Ilsa J. Bick Interview

We have talked to Ilsa J. Bick, author of the Ashes Trilogy.

Tell us a bit about The Ashes Trilogy?

Sure, you bet. The skinny: a wave of EMPs (electromagnetic pulses) sweeps the sky (and, maybe, the globe). In a heartbeat, everything with solid-state processors—computers, power grids, communications—just flat-out dies. Nuclear power plants go up; so do nuclear waste storage facilities. People drop dead right off the bat, notably those between the ages of about 25-65 (so the folks who might actually be able to fix things), leaving only the very young and the very old. Those in-between, the teenagers, are all “Changed” into people who make interesting life-style choices and become, therefore, not the ideal folks to meet in a dark alley.

ASHES follows Alex, who’s not only an orphan (both her parents died in a crash three years ago) but dying in her own right: she’s got a terminal brain tumor. At the beginning of the story, she’s left her aunt and gone off into the Waucamaw Wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on what might very well be a one-way trip. And then the world comes crashing down around her ears, and we go from there.

Monsters is the last book in the trilogy. How does it feel to have finished what I imagine must have been a journey both for you and your fans?

Actually, I wrote a whole blog entry, “Letting Go,” about this, and you can read it here. I also just did a PW podcast where they asked that question, too, and you can listen to that interview here.

But, in a nutshell, I’m both proud and pretty bummed. This story’s been a huge part of my life for nearly four years, and it’s been wonderful to watch these kids grow in ways that took me completely by surprise. I also did something I’ve always wanted to try, and that was to tell a very big, very complicated story: see it all the way through, juggle multiple plotlines and POVs, that kind of thing. I think I’ve pretty much succeeded, too.

Yet I’m also very sad to say good-bye. I still toy with ideas for a fourth book; I even know what it would be about. But you have to know when to let things go. If that book just must come out, it will.

In the meantime, I’m really glad I’ve got another series coming out. Fills the void, and now I have new characters to torture.

Do you ever come up with anything so wild that you scare yourself?

Nope. Very little scares me. I think that’s because I’m a doc. You know, hang around the emergency room or a psych ward or women’s prison for a while, and you see some pretty terrible stuff. Now, it’s true: I really don’t want to be held up at gunpoint; I don’t think I’d care much for, oh, drowning, being strangled or knifed to death. A stiletto pointing at my eyeball would be right up there on my freak-out-o’meter. (Come to think of it, maybe all those times I put my poor characters in those life and death situations, I’m really trying to work through things. You see, this is what comes of being a shrink. You navel-gaze a lot.)

But, in reality, I guess there comes a point where, sure, you can be scared, but if you don’t do something, you’re dead. So if I get scared, I get competent.

You have also written stories in the Star Trek universe. How did that come about?

Very long story, very short: I lusted after Captain Kirk, pure and simple. In my day, he was some serious beefcake. By the time I got around to writing, I’d decided to start with Trek because I’d always wanted to write myself into that universe. (Look, all writers do this, whether they play with established universes or ones they create. If they don’t put themselves in there at some level, the story’s flat.)

Anyway, I wrote three Trek books, three original novels and about 30-40 original stories (sf and mystery, mainly) and got nowhere. So I was about ready to give up and resign myself to being a doctor forever, when I heard about this contest, sponsored by Pocket and Paramount, called Strange New Worlds. Essentially, the idea was they solicited stories set in any of the established TV series (so, Original Series, Next Gen, etc.), and then chose, like, twenty stories for an anthology. You’d get pro pay and there were three top prizes. By the time I got wind of the contest, there was a week left, so I wrote my fingers off, did my story in five days, typed it up, sent it in. Didn’t write another thing because, like I said, I’d pretty much thrown in the towel.

So, then, a day before Thanksgiving, I get this call from Pocket and come to find out that not only did I win, my story, “A Ribbon for Rosie,” won Grand Prize. Which meant that not only had I finally sold a story, I could now afford a new refrigerator.

That’s how it started, and that was back in 1998.

When did you know that you wanted to become a writer?

