Hey, everybody! Welcome back to “Through a New Wardrobe”, where we sit down and chat with some of today’s hottest writers who have been influenced by CS Lewis and the Land of Narnia. For today’s interview we sit down with author Lisa R. Mayer and her new book The Aletheian Journeys: Book 1: The Arrow Bringer.
NARNIAFANS.COM. Tell us a bit about yourself, for our readers that might not know much about you.
Lisa Mayer: I am a HUGE nerd. I love Narnia, superheroes, Lord of the Rings, cartoons, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, the list goes on and on. In my free time I love hanging out with my hubbie, Rich, my dog, Scooby, bike-riding, reading, and going on adventures.
NF: Can you give us a quick teaser for The Arrow Bringer that will give us an idea of what we’re in for?
LM: Evie didn’t save Aletheia. Now, everything that’s happening is her fault. She has a chance to make it right… but it could cost her life.
NF: What were your inspirations for the story of Arrow Bringer
LM: I went to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 2005. And I absolutely fell in love with it. I had known about Narnia before, of course, but it didn’t truly capture my heart until that moment. And then I realized I wanted to write a modern day allegory story inspired by Narnia. So my inspirations were Narnia, Aslan, and C.S. Lewis.
NF: In what ways did CS Lewis inspire you as an author?
LM: C.S. Lewis really inspired me with Narnia, which clearly reflects his imagination and faith. He also inspires me as a person. He would interact with his fans. He would write letters to them and take an interest in their life. He spent a lot of his life not believing and then came back to his faith, and wrote lots of books about his own experiences with his faith. His non-fiction books were deep and profound and he was willing to open up his heart, soul, and life to his fans and cared about them individually as people.
NF: What was your favorite Narnia book?
LM: Oh, such a tough question. I would have to say Voyage of the Dawn Treader (I LOVED the movie as well). I really loved how Eustace came to find Aslan, how Edmund had to be almost like an older brother to him, how Lucy had to trust in Aslan without just seeing him all the time. I also love the part where Aslan says that he is in our world and has another name there. Or when Aslan helps Eustace stop being a dragon, and that no matter how hard Eustace tried, he couldn’t do it himself. He needed Aslan’s help.
NF: What themes did you try to convey in the story?
LM: Our unique calling–Each of us has a special purpose in life, that we’re all irreplaceable and have inherent dignity and worth. The world needs our light.
Courage–Life is beautiful, but it’s hard too. It takes courage to live every day with joy and purpose. It’s all right to be afraid, though, because no matter what our higher power may be, we are not alone.
Forgiveness–We all mess up. Sometimes, it feels like we’ve done the worst thing imaginable and that we’ll never come back from it. That others can’t forgive us or we can’t forgive ourselves. But no matter what we’ve done, there is always forgiveness.
“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for extraordinary destiny (C.S. Lewis)”: We may all feel like we’re ordinary, but the truth is that we are extraordinary and that our lives have untold purposes.
NF: How did you come up with the title?
LM: “The Arrow Bringer” was a working title for the longest time. I had planned on renaming it for a long time. But, by the end, I realized that the name just fit. I used The Aletheian Journeys because I wanted to have a nod to how C.S. Lewis entitled his work The Chronicles of Narnia (followed by the title of the book).
NF: Are any of the experiences in the book based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
LM: Victor Hugo is credited with saying, “A writer is a world trapped in a person.” There’s a little bit of me in a lot of my characters. Some of the characters are like how I wish I could be. Some of the experiences that Evie or the characters have with the Arrow Bringer are based off how I understand the world, or how I connect with my own faith.
NF: One thing that impressed me with your story was how you grounded Evie’s journey with her struggle with a terminal cancer diagnosis.What inspired this narrative choice?
LM: I knew when I wrote Evie as having cancer that it would possibly be difficult for some of my readers. I tried as much as possible to be sensitive to those who have either suffered with cancer or have a loved one who has suffered, and I took advice from people who have experienced grief and loss on how to write her, and I hope that shows in the character. But the reason I wrote her that way is because we all suffer with incredibly difficult things in our lives. For Evie, it’s cancer. And we should never judge someone because we just don’t know what they are going through. She had an incredibly difficult decision to make, and she would have gone to Aletheia if not for the cancer. I think we can all understand that. And we should all understand that we never know the reason why anyone does anything. We need to be merciful.
