Check out this author spotlight for Nathan Tudor!
You can find all his links furthest down the page, and donāt forget to check out his books!
1. Hi! Welcome to my humble blog of all things bookish! I would like for us to start by getting to know you. Give us a short bio, please!
Hello! Thank you for having me. Be forewarned, I talk kind of strangely when I need to give my bio.
Nathan Tudor has researched ancient religion at Oxford, traveled the seven continents, and mastered the art of speaking in the third person. His debut novel The Empireās Lion tells an epic story filled with action, identity, and the struggle to do what is right in an upside-down world.
See what I mean? I get all meta with the third person voice thing.
2. To get to know you just a little bit better, Iād like to ask you some this or that questions. Answer 5 of these and explain why you chose this or that, or maybe an entirely different alternative!
Morning or evening?
My biology and temperament are absolutely for the evening. Iām a natural night owl; my ideal day is something like 10AM-2AMā¦ though at certain points in my life, Iāve had far more extreme sleep patterns. I also just have a much stronger affinity for the moon and stars than I do for the sun. The night is serene; the day is loud.
I can actually talk for a while about how ridiculous it is that our society is generally organized around morning people. Some of us are genetically predisposed to stay up and wake up laterāand thatās for survival reasons! Night owls in industrialized societies will often have more health problems due to how weāre forced to ignore our circadian rhythms and suffer sleep deprivation.
All right, Iāll get off my soapbox haha. If anyone else is interested in the subject, I highly recommend the book Why We Sleep by Dr Matthew Walker.
All that saidā¦ ironically, I do most of my best work toward the start of the day, and I feel incredibly demoralized if I havenāt started writing by sundown. I say āmost of my best workā because sometimes Iāll get a lightning bolt of inspiration at 3AM, and those usually hand me some of my best scenes. Iām tired the next day, but itās worth it J
Library or museums?
All right, this choice is borderline impossible because I adore both. Iām that guy who walks around the library taking photos of every book he might eventually want to read, so I have the titles for future reference. However, I will ultimately have to go for museums. I love walking through history and seeing glimpses of all these different cultures. Museums are inspiration central for meāI can guarantee I will get ideas for a story any time I set foot inside one. Something about the physical presence of objects that have traveled through time and space, intersecting with who knows how many lives along the way, it gets me excited and activates my writer brain!
Plotter or pantser?
I see plotting and pantsing as a spectrum, and Iād say I fall about 80% toward plotā¦ maybe 90% haha. I learned years ago that I need an overarching structure in place before I start drafting, or else Iāll run out of steam a few scenes in. Iām a huge fan of the Story Grid methodology, and I always recommend it to other writers thinking about studying plot structure.
When Iām pushing through the beginning and middle, I need to have the finale already in mind, because for me the ending payoff is everything. For my process, Iāll usually come up with an awesome ending and then figure out how to set that up.
That said, Iāll always leave some room for sudden inspiration to take me down another road, and every book I write ends up with a few scenes that came about as spur-of-the-moment ideas. Some of my favorite scenes happened that way!
Pen and paper or computer/phone?
I have a romantic dream of writing an entire first draft with a fountain pen (I love my fountain pens!) but right now that sort of thing just isnāt feasible. My day-to-day writing relies on momentum. Iām always hunting that flow state where the words are just pouring out of my unconscious, and I have the most success when typing.
Iāve used Scrivener for years and itās absolutely essential for my process now. I write in composition mode with a smaller notes window floating off to the side, so thereās nothing on-screen except the document and my outline for the scene.
My Notes app is filled with scraps of character details, plot ideas, reminders for revisionāand thatās all in the cloud, so I can write those on my phone while Iām out and about and then have it easily accessible on my laptop at home. Keeping cloud backups of my Scrivener projects is also essential for my peace of mind.
All that to say, Iām cripplingly dependent on technology for my writing haha
Hero or anti-hero?
This sort of question is on my mind a lot actually. Every day Iām pondering why certain types of stories and certain types of characters appeal to peopleāand why the overall preference of readers seems to shift over time and in response to whatās going on in the real world.
I canāt deny the appeal of the anti-hero (Iād like to write some anti-hero protagonists someday!) but if I had to choose one or the other, I will always go for the hero. At the core of my beliefs is the tenet that the most meaningful thing a person can do is willingly and lovingly sacrifice oneself for anotherāto me, thatās the heart of the heroic archetype. I could talk for hours on the topic because itās one of the foundational pillars of why storytelling matters to me. The Heroās Journey has been criticized plentyāand some of that is genuinely insightful critiqueābut I donāt think weāll ever be able to stop marveling at the person who steps out into the realm of danger and the unknown, the person who descends into the underworld and dies (literally or symbolically, depending on the story) and does so not out of selfish desire, but out of genuine goodwill for their fellow human. I think you can really see how these ideas play into my writing when you read the climax of The Empireās Lion.
3. When you look for books to read, what trope or type of story will always catch your attention?
I have pretty eclectic interests, so itās hard to pin things down. If itās a fantasy, Iām looking for a really interesting worldāespecially one that partakes of inspirations and influences from beyond medieval Europe. Right now is such an exciting time to be into fantasy because the genre is constantly expandingāthereās Asian fantasies, African fantasies, Slavic fantasies, the list goes on!
I have a strong preference for competent characters. Thereās just something deeply satisfying about seeing someone whoās a master of their craft. Thatās not to say I donāt like the classic story of a novice building their skills and growingāit just needs to be really well done to hold my interest until it gets to the āmaster of their craftā bit. (Will Wightās Cradle series is absolutely incredible in that regard.)
