Author Interview with Stefanie Lozinski

Greetings, Everyone. Today, debut author Stefanie Lozinski is joining me for an author interview. Stefanie recently released her fantasy novel, Magnify.

First, let’s learn about Magnify.

Isn’t that cover just amazing?

The dragons have fled the skies.

A noble House is clinging to life.

The God of gods is rising.

As the Envoy of the Four Kingdoms, Wes has had his purpose decided since birth: sacrifice the treasures of the people to the dragon gods, and they will keep Kaveryth safe.

For five years, he’s been forced to watch his Kingdom fall into ruin while carrying an unbearable grief of his own. The Elders insist that they must continue to be faithful to the Dracodei, but Wes is beginning to doubt that their protectors are holding up their end of the bargain.

Despite his misgivings, he continues to fulfill his duty—until he meets a misunderstood dragon who offers him a choice for the first time in his life.

Will he have the courage to make the sacrifice that truly matters?

Storm & Spire is a young adult epic fantasy series, perfect for readers who enjoy fast-paced storytelling, fantastical lands, and devious dragons.

MAGNIFY on Amazon

MAGNIFY on Goodreads

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW

What is your favorite genre to read?

I’m a fantasy author, but my favorite genre to read actually isn’t fantasy – it’s mystery and thriller! I am sucker for fast-paced action and great plot twists. I think my addiction to reading those genres has really helped my fantasy writing, as I’m less prone to long flowery paragraphs, info dumping, and the like. That said, I still read and love fantasy!

Words of wisdom for those who are just starting out on the writing path?

I have 1 tip that has been lifechanging for me as a writer: Stop in the middle of the action when you’re drafting. I am a pretty type A, organized type of person, it’s just how my brain works. My natural tendency is to find a “natural stopping point”. Sometimes I still do, and I have to remind myself, no, I have to stop while I’m still excited about the next line! I try to stop mid-scene. I’ve even stopped mid-sentence before! Ernest Hemingway famously did this. I’ve never read one of his books, but I think this is the best writing advice I’ve ever received. It makes it infinitely easier (for me, anyway, but I would argue you have nothing to lose trying it) for me to start back up tomorrow when I already knew what was next. I do leave myself frazzled notes with no punctuation about what’s next, if I fear I’m going to forget, but that’s it.

What is your least favorite part of the writing process?

Unless we count formatting or fighting with IngramSpark or talking to Bluehost customer support chat for the fifth time, I’d have to say line editing. It’s tedious, and I always make the same mistakes, lol. A big offender: I slip Canadian spellings into my books and have to fix them for my primarily American audience. Over and over. Y’all say “forward” instead of “forwards”?!

Every writer has a message they want to impart to their readers. What is yours?

I love this question.  I feel like the “what” is easy – for my Storm & Spire epic fantasy series, I really think the core theme is “love is sacrifice, and sacrifice is love”. It’s been really neat to explore that. The hard part is knowing how to speak that truth in a way that doesn’t try to preach to the reader. I want them to experience the theme through the eyes of my main character and have that idea really come to life.

What inspired this series and the characters?

I don’t have any brilliant exact moment where I was like, woah, here’s a book I want to write. But I find myself subtly inspired by my day to day life. Sometimes that inspiration isn’t even something I realize until after I’ve written it. One of my friends actually pointed out how my book discusses the issue of how faith leaders can sin and really disappoint us, and I was like, oh, it does? I didn’t mean it to, but she was right! 

So I feel like it’s kind of like that with my main character, Wes Cervos (the secondary main character is a dissident dragon called Celesyria, who is just a blast to write). I’m still getting to know him, and I’m sure by the time the series is complete I’ll find a lot of the influences that I used without realizing I was doing it.

How do you incorporate your faith into your writing?

This is such a difficult question, because I’m still figuring it out. It’s hard. You kind of have to decide, “Am I a Christian writing fiction, or am I writing Christian fiction?” because there are subtle differences. I’m kind of in the middle. But I will say that my faith permeates me as a person, and that comes out in everything I do, even if it’s in a subtle way.

A lot of the core themes in Magnify (Storm & Spire Book 1) are drawn from the Old Testament, though if a reader doesn’t know the Bible well they may not pick up on it! I was reading and thinking about how the Israelites worshiped these false idols made of metal and stone and wood, and some part of my brain was like… “What if there was a society that worshiped dragons?” and went from there. Another big thing is corruption among religious leaders, and how we have to navigate that and still trust in God and in authorities that He has put over us despite their sins, weakness, imperfections, and even their evil at times. Because I think most Christians have struggled with that in some way, and it’s really a tough thing to navigate.

What project(s) are you currently working on?

I’m deeply into plotting the second book in my Storm & Spire series. I’m almost done, and once I get there I think the drafting will move fairly fast, as I ended up with a pretty intense outline this time around. I am hoping to get it out this fall, but I can’t make any big promises yet, haha.

How do you get inspiration to write?

Honestly, I’m very practical about this. I don’t worry about it. I just get up at 430 in the morning (so I can be awake before my kids – this is especially important since I homeschool my 6 year old, so everyone is always here) and I sit at my laptop and I WRITE! It’s work, it’s work I love, but it’s work. I can’t afford to wait for some mercurial muse to wander by. That said, there is an element to my writing that I really do think is connected to the Holy Spirit. I call it “falling into the hole”, which is such an unromantic name for something beautiful, but that’s just how my mind thinks about it. I don’t wait for that feeling when I’m writing, I have to write first, but the more I write, the more it happens. The words just come, and it’s like I’m playing a song rather than puzzling out a story.

It’s kind of like prayer – it’s up to God whether or not He wants to give you happy/peaceful/pleasant feelings and emotions. You can pray well even when you don’t “feel it”, and for me that’s really helped me on my tough writing days, too. Because the people who become successful authors are those who know how to write when they have no emotional desire to do it. I commit to being there and I trust that God will bring me to that “fall into the hole” feeling, at least once in a while. 🙂

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Thank you, Stefanie, for joining me!

Readers, have you read Magnify yet? What piece of advice helped you?

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