The Person Behind The Pen: Amanda Fleet

If you enjoy contemporary urban fantasy, check out Amanda Fleet and The Guardians of The Realm series.

Like many authors, Amanda Fleet has always been writing, but she didn’t write her first novel until 2007.

“It’s a medical thriller and will almost certainly never be published!” she explained.

Before she dived into fantasy, she wrote and published a crime novel and a psychological thriller. In 2016, she was one of the “Crime in the Spotlight” authors at the Bloody Scotland crime writers’ festival. She had a spot at the festival reading from her first published novel, ahead of M.C. Beaton’s show. Only twelve new authors were awarded these slots, so it was quite an honour.

Her first contemporary fantasy series is called The Guardians of The Realm and she’s been writing it on and off since 2014. The first three books are published and the fourth is due out in Spring 2021.

The series follows a woman in her early twenties – Reagan Bennett. At the start of the first book – “Aegyir Rises” – Reagan and her long-term partner Finn are fretting about the fact that Reagan’s adopted step-brother is about to be released from prison, having finished his sentence for assault on Reagan. They are both convinced he will come for her again to seek revenge. Unbeknownst to them, something else, something much worse, is about to be released, and it also wants Reagan dead.

Soon, the area where they live appears to be the epicentre of a flu outbreak, except no one tests positive for any virus known to man, and the death rate is 100%. There’s a serial killer on the loose too. Bodies keep appearing in secluded areas, but with no obvious cause of death.

Meanwhile, Reagan is being plagued by dreams of a different world. Ones where she’s a warrior called Aeron. and where a woman keeps urging her to come home because it’s the demon Aegyir who is killing everyone. In the dreams, she’s sentenced to hang for being a traitor.

Aegyir is no dream. He is very real. And he believes Reagan is his old enemy Aeron – the woman he’d sworn to destroy.

Reagan needs to figure out who Aegyir is, before he slaughters everyone she loves. And to do that, she needs to figure out who she really is.

Amanda sat down with me and answered these questions as part of her author interview. Check them out and get to know her better, then check out the links below to follow her on social media or get her books!

Are you a full-time author? If so, what did you do before you became a full-time author? If not, what do you do for a living in addition to writing?
I have writing as my only ‘job’ (it doesn’t pay like a job!) but I’m not doing it 40-hours a week. I have some caring responsibilities with my parents that take some of my time, plus I find it hard to write for 7+hours a day. I left a well-paid job as a university lecturer in 2015, after teaching physiology to medical undergraduates for ~20 years. It may have been a well-paid job, but it was also slowly killing me, literally. I had a serious heart condition which was made worse by work-stress, and ended up having heart-surgery to fix it. I haven’t looked back since leaving.

Are you a pantser, plotter, or plantser? Have you changed over time or have you always been that? And how does it work for you?
I’m predominantly a planner, now! I’ve written both ways, and the editing needed after pantsing a book is awful. The very first book I wrote was totally pantser and will probably never be published, it needs so much editing! The first two books of The Guardians of The Realm series were also largely unplanned and needed a huge amount of sorting out. I’m definitely much more of a planner now and it’s made both the writing and the editing a lot easier! I know some writers say that planning takes the fun out of the writing, but I plan enough to know the bare bones, but not so much there’s absolutely nothing to discover on the way. I do a lot of thinking and discovering long before I start writing, too.

What does an average day look like for you?
I don’t really have an average day, to be honest. Some days I go for a cycle or a run first thing before settling down to write/edit. Other days I’m having to do stuff for my parents. Some days are more marketing days while others are planning/editing/writing days.

Every author has their own unique method when it comes to writing. What is your routine when you sit down to write?
A pot of tea. I can’t function without a large mug of tea by my side! If I’m finding getting down to writing difficult (hello Twitter and Facebook!), then I switch my laptop to airplane mode and start a 30-minute sand-timer. After 30 minutes of focus, I’m usually “in the zone”.

What in your life helped to create your stylized vision for your character/world and how have things in your current life helped to further that stylized world/character?
I genuinely don’t know. I find a lot of inspiration from the natural world – the ruggedness of some parts of Scotland or northern England – and a lot of my locations have been based around that. In The Realm – the fictional world in the series – there is no money. The Realm is run almost like a giant commune – if you do a day’s work (whatever your role is, be it farmer, weaver, builder, healer, warrior etc.), you’re provided with food, shelter, clothes etc. I think my current feelings about capitalism and how it’s destroying the natural world, and the huge disparities between the rich and the poor in the world have shaped that stylised world of The Realm. There, no one is either rich or poor; all resources are pooled. Those who can’t work are looked after.

