TK Special #7 - Return to the M'Verse: An Ooorah Anthology

Author Spotlight: @RJGlynn

*bzzrrrtt* We are receiving a transmission of a Spotlight Author trapped in the M'Verse. Scanning. Scanning. It's RJGlynn, the very author who penned the opening tale to this multiversal compendium! 

If you had to describe yourself in one word, what words wouldn't you use?

Ah ... tall, tidy, and 'un-sarcastic'?

Think back to when you were in school. What was your favourite subject?

Art.

When you were a young 'un, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A writer. At age somewhere around seven, I cried after failing yet another spelling test (I thought it meant I couldn't tell stories). I'm eternally indebted to the developers of spell-checking software. You set that girl free.

What does Tevun-Krus mean to you?

Fun. A place to explore strange worlds and mad ideas.

Tell us about your reading/writing habits. If you're not a writer, then simply the former will suffice!

I like to binge read escapist entertainment. Re. writing habits, I've an erratic paid-work schedule, so writing is fitted around that. Sometimes, I can write for full days straight. Other weeks, my writing won't get a look in.

As your crew casts your lifeless body into the heart of the nearest star, list three pieces of music likely to be rattling the bulkheads of your beloved vessel!

As I have many favourites, across different music genres, I'll keep it classy and sci-fi: The Expanse (TV series theme song), the Halo Theme (Halo video game/TV series), and The Diva Dance (opera in the 1997 movie The Fifth Element).

Who is your all-time favourite author? How much, if at all, has their work influenced your writing style?

No all-time fav, but I was reading a lot of Matthew Reilly around the time I started to take my writing seriously (my action-adventure sci-fi novel Aberrant being the result of such seriousness). Reilly's unabashed love of action and total mayhem – oh, and em rules – likely left a mark.

Of everything you've written, which piece is your favourite?

I was surprised by how well my run-for-your-life-there-be-monsters ONC 2022 novella project, Salvage, came together (the planets aligned), but let's keep this sci-fi and go with my short story The Future of Goobishen Prime, another project that fell together as if something other than my brain was in charge. (FYI, this was written for a @ScienceFiction story-title challenge, so there will be a surprising number of other stories out there with this odd title.)

Pitch the above story to us. Make us really want to read it!

Argh! My nightmare. Okay, a pitch. Um, well, it's a coming-of-age story involving a boy, a girl, an alien brain worm, prophetic visions, a yet to exist baby, a murderous cult, a cunning escape, and a fun-slightly-stabby-temporally-questionable fight for survival. (Did I mention I was rubbish at this story-pitch stuff?) Bonus info: At approx. 2000 words, the time investment needed to give this story a go is minimal. Have at it.

*See external link*

To what extent does the mythical 'real life' influence your writing?

I like to use relatable aspects of the real world to add depth/interest to settings (e.g. an alien city will have food and refuse smells, weather, utilities, and cultural monuments - and most likely local vermin that poop on them). I often create an image galley to help build a setting and its mood in my mind. When it comes to emotion and sensation, I mostly draw from experience. The drop in the gut on a rollercoaster might translate to a wild air-speeder ride, and we've all probably felt that head-emptying moment as disaster strikes.

For my novel Aberrant, in which a character is temporarily paralyzed by alien venom, the sensation of having one's body there but in a different unreachable dimension was drawn from a childhood experience with paralysis (a post-viral complication from chicken pox). Real-world current events and issues can influence my decisions about plot, story politics, and character attitudes and behaviour.

A pet peeve might feed a character decision (e.g. having witnessed idiotic harassment of redheads, I made Gull, my main character in Salvage, a ginger-haired, freckled, parkour legend [note, YouTube parkour videos were a reference source re. how Gull moves through the ruins of his home city, as in real life, I have the kind of coordination and grace that makes a stepladder hazardous]).

If you could have any superpower, what would that be and why?

Call me Rainforest Resurrector as I magically recover vast lost habitats and carbon sinks. (I'd have chosen the power to 'gift' diarrhoea to all malicious spreaders of misinformation each time they lie, but I had to prioritise planet over public health, world peace, and fraying democracies.)

What would you do if you woke up one day and suddenly realized you were an alien from another world?

I'd be quite chuffed about being proof of alien life, but I don't think I'd do much about it - unless my alien kind was up to no good.

The Technological Singularity presents a rather daunting, some say inevitable, future. Does the prospect of that level of artificial intelligence excite you, or leave you quaking in your space boots?

Quaking.

Who was your first Sci-Fi crush? Who is your current one?

First? Maybe Starbuck from the original Battlestar Galactica TV series (played by Dirk Benedict). Current major character crush: Drummer (The Expanse).

If you could experience the world of any Sci-Fi story on Wattpad, which would that be and why?

I'm good with any civilisation with hygienic ablution facilities and FTL travel - but no time machines. The ability to explore the vastness of space = epic. The ability to time travel = tangled mess + migraine.

And finally, any words of wisdom to new and aspiring Sci-Fi writers?

(1) There's no quality standard you must achieve before you can call yourself a writer. If you write, you're a writer. Simple. Welcome to the club.

(2) Practice. For me, the short story challenges run on Wattpad have been a great place to practice the basics (hook, story arc, world building, character journey, drafting, revision, etc.), and with repetition, I've learned more about my own creative method and have greater patience with myself as I hit that inevitable wall of self-doubt - because I've hit it before and managed to move past it (big thanks to the Wattpad ambassadors who run these events).

(3) Take your craft seriously – and then don't. Creativity flows best when you're having fun, when rules, limitations, and expectations are to be toyed with and failure has no meaning beyond a blank page.

So, enough about me - go play!