Lucy A. McLaren

Lucy: Hello Dusti! Thanks so much for joining us at Introverted Indies. I’m looking forward to getting to know you and your writing. So, to get things started, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Dusti: Of course! I’m Dusti Nalley and I self-published my first book in September of 2024. Like most of us, I’ve been writing since I was little. I loved coming up with scenes inspired by my favorite books, and I’d write them out in case it helped with the book I knew I’d eventually write! I’ve lost most of them by this point, so anything similar is definitely a coincidence. 

Along with writing, I’m a voracious reader. My favorite books include the Red Rising series, Game of Thrones, Murderbot, Song of Achilles, and most recently, Dungeon Crawler Carl. 

But I don’t just read and write. I play video games, with an ongoing save in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, but I’m also playing Jedi: Survivor and Animal Crossing (not my favorite, but my sisters insist!). I also go fishing with my husband, who is a major fisherman, am learning how to code, and have two dnd campaigns going, one I DM, the other I play in. 

I live in Wyoming with my husband and we have two dogs and three cats to keep us company! 

L: That’s awesome Dusti! So, a lot that I want to delve into here (especially how your favourite books, video games, and playing DnD influence your own writing). But first I’ll ask about your book—what can you tell us about that? 

D: My book is called Of Kings and Shadows. It’s about an undead assassin named Eldin who realizes important memories have been erased when they suddenly start coming back. The young woman he saves from slavery urges him to follow those memories and he rediscovers an old friend, a plot to overthrow his kind, and a monster hiding in plain sight. 

The idea for this book came not long after rereading The Ranger’s Apprentice. I loved the idea of these mysterious people who could disappear into their surroundings and were masters at weapons. I ran with that and made them more supernatural, more like Witchers, which is my second inspiration for this book. Once again, loners who are masters at weaponry and magic. Eldin very much takes a similar personality as Geralt, although more speaking and less grunting! He learns to make friends and finds love. 

The world is completely different than both of those stories. Eldin lives in a world where only beings in touch with the supernatural can use magic, the years are counted by the annual return of a comet, and the planet is not tilted, causing seasons to be per location instead of time. 

Building the Kingdom of Alarya actually came from listening to a podcast called Worldbuilding for Masochists. Each episode touched on a different subject, and I used it as a guide to figure out the government, naming conventions, geography, etc. as this was my first full on fantasy book I wrote. Up to that point, the rest had been an urban fantasy trilogy that will never see the light of day (they were my first books and as much as I love them, they were not great haha). 

L: Haha, I can fully understand first books being not great. We’ve all got to start somewhere! Of Kings and Shadows sounds great and I love all the different elements and inspirations you’ve pulled from. It sounds quite complex in terms of the worldbuilding details that you setup for it. Is this the start of a series or standalone? And did you always want to write a full on, epic fantasy book? 

D: It definitely felt lived in before I even started! I found the story in the world rather than finding the world to go along with the story. 

It’s a planned trilogy! I have the first draft of the second book written and I’m in the process of edits right now. The plan is to have it finished and published before the year is up. It will be titled: Of Gods and Monsters. 

Fantasy and sci-fi have been my genres since my love for reading started at eight years old. Harry Potter sparked that love, so it was never a question to me as to what genre I’d be writing in. I love being able to create my own rules and throw people into adventures that are different than the real world. 

L: Oh fantastic. How have you found writing the second book in the series? And do you have the third one planned? (Asking as someone about to embark on the third book in my trilogy and knowing how each book can feel very different in terms of pace and character arcs!) 

D:  The second book has been a bit more of a challenge. I have yet to decide the balance of adding in reminders of what happened in the first book without sounding repetitive and not having enough. This first draft is also a lot rougher than the first draft of the first book, and part of that comes from changes in life and having to adapt to new schedules. I also wrote a whole other book right in the middle of this draft and can tell right where I picked it back up because the writing is drastically better. I’m going to have to do some major rewriting to bring it up to par. It’s a bit more complicated as well, with more intricate relationships between characters. There will be a lot of editing to make those relationships (good and bad) more prominent and natural. 

The third book is not fully planned, but I have a list and things that need to happen in it. I have a general idea of what the ending is going to be and all the questions I have to answer by that point. I believe it will probably be the most fun to write since I’ve been in these characters heads for so long now and know exactly how they will react to every situation. First books are fun because you get to explore who everyone is, third books are fun because they feel like friends you’ve been fighting alongside! 

