FicStack: Behind the Story #8
With Maryellen Brady
Tell us a little bit about yourself! Where are you from? What do you do for fun? What might people be surprised to learn about you?
I am originally from Baltimore, Maryland. I live in the Pacific Northwest now, on a mountain surrounded by trees. I was born with an appetite for learning & collecting facts. Astrophysics, neurology and folklore are my sugar rush subjects. Weird, but true. I try to incorporate as much as I can into my stories.
One thing that may surprise people is that I am a cellist but, still attempting to learn to read music. I play by ear.
We’re featuring The Outsider. What sparked this story? Was there a specific image, moment, or question that started it?
The Outsider was written as a love letter to my dad. It started near his birthday, while I was binging the westerns that we enjoyed & this sudden memory of a mechanical owl started teasing my brain. There was an old movie we watched together, Clash of the Titans. My storyteller mind began to spin and Marshall Flint Ironhoof was born. A soul that didnt belong to human or centaur world. Yet he strives to be authentic & live to honor both ways of life.
Not belonging, I believe, is pretty universal. So that part of the story could resonate with many readers. We all have those moments, no matter how confident we believe we are in society. Flint was born a centaur. It is who he is, yet, his people and humans reject him. That emotion in the story presented itself, and I ran with it. It would be a dream for me if this was a doorway into readers seeing, and understanding, we are all alike beneath the surface.
What does your writing process look like? Do you outline, or discover as you write?
When I start a big project, I always have the 1st and last scene established. I know where I am headed and write my way there. It is an adventure. Sort of like road trips with my dad, once upon a time. We knew we were landing in New Orleans, but there were side quests along the way….and that is how I write.
Wrapping up my Warmth series with my crispy zombies. Beginning a new series into paleontology set during the Bone Wars around 1860. Two women as my lead paleontologist, not quite welcome in the scientific world, but blazing that trail anyway.
Fiction writing has always been a part of my life. Before i could spell or hold a pencil, I spoke into a cassette and told stories. It is my oxygen. It gives me life. _
Substack is the 1st place I have shared my writing with the outside world. It has been a scary risk of an adventure, but the friends I have made here & the community is magic.
Recommend something you love: a substack writer, a book, a film, a piece of art, anything you like.
My recommendation, I am obsessed with Michael Crichton, so if you enjoyed Jurassic Park movies, I’d suggest going back & reading his books. They are thousands times better and yes, I will die on that hill.
Maryellen’s work on Substack includes The Outsider along with a wonderful range of short stories and poetry. She also runs the Millcreek Village writing collaboration.
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