with that, we'll wrap up this lovely interview. Thank you so much for joining us at Introverted Indies, Eliza. It's been great getting to know you and your process as an author.

Please let us know where we can keep up to date with you and your books. :) 

E: Thank you so much for having me! This was a ton of fun and you’re a joy to talk with!

You can find my books on most major platforms, but my site has links to everything as well as Campfire where all my bonuses, behind the scenes, and extras are. 

ElizaLeone.com

Happy reading!