We are honoured to work with as many authors as we do at Pegasus Publishers – each with their own stories to tell. Their worlds are singular, their characters are relatable, and their creativity truly knows no bounds.

This is Author Life, a feature on the Pegasus Blog, that opens the door to each of our author’s creative process and previous literary experience, offering you – the reader – an opportunity to learn a little about the mind behind the novel.

Meet Wayne Elsner, author of the fantasy title Talanhold: The Chosen One.

Could you tell us three interesting facts about yourself?

I am a retired geologist living in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with my wife Carrole.

My wife and I love to travel and have travelled extensively, having visited all ten Canadian provinces, forty six of the fifty US states, almost twenty cruises and have visited ninety-two countries. We are hoping to make it to one hundred countries one day.

I work on my family genealogy and my file has almost forty-five thousand names in it.

In your own life, what influences and inspires you to write?

I have been an avid reader all my life. I average forty to fifty books a year reading a wide variety of genres and I believe my love of reading greatly influenced my desire to write. I had an idea for a story when I retired, and it became my first book. The first book was my inspiration to write the second and now a few years later, the count is up to seventeen and still growing.

Which book or author has had the biggest impact on you, and why?

I’m not sure any one book or author inspired me to write, but the one book I say is the best book I’ve ever read is Pillars of The Earth by Ken Follett.

I believe authors such as Ken Follett, James Patterson, Wilbur Smith, Terry Goodkind and Robert Jordan have all had an influence. In my youth it was Isaac Asimov and Alistair McLean among others.

Can you tell me about the book?

Talanhold: The Chosen One is the first book in a three-book trilogy. Each book is a stand-alone story carrying many of the first book’s characters through time. It is set in Talanhold (the ancient name for the land) at a time when the king believes he is about to die and needs to ensure his royal lineage continues.

However, he has only one daughter and no sons and the land needs a king. This has happened twice before in their history and each time a husband is chosen. Once chosen they must survive the merge which the previous chosen one did not. There are several men who want to be king and not all of them are in the running to be the chosen one.  Although the land has seen peace for many years and is populated by a mostly rural, sheep herding people, they know how to fight and how to defend what is theirs.

What were your first experiences with writing?

After I retired, I decided I had time to write the story idea I had and eventually it became the first book in my Tannion Series. I self published the first book titled Tannion in 2014 and have just recently completed the ninth book in that series. The first four books are published and available on Amazon.

Before retirement I worked as a geologist where one of my jobs was to act as part of a tribunal handing down written decisions in a courtroom like setting. I was also one of the authors of an ultimate potential for natural gas study in Alberta which was published in 2005.

In your opinion, what are the key ingredients for a good story or novel?

For me, a good book has to have an interesting story line with strong believable characters.  There needs to be good dialogue that helps the story flow. As much as a story needs to build towards the end, the ending should not be obvious. I like a twist or two.

How long should an author spend on their craft each day?

I don’t believe an author has to set daily goals or deadlines. They should write when they have the time and when the urge hits them. Writing for me is relaxing and enjoyable and when it gets to be work, it is time to put my pen down.

What was the most challenging part of writing this book, and what did you learn from writing it?

This book started with a simple idea. As it came together, I found it had many characters, and they all needed names. That was challenging, but most challenging was the timing. The land is shown as being large and on horseback it would take a long time to cross. I had to bring all the characters together in Coladmore Hold around the same time, factoring in where they lived and their mode of transport. Some came by land and some by sea. therefore, making the timing of individual chapters challenging.

I never believed I had a great imagination, but I found in writing this book, that I have a better imagination than I thought. I also was able to take what I learned from the first book to write the next two books in the trilogy and then using characters, who only had a small part in book two, to write a spinoff.

What common pitfalls should aspiring writers avoid?

To me, a pitfall would be needing to meet a self set deadline. Failing to meet the deadline can be seen as a personal failure and as long as the book is proceeding, there is no failure. I hear about writer’s block and have experienced something similar a number of times. As I write from a basic idea without most of the framework, I build that as I go along. If I find myself stuck, I go back to the first chapter and read, edit, and revise the entire book to get to where I left off and, more often than not, the next piece is in my head.

I remember a day when my wife and I were driving home from somewhere and I told her I was excited to get back to my book. She asked me what book I was reading and I told her it was the book I was writing, not reading. I was getting close to the end and it was getting exciting, but even more than that, I was excited about where it was going. That is, I had no idea where it was going until I started typing.

What writing advice would you offer to your younger self?

I wasn’t much of a writer when I was younger. I wrote what was required in my classes at school and not much more. I would tell my younger self to keep reading and living life and writing will come along when it wants to. I’ve never written with the intent of making it an income source only for the enjoyment of completion. I would tell myself to write for the fun of it.

Talanhold: The Chosen One is available now in paperback.