Anniversary Shenanigans: Author Visit + Giveaway - Rhys Ford

We're so excited for have stable favorite, Rhys Ford to jam on our last anniversary Sunday with us!  And some of our die hard fans interviewed Rhys and picked that marvelous brain.

Stick around for our fans' Q & A sesh and then make sure to enter Rhys' BODACIOUS giveaway, where not 1 but 2 winners can get a $25Amazon or ARe gift card.

Perfect for the holidays, don't you think!

1.  Are you a panster or a planner? What is your normal process for a story? Notes on napkins,  full story boards with character bibles etc.?

I think a combination? I plot. With all the best intentions but then things go sideways and I have to adjust. I do make character bibles so I know what everyone looks like and where they connect. That’s really critical because names sometimes get complicated.

2.  Who influenced you the most in becoming an author? Another author or a teacher perhaps? Any advice they gave you that you would pass along?

Being a writer is a sickness. I swear. I don’t think I’m a writer so much as a storyteller. It’s just that I use words to tell the story. We have a lot of storytellers in my family so I think it’s just a natural genetic thing to lie and make up stuff. *grins* Embellish the world. I’ve always made up stories in my head about people I’ve seen or places that strike me as awesome.

God, so many influences. I can’t say I had a teacher who supported my writing per se but I’ve had teachers who had faith in me when I didn’t have any in myself. They probably don’t remember me but they don’t have to. I remember them like mile posts on a freeway to mark a particular spot I needed to notice.

3.  What sorts of things do you do to make sure you're stretching and growing as a writer?

I try to play with different genres and voices. There’s patterns to writing, each genre has a distinct voice to it. I like dabbling in those voices. Sometimes it’s a fight to write a book and there’s a time to know when it’s just my brain digging in its heels against the genre voice or when it’s fighting the story.

I also like to make sure I keep my vocabulary expanding. It’s good to know the flavour of a word and use it properly. Word choices are important.

4.  How often do you include your own observations/hobbies/interests in your characters — like your hatred of bitter melon?

Oh god, a lot. And yes, loathing of bitter melon. Loathe. I weave a lot of things I’m interested in and some times I have to do research but there’s a point when you can add too much of something into a story. It’s kind of like ten hours of research for a single line of text in a paragraph. I do love weaving books and music into things as well as pop culture. Because there are certain things—common threads—running through us all. So I try to include them to ground my books into a reality I share.

5.  Which character/book/series has given you the most creative fits, and why?

God, this last book. It’s called There’s This Guy and it’s kind of a contemporary??? Sort of? It was a free-fall through a voice and I had to find the river of words to swim in. It was great to do because I could kind of let loose some of the darker threads I’ve wanted to explore but hard because I couldn’t actually murder someone and have them investigate it. I am at heart, a mystery/urban fantasy writer. That being said, it was fun to stretch and delve into something I’d not written before.

6.  How do you develop your secondary support characters? All of them have been very well thought out and contribute a great deal to the storylines.

Secondary characters are important. We all have people in our lives and they’re not two-dimensional cutouts. I think secondary characters should be as fully developed as your main characters because they form a framework around the story. The MCs need a world to live in and having actual people to interact with goes a long way in building that world. If your MC cares about someone besides themselves, it grows them as a character, makes them more of a person. So secondary characters are so so important.

I develop them in the same manner as I do the main characters. They have personalities and quirks and usually are there to provide a foil or support. They are crucial to the story as a whole.

7.  Your Sinners series is based around band members and how music is an intricate part of who they are with life and love. Is music important to you and what or who is your favorite artist and/or song?

Man, I cannot tell you how important music is to me. I listen to music practically every waking moment of the day and often have “soundtracks” to the books I’m writing. I find a base set of albums that fit what I’m writing and kind of live on that as I write.

There’s no one artist or song. Seriously, I have a hell of a lot of music I listen to. With a wide range of styles. Heck, from Metallica to Stevie Ray Vaughn to JYJ and Hyde. It’s whatever suits my mood at the time.

8.  I love the easter eggs you hide in your books.  It's always a delight when I spy one and I feel like I'm in on a secret when one is discovered.  How did you come up with the idea to include them?  Are there any out there that no one (that you know of) has discovered yet? 

Easter eggs are great. They’re often shout outs from me to other authors or just things I like. A bit of our reality seeping into the books. It was just something fun to do at first and then, it just happens. If an opportunity comes up to include one, I do. I don’t purposely go out of my way to make one happen but I’ll often find myself staring at a spot and saying… oh you know what would go well here? An Easter Egg.

I actually don’t know what people have found or not found. I think it’s like a private thing between the reader and the book. You can certainly read the book and not see it but still enjoy the story. That’s what a good Easter Egg should do. Not impact the story but give a nudge and a wink to the reader who spots it.

9.    Now that the Cole McGinnis series has been wrapped up and the Sinners series has only one book left, what's next on the horizon?

Wow, so much. I have so much to write. Or rather so much I want to write. I have Hanging the Stars (Half Moon #2) coming out on December 5 and then in the spring, my take on contemporary which is called There’s This Guy. After that I have the expanded to full length Dim Sum Asylum then Hellsinger 3 and Murder and Mayhem 2. I am both sad but happy to write the end of Sinners. I think it’ll be hard but I’ll be glad to give Miki and Kane a bit of closure on some of the things haunting him. Then I’ll have a new series called 415 Ink, set in San Francisco and about a bunch of tattoo artists, much like Sinners was about musicians. And then of course, there’s Kai and Ryder. So that’s what I’ve got on the horizon. *grins*

Thank you for having me here! I appreciate it so much and congrats on your anniversary! WOOOT!

About the author:

Rhys Ford was born and raised in Hawai’i then wandered off to see the world. After chewing through a pile of books, a lot of odd food, and a stray boyfriend or two, Rhys eventually landed in San Diego, which is a very nice place but seriously needs more rain.

Rhys admits to sharing the house with three cats of varying degrees of black fur and a ginger cairn terrorist. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird, a Toshiba laptop, and an overworked red coffee maker.


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THANK YOU, RHYS!!! We're always happy to have you here at the stable!

Two winners have a chance to win $25 - Amazon or ARe, winner's choice!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

The giveaway is open until 12:00AM (EST) on 12/4/16. Shortly thereafter, we will contact TWO winners! 

Please respond to the winning notification within 48 hours or we will choose another winner. Good luck!
Don't miss entering in our month long unicorn giveaway here! It ends 12/1/16!