89. K.X. SONG RETURNS! Ending a Mulan-inspired romantasy duology

This week on LiteraryHype Podcast, I'm thrilled to welcome K.X. Song back to chat. She's the author of a romantasy Mulan retelling, The Night Ends With Fire, and now she's back with the conclusion of this duology, The Dragon Wakes With Thunder.  We met up at San Diego Comic Con to talk all about this new book and what she's been up to over the last year.

Check out our previous conversation from episode 36 here.

Transcript

00;00;02;26 - 00;00;21;15
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie, your literary hype woman. And I'm thrilled to welcome back today's author interview guest KNX Song is the author of The Night and with Fire. And now we are getting the absolutely incredible conclusion to that do ology with the dragon wakes with thunder and check out how pretty the special edition is for the first run.

00;00;21;24 - 00;00;35;20
Speaker 1
I first met Kay last year at San Diego Comic-Con, and this year we got to do another interview about book two as well as be on a panel together, which was absolutely incredible. So without any further ado, here's my conversation with Kay Song about her Mulan retelling Doo ology.

00;00;40;22 - 00;00;41;13
Speaker 2
Welcome back to.

00;00;41;13 - 00;00;43;28
Speaker 3
Literary Hype for another time.

00;00;44;02 - 00;00;45;10
Speaker 4
So excited to be here.

00;00;45;22 - 00;01;03;00
Speaker 3
So you've got a new book that is the sequel. And I know part of the duality to the book we talked about last time, The Dragon. This one is the Dragon mixed with thunder and lightning with fire. So before we dove too far into it, what do people need to remember the most from the first book before they start reading the second book?

00;01;03;17 - 00;01;11;02
Speaker 4
A great question. I would say that book one is all about Merlin's Ascent to Power. It's a Mulan retelling.

00;01;11;08 - 00;01;15;20
Speaker 2
About a girl who is motivated by ambition rather than out of piety.

00;01;16;01 - 00;01;35;21
Speaker 4
And so book one is centering this very poor, power hungry girl who's desperate to obtain power. And by the end of the book, she has sort of gotten it maybe gets put away at last. Like in the book, too, is all about her sort of downward descent. Once you have power, how does it change you and how does it crop to you?

00;01;36;10 - 00;01;51;06
Speaker 3
We find her at the beginning of this book in a not so pleasant situation. So what was it like for you writing this book? It just had all this power. It did so well, and now this is kind of down in the dumps in a certain way.

00;01;51;17 - 00;02;16;09
Speaker 4
You know, what's so funny is that when you're writing these stories and you're immersing herself so deep in the characters, I think it actually affects your personality and your mood, too. And so I found that especially when Madeleine was in this place where she had lost all hope because the motivating foundation of what caused her to work so hard and has touched on the work ethic was ripped away from her like for the entirety of the one.

00;02;16;18 - 00;02;33;25
Speaker 4
She is motivated by this desire to go to battle and to finally earn the respect and the trust of the people that she really cares about and the community that she has always wanted to be part of. And so she worked so hard to save the kingdom in order to earn the trust of the people of these men.

00;02;34;08 - 00;03;02;20
Speaker 4
And by the end of the book, one spoiler alert she realizes that they will never get the power willingly and not to her is is earth shattering and so I think being in that headspace was really more of a darkness based for me. But it was also I wanted to infuse the story with a sense of hope and so I wanted to demonstrate that, you know, not everyone, even if the system in place exists in a certain way, people as individuals can still go against it.

00;03;03;01 - 00;03;16;05
Speaker 3
We touched on wanting to have a sense of hope. And one of the ways that hope comes through in this story is through the romance. But she's not even in a straightforward romance in that way either. It's a little bit about crafting the romance side of this romantically.

00;03;16;20 - 00;03;32;04
Speaker 4
I love this question. So I think love triangles get so much hate these days. But honestly, like so for me, I grew up in the early 2000s, and I feel like love triangles were a staple of why in the early 2000s. And so I kind of had to put one in that was mandatory for my first and as a series and I loved it.

