One of our clients, Cearnach Grimm, recently published his book, Craving of the Sands.
“In this fantasy realm, the EyeStone is the latest in technology, allowing Wilhilm the Wizard to share his spells with the world. But when townspeople spontaneously combust and everyone has dark shadows pouring off their skin, Wilhilm and his companions must find out who created the EyeStone and why.”
We asked Cearnach a couple of questions about his novel and the process of launching a book.
Q: Craving of the Sands is the first novel set within the world of Runebreakers. How did you get started in creating the comic?
A: The process was very chaotic. There’s an old Seinfeld episode where Elaine is mistakenly called Suzie by a co-worker; she doesn’t immediate correct it, and soon she finds herself juggling those two identities to a degree that she needs to let Suzie die under dramatic circumstances, and it was a bit like that, without dying, of course. I’m writing novels for almost 20 years now, and they fill up my drawer. One day, I told myself I have to start publishing, do something with all of those drafts.
But there’s like 20,000 new novels every day, so I knew I had to establish social media first. When I had my profiles, I needed something to post. My day job keeps me busy for ten hours a day, so between that and writing, I didn’t want to do videos, because honestly, they’d only show me very, very tired and exhausted. So, instead, I started out writing small punch-line driven text segments. I posted them, and they garnered a lot of likes. So I got together with a couple of friends who draw, and they illustrated my jokes, and suddenly we had comics, first with very different, more generic fantasy heroes, but soon those four main characters – Mormak, Gadisa, Wilhilm and Dakaria – and it spiked very rapidly. After just a couple of months, we already had half a million views per week. Now we’re at something like a million, and we did more than 500 comic stories.
What were the biggest challenges in adapting a comic to long-form storytelling?
Writing a comic book is very different. It’s shorter, of course, and you need to provide artists with opportunity for action and striking visuals. For the novel, I had the opportunity to dive deeper into the characters, explore more of what makes them tick. Also, the story is longer, more ambitious, the pacing is a little different and for some scenes, when things get tight, I could play around with a more serious tone.
The Webtoon comic features the team of adventurers in turn as they travel the realm. What made you choose Wilhilm the Wizard as the main character for your first book?
It was either Wilhilm or Gadisa. All four of them have a secret they try to hide, but Wilhilm’s and Gadisa’s are most prominent throughout the series. In more than 500 episodes, we rarely see Wilhilm do any magic, and if he does, it rarely goes well, so of course there was the matter of why is he like that? What happened? Why can’t he do magic?
And on the other hand, there’s Gadisa. Gadisa is an odd humanoid big green creature with tubes connecting his back and his chest. During one of the longer comic book stories, the Runebreakers fight goblins, and they manage to disconnect those tubes, and that’s how readers learned, he can’t live without those tubes. His companions ended up saving his life by using a mysterious liquid they had collected when they met him, and in one panel we see Gadisa slowly turning into some kind of aquatic being. So, naturally, if ever we did this story, there are a lot of questions about who Gadisa really is, where he came from and what kind of artificer engineered his physique so he could move around on land. It all came together with the backstory, when Wilhilm’s backstory and the ending for his story connected naturally to Gadisa’s, so at that point, I knew, I would start with Wilhilm, then do Gadisa. That’s what I did. I’m working on Gadisa’s story now.
You worked with Rebecca closely on the manuscript--what did you learn about novel building that you'll bring to future projects?
Too many things to mention them all! But two things stand out. One is how to work with and develop character motivations in a more profound way, and the other is a better sense of pacing when it comes to balancing descriptions and actions.
Did you learn anything about yourself as a writer?
For one, my previous conviction was confirmed that I’m a very chaotic writer. I call my writing style “carving words”. And by that I mean, I start with a simple statement, like “The dwarven skeleton warrior enters the tavern and demands a beer.” I do a lot of those sentences. And when I feel like it, I take some of those sentences, and carve them into something more, build on them. I would describe the skeleton warrior, capture the mood of the tavern, perhaps a smell, until the rough skeleton of a story becomes more fleshed out.
At the same time, I have a second document, and that’s the plan for the novel. The plan usually comes first, and then constantly changes while I’m writing. People sometimes ask me if I’m a pantser or a plotter, and I don’t really think that either exists in pure form. Sometimes, I need to plot out, sometimes I need to explore the scene or a character. While working with Rebecca I learned to listen more to myself when I need the one, or when I need the other. Previously, I had those notions in my head, like most writers, acquired by well-meaning writer friends or workshops or trainings. Things like you have to do A before B. But when I tried to follow that advice, it only sometimes worked, and sometimes it got me stuck. Now I feel more comfortable just switching from one to the other, and on it goes.
Your social media strategy and online platform building is extremely savvy. What advice do you have for other authors?
I would advise them not to listen to me. As is my writing, my social media style is a bit of chaos. I have an idea, I do it, I see what happens. I would definitely advise others to have more consistency than I do. Try using current trends, but also do fun stuff. Having fun, liking what you do, is a key ingredient. Try not to take performance metrics as personal metrics. It doesn’t say anything about you or about how people like you when there’s a slow week, when you’re affected by an algorithm change.
Also, there’s a lot of hatred out there. I’m fortunate enough to have a dedicated group of really nice people cheering me on. But there’s a certain amount of hate, as there’s always, and many authors get discouraged by that. There’s constantly new trends for trolls. For instance, there’s this new group of AI trolls. They will comment on everything some authors or illustrators post with “That’s AI”. Two of my writer friends have stopped posting altogether because their art (which they’ve been doing by hand for years) attracted a couple of those trolls. But that’s just one example, trolls will discourage you with almost anything, and the most boring ones of those just outright keep insulting you. When you’re on social media professionally, you need to be able to detach yourself from that. I tried a lot of different strategies over the years. Nowadays, I just ignore them.
Where can readers follow you and get their copy of Craving of the Sands?
The e-book of CRAVING OF THE SANDS is out now, they can get it at bn.com, amazon.com, kobo.com, at Apple iBooks etc. The paperback will be out before Christmas, and it’s traditionally distributed, meaning, every bookstore can order it. They also can stock it, so if you happen to know a bookseller, feel free to encourage them to stock those beauties! I’m @cearnachgrimm on TikTok and Instagram and X, and @writercearnachgrimm on Facebook.
