Writer’s Desk: Jamie Foley
Sci/fi-fantasy author Jamie Foley loves strategy games, gardening, and making lembas bread. She’s terrified of red wasps and uses them for lightsaber training. When she’s not writing, she’s working for Enclave Publishing or the Christian Writers Institute, typesetting, or drawing maps to Cair Paravel. Her husband is her manly astronaut preacher muse. They live between the Texas Hill Country and the family cattle ranch, where their hyperactive spawnling and wolfpack roam.
Connect with Jamie on her website, Instagram, Facebook, and BookBub, and sign up for her newsletter here.
More about Silverblood
The Jade Witch sacrifices everything to save her people from one enemy—by forging an alliance with another.
A desperate chieftess.
Brooke’s treetop city is a charred husk of its former glory. Her people demand revenge against the Emberhawk tribe, blind to the larger threat: the ravenous Malaano Empire. Determined to subvert a bloody war, Brooke accepts a marriage alliance she knows she’ll soon regret.
Meanwhile, an Emberhawk prince is seeding a rebellion, and if Brooke’s secret support can re-forge the Tribal Alliance, they just might stand a chance against the Imperial threat.
A hollow assassin.
Lysander is a former slave who has forgotten how to live free. After being forced to abdicate his throne, losing his loved ones and his hearing, he feels he has nothing to live for… Unless he can convince Brooke to teach him the magic of thought-speak, with which he could hear far more than his ears ever could.
A stolen throne.
Ryon’s fractured heritage catches up with him and threatens to tear him away from Kira. As they maneuver to protect Imperial princess Vylia, their worst fears come true… along with nightmares they never dared to dream.
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Q&A with Jamie Foley
TG: Everyone always asks for an interesting fact, we’re going to flip the question. What is one boring fact about yourself?
JF: I don’t like coffee. Or cake. But I like coffee cake.
TG: Where did you get the inspiration for Silverblood?
JF: I was fascinated to learn about Native American tribes and their many differences. I’ve found that a lot of modern people think of Native Americans as a single people group when in reality, there were hundreds of tribes with different cultures, languages, and hostilities.
The Katrosi Revolution series explores what tribal politics might have looked like during the American Revolution. Which tribes would have allied with the rebel settlers to fight the British, and vice versa?
Except the tribes have fire magic and the Queen of England is a water elemental who fancies herself a goddess. Naturally.
TG: Do you have any habits or rituals as a writer?
JF: My favorite place to write is a balcony with a good view, whenever I can find one. I have been known to sneak out of bed to write on hotel balconies when the only thing moving is the midnight breeze.
TG: What habits would you encourage others to take up to be a more productive writer?
JF: Try pre-writing, where you imagine a scene beforehand and jot down notes about the setting, the mood or theme, dialogue, character feelings, beats, and/or important points for story progression. I find I write twice as fast when I’ve pre-written, and it makes my first draft much cleaner!
TG: What do you snack on or drink while writing?
JF: Water in an oversized sparkly resin mug. I’m a tomboy, so I imprison all my sparkles on my mug.
TG: How do you overcome writer’s block?
JF: I find that other creative ventures help me overcome writer’s block. I’ll give myself permission to take a break and switch to painting, sculpting with clay, building a new garden bed, planting new seeds, or trying out a new cooking recipe. Or I’ll work on worldbuilding a different story that I had simmering on the back burner. Then I can return to my original story rested and rejuvenated.
TG: Are you an “edit-as-you-go” writer or do you wait until the very end before you do any editing?
JF: I’m a perfectionist, so I try to make my first draft as clean as possible. But once I finish a chapter, I try not to look at it again until I finish writing the whole story. It took me years to develop the discipline to stop editing as I went because it took me so much longer to finish a manuscript!
TG: What would you say is the most common mistake new writers make?
JF: Thinking that it’s all about their debut novel. We would never expect someone’s first painting to be a masterpiece or their first song to be concert-worthy. Why do we assume that a new writer can crank out a bestseller without any experience or practice?
If you’re a hobby writer, that’s fine! But writing as a career is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes—that’s how we learn. Just write what you’re passionate about, surround yourself with a team of professionals, and proceed with humility as you seek to learn from the best. Dedicate yourself to excellence, and dedicate the glory to God, and in time, you will produce something worthy of praise.
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” – Colossians 3:23-24 NIV
TG: What is the best piece of writing advice you’re ever received?
JF: An editorial letter for Emberhawk that was full of helpful lessons from Catherine Jones Payne at Quill Pen Editorial. Top-notch editing can be expensive but it’s so worth it, y’all!
TG: What is coming up next for you?
JF: I’m working on a new Christian fantasy duology with strong spiritual threads of light versus darkness, inspired by the story of creation. At the same time, I’m working on finishing The Katrosi Revolution series with book 3, Lotusfall. Books are taking me longer to write nowadays since I work so much for Enclave Publishing, but I hope my upcoming stories will be worth the wait.
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