00;03;32;04 - 00;04;04;20
Speaker 4
So much because it really gave me this external mechanism to explore Marilyn's shifting value framework and her shifting priorities to where one prince represents all the things that she's wanted all her life, like stability, safety, a feeling of home and belonging. And another prince represents the things that she has started to want very newly as she is, immerses unknown territory with risk and uncertainty and danger, but also the promise of something foreign and different and completely new to her.

00;04;04;29 - 00;04;26;18
Speaker 4
And so that push and pull, you can see it both internally and externally in the love interest and also there are some scenes that I just really wanted to put in there as like sort of cookies for the reader. Like my publicist was telling me yesterday, actually, there's one scene where the two love interest get into an argument that made turn, let's just say intense and spicy.

00;04;27;02 - 00;04;48;14
Speaker 4
It was it was really fun, right? Like I think all those little like sprinkling I think were things I had imagined for so where before. But when they were even written, I couldn't wait to get to these points in book two and sort of finally have these character revelations and me is like full circle moments felt so satisfying to me and like were some of my favorite scenes that I can't wait for readers again.

00;04;48;14 - 00;05;03;04
Speaker 3
How do you approach this book? One was very heavy on the action. Yeah. I mean, there's there's still there's still some action going on here, but this one has a little bit more of the romance focus. Yeah. So finding that balance between the two as ideology.

00;05;03;13 - 00;05;24;01
Speaker 4
What's so funny is it wasn't anything in intentional or deliberate, I would say. Like, I think it just naturally happens that when you know someone for a longer period of time, you're able to go into deeper romantic places versus in book one because they were just meeting for the first time. It just didn't make sense to have these longer romance scenes.

00;05;24;09 - 00;05;44;19
Speaker 4
And so I wasn't actually thinking in a very you know, I didn't have a lot of foresight into let me put this percentage of romance in book one and this percentage in back to it sort of just happened organically depending on the character relationship and how well they knew each other. And that being said, so I was able to has probably as much action as book one, if not more.

00;05;44;19 - 00;06;12;16
Speaker 4
It has a different kind of action, which surprisingly and in a beautiful way has resonated with also Western readers because I grew up watching Chinese dramas and an Asian dogs in general have so much political palace intrigue as just like a general trope of the genre. And so I'm very used to like backstabbing, like multiple, multiple concubine just like going at it and all conniving and scheming their way to like the throne.

00;06;13;04 - 00;06;32;13
Speaker 4
And I really wanted to put that intense political conflict and like core intrigue into book two but it made sense when they're in a pilot setting. But what I didn't really make sense, and surprisingly, a lot of Western readers have pointed out as like a part that they really enjoyed. And that to me meant a lot because I wasn't quite sure if it would resonate.

00;06;32;13 - 00;06;47;17
Speaker 4
I think that like conventional action of like, oh, like let me take a sword and like stop people with it makes sense in a fantasy but a lot of the core intrigue is something that's much more conventional in Chinese literature that I wanted to bring over into the Dragon.

00;06;47;18 - 00;06;52;02
Speaker 3
Except Thunder. Did you know how Book two was going to end while you were writing Book One?

00;06;52;11 - 00;07;21;01
Speaker 4
I really, really, really wish the answer was yes. I think unfortunately the answer was no. I didn't know the ending of Book two, though, prior to the release of Book One because I started writing book two. I think I don't remember the exact timeline, but it was around the first draft was probably done before I went on tour for that one, and I was really, really glad about that because I, I think the number one thing that readers will talk to me on the tour about would be How does it end?

00;07;21;16 - 00;07;36;21
Speaker 4
Who is the end game in terms of the love triangle? And as a chronic people pleaser, if I had not written books yet, I think I would have been very swayed by that and I would have a lot of pressure because I was already complete. There was nothing really that I could do in the story was already finalized.

00;07;36;21 - 00;07;37;04
Speaker 4
And it's like.

00;07;37;13 - 00;07;45;24
Speaker 3
In that for the last time when we talked about last year, you talked about the one being very difficult. Right? Was number two mean easier for you?