L: Yes, I know the struggle of coming back to a book after taking a break from drafting it! Though noticing that improvement in your own writing is always nice. I agree, the first book feels new and exciting to explore, and the third you’re pulling all the strings together. The middle book can be the real challenge in terms of balance in terms of what’s come before and what needs to come in the next book. You mentioned working on another book whilst drafting book two – is that one you’re planning on publishing too?  

D: Yes! I wrote it for a specific call from an indie press for middle grade boy adventures. It’s about a boy who stowed away on a ship to become a Mech Suit Technician and join up with their military’s survey team to explore planets, but on his way there his mentor disappears and he has to find out what happened with his new teammate. 

I submitted it late January, so now it’s playing the waiting game. I hope it is accepted! But if not, I plan on publishing it myself. With any luck, that will give me two books published this year. 

L: Oh nice! That sounds like a lot of fun. How did you find writing a middle grade book vs your series which is presumably adult? 

D: It was a little harder. I had to keep in the headspace of how a child would react to any given situation. As I don’t have children of my own, I had to pull from things I remember when I was that age, reading other middle grade books, and talking to my friends with kids around that age. 

I had to write nearly 40k words of a different idea as practice before I jumped into this one. I’m glad I did, as I believe it made my writing stronger for this one. 

With Of Kings and Shadows, the main character often likes to solve his problems with violence, whereas in this one, violence was farthest thing from the right answer and I had to come up with more intricate scenes to solve problems, including one where the main character and his friend were talking to the villain without knowing it. Every word spoken in that scene had to have several different meanings and it took me four tries of rewriting until I was happy with it. 

It was a fun challenge and I’m excited to continue the story one day! 

L: Yeah, I can imagine it was a really valuable exercise to practice on that different idea. Ultimately, any experience writing is going to strengthen our work! It sounds like you really had to be aware of what you were seeking to achieve in the book given the audience it was aimed at. Going back to Of Kings and Shadows – can you tell us more about your journey to publication with that book? 

D: It took way longer than it should have! I wrote the first 50k during my first nanowrimo in 2021, then spent the next three months finishing the last 56k. I did some edits and shared it with my writing group. For the next couple years I went back and forth between editing and trying to decide what to do with it. It didn’t really fit into the tradition publishing criteria as it ends with an obvious second book coming. What finally pushed me to self publish was a craft fair of all things. I volunteered to help my sister out and man her crochet booth at a local festival, so I buckled down, did another pass of edits to tweak a few things I had learned about, made a quick cover, and published it wide in September 2024 through lulu.com. I ordered a couple copies to sell at the craft fair. They showed up the day before and I sold my first book there! If it wasn’t for that, I might still be undecided if it was good enough to self publish or not! Now its competing in the SPFBO11 contest and with any luck that will get more eyes on it and it will find its way into the hands of someone who loves it! 

L: It’s so hard to know what the best route is as an author, isn’t it? Both traditional and self-publishing have pros and cons! It sounds like you found the right route for your book, though. It must’ve have been amazing to sell that first copy at the craft fair. And now it’s in SPFBO11! So exciting. How are you finding the process so far? 

D: Its pretty fun! There’s a lot of talented people who have been chosen. My judge is Abel and he chose some people to help him out. So far I haven’t heard anything from my group, but that just means I’m in the contest that much longer! The judges have all had really nice things to say about every book, even the ones they didn’t like, so I’ll be happy with a review that will spark some peoples interest. 

Even without much word about my book yet, I’ve been thankful to hear about itch.io and have been able to be a part of a couple book bundles now that have sold a bunch. It’s been awesome to be part of the community and plan on trying every year I am able! 

L: Yeah, I’ve been following along in the Discord (I didn’t make the lottery this year). It seems like overall everyone is very supportive. Ultimately, like you say, it’ll be nice to have a review! 

So, this feels like a good point to wrap up, Dusti. Final question – what piece of advice would you give to someone looking to start on their own author journey? 

D: The advice I would give is don’t give up! Writing is a long process and doesn’t happen overnight. Even Brandon Sanderson wrote twelve books before he sold one. Some of it is about skill, but a lot of it is about luck. Keep writing and keep submitting! 

L: I agree! Thanks Dusti, great advice. It’s been lovely chatting with you. 

Follow Dusti on Instagram here and via her author website here.

Check out her currently available books here.