Posts Tagged ‘Seat of God’

I recently became acquainted with Gryffyn Phoenix through a mutual friend. As Gryffyn and I began to correspond, I knew this was someone I was going to be fast friends with. I’ve seen the work Gryffyn has done in various artistic fields, and I’m thoroughly impressed by her. It almost seems unfair that one person should possess so many talents! So… it’s my honor and privilege to be able to interview her here. Gryffyn is not only a great writer, but a fascinating and kind person. She is generous, open, and fun, and I look forward to getting to know her more and more. Her latest novel, Seat of God is the first of the Ethiopian Chronicles, and is available now. Visit Gryffyn at:


Q: What would you say is the highlight of your career as a writer?
A: So far? First time I read an email from a major New York publisher which said, “Here’s a contract, we’d like to put out your book.” But in all honesty … whenever anyone says they like your writing goes up on the list, I’m not exactly picky.
Q: When did you start writing?
A: Does birth qualify? I was eleven when a friend complained she was bored. I suggested she “watch one of the stories in her head.” She informed me there was no such thing. I didn’t realize before then not everyone has a movie constantly playing in their mind. This was when I figured out I should probably be a writer.
Q: What childhood events have contributed most to your writing, if any.
A: I don’t know many writers who didn’t have dysfunctional childhoods. Complex imaginations are built because they’re an easy escape. Let’s just say mine is Technicolor with multiple worlds.
Q: What inspired Seat of God?
A: It started as all my books do, a movie inside my head. The real man Father Josephus is based on influenced the story, but it was definitely first a dream. After I finished, a friend told me “I wrote a love song to Ethiopia.”
Q: Where do your characters come from?
A: Very rarely are they based on real people. All others are my imaginary friends, who occasionally decide to drive me insane unless I get their story on paper.
Q: What are some of your favorite books by other authors?
A: I read around five books a week. This is actually impossible for me to answer.
Q: In your opinion, what is the most important thing an author must do to be successful?
A: Understand this is a business. If you want to be an “artiste”and write mind-blowing, experimental fiction, go ahead. Just don’t quit your day job. If you remember it’s your job to entertain and you are willing to research and learn about the industry, you’ll succeed.
Q: Do you prefer writing for adults, or young adults?
A: Equal. I believe you write the story inside you that needs to be told.
Q: Is it difficult for you to switch between these two genres?
A: Not at all. Different energies and motivation.
Q: What is your favorite part of being a writer?
A: I now get paid to go into my mind and explore those stories. That’s awesome. Second favorite is my commute involves walking down the stairs and across the hall.
Q: What is the most difficult part of being a writer?
A: Editing yourself. Blech. It’s like cutting off your limbs with a rusty, dull knife. Strike that. Cutting off your limbs would be more fun.
Q: Of your own fictional characters, who is your favorite and why?
A: You spend so much time with these people; you really have to love them all. In Seat of God, I love Gabriel. If he was a guy I knew in real life, I’d want to marry him. I adore Jasmine’s fierce determination for her family. Raffe’s sense of humor and patriotism is awesome. And Destiny? Well, Destiny is omnipotent. Who wouldn’t want to know and spend time with the leader of a mid-East crime ring who dresses like a female Egyptian pharaoh?
Even with my bad guys. In my young adult book I have a character named Willow. Any scene with her makes me giggle; she’s just so unabashedly rotten, and proud of it.
Q: What do you most hope your novels will do for your readers?
A: No matter what you believe, with Seat of God the thing to remember is it’s all possible. It doesn’t matter if you are a devout Christian or atheist or anything in between. Everything I write about, even the thing is called “miracle,” is actually scientifically possible.
Q: What is your writing process like?
A: First you move the cat off the laptop, and then you move the other cat off the chair, and then you pet both of them into a coma, and the writing can begin. Then you stop to check email, facebook, pet the cat some more, and go back to the writing.
Q: Do you have a “writing area?” What does this space look like?
A: Depending on the project, I’ve written all over the house.
Q: What is the first sentence of your latest work?
A: From my young adult novel, HAVEN AWAKENING, due out this Spring:
Aria ran into the middle of the junkyard and, horrified, skidded to a stop. It was gone. The gateway had disappeared.
Q: What is the last sentence you wrote?
A: I saved this question for last so I could say … this one. If you mean in my novels, the answer comes from the fifth book in the HAVEN AWAKENING series, “Just because you have a dick, doesn’t mean you have to act like one.”
Q: What advice would you give to beginning writers?
A: Listen to your parents, take those computer/accounting classes and learn something that pays actual money. If you reject that, my best advice is don’t talk about it until you finish a complete manuscript. Nothing makes a writer’s head explode faster than hearing someone say, “Oh, you’re a writer? I want to be a writer. It seems so easy.” Finish putting seventy to one hundred thousand words on a page, put it aside for a month, and then read it. Now tell me it’s easy.