00;07;46;00 - 00;08;08;23
Speaker 4
Number two, it was easier and harder in different ways. It was easier in the sense I knew the world, I knew the characters. They felt like coming home. To be honest. It was harder in terms of I was in school, it was chaotic. Like this book was written on airplanes, train rides, bus stops, like between naps, or meetings after interview.

00;08;08;23 - 00;08;22;00
Speaker 4
So it was truly the most chaotic experience from like a personal side. That being said, I think because the characters were so ingrained in my head it was very easy to come back. Like I always just felt like I was like slipping back into another world as opposed to having to.

00;08;22;11 - 00;08;31;08
Speaker 3
Crawl my way in. Do you feel like Craig and Chaos helped shape the story, you know, or helped your creativity in that point?

00;08;32;07 - 00;08;55;06
Speaker 4
It might have, honestly. I think subconsciously probably I was influenced by what was happening in the world around us, and I also think that it provided a phenomenal escape. Like, that's one of the reasons why I craved writing a fantasy series. So much, because my first thought was realistic and I was very tired of research way of doing interviews with a bad time zone difference.

00;08;55;18 - 00;09;20;14
Speaker 4
And I was also sad about an ending that was out of my control and a sort of history that I had to stay true to what actually happened, or at least what happened according to my version of events and for the night insofar as I could do anything I wanted. And I could really imbue that sense of hope and justice that I couldn't get myself in the real world.

00;09;20;14 - 00;09;26;04
Speaker 4
And so in that sense, it was like this huge stress relief and this sort of balm to my soul.

00;09;26;14 - 00;09;34;19
Speaker 3
OK, we got to talk about the look of this book because that cover is so pretty and these great edges are so pretty, but also.

00;09;34;19 - 00;09;35;07
Speaker 4
Gorgeous.

00;09;35;13 - 00;09;36;26
Speaker 3
There's a little secret message.

00;09;37;18 - 00;09;42;18
Speaker 4
Tough little bit about what that means. Oh, on the cover up to you.

00;09;42;21 - 00;09;43;06
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00;09;43;11 - 00;10;15;13
Speaker 4
Oh, I love this question. So on the cover of Book one, there's a hidden quote inside that says Never Trust a Dragon, which is sort of like a foreshadowing for Book two and four. Spoke to the hidden quote, Inside is that dragon does not act alone. And one of my favorite, like surprises that I was really looking forward to showing readers is there are four mythological creatures in the Chinese elegy that I was pulling from.

00;10;15;22 - 00;10;45;13
Speaker 4
And it's the Tiger, the Phenix, the Dragon and the Tortoise. And I couldn't wait to see some more characters make an appearance in Book two. And I wanted to also demonstrate that these creatures are just agents of chaos, and they are not innately good or evil. And it's only within the scope of this one story and this one point in time where they might represent something good because they align with mainland's goals or something bad because they don't align.

00;10;45;21 - 00;11;17;19
Speaker 4
But that doesn't mean that other points in history, they didn't serve other purposes. And so that's why the epigraphs really come into play where I want to demonstrate that there are legends and folktales and stories from alternate periods in history where the dragon was actually seen as this hero who helped a country going through famine to be able to receive like crops again, or like another point in time where a character who should not be named was seen as a villain, even though in this one they might be seen as a hero.

00;11;17;19 - 00;11;25;12
Speaker 4
And so in that sense, it's sort of playing with the idea of like, there are no heroes, there are no villains, it's all just whose perspective you're looking at.

00;11;25;16 - 00;11;29;01
Speaker 3
Did you read The Epigraphs as you were writing the chapters or go back and read them later?

00;11;29;15 - 00;11;45;16
Speaker 4
Great question. I think some of them were written during it where I was like, I really want to put in this quote, but it wouldn't make sense for me to say it. And so that's what I like to put on the side. And then some of them were written in retrospect when I had like some time to distance myself from the narrative.

00;11;45;25 - 00;12;05;18
Speaker 4
What's really funny and what's like one of my favorite writerly moments is when my mom read art and my mom is a huge fan of Chinese, like classical literature. And she asked me afterwards, she said, US, where did you get the epigraphs from? Like which Chinese classics are they from? And I said, Mom, you know.

