Mortimer Langford interview

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

A little introduction:

Greetings!
Tis I, your friendly neighborhood WriterMan, Mortimer Langford. That is the pen name for a certain individual residing in Saint Paul Minnesota. I mostly write sci fi, fantasy and horror. During the day, I work as a programmer, and I live with my wife and our three extremely hairy, extremely needy children who use litter boxes because they are seemingly incapable of using a regular restroom.

I have been a writer off and on for 15 years, though I have only been taking it seriously as a potential career for 8. In my spare time, when I’m not writing, I can be found participating in various nerdy activities such as tabletop gaming, Magic, watching movies, and playing video games. My wife and I also enjoy the theater scene and comedy, something I’m hoping to get back to now that we are seemingly settled into our home (we moved here last summer).

When did your love of books begin?

I had to double check because my mom picks on me for always getting this wrong. When I was 4, my mom walked in on me reading The Green Mile by Stephen King. She asked what I was doing, and I told her “reading!”. She didn’t believe me, but I started to read the words out loud and she decided to get some Dr. Seuss instead. I had no idea what the words meant, I just knew what they said.

Growing up, we read as a family, mostly Harry Potter and Discworld. My mother’s always been highly supportive of my reading habits.

When did you start to have the wish to become an author?

I came up with ideas for stories a lot as a child, but just assumed that authors were some kind of special being that had something I lacked, so I didn’t really think about it. But in High School, I had a friend that was constantly reading, drawing, and writing in class. By the time she graduated, she had written two fantasy novels that a mutual friend said was great. She never let me read them, but I found more of her writing online and thought it was pretty good. Her writing inspired me to give it a try, and over time as I shared my writing with teachers, friends, and family, I’ve been motivated to keep working at it.

How have you found the process for becoming an author?

About 8 years ago, a friend of mine talked me into giving NaNoWriMo a try. I did it and got hooked, eventually finishing the story the following year. I’ve been doing it every November since. In 2019, I joined a writing group in my town, La Crosse Area Writer’s Group, and through their critique and support, built, edited, and cleaned what would become my debut novel, “An Elf With No Name”. I queried dozens of agents over a period of months before finally going to a friend of my wife’s, who publishes through a small press. I submitted my story, they accepted it, and now I have a paperback and hardcover of my first novel. I even have merch, which feels insane.

What would you say to those wanting to become an author?

I know that this is the same thing that absolutely everyone says, but there is a reason for that: Just sit down and write. You can craft an entire expansive world, and no one will ever know about it until it is a book that is in their hands. It doesn’t matter how small it is. The beauty of NaNoWriMo is that you get into a habit of writing 1667 words a day. Does that feel too daunting? Write 1000 words. 500. 100. It doesn’t matter how little it is. It WILL add up over time. And as you write this story that you feel passionate about, you will find yourself sliding into it. You’ll spend your time in the shower thinking up plot twists. You will explain character concepts with loved ones. You’ll jot down notes of specific events that can be fleshed out later. The pressure of plot ideas in the sequel will push you into investing more time to hurry up and get it written so you CAN write that sequel.

Also, push yourself out of your comfort zone. I always regarded myself as someone funny in the moment, but not an actual comedian. Then I made a new year’s resolution to try out standup comedy and enjoyed it. I even got my wife into it. I wrote sketch comedy for four years, which not only meant writing a genre I wasn’t confident in, but also a format that I had never touched before. But writing in scripts opened up ideas and interest into other methods of storytelling, and working with comedians only made my humor better. Figure out what your comfort zone is, and then find ways to break it. Pepper your work with profanity. Write that sex scene. Thoroughly research a historical even or a person you know nothing about and figure out how to write scenes in a way that makes it sound like you knew all along.

Writers tend to suffer from imposter syndrome. I’m simply advising that you embrace that.

Become the imposter, and do so in a way that no one has any idea of your fraud.

Tell us about your book/books:

My debut novel, “An Elf With No Name”, is about a man who is a War Mage. War Mages are humans with magic flowing in their blood, and used said magic in old times to help warring kingdoms in exchange for money and power, but faded into obscurity during the Industrial Revolution as technology advanced and War Mages realized that their magical arms race was hurtling out of control. Jump to present day and we have Damian Spires, a War Mage, is a slacker who skirts along paying his bills with the occasional freelance gig. One night as he stumbles home from Poker Night, he finds an unconscious elven woman in an alley. He decides to take her home and try to help her figure out who she is, where she came from, and why she’s here on Earth. Unbeknownst to them, there is another War Mage who is responsible for her appearance, and he is determined to find her with the help of his masked henchpersons.

My next novel, a cyberpunk story named “Mindjacker”, is about a detective named Archon Grey investigating a mind virus that causes people to shout a lot of anti-corpo propaganda before committing suicide. His first day on the case, Archon plugs into the victim to check his brain chassis for data. He finds nothing because it’s damaged, but unknowingly gets infected with the virus, so he must solve the case while contending with a virus that is trying to make him yet another body in the morgue.

What do you love about the writing/reading community?

From my experience, the book community is very warm and welcoming. As writers, we all want to create new stories, and we take inspiration from the stories of others. So when one author wins, we all win. The writing groups I have been in, as well as the discord servers and social media accounts, are full of people equally eager to discuss other people’s works in progress as their own.

As readers, it is important that we flesh out and try every story we can to keep up to date on the worlds, characters, and twists that delight, bewilder, or terrify. It’s always fun to find a new book to enjoy, and nearly everyone likes the prospect of having an ever-expanding community of people to discuss the characters we love, and who they should fight/protect/kiss next. I have found books that I’ve gone on to fall in love with thanks to social media.

If you could say anything to your readers what would it be?

In most of my writing, I try to follow a theme. I like to write stories that showcase that, no matter how dark, how bad, how desperate things get, there is always a chance for good to prevail. I do this because I think now more than ever, that message is important. Things in the past few years have been grim. But it can be fixed. We can fix it. I hope my readers understand that message, and I hope they take inspiration from it.

We struggle because we are divided.

United, we can make a better tomorrow.

I truly believe that.

Where can people connect with you?

I have a website! I am not always the best at updating it, but I have a blog there, as well as short stories and samples of longer projects.

www.mortsmorbidmusings.com

I am also semi-active on TikTok under @mortimerlangford, but I am most active on Twitter under @MortLangford.

If you just want to harass me directly, my gmail is mort.langford@gmail.com.