Your real name
and pen name?
Seth Mullins (no pen name)
Please share
some of the best memories of your childhood
I grew up
literally a stone’s throw away from the beach in Milford, Connecticut. I spent
most of my spare time, in my youth, down by the waters. Because of the shifting
tides, it’s like you keep going back to the same place but each time it’s a
somewhat different landscape. I’d hunt for little fish left behind in the
little tidal pools, run across the rocks, take the trail out to Charles’ Island
at low tide, take a rowboat out to sea, etc.
About your
education
I never went
on to formal college, but I took creative writing courses at two community
colleges, in Santa Fe, NM. and Eugene, OR.
What career
did you plan during your education days
I always
wanted to be a novelist, though for several years the allure of being a
musician and songwriter wielded an equally strong pull.
What languages
you can speak and write?
Primarily just
English. I’ve taught myself a smattering of French, mostly so I could read
Rimbaud in the original, and learned enough Spanish to get by when I worked in
restaurants in New Mexico.
What is your
biggest source of inspiration in life
Love of the
human race, and belief in us and our potential. Without that, why write?
What hurts you
most in this world
People being
cruel to others, particularly for no reason (and what valid reason IS there,
ever?)
What is the
biggest challenge you have faced? How did you overcome it?
Psychologists
talk about the three possible responses to trauma and/or fear: Fight, flight or
freeze. This is a simplified model, but I do think it holds some truth. I was
always a “freezer”, which can create a real conundrum for someone who has the
intense desire to make art and be expressive. I worked past it by breathing
through the fear and refusing to let it still my creative voice. It was a
journey of many small steps. It also, incidentally, inspired me to write my
current novels from the point of view of a protagonist whose default position
is “fight”.
If you had to
live a day of your life as one of the living or dead personality, who would it be and why?
One of the “live fast, die young” musicians: Jimi Hendrix,
Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain… I’d like to experience life at that
speed; also, the intensity of expression. I’ll go with Morrison, because I feel
a closer philosophical resonance with him.
When did you
start writing? What is the purpose of your writing?
I wrote my
first novel at fifteen – tenth grade – not that it was anything remotely
publishable! J It was very Tolkienesque; and like
Tolkien, I created an imagined world for it and set another two novels within
that world. I was excited by the way in which fantasies can illuminate our
inner reality. Somewhere along the line, this dovetailed with my burgeoning
interest in metaphysics, shamanism, dreams… I began to realize that all the
magic within any fantasy story actually infuses the world that exists all
around us. That became a new kind of aesthetic ideal for me in my writing, to
pierce the veil and reveal that underlying magic, so that the stories pull it
into a reader’s awareness.
Which of your
work has been published so far? Would you like to share
a synopsis of
your work?
This is a
synopsis of “What Casts the Shadow?” (without spoilers):
When an altercation outside of a performance venue nearly
proves fatal, Brandon Chane begins to realize how far his life is spinning out
of control. His efforts to channel his pain, frustration and thwarted loves
into his music may not suffice to save him. Then he meets Saul, a crisis
counselor with the soul of an ancient medicine-man, and a far-reaching journey
of healing - one that may teach him how to steer away from the very edge of the
Abyss - begins.
And for its follow-up, “Trust in the Unseen”:
"We'd all thrown our fates to the wind, trusting in
the unknown - in the Unseen, as our EP so proudly proclaimed - and that leap
had thus far landed us in a place where we couldn't even grope our way forward
in the dark anymore."
Brandon Chane was beginning to realize that discovering
his voice was only the first step of the journey. Now he must somehow learn to
trust the depths from which it comes, and the unknown horizons that it may
sweep him away to, even as every part of his personal world seems to be falling
apart...
And here is an
overview of The Edge of the Known trilogy, of which they are a part:
The Edge of
the Known spans about six years in the life of what will become the most
powerful and influential rock band of its generation. It follows a young man’s
discovery of his own voice and the way in which his voice resonates with the
world around him to an extent that he never dared to dream. It explores the
journey of a group of misfits – and the ways in which the perceptions of an
outsider can become a gift to society. It is a paean to the shamanic power of
art. We witness the internal and the external forces that fuel this band's turbulent
rise to glory.
As Brandon
Chane's spiritual mentor Saul Mason puts it, “You were born into the particular
time and place where your voice would be needed.”
Saul works as
a counselor to people in crisis. Beneath his professional role, however, he’s
really more akin to a mystic thinker and an intuitive healer. He endeavors to
show Brandon how his life is his own creation – that, because he has made for
himself a life full of suffering he therefore also has the power to choose a
new path. Brandon, in turn, is able to absorb and digest Saul’s teachings - which oftentimes can veer off into the
realm of the esoteric – and reflect them in his own way, in a kind of street
vernacular that his audience can relate to. This is one reason why his band
becomes a creative force that fans so readily take to heart and honor as
something rare and special.