What would you say is the hardest part of the writing process for you, and how do you yourself, overcome it when creating a novel?
Sifting down the gazillion ideas I have into the book. This is why I need to be a planner. At the start of thinking about a book, I have so many ideas and some/many of them won’t end up in the book. Working out which are staying and which need to be cut is probably the most challenging in many ways.

Why do you write?
To entertain myself and to stop myself from going mad. I know it sounds cheesy, but the stories in my head just eat at my brain until I take the time to explore them fully and turn them into a book.

What advice would you give writers struggling with their own vision and worlds, characters and subjects on how to best go forth with their writing, instead of allowing the negativity of their own minds to keep them from doing something?
Try and get them to write down what they would tell their best friend, if they were beating themself up about their writing. You wouldn’t ever tell your best friend that what they were writing wasn’t worth doing, so why tell yourself that? Yes, it may need refining and editing, but their vision is no less worthy than someone else’s.

Have you ever pushed yourself to the point of burnout and how did you recover from it?
Not with writing exclusively, but yes, I hit burnout and almost had a breakdown before I left work in 2015. I’d already moved from full-time to 60% hours, to try and get a better work-life balance. Unfortunately, work didn’t really cut my work by 40%, so I ended up doing about 75-80% of my original job and trying to fit it into just 60% of the time. On top of that, I was being very seriously bullied by a colleague and this wasn’t being addressed at all, despite trying to get Human Resources involved. In November 2014, already suffering with an arrhythmia, I collapsed at work (mid-lecture! And I kid you not, it was on heart failure!). Occupational health said it would be months before I was back; my GP said he wanted to be writing me a sick-note rather than a death-certificate. That was when I realised just how ill I was. Twice, my heart had just stopped beating, and I realised work could actually kill me.

How did I recover? I was off sick from work for six and a half months, had heart-surgery to fix the arrhythmia, then I handed in my notice. It still took months of rest and self-care to recover. I’d say, all-in-all, work affected my health negatively for at least two years before I left and for a year afterwards.

What tip would give to a creative writing class?
Know your characters. Get to know them inside and out. Even the minor ones. It will make everything so much more real and engaging.

What genres do you enjoy reading? Who is your favorite author(s) in those genres?
I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump since the pandemic, but the genres I enjoy reading the most are crime, psychological thrillers and urban/contemporary fantasy, I suppose. In crime, I would say that Harry Bingham is my favourite writer, with Elly Griffiths and Chris Brookmyre in the mix too (they write enormously different books!). For psychological thrillers, I guess C.L. Taylor or Ruth Ware would be my go-to authors. In fantasy, I love Patrick Ness’s books, and Sarah Fine’s Guards of The Shadowlands will always have a special place in my heart!

Now for some fun questions.

What is your favorite cocktail?
Not sure it’s a well-known cocktail outside of the UK, but when I lived in London in my early twenties, my friend and I would always order a Long Vodka in a specific pub. This is a shot of vodka, a splash of lime cordial, a dash of Angostura’s bitters, topped up with lemonade. Failing that, a Long Island Iced Tea would never be turned down!

What is a food you’ve never tried, but want to?
I’m not sure there is one…

If you could sit down and visit with any person, past or present, who would it be and why?
Ooh, tough question! Possibly the Dalai Lama. I think he’d be enormously interesting to talk to and his perspective on the world is quite different from many.

If you could sit down and visit with any AUTHOR, past or present, who would it be and why?
Patrick Ness because I just love his work.

What would be your perfect vacation?
A combination of the Scottish islands but with good weather and no midges! The scenery is just glorious and the beaches on some of the islands look tropical. Sadly, the sea is the North Atlantic and chilly!

If you could pick ONE supernatural/paranormal creature that could be real, what would it be and why?
Dragons. Who wouldn’t want dragons to be real?

Marvel or DC?
Marvel

Star Wars or Star Trek?
Star Trek

Connect with Amanda Fleet

Website: https://www.amandafleet.co.uk/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/amandafleet

Newsletter Sign Up Link: http://eepurl.com/bPRByj

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmandaFleetWriter/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/amanda_fleet1

Book Bub: @AmandaFleet

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/amandafleet

The Guardians of The Realm series (urban fantasy):

Aegyir Rises: http://mybook.to/AegyirRises

Aeron Returns: http://mybook.to/AeronReturns

War: http://mybook.to/WarGoTR3

Lies That Poison (psychological thriller): http://mybook.to/LiesThatPoison

The Wrong Kind of Clouds (crime): http://mybook.to/TheWrongKindofClouds

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