I also really like things with a literary or intellectual bent. Gene Wolfeās Book of the New Sun for example, I consider that to be a masterpiece of not just sci-fi/fantasy but English literature, full stop.
4. What do you write? Tell us about your current projects and the latest happenings!
To paint with a broad brush, I write epic fantasy! To be more specific, right now Iām working in the historical fantasy/military fantasy subgenres. My debut series is The Imperial Adept, and itās set in a world inspired by Mediterranean antiquity. So far, Iāve released a prequel (which is free on my website nathantudor.com) and the first book in the series, which is titled The Empireās Lion. Iām at work on the sequel, though I havenāt settled on a title yet.
At the core of The Imperial Adept will be a trilogy of novels telling the story of Reiva, a young woman with immense magical power who grows not just in strength but also in character and spirit. Aside from the core trilogy, I would like to write some additional books like the prequel, which are not necessarily required reading but flesh out the characters and world. Also, the core books are doorstoppers with many POV characters (The Empireās Lion is 220,000 words!) while the prequel is more like 95,000 words and focuses on a single characterāso those shorter books are less intense from a planning and execution perspective.
Beyond that, I have many more plansāenough plans to keep me writing for yearsāand I look forward to going on that journey with readers. For now though, Iāll keep my focus on The Imperial Adept!
5. What is your most recent release? Give us a short presentation, cover, and a link for where to buy it!
The Empireās Lion is my debut novel and it came out January 21st! Itās an epic military fantasy set in a war-torn, magic-filled world inspired by the empires and cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. As for the storyā¦
She left a slave. She returns a conqueror.
As an Adept, Reiva blasts fire from her hands and leaps over walls. But when her first solo mission leaves her half-dead amidst a heap of massacred allies, she gets just one chance at redemption.
The Empire orders her to crush the one kingdom she thought she would never see again: Talynis, the land of her birth, the land she left in chains.
Standing in her way is the Wolf, a vicious assassin hellbent on killing Adeptsāand a single cut from his cursed blade will destroy Reivaās magic forever.
Even if she can survive, victory may come at a price too high to payā¦
Right now itās available from Amazon, Apple Books, and Kobo, with paperbacks on the way! This link will always have the most up-to-date store options:
https://books2read.com/u/3n2GLP
6. What real-life inspiration do you draw from, and what are your primary fictional sources of inspiration (books, authors, films, music, etc.)? Name a few!
So, I take inspiration from a lot of places. My undergraduate degree is in Religious Studies, and for part of that I spent a term at the University of Oxford, studying and researching ancient mythology and religion. I tend to read a lot about ancient history and cultures, but even more than that I love to read primary sourcesāthe myths and religious texts themselves, rather than just what some modern academic has to say about them. When youāre reading The Empireās Lion, youāll notice inspiration from the ancient Near East, Greco-Roman cultures, and more! (You might even catch some hidden meanings if youāve studied ancient Hebrew or Greekā¦)
In terms of fictionā¦ I also have so many different sources of inspiration haha. One of the most important is Guy Gavriel Kayāhis historical fantasy is second-to-none, and his prose is absolutely beautiful. His book Under Heaven is one of very few books that Iāve read more than once in a single year.
William Blakeās visionary poetry is just astounding. The term āmad geniusā gets thrown around a lot, but Iām convinced Blake truly was one. Long before fantasy was anything approaching a proper genre, Blake was inventing his own mythology and giving it terrific expression.
Venturing beyond the realms of fantasy, Fyodor Dostoevsky is a genius of literature whose work I will forever gape in awe at. Iāve never read anyone who cuts so honestly and precisely to the heart of the human condition, weighing the different ways we try to make sense of ourselves and the world. Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov are essential reading.
Steven Pressfield is another giantānot just his historical fiction but also his non-fiction. If youāre interested at all in pursuing a creative calling, I cannot recommend enough his book The War of Art.
7. What is your writing routine? If you have one, give us the run-down!
I write in sprints (usually about 15 minutes per sprint) and I take a longer break about every hour or so. Iām a bit of a nerd when it comes to measuring performance, so I keep a spreadsheet of daily output, as well as my average speed. I try to keep that rate above 2000 words per hour. If that sounds impossible, believe me, I used to think it was too! I recommend Chris Foxās 5000 Words Per Hour and Rachel Aaronās 2K to 10K if youāre interested in increasing your writing speed.
I also used to think that fast writing = trash writing, but what Iāve found is that writing at speed keeps me in the flow state, attuned to my writing and nothing but my writing. I leave editing for afterwards, once Iāve dredged the story out of my unconscious. Some people find that it works best to write slowly and very cleanly, but if I did that, I would hardly get anything finished. Find what works for you!
8. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice as you started out on the path to becoming an author, what would it be?
Build your writing habit sooner! One of the hardest things for any aspiring author is learning to put the work in, day after day, without external reward. But once we learn to see the work itself as its own reward, once we harness the discipline to write as a habit, then everything else starts to fall into place.
9. Last but not least: where can we find you? Drop those links!
The best place to find me is nathantudor.com! Thatās where you can get your free copy of Adept Initiate, the prequel to my series. I also blog there occasionally, so if youāre interested in more rambling, half-insane thoughts like those above, thatās your best bet!
On social media, you can find me on Twitter @NathTudorBooks. I also have a Facebook page, facebook.com/nathantudorauthor. You can also find me on Goodreads!
I had to share this because I am so so honoured that my book, The Resurgence of Light, was picked as the Best Read of May by @magicbookcorner 
Thank you so so much!! 
May Wrap-up
who posted about her way of keeping track of her read books.
