Welcome to Inside the Mind where we here at The Faerie Review interview authors and creators.
Our guest today is Ken La Salle, you can check out some of my reviews below, and don’t forget to check out all his amazing books!
Lily: Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview Ken, I’ve enjoyed a few of your books, and I’m looking forward to poking around in your mind. Who do you most want to read your books? Do you have different ideal audiences for your different series?
Ken: Thanks for the opportunity, Lily. I actually don’t think about who I’m writing for. For me, writing is like breathing; I have to do it. I just have this odd tendency of needing to write in long form. Also, my books don’t sell very well, which has turned out to be liberating, allowing me flexibility I might not otherwise have had.
If I were to consider an actual answer, however, I would say that I would like my books to be read by people who want just a little more below the surface than, perhaps, the mainstream novel. My characters may be seen on the surface as losers or broken or lost, but those are outward expressions, I assure you. If they’re losers, they are losers for a cause, folks who would stand up for a kid who wants to make a mistake because it’s meaningful to them even if it is hard to understand, such as in my Work of Art series. If they’re broken, like Matt Murphy in the Heaven Series, they’re broken by something they don’t understand, like love, and find redemption and their second chance by facing that break. And those who are lost often find their way to magic or they sometimes fly a Barracuda into space, or maybe that’s just a convenient plug for my series, The Breakthrough.
My point is that I write looking for answers and I hope my writing brings some sense of an answer to something like feeling lost or broken or even like a loser. Even if I can’t provide a definitive answer, I can share that search. I suppose I’m looking for my fellow searchers.
Lily: I thought Matt’s journey was absolutely fascinating, and beautiful. He feels very real, and part of that is how he’s been broken and tries to put himself back together. Out of all your characters, which was the easiest to write? The hardest? What book/series are they from?
Ken: I think the characters who are the most fun to write are the most audacious. Babette from the Heaven series was effervescent at a time when Heaven Enough needed a jolt. I didn’t expect him to come along; I just knew Matt Murphy was stepping into a gas station, exhausted. Then, Babette snuck out of the refrigerator or something… and I remember his voice was the voice of my best friend, Tim, who I have lost. And that made Babette a breath of fresh air, just in time for Matt to lose everything.
My most difficult character is actually two because it comes from a scene in a book called Little Mike. Little Mike is a very dark comedy about a doll named Little Mike, who comes to life in the quarters of a terrible, little man named Darocy. Darocy lives in the remnants of one of those giant Amazon warehouses you find around the American southwest, that has been divided into small cells where the most impoverished live in a rather dystopian version of next week. And the thing about the world Little Mike finds himself in is that it is horrible. And, in order to give the reader some idea of how horrible this world is, there needed to be a scene in which some horrible thing occurs and, in my book, that thing is a subversion of art, a cheapening of humanity. I didn’t much care for writing that at all.
Lily: Babette was an amazing, character, and I’ll definitely have to add Little Mike to my TBR. Do you write listening to music? If so, what music inspired or accompanied each series? Or do you prefer quiet or some other noise?
Ken: I think the brilliant thing about having taken part in this activity of writing for now over 40 years is that so much changes in that time. When I started, I needed the most exact of silences. I had to think! After you find your voice, however, or after I found mine, I never required silence. If anything, I had to silence the characters. Now, as I write this, I am listening to meditative binaural beats, which might sound odd but it’s also 11:12pm and as a lifetime insomniac, let’s just say the “writing lifestyle” fits.
Lily: Sounds like a good relaxing way to make insomnia more productive. As you can probably guess, I’m often reading when I can’t sleep. On average, how long does it take you to write your first draft of a book?
Ken: That’s a rather difficult question to answer exactly and I’ll tell you why. From the day I begin typing, my first drafts are usually written in 6-8 weeks. This is not, however, when I begin writing my book. No, the writing process begins on long walks, and I walk a lot, during which time I work on the book, rolling it around in my mind. Over and over, I question every motivation, analyze the staging, consider the characters, tactics, tone, timbre, cadence, camber – the whole bit. I don’t write a word until I know exactly what happens in the book, when, where, and by whom.