NF: I also appreciated that you had a glossary of the names in your book with pronunciations. What else inspired these name choices?
LM: A lot of the names were based on what I wanted the character or place to represent. I also wanted them to have an other-worldly sound to them, so I took words from Hebrew, Turkish (like C.S. Lewis), Latin, Greek, etc. I also tried to tie them all in so that they seemed to have a good flow. And then there were some names, like Khyton, that didn’t mean anything and I just really liked it. But I would spend hours researching names for characters. It took me forever to name Aletheia.
NF: Why did it take longer to name Aletheia?
LM: Originally it was named Milaah. But that was the name of a character on a show I like. So I wanted the name to have meaning. I spent awhile thinking of a name that had meaning. I did tons of research. I settled on Aletheia because it means truth and I wanted my characters to find truth there
NF: Who designed the cover art?
LM: The cover art was designed by my publisher: Write Integrity Press, LLC.
NF: What was the hardest part of writing Arrow Bringer?
LM: The hardest part were the rewrites. The moments were I doubted myself. Where I’d spend hours writing scenes only to realize I needed to spend more hours rewriting them. But it was also the part that made me stronger as a writer.
NF: Did you learn anything from writing Arrow Bringer? What did you learn?
LM: I learned a lot about myself, and my connection with my faith. I learned how to cope with hardship. I learned that even when things are tough, I’m not alone and I’m going to get through it even when it doesn’t feel like it. I also learned perseverance. Writing a book is hard, but it’s so unbelievably worth it. That perseverance has definitely helped me in other areas of my life–thinking about the end goal gets you through the hard parts of life.
NF: When and why did you begin writing?
LM: My very first books were novel length Pokemon fan-fictions I wrote in high school. From those, I made up my own story about our world being threatened by an evil creature. By dreams changed, and I forgot about writing for a while. That is, until Narnia. Just like the lamppost led the Pevensie children into Narnia, that same light called to me to write a story inspired by Narnia.
NF: When did you first consider yourself a writer?
LM: The things that are important become part of our identity. But I think the first time it hit me that I was a writer was when my characters came to life and started doing things I never planned, things that shocked me. There’s a moment in the Arrow Bringer, toward the end, when something is revealed about Kotu. That moment was not planned, and when it happened I was as surprised as anyone. That’s when I knew I was a writer.
NF: What inspired you to write your first book?
LM: The Arrow Bringer has gone through multiple revisions, with multiple characters, stories, lands. But the one thing that has always remained constant was the character The Arrow Bringer, and that the book would be inspired by Narnia. Narnia inspired me to write The Arrow Bringer, but I built the book around the titular character.
NF: Would you care to elaborate more on how you built the story around the Arrow Bringer?
LM: One thing that was always consistent was that there was going to be a king who destroyed a golden arrow that was meant to protect a world. And the person who brought that arrow was always going to be the Arrow Bringer. The name Arrow Bringer goes back to maybe 2012 for me, so I honestly can’t remember exactly how it started. But I kind of took a page from C.S. Lewis’s book when he wrote: “Supposing there really was a world like Narnia… and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (as He did ours) what might have happened? The stories are my answer.”
NF: If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
LM: Definitely C.S. Lewis. He wasn’t just a good writer. He was a good person and he set out to make a difference. And he reconnected with his faith after losing it for a while. That is definitely something I experienced in my own life.
NF: Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
LM:I am a huge fan of J.K. Rowling. I’ve always been reading James Dashner’s books and have been enjoying them.
NF: What are your current projects?
LM: The second book in The Aletheian Journeys series (The Aletheian Journeys: Jairo’s Battle) is tentatively set to release Autumn 2019. The third book of the series is completed and I am working on revisions on the fourth. I plan to write seven in total, just like C.S. Lewis.
NF: Do you have any advice for other writers?
LM: Believe in yourself. You have a story inside of you that is meant to be told. Someone needs your book, even if that person is you. Never stop editing. Be open to revisions and feedback, because your editors will see things you don’t. And above all, never never give up.
NF: Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
LM: I sincerely wrote this book for you–my readers. I hope that, within these pages, you will find adventure, friendship, love, forgiveness, and a connection with the Arrow Bringer. I hope the book inspires you. And thank you, thank you, thank you for reading it.
Check out our review of the book coming soon!