Honestly? Not forever. Didn’t even cross my radar to think about being a writer. Now, I wrote really bad epic poetry as a teenager, but who doesn’t? The big switch didn’t happen until about twenty years ago (God, just typing that gives me the heebie-jeebies), and it wasn’t even my idea but my husband’s. I was writing a bunch of academic stuff on film and psychoanalysis but also getting bored. Film studies was, yeah, interesting, but from a psychological point of view, once you figure out where a film’s operating (at what developmental level, for example), then it gets kind of redundant, and I think I was ripe for a new challenge. So the husband said he thought I always wanted to write and I should just do it. When I balked, he dared me to try—and I never back down from a dare (much to my mother’s chagrin; she always wondered when I’d get in too deep for my own good).

That was about 1995 or so. I made the switch to full-time writing in 2006. So I’ve been at this for awhile and only now am I getting kind of semi-regularly published.

What advice would you give to writers just starting out?

I know you’ll think this is a cop-out, but I’ve written about this, too. Check out “So You Wanna Be a Contender”. Basically, if you follow what Heinlein said, and then Robert Sawyer (and now me) . . . you’ll get published. It’ll take awhile; look how long I’ve been hacking away (and I still worry with every book). But you’ll get there.

And honestly—this is my opinion, okay?—I would start the traditional way: sending to editors who can pay you money. Why? Because if you do it yourself . . . say, write stories or books and put them up on Amazon, etc., you’ll eventually hire an editor or copy-editor and all that to help you. The thing is you are paying them, and so they have very little incentive to be very critical. An editor who buys your work has zip incentive to make you feel good, and that’s what you need is you want to get any better at this: someone to tell you that you stink. And forget friends and family; they love you, so they lie.

For your own reading, do you prefer ebooks or traditional paper/hard back books?

Traditional. I have all kinds of reasons for this, which I won’t bore you with—but, to be honest, people are 3-D creatures. We just are. There are plenty of studies to suggest that you simply won’t retain as much if you’re reading from a flat screen. This is why a ton of students actually prefer real books; they can find the information they’d already read more quickly. Think about it: whenever you’ve taken a test or even tried to find a passage you really liked in a book, you visualize the actual book, the 3-D thing. You can visualize just about how far into the book you were before you stumbled on this bit of information; you can see the page in your head. Sometimes, you know what side of the page you need to look or the sequence that led up to the bit you want, or you can say, Yeah, it was the second paragraph from the top. This is all impossible with a flat screen. You simply do not absorb the information in a way that allows you to retrieve it quickly.

What kind of books do you read, any favourite authors?

I know you’ll think this is a cop-out, but the reality is I have none. If you’re telling me a thumpingly good story, then you’re my favorite writer and that’s my favorite book of the moment.

What do you do when you’re not writing, any hobbies?’

I’m sorry. Not writing? When’s that? Mainly, I try to get outside: hiking, biking, walking, gardening, stuff like that. Reading, of course, but I tend to combine that with my exercise regimen so I kill two birds with one stone. (There are only so many hours in the day.) I used to do tons of needlepoint and knitting, but no more. Just not a priority. I also like to cook and I try to bake a cake every Sunday just for the hell of it and because I never learned how when I was younger. And who doesn’t like cake? Someday I’ll learn how to make a decent pie crust.

What’s next?

I just went through the first-round copy-edits for Book I of my new Dark Passages Series, WHITE SPACE, and am now in the beginning throes—really, think hand to hand combat—of the sequel, THE DICKENS MIRROR. If you want a general idea what the books are about . . . think The Matrix meets Inkheart and Inception, and that will give you a clue. They’re basically YA horror/psychological thrillers with a dash of sci-fi and, in the case of DICKENS MIRROR, historical fiction. I know; I’m hard to nail down.

Just as soon as I’m done with DM, I’ll go back to a new standalone I’m about halfway through and then revisit the first book in another projected series that I’ve also got about half-written. (So much to do, only so many hours in the day I can spend at a computer before my brain turns to oatmeal.) By the time I’m all done with those, I’m sure I’ll have thought of something else to write. If I haven’t, I’m in trouble. My husband might make me go back to work.

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