However, to complicate things, I will acknowledge that I intentionally write a bad first draft so that my book isn’t really done until after about two or more rewrites. I intentionally write a bad first draft because I want to allow myself to make all the mistakes I can: good, bad, and just really, I mean, seriously… I try to allow myself to be surprised. This is why I try to leave the question of “why” alone until I’m writing, because whys are where the surprise lays.
But, yeah. About 8 weeks.
Lily: That’s actually pretty awesome, and I like how your process flows from mind to paper, and I think allowing yourself to make a bunch of mistakes in draft one is important, especially for new writers who want to be perfect. Now we’d like to talk about you as a writer. What aspects of your creative process do you enjoy most? Which are most challenging?
Ken: When it comes to writing, I love dialogue. I come from the theater and love good repartee. Most everything I write begins with dialogue and the story builds from there. I love seeing those pivotal moments or, even better, seeing that moment and then, writing it only to be utterly surprised by something I never expected. Oftentimes, hiking in the countryside, I’ll run entire scenes through my head and, sometimes, out loud, which is why open countryside is nice. The older I get, the more I love the process.
The most challenging thing about being an author is that it is very insular and can tend to be isolating or, at least, that’s how it has happened with me. I spend a lot of time writing and, art being as magnetic as it is, have to commit to stepping away now and then; being able to create as much art as you like can be both a blessing and a curse. So, maintaining some semblance of a normal life can be a challenge.
I’m incredibly fortunate, however, and you can leave this paragraph out if you like, but I have just about the best partner a guy could imagine as a writer, my lovely wife, Vicky. She’s my CFO but she’s so much more. I think anyone caring, thoughtful, and perhaps a little uninformed enough to marry an artist deserves an award.
Lily: That’s wonderful, and I’m so glad you have a supportive wife cheering you on the whole way. How much ‘world building’ takes place before you start writing?
Ken: As I mentioned, I do a lot of writing long before I sit down but when it comes to world building, I think it depends on the work.
When I wrote Heaven Enough, I was steeped in Pacific Crest Trail culture. I was ready to hike the trail and had already hiked on it many times. (I’m fortunate to be relatively close.) Because the story was a romance, and I had long said I would never write a romantic novel, I actually pitched the novel to my wife to make sure the idea was solid. When it came to The Breakthrough series, I needed to understand all of the working parts, how the magic fit with the science and how the political commentary blended with the absurd, comic action, and so on. There are nine books planned for that series and I knew I wanted to have a solid footing before I began.
That said, there are books that I never want to know too much about going in. My Work of Art series is like this. Because the series is about artists, volatile people such as we are, I didn’t want anything too planned. I set a series of points along a road, looked for surprises hiding along the way – implications, impossibilities, etc. – and found many! Not only can you know too much too soon, which changes your response just as it would change a performance, I like to use that to my advantage when I’m able.
Lily: The juxtaposition between the series and how you approached them is fascinating. Did you ever consider writing under a pseudonym? Or if you already do, what’s one you considered but decided against using?
Ken: I doubt I have the same relationship with my name that most people have. My last name has always been somewhat in doubt; no one in my family even spells it the same. Somewhere, my birth name became less meaningful than La Salle. Using it was like second nature.
Lily: Makes perfect sense! Let’s finish up with some fun questions and get inside your mind. You can transport one furious elephant into any point in history, when and where would you put it?
Ken: Assuming I can’t tie a note to its tail or in some way pass a message along with the elephant – trust me the answer is significantly shorter this way – I’d sent it to wherever a herd of mice was terrorizing elephants somewhere. (At least, that’s what old cartoons have led me to believe.) I’m just egalitarian like that.
Lily: I love that answer, certainly not one I was expecting. When was the last time you tried something new? What was it? Was it fun/did you enjoy it? Would you try it again?