00;12;05;18 - 00;12;07;22
Speaker 3
That dragons are real, right?

00;12;08;22 - 00;12;17;11
Speaker 4
Like, she actually believes that the quotes were from genuine Chinese, like classics. And I thought, OK, my job here is if I've convinced my mom that, you.

00;12;17;11 - 00;12;31;02
Speaker 3
Know, that's a win right there. Exactly. As Book one is very you can definitely tell me what references this kind of moves away from that a little bit. So what was it like for you moving away from the initial inspirational story?

00;12;31;10 - 00;13;00;24
Speaker 4
You know, it's funny, a lot of these things happened more subconsciously, so I wasn't quite thinking about it in an intentional way. That being said, I was surprised. I wanted to pay a watch to a lot of the different Mulan retellings that came before mine. And so I wanted to sprinkle in these carrots. If you're familiar with the different Mulan versions with like the Hot Springs scene, which is so iconic in the Disney version, and I think some feedback that I got was maybe people felt like it was too close to the versions that they had seen previously.

00;13;01;05 - 00;13;24;21
Speaker 4
And so that's what people, I think, who felt that the first one was too close. They liked the second one being, you know, this very original new story and to me, I don't know, I think receiving feedback is so interesting because these things that occur to me while I'm writing them, but I was thinking more so I was like, Oh, let me sprinkle in some carrots for people who would love to possible on versions.

00;13;24;26 - 00;13;31;20
Speaker 4
And then for this one, because past Mulan versions never went here, I kind of sprinkle in any there are no carrots to sprinkle, basically.

00;13;31;29 - 00;13;48;11
Speaker 3
So while I was getting ready for this, I was like, What has it been up to over the last year? And saw that you did a keynote speech for college on Don't Wait for Creativity to hit. So talk a little about that kind of concept and how that's affected your writing moving forward.

00;13;48;11 - 00;14;10;28
Speaker 4
Real creativity for me in the beginning of my writing, like there was whenever I had a moment of inspiration or when I saw something really interesting and immediately had that vision for the story. But as I become a more daily storyteller and have developed this writing practice, I realized that you can sit down feeling like no words will come.

00;14;11;10 - 00;14;29;11
Speaker 4
You can force yourself to put your hands on your keyboard or around your pen, and you can start writing and words will come, and maybe it'll take a while, and maybe at first it'll be a little thin trickle of water. But eventually I think as you develop that muscle, it's almost as if you're working out and your brain is huge.

00;14;29;11 - 00;15;02;16
Speaker 4
You know, OK, here's my writing time. Let me start letting those creative juices flow. And so I really tried to become more of a routine oriented person where my natural self is extremely chaotic. I've always been someone who's not been a morning person, kind of rolls out of bed in my first meeting, and now I've been trying to wake up early, you know, write every day, sort of immerse myself into the story as a way to start thinking through the minds of my characters, and especially since I'm writing a new project right now, the beginning is always the hardest part for me.

00;15;02;25 - 00;15;23;24
Speaker 4
And so that's been a really important reminder of, you know, you don't have to wait for creativity just write. It can be something where as you're going at it, as you're trusting the process and trusting your own progress, you know that you can eventually get there. And one thing that I mentioned in my keynote is it's almost like when you're driving.

00;15;24;03 - 00;15;43;12
Speaker 4
And I so I made the drive from L.A. to act up many, many times because of where my school was and in the dark, like you could only see a few feet ahead of you. But the ability to get from you know, one point a thousand miles away to point B only depends on those few people you can see.

00;15;43;12 - 00;16;01;26
Speaker 4
And so right now, I'm in the story and I don't know that I think, to be honest, I only know the range. And that's really scary. And at times when I stop myself and I grow insecure, I start tinkering with the outline or like putting it down and being like, oh, let me just wait for more of the story to solidify.

00;16;02;12 - 00;16;11;02
Speaker 4
But then I have to remind myself, like, you know, the next chapter or, you know, the next scene or you know, the next two lines, and that's good enough. And you can keep going from there.

