I was lucky to get an interview with J. W. Benjamin, the author of Dungeon Man Sam and the Orphaned Core, one of this year’s #SPFBO8 entries.
Please, tell us a bit about yourself…
I'm a newly self-published author living in Hawaii. I'm a shade-tree mechanic and a do-it-yourselfer currently in the process of building my new house with my own two hands. It's always been my dream to be a published author, and my further dream to go full-time and make my living with my writing.
“What drew me to litRPG was the newness of the genre, the thought that I could write for it and make my mark on something that’s still in its formative stages.”
Why did you decide to take part in the SPFBO?
I've never participated in SPFBO before, didn't even know it existed until two weeks before the submission deadline. A good friend mentioned it to me and said it might be a good place for me to get some publicity for my book. It also functioned as a nice external motivator for me to get through my last round of edits, because I'd only just started line edits on Dungeon Man Sam when I heard about the contest. Gave me a nice little dose of gumption.
Why should we buy your SPFBO8 book?
Dungeon Man Sam is a character-focused litRPG, blending deep characters with frenetic action and just enough humor to keep it interesting. It's the story of a young man who has to build and protect a dungeon from all enemies in order to save his family from oblivion, and do it without losing his humanity in the process.
What got you into writing? And how long have you been doing it?
I've been writing since i was knee-high to a grasshopper. I think what really got me into it was that I've always been a reader. I read the Hobbit when I was six, and I've been head-over-heels in love with fiction ever since. Growing up, I would come up with these elaborate fantasies with my friends when we played outside, so much so that we spent more time on worldbuilding our little imaginary make-believe games than we did actually playing them. And now I've been writing for... Yeesh, almost 25 years. But I've only gotten truly serious about it in the last 4 or so.
Why did you choose to write fantasy? And why pick this particular fantasy subgenre?
Fantasy has always been my first love. I grew up on Tolkien and Brooks and Gemmel, and I've always wanted to write in the genre. What drew me to litRPG was the newness of the genre, the thought that I could write for it and make my mark on something that's still in its formative stages. Also I've been a gamer most of my life, and I love the quirkiness and humor that can come from overlaying a game system over a serious fantasy.
Plus, the Dungeon Man Sam story had been rattling around in my head for almost five years in one incarnation or another and it just never clicked for me until I was introduced to litRPG, and as soon as I read my first book in the genre I realized that DMS would fit in there perfectly and the pieces started falling like dominoes. I got so excited about the possibilities that I just couldn't NOT write it, and now it's become my first published work.
What’s the best thing about being a writer?
Oh lordy, keep it to one, huh? Okay, lemme see... Okay, this is going to sound weird, but for me, it's the people. The other writers I get to meet and geek out about writing with. The fans who go out of their way to tell me how much they enjoyed my book. The critique partners who give of their time to help me get better. My alpha reader who is the most amazing person in the world and has helped shape my story from the beginning. Even the critics, who tell me my book sucks and give me a good laugh in the morning. The best part about writing for me is I get to share it with all these and more.
What’s the hardest thing about being a writer?
The dark times. The days when you know, know that your writing is crap and you'll never amount to anything. That no one will buy your work, that this thing you've been dreaming about for your whole life will end in fire and tears. Those days when you let the voices win, when you can't find the good in your work, when you despair at the words on the page. Getting through those days is the hardest thing for me about being a writer.
Do you have a tip, app, tool, or resource you recommend to authors?
There are a few tools I find invaluable. Scrivener, for drafting and organizing and also for formatting when I'm ready to publish. Publisher Rocket is utterly superb for helping find the best keywords and for doing market research for publishing on amazon. I personally found serializing my novel to be an incredible boon, helping me to get used to a regular writing schedule and also helping me get used to interacting with readers--both the type who enjoyed my work and the type who hated it.
And as for a piece of advice... Don't believe the voices when they tell you you're not going to make it. Those are lies from the pit of hell and need to be killed with fire. Get people around you who will tell you the truth about your work, and who will encourage you through the dark times.
What new projects are you working on?
I'm currently drafting and serializing the second book in the Dungeon Man Sam series; Dungeon Man Sam and the Lich King's Regret. And by the time this interview goes out I will also be starting work on a secret project for Inkfort Publishing's 'Publishing Derby', where authors who sign up are assigned a cover and pen-name and have to write a book to that cover without letting anyone know it's actually you under that name.
Anything else you would like to say before we close?
Just that I am honored to be here among y'all. I'm only a wee babby author, barely two weeks published, and I'm just so happy to even be able to do something like this. I'd like to wish luck and success to my fellow authors, and hope that we all have a great time and find success in our endeavors here!
Interesting answers! Best of luck with the competition, Ben, and with sales.
Thanks for doing the interview.
