An Interview with James Honaker

James Honaker is a writer, a small independent game developer, and a peddler of bespoke cardboard. He presently lives in North Carolina with three cats and a parakeet, and he hopes to use book sales to fund the purchase of top-shelf kibble for his felines.

What inspired you to start writing this book?

I’ve always been a writer, and I wanted to take a stab at something a bit longer than my usual oeuvre (novella-length stories). I started the book in 2011; I’d just recently played through several games with settings on islands in a sea of clouds, and I wanted to explore a bit of that that could be like, how people came to live above a sea of clouds and how things progressed from there. There was also a desire to write a story I could see myself in, to a point; being a gay fantasy fan can be tricky, since works either don’t explore it whatsoever or delve deep into it. Both are reasonable, but I wanted it to be an adventure where the character being gay was a part of the story, a mostly inextricable part, but not the story’s alpha and omega.

Tell us the story of your book’s current title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

I’ve waffled a lot on the title over the years. I was a philosophy major, as well as a fan of the video game Beyond Good & Evil, and I’d always loved the cadence of it, the connotations it bore, and just the overall mystique and aura it had. I wasn’t sure if I should go with it, but it had been the working title for the story for nearly all of the thirteen years since the first draft.

As for the subtitle, that took a lot longer, and I had several I bounced between before settling on the one I did. I’ve never been great with titles, and I’m not ashamed to admit that it took me a long time and inspiration from a friend to actually settle on “The Horizon’s Edge.” It really came down to finding something that captured what I was aiming for, a sense of adventure amid a backdrop of mystery.

Describe your dream book cover.

Thinking back about books that inspired me to buy them, I’ve always been drawn to books that have a simple, almost mysterious vibe to them. Maybe a single image to catch your eye, evoking a grand and sweeping tale, and symbolic of the feeling of the book It could either be a symbolic image, indicative of the ideas of the story and the overall tone and tenor, or it could be an image from the story that best captures what’s going on, a snapshot of what is to come. It’s hard to really talk about it in particular, since I’m not a hugely visual person, but I’ve always wanted to capture a feeling above all else, and I want something that feels right for the story I’m telling, whatever it is.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

My first thought goes to all different kinds of heavy metal, especially the more epic and sweeping ones. Songs kike Epica’s “The Second Stone,” Iron Maiden’s “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son,” Apocalyptica’s “Shadowmaker,” Symphony X’s “Reign In Madness,” and Death’s “Scavenger of Human Sorrow.” I often listen to music as a way to ground myself in a particular mood when I’m writing, and the music very often is in that vein. Lighter and more symphonic for the lighter bits, and maybe a good bit darker and moodier when the parts call for it.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

Besides writing, I had a brief stint in science and academic research years ago. Presently, I run an online storefront selling old collectibles, and I also write and develop video games…they’re nothing too grand and glorious, small-budget strategy RPGs, but they’re fun exercises that help me to sharpen my writing skills and tell stories in a different way.

As for what my readers might not know about me…I’ve actually spent a large amount of time abroad over the years. I grew up in Germany in part, and I’ve been in the UK for a semester and in Germany for a month-long research excursion. I’ve traveled a bit besides, albeit less than I might ideally like.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

My inspiration came from a lot of different places. I did have a teacher who encouraged it…my junior high English teachers, Susan Ludka and Shirley Thornton, were big in instilling that desire to write and tell stories from early on, and my mother was also quite formative in encouraging me to write and come up with stories of my own.

As for writers, there are also a lot. Early influences included JRR Tolkien (who I read in middle school, because I was that kid), George Orwell, Robert Heinlein, Roald Dahl, Clive Barker, and Norton Juster. Writers who did interesting things with language and were great at evoking the images of their stories were who I looked up to. I’ve also been inspired partially by some of the video game writers, with Yasumi Matsuno (writer for Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics) standing out in particular for his particular approach to telling stories.

Where is your favorite place to write?

I do almost all of my writing at my desk in my room, which isn’t especially glorious, but it is a place where I can focus on the writing more and less on anything else. I generally prefer to write alone, in a quiet place without human distraction.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

Ideally, I want my readers to just have a good time, and as long as they enjoy the ride, that’s what matters most to me. If there is a moral they take away, though, I would hope that it’s that we are often stronger than we give ourselves credit for, and sometimes it takes the right people and circumstances to bring out the people that we should be instead of the people everyone else might want us to be.

As for my perfect reader…if you’re reading my book, that’s perfect to me, really. I want to tell stories and entertain, and if I’ve done that, I can be satisfied.

Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.