Saul’s
tutelage begins to alter the trajectory not only of Brandon’s personal life but
also of his group’s destiny. In time, Edge of the Known evolves into one of
those rare bands that come along maybe a handful of times in any generation: A
band that inspires a powerful, even sacred rapport with its audience. The
energy and message that they convey – to all those with the ears to hear –
eventually sparks a cultural revolution.
What are your
forthcoming writings?
I’m in the
midst of writing the last book in this series: “Humanity’s Way Forward”.
What are your
future plans?
This saga has
occupied so much of my whole being; at the moment, it’s hard to conceive of my life
when I’m not working on it. And yet that time is drawing near. I’ll probably
spend some time writing related content, and utilizing it for promotion, before
turning my thoughts to another fiction project.
What four top
most things you take care of while writing a book?
(1) For this
book particularly, getting the narrator’s voice right was crucial. I read a lot
of the text aloud while working through it, listening for natural cadences. (2)
It’s important to me that the story reach some emotional culmination. The
climax should be as much internal as external. (3) Character interactions
should feel real. I dislike overly-polished Hollywood-style dialogue. People
just don’t articulate their thoughts in a neat, linear and orderly manner every
time. There’s inevitably stumbling and backtracking. (4) The resolution should
constitute not only an unravelling of the plot but also, in some way, a victory
of the human spirit, an expansion of the very forces of life; a change in the
consciousness of the characters.
How much real
life goes into fiction writing?
Well,
everything that is written has been experienced on some level. It’s all
filtered through an author’s consciousness, whether it was encountered
firsthand, researched, heard about or imagined. Even an imagined event is still
an event; it carries sensation. But I do think that when readers try and draw
direct correlations between fictional characters and real-life people this just
seeps the magic out of a story. Fiction is much wider and deeper than what it
(supposedly) refers to.
Is high level
of imagination important to have for an Author?
Yes. But the
imagination is a vast faculty and everyone will focus it in a unique way. I’ve
heard it said that George Lucas, for example, has a very visual imagination. It doesn’t manifest that way for me. I can envision
the mood of a scene, or the emotional
pith of certain character interactions, really clearly. Often I’ll have to
struggle to see the details of a room, though. In that regard, I don’t have as
sharp and clear a mental lens as I’d like and so visualizing such a scene
requires more effort.
Your dream
destination on Earth?
The Egyptian pyramids, the Irish moors, the mountains of
Peru, a cruise down the Amazon, New Zealand…
Your origin of
birth and other countries you have visited/ stayed.
I was born in
Milford, Connecticut. Sad to say, I have thus far only left the country to
visit Canada.
Your favorite
time of the day?
My psyche typically needs to ‘go down’ in the late
afternoon/early evening (around 3-5 p.m.) and peaks during the late night and
early morning hours.
Your zodiac/
sunsign?
Leo
Your favorite
color and why?
Violet. For its beauty and rarity.
Your favorite
movie and why?
The last movie I saw that really blew me away was “Powow
Highway”. It so beautifully depicts the invisible forces of life and the
unexpected (and fruitful) directions that they can sweep us away to.
Your favorite
celebrity and why?
After all this time, I’d still have to say John Lennon. He
was not only a brilliant visionary artist but also someone who put the
(oft-times regrettable) platform of fame to its best possible use, in service
to humanity and peace and love.
Your favorite
food?
Mulberries. Why can one not buy them in cartons at the grocery store, but
must rather be obliged to sneak into people’s yards and climb their trees in
quest of such delicious fruit?
What comes to
your mind when you think of India?
Mother Meera, Gandhi, sitars, Ravi Shankar,
mysticism. A country with feminine connotations, as America has masculine
ones.
Some quickies:
Sun or Moon, Laughter or Smile, Morning or Evening,
Coffee or Tea,
Mountain or Sea, Long Drive or Short Drive, Silence or
Conversation,
Water or Fire, Air or Earth, Mars or Jupiter, Tulip or
Rose, Red or
Blue, Left or Right, Glance or Stare
Smile,
Evening, Coffee, Silent Conversations, Earth, Jupiter, Tulip, Blue, Left,
Glance
What three
words come to your mind for each –
Technology (speed, fear, ease),
Life (light,
promise, garden),
God (judgment, father, rules),
Humanity
(becoming, striving, love),
Terrorism (fear, blind, misguided),
Racism ,
Childhood Abuse (sorrow, pang, grief),
Love (yellow, cotton, soothe),
Parenting
(grace, struggle, miracle),
Old age (ease, insouciance,
I-Made-It-This-Far-So-What-The-Hell-I-Got-To-Worry-About?)
State your
signature line/ tagline/ best quote
“To be a misfit in society obliges one to
search for some personally-resonant truth; and that truth, in turn, can become
a gift to society.”
The last line
of your autobiography would be…
What
made you interested your genre -
Twitter
handle: @SethMullins1
Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/WhatCaststheShadow
Goodreads
author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1189710.Seth_Mullins
Amazon link: amazon.com/author/sethmullins
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