A Book and A Dream: An author’s adventure in writing, reading, and being an epic fangirl

Diving Deeper into Ilbrea

June 01, 2020 Megan O'Russell Season 1 Episode 28
A Book and A Dream: An author’s adventure in writing, reading, and being an epic fangirl
Diving Deeper into Ilbrea
Show Notes Transcript

From tiny seeds, worlds grow. 

In this episode of A Book and A Dream, Megan O'Russell gives details of how Ilbrea came to be and what readers have to look forward to in this expansive world.

Haven't read any books from the world of Ilbrea? Follow this link to be taken to your favorite online bookstore to get your copy of Ember and Stone: https://books2read.com/EmberandStone

Want to see the "Wheel of Ilbrea"? Follow this link! https://www.meganorussell.com/wheel-of-ilbrea

Megan: [00:00:02] Maybe you don't cover what happens with illegitimate children in middle grade books normally. Anyway, that's a different story.

 

Announcer: [00:00:16] Welcome to A Book and A Dream with Megan O'Russell: An Author's Adventure in Writing, Reading and Being an Epic Fangirl.

 

Megan: [00:00:29] Hello, my name is Megan O'Russell, and welcome to Episode twenty-eight of A Book and A Dream. I am so excited to tell you more about Ilbrea and how the concept of Ilbrea came to be. Now, Ilbrea is the place that the Ena of Ilbrea series is set in, which is Wrath and Wing. Ember in Stone, Mountain and Ash, Ice and Sky, and the recent release of Feather and Flame. We also currently have preorder up for the first book in the Guilds of Ilbrea series, which is Inker and Crown. So as you can see, Ilbrea has already sort of become very expansive. But that's not how the series really began. So about like six years ago? I'm really bad with time. About six years ago I had this idea for this book I wanted to create. It was going to be a middle grade book about these map makers. I love travel. I love maps. I love all of it. Exploration, cartography. It's so fascinating to me. And so I wanted to write this series about this set of five kids, and they go off on epic adventures and they discover things and magic and there are boats and shipwrecks and it's all very exciting. And in creating this middle grade project, I made this fairly expansive little world. Like, there is a political system with the seven guilds. We know what they... How they treat women and women who aren't interested in getting married, what they do with unwanted children. Like, a lot of details that are not necessarily required for a middle grade novel, like maybe you don't cover what happens with illegitimate children and middle grade books normally. Anyway, that's a different story.

 

Megan: [00:02:16] So I wrote this book, and I finished the whole thing, went to go send it out and sort of found out that middle grade is, like, not a genre that you can just write in.

 

Megan: [00:02:28] There are various, specific rules and, like, a lot of different people blocking your path so that you, like, it's very exclusive and you have to do things this way. And there are these rules. And I'm not really big on rules, so I kind of shelved it. It was very disappointing, because I loved those characters and I loved that world. But I put to the side because I had other books to be getting on with, you know, like The Tethering series and the Girl of Glass series and Bryant Adams and lots of things to do. Eventually, I kind of wanted to go back and revisit Ilbrea because I did love the characters of that book so much. And I looked at and I was like, OK, well, I could rewrite the mapmaker's book as a YA book, I write in YA. It's what I do. Cool. And I went back to look at the world and I sort of realized that there was too much to do just a book about the mapmakers. There's so much with politics and kings and queens and soldiers and sorcerers and so many moving bits and pieces. I really needed to start off bigger. So I decided to take the kids who were in the mapmaker's book, revisit them when they have come of age.

 

Megan: [00:03:45] So they're 17, 18, 19 and write the book that is Inker and Crown. So it is with all of them.

 

Megan: [00:03:54] They have gone about their various lives. They've joined the different Guilds. They're all living in this world as adults, quasi-adults, new adults, and figuring out how to survive under the Guilds.

 

Megan: [00:04:07] Cool. Love that.

 

Megan: [00:04:10] But in writing that and in placing them instead of all in their little mapmaker bubble, we have a sailor, a soldier, two mapmakers, [and] a scribe all within that same grouping. I saw that there was even more of a story that needed to be told, that couldn't be told, even in that one series, and I think a lot of that has to do with me spending so much time as a musical theater actor and spending a lot of time in musical theater ensembles.

 

Megan: [00:04:38] So if you've never been in the ensemble of a musical theater show, sometimes you like play one character the whole time. Like if you're in Fiddler on the Roof, let's say you're really like your townsperson the whole time, and then you're like in the wedding and then you're...you're not the wedding--the nightmare. You're in the nightmare. And it's "Ah" you're like a scary version of yourself. And then you go back to being you for the show. So you have like a continuous through line. A lot of other shows, you are different people at different times and you're interacting with the same primary characters, but from a different point of view.