Ken: So, long story here. I just went through a couple of difficult years with regards to my health. I got covid, followed by long covid, followed by some serious spinal surgery. At the beginning of this year, I was starting anew in a lot of ways, not least of which the new hardware in my spine, which worked out great but I hope never to try again. I looked for a way to really grow from this experience and, as I would be walking an awful lot in recovery, I decided to become as musically agnostic as I could.
How? With my Apple Music account, I started listening to all of the hit music from pop and rock and country and anything they had hit music for over the years. That’s about four playlists, 1-3 hours each, for each year and when you’re walking a lot that can fly by. I took a hike a couple of days about with Pop Hits of 1979. I kinda love the education. There’s been some terrible music over the decades but most of it has been wonderful and, though I figure it’ll be a few more months before I even get to the 21st century, at which point I don’t know what I’ll listen to.
Suggestions?
Lily: I tend to listen to a wide range of music, but off the top of my head, Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” song is a favorite of mine, looking at more modern songs, I’m Gonna Show You Crazy by Bebe Rexha is another favorite of mine. Would you rather be able to slow down time by 10% or jump three times as high as you can now?
Ken: Are you kidding? I’m an aging man desperately in love with his slightly aging wife, and this might sound silly but as I near 60 there’s nothing I would love more than to slow time by any percentage. And (here comes the sappy part) spend it with Vicky. Besides, I can already jump three times as high as I can now. It’s called a nuclear pogo stick. What? You don’t have one?
Lily: I think if I had a nuclear pogo stick I’d probably need my hip replaced sooner rather than later knowing my propensity for falling. I love the idea of slowing down time to get more of it with loved ones, though! If you were trapped in a room for a week, and the walls ceiling and floor were painted one color, what would the best and worst color for the room to be?
Ken: If everything could be colored like a really good flavor of Ben & Jerry’s, if it could look like Cherry Garcia I think I’d be happy. I’m not really a color guy but there’s a real reason why I had to quit ice cream.
Can I tell you a story about color since I’m terrible with color? This is one of those “what’s your biggest weakness” stories and it is that I don’t really care all that much about color. Since everything with me begins with dialogue, as it pertains to writing I mean, my process begins with the words the characters speak, works back to the characters themselves and then, only at the tail end, do I consider the world around them, or what they’re wearing, or things like color. I actually plan that in my writing, recognizing that it’s not a strength, and schedule in what I call the “Color Rewrite,” which is where I write all the color I might have forgotten.
Lily: I actually love that! Would you want to live in a world where everyone’s thoughts appeared as text above their head?
Ken: Want to or not, that’s the world we live in.
Lily: You’re not wrong, lol. What’s the longest rabbit hole you’ve been down?
Ken: There’s this house in Costa Mesa with a hole that goes all the way to Bointon, Nevada but they kicked the rabbit out so I don’t know if that counts.
Lily: OK, I need to stop laughing long enough to explain to my husband while I’m laughing and trying to type at the same time. 10/10 answer. Is there anything else you would like to add that I haven’t included?
Ken: This year, I released my third autobiographical monologue, Cambria. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done and I have no doubt people will love it but, sadly, did not sell nearly as well as my last monologue. It’s available to stream or download. The price is great and it’s the length of a good-sized film; If you like my work, I encourage you to pick it up. If you are a reviewer, I’d love to get a copy out to you for review.
Lily: How can readers discover more about you and your work?
Ken: That’s always the tricky part, isn’t it? I don’t actually know if you’re expecting an answer on this but, as an independent author, that’s the seemingly insurmountable wall. Readers, you and I, see ads for books all the time in one form or another and the sad truth is that those are bought with money, which is a resource independent authors don’t often sup from. Consequently, though I absolutely love engaging with readers and hearing their thoughts, I fly a bit low under the radar. That said, I’m very active on social media. Listeners have enjoyed me on podcasts and I always enjoy doing those. I will stand on my head for a guest post and I always spellcheck my interview responses, mostly, and, in 2025, I’m hoping to find my way into more shows and conventions.
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Lily’s Reviews
Heaven Enough | Heaven Denied | Heaven for Now | Max Dedge
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