Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Lancour.
Hi Jason, I’m so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed with your story and how you got to where you are today.
It took me a while to land on writing as my preferred way to express myself creatively. I initially went to art school thinking I would be an illustrator. It wasn’t long before I realized that I did not possess a significant amount of natural talent in that area, and I became discouraged.
I don’t want to suggest that if you aren’t immediately good at something, then you should quit – quite the contrary, mastering any skill takes time and hard work. However, I do recommend that before you spend the time doing anything, know why you are doing it. I took a class in film production and immediately realized that the thing I liked about illustration was the storytelling aspect. I liked how a single image can suggest so much.
I also found that it was a lot easier for me to tell a story, and with more detail and nuance, by using a camera than a stick of charcoal. I started on the path that led me to a career in film production, but I always felt a pull toward something more. I started writing, really just to get the ideas out of my head and on a page somewhere, and as I pursued it, I found that more and more, this was what I wanted to do.
I’ve always enjoyed speculative fiction, either sci-fi or fantasy. Reading the genre or watching movies has always engaged me more than anything else. It might be because when something has a more fantastical element, we can remove ourselves a bit from the story – see it in a more neutral light – allowing us to see some of the deeper themes without getting too personally involved.
I began writing my fantasy book over twenty years ago and had it mostly finished within a few years of starting. A year or two would go by as I was consumed with other factors in life, and I wouldn’t touch the manuscript at all. I’d pick it up, re-read it, make a few changes, then set it aside again for another year. It wasn’t until the pandemic forced everything to a standstill that I sat down and committed to getting published.
Only once I truly committed myself and applied steady and patient discipline to the work was I able to complete anything. I’ve now got two books published, with a third on the way. It will be a series of interconnected, shared-universe novels and novel series that all tie into a common subplot.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There are many challenges that writers will face. Firstly, to finish writing a book is not an easy task. It takes patience and discipline. This is a long game, an ultramarathon of sorts. We can’t always control when the fires of creativity will burn, but like anything else, the more you do it, the better you will become. So, to get a book finished and effectively edited to where it’s something you can be proud of is no small task.
However, once the book is finished, you have then only just begun the journey to getting the thing published. When I started writing, an author had little choice other than to pursue a contract with a major publisher or one of their affiliates. If you were serious, you’d query literary agents and hope the gatekeepers saw you as worthy. If you were fortunate enough to be considered profitable, you would wait for a publisher to offer you a contract and hope for the best.
In today’s publishing industry, technology has democratized the process to such a degree that anyone with an internet connection can be published at no cost. And then there are a hundred shades of grey between fully independent publishing and fully traditional publishing – book consultants, editing coaches, publishing services, and everything you can imagine. So, as an author, you need to plow your way through this dizzying array of information to choose the path that you feel is right for your book.
However, once your book is published, you are not at the end of the process. Whether you are published independently or traditionally as a first-time author, you should expect to do all of your marketing. I’m still struggling with that aspect of the industry.
I appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I write fantasy, which is divided into various sub-genres that often cause more confusion than clarity. My books are set in an entirely fictional world with its own cultures and history, which I’m told makes it “High Fantasy.”
Stylistically and thematically, I’d say if you drew a triangle with one corner being Lord of the Rings, one corner Game of Thrones, and the third corner being people who play Dungeons & Dragons but don’t take themselves too seriously, then my work is somewhere in the middle. I’ve got a diverse cast of characters, and I try very hard to avoid familiar tropes of the genre. You won’t find a simple farm boy who discovers that he is the chosen one of prophecy to fight the ‘Dark One’ or any of that.
I try to make the society in my books feel modern in structure (though without technology) and structure the dialogue and societal constructs in such a way as to feel familiar to the reader. I find that when a reader can place themselves in the story, it enhances the enjoyment and allows the characters to feel more relatable.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
One of the things I like about Atlanta is that there is such variety here. If there is something you want to do, you can do it here.
On the downside, it can be challenging to navigate. My friend’s band was playing one night, and I thought I’d go see them, but when I looked at the map, it was over an hour away. No traffic. The sprawl is hard to fathom at times.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jasonlancour.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/jasonlancourauthor/
- Other: https://linktr.ee/jasonlancour