 

Megan: [00:05:11] So let's take, you know, the most popular musical of the moment, Hamilton. Let's say you're in the ensemble of Hamilton. You're playing a lot of different things. Two of the biggest perspective shifts that you can look at is you would be a British shoulder and an American soldier. Now, depending on which kind of soldier you are at the time, your opinion of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton is going to be real different. So it's that sort of thing that I've done for my entire professional acting career of "wait, who... Who are you to me now? Are you the villain? Are you the good guy or are you the bad guy? Do I hate you? Where is that? What is your perspective on this?" And it sort of teaches you that, yeah, there are some people who are, like, unequivocally bad in this world. But a lot of what we see as villain, as hero, as a remarkable success or a horrible defeat, comes from our position on the outskirts or where we're diving into the situation from.

 

Megan: [00:06:13] So I decided to expand Ilbrea a bit more. And in looking at how I wanted to do that, I realized that Ena's story needed to be told first because Ena of Ilbrea is a common-born orphan. She has nothing. She is not fond of the Guilds. And if I'm going to build this world, it needs to start with her. It needs to start with the person who has no privilege, no real chance at living this glorious life.

 

Megan: [00:06:50] Like, she's stuck. The guilds are always gonna be horrible to her. And so to build on it from there became what I really wanted to do. So I decided that, and this is where some author friends are gonna be like, "You've lost your mind, and you're gonna drive yourself crazy." You're probably right. But that's okay. I decided that I wanted to write seven different series in the world of Ilbrea. All the series are going to be separate. You could read one. Never read any of the other ones. You could read them all in different orders, whatever you want. Seven separate series happening in this same Ilbrean world to see everything from a different point of view. Now the Inker and Crown, Guilds of Ilbrea series is sort of the center pillar. It is the one that has the intersections of all the guilds. So the other series are all going to be focusing on smaller aspects of Ilbrea and the Guilds of Ilbrea series is sort of the pillar that goes along the middle or a better visual would be a wagon wheel.

 

Megan: [00:07:56] So, here is our Wagon Wheel. Now, if you are listening to the podcast version of this, there is a link with the show notes that will show you this image. (https://www.meganorussell.com/wheel-of-ilbrea) So the Guilds of Ilbrea series is at the center. It is where we deal with kings and queens and those big chunky players and, you know, revolutions that you can't really avoid.

 

Megan: [00:08:18] They live in the center of the wagon wheel. Then we have the Ena of Ilbrea series. We have the sorcerers of Ilbrea series then map makers of Ilbrea series because I am going to give them their young adult version where illegitimate children are less inappropriate for the readers. Then there's going to be the soldiers, the [sailors] and the flames of Ilbrea, and they all feed into the center. Now, like I said, you don't have to have read all of the books. You can read Inker and Crown without reading Ena of Ilbrea. You can read Ena of Ilbrea and never read Inker and Crown. They all go in different places. They are all separate stories. Some of them won't even be heard of in Inker and Crown. And that's fine. It all goes different places. But I wanted to create this expansive world where there is so much to be explored that if you wanted to, like, deep dive into Ilbrea, you would know so much about this world. By the time you're done, you would know how everything works, how the people live. You would know the stories of the soldiers that are taken from their homes when they're teenagers to be conscripted by the Ilbrean army, whether they like it or not. You would know the stories of people who flocked to become soldiers because they wanted that place of honor. And that's what I wanted to create.

 

[00:09:34] And yeah, it's a little weird that I thought I was going to pack all of that into a middle grade. That was not realistic of me. But you know what?

 

[00:09:43] I am so thrilled that I wrote [the] Map Makers series and that it didn't quite work out because it created this world that I get to play in, and I am so beyond thrilled to share all of Ilbrea with you. So if you haven't checked out the Ena of Ilbrea series, the entire thing is released. Now you can download Wrath and Wing, which is the optional prequel. You don't really have to start there. You can start with Book one, Ember and Stone, if you like. They're all available at every major e-book retailer. You can also order paperbacks on Amazon or Barnes Noble or from your local bookstore. If you want to buy local, and oh, look at that. I have a paperback of Wrath and Wing right here. That's so convenient. So check it out. And I am so excited to talk to you all again next time.

 

Megan: [00:10:35] Thank you for joining me on my epic Ilbrean series. It is... It's going to be a lot of books. It's going to be so many books, and I am so excited to dive even deeper into this world.

 

Megan: [00:10:49] Thank you so much for joining me. And I will see you next time.