00;16;11;09 - 00;16;22;10
Speaker 3
And in your speech, you talked about running as a way that helped you get through that create and break through passivity. How have you carried that forward into running all the miles to help you bring?

00;16;23;29 - 00;16;49;16
Speaker 4
I feel like I've chosen to activities that required a lot of stubbornness and almost like a dumb stubbornness in some ways, because I don't think running requires a lot of cleverness or like all you do or even skill, honestly, you're just like putting your two feet and plodding along and just going at it, going at it, going at it, and then eventually you get there.

00;16;50;03 - 00;17;05;15
Speaker 4
And I almost feel like a lot of novelists have a similar approach where you're just kind of doing it, doing it, doing it, and then one day you like and it's done and I'm sorry. And now this is like a very like people who are beginning writers probably feel like, Oh, I'll never be done, but actually you will get there at some point.

00;17;05;29 - 00;17;32;24
Speaker 4
It's just a question of when. Like, it's not if, but it's when, if you just keep going at it. And so I think running gave me that stubbornness and also that sort of like foolishness of being like, Oh, I can do this, even though it's going to be very long and painful and require a lot of endurance. And so I can apply that endurance that I've sort of trained my physical body in toward my mental routine of writing these very insanely long novels.

00;17;33;01 - 00;17;35;22
Speaker 3
You mentioned you're working on a new project, but can you tell us about that?

00;17;36;01 - 00;17;38;25
Speaker 4
I don't know if I can talk about it that much. Is it still that helplessness?

00;17;38;25 - 00;17;42;04
Speaker 3
Look away. You saw nothing. You heard nothing.

00;17;42;28 - 00;18;09;23
Speaker 4
I would say that the new project in high level terms is similar to the esthetics and the the feeling of the lines of fire in the sense that I wanted to imbue all that, like Star-Crossed romance and like the longing that aims like the really heightened states and the emotions of that. I answered fire series into a completely new world and new fantasy with new characters and new dynamics.

00;18;09;23 - 00;18;21;07
Speaker 4
I'm so excited. There's going to be another I'm sorry, another love triangle, but the dynamics are completely new, and it's sort of like this cat and mouse interaction that is making me, like, kicking my feet alone in.

00;18;21;18 - 00;18;26;28
Speaker 3
My room, you know? And the last question we always ask because this is literary hype, what books are you hyped about?

00;18;27;24 - 00;18;53;10
Speaker 4
Oh, so I love this question. I'm so hyped for Empire by Chloe Gong, which is coming out in November so that one looks so good. And I feel like science fiction is or dystopia is like kind of having a moment again, which I'm excited about. And I'm also excited to read Test Love by Gonzalez, which I have my public my other publicist is a really critical role.

00;18;53;10 - 00;18;57;07
Speaker 4
So she was telling me about it, and now I feel like I need to get into this new fandom.

00;18;57;16 - 00;19;00;18
Speaker 3
So I mean, it's a big fan, but there's, there's a lot.

00;19;01;17 - 00;19;03;27
Speaker 4
That's I got to start with Tough Love. Yeah, that's a.

00;19;04;15 - 00;19;09;11
Speaker 3
Good start into it. And then you decide if you want to devote your life to critical role forever.

00;19;09;22 - 00;19;11;09
Speaker 4
Because that is where you are right.

00;19;11;09 - 00;19;25;19
Speaker 3
Now. No, my friends are now. I could join us and I'm like, I don't have time to think it's fine. And we'll just you won't even notice you're spending all your time on the books without us getting on. OK, but thank you so much for hanging out with literary hype and seeing so much.

00;19;26;01 - 00;19;27;13
Speaker 4
Thank you so much for your question.

00;19;30;18 - 00;19;47;27
Speaker 1
Kay is so smart. I just every time I talk to her, I'm like, you are a genius and I am unworthy. But she is also super kind and I adore her and love talking to her. So if you want to get your hands on the Dragon Makes the Thunder or the first book, if you have not read the first book in the double, you need to read that first.

00;19;48;13 - 00;20;04;04
Speaker 1
And that is the night ends with fire. The links to do so are down in the description for you. So definitely check those out if you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the literary type podcast give us some stories and leave a review. Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.