Interview with Rowan Procter

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

I think I started saying I wanted to be a writer when I was about nine or ten. I didn’t really believe it until high school, when I joined my school’s writing conservatory. That’s when I really started writing a lot and realized how much fun it can be. 

Does writing run in your family?

Oh yeah. Both of my parents are writers. It only goes back the one generation, though--my dad talks a lot about how his parents tried to discourage him because they thought being a writer was a path straight to starvation. So far he’s doing just fine. Also, shoutout to my mom for helping me proofread Stephen’s Dragon! Thanks, Mom.

Where did you get the idea for this book?

When I was about twelve or thirteen, I was home sick for a day from school and I wrote a story about a witch named Candace and a warlock named Stephen. The first line (and Stephen’s name) came from a list of writing prompts from Gail Carson Levine’s excellent book Writing Magic. I wrote a few more stories from Candace’s point of view--one had a dragon named Cuddles--before losing interest. A few years later, I read a book that had a character doing the egg baby project. Then I had the thought, “What would happen if the egg hatched?” and I wrote the first few chapters of what would eventually become Stephen’s Dragon before getting stuck. In college I wanted to write a novel and I still liked the idea, so I dusted it off and reworked it, dragging it through at least two critique-based classes before it reached its final form. It turned into two books along the way--or possibly three, we’ll see. 

How long did it take you to write the book?

Over ten years! But that’s including all the time I spent working on other things instead. 

How did you meet your publisher?

It was the last week of fourth grade. I went to a very small private school, so if parents were thinking about sending their kid there, sometimes they’d have the kid visit for a day to check it out. This was one of those days--a girl named Casey was visiting our class because her parents wanted her to join us the next year. The teacher told us we should talk because we’d both done our fourth grade animal reports on snow leopards. When Casey joined the class the next year, we became best friends and got each other to read lots of books we probably shouldn’t have been reading at that age, like Skulduggery Pleasant and Black Butler. We’ve been best friends ever since.

Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

That depends what you mean by secrets. Do I hide complex ciphers with secret messages in the text? No. But there’s a scene where Stephen goes into the bathroom at Candace’s house and it’s ocean-themed, and that’s because someone else in my writing group had written a bit with their protagonist complaining about ocean-themed bathrooms and I thought it was funny. If you know me really well you might spot a few things. 

Do you want each book you write to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?

Both! Stephen’s Dragon will obviously have a sequel, but after that I have a few ideas for stories that take place in the same world but aren’t directly related. I’d like those to be able to stand on their own if you haven’t read Stephen’s Dragon. 

Why did you start writing for kids?

I can’t imagine writing anything else. I find kids’ books more interesting and fast-paced than most adult fiction I read. That’s a generalization, of course, and there are books for adults that I like, but my favorites overwhelmingly tend to be middle grade and young adult fiction. 

What’s your favorite book?

You’re asking me to pick one? I like too many books to do that. But my favorite series is probably the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy. It’s dark, hilarious, and fast paced, and it taught me how to write action scenes. Also, it’s what Casey and I bonded over, and I grew up with the main character in the same way a lot of people slightly older than me grew up with Harry Potter, where every year a book would come out and we’d still be the same age. I also love The Scarecrow and his Servant by Philip Pullman, and pretty much everything by Eva Ibbotsen and Neil Gaiman. 

Any teasers about the rest of the Herelands Chronicles?

The next book will most likely be called Candace’s Throne. Poor Candace. She’s in for a rough time. 

Any encouragement for someone trying to write a book?

You can’t edit a blank page. Also, don’t be afraid to change your setting in order to serve the story better. It’ll go where it wants and you can’t force it somewhere else.