Tellest:<\/strong> Hello there.\u00a0 I appreciate you taking the time to join me on this interview.\u00a0 With as busy as the Art\u00e9sque world seems to be, in terms of lore and backstory, this is certainly cutting into your time!<\/p>\n T. Cannon:<\/strong> It does, but luckily enough I have summers off being a full-time teacher, so I manage to find the time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T:<\/strong> That\u2019s one thing I didn\u2019t yet know about you, and that\u2019s pretty interesting to think about.\u00a0 Do any of your students know about this hobby?<\/p>\n TC:<\/strong> They do I know I wrote one as I have a poster of it in my classroom, though due to being a teacher, I do not have copies of them in class. I normally only talk about it in passing, some have decided to read it though I typically only talk with students that graduate about it to avoid being seen as anything other than a teacher to them.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n T:<\/strong> How did you come up with the concept of Art\u00e9sque?\u00a0 There is a good deal of new races that you explore and it\u2019s tricky enough that you have your own little world bible in the form of your fandom wiki.<\/p>\n TC:<\/strong> The concept itself came out of a collection of short stories a group of friends and I made in high school. I continued with the ideas and eventually published my first book a few months after graduation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n T:<\/strong> Do any of the other friends you wrote the short stories collection with help you with your stories or contribute in some way?<\/p>\n TC:<\/strong> We still talk and bounce ideas off one another but none care to write anything down.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>Your first book in the Fragment of Ston\u00e1 series introduces the reader to the world through the eyes of three boys from our world.\u00a0 What made you want to show the world as experienced by them?<\/p>\n TC: <\/strong>The idea was to have this fantasy world through the perspective of a modern-day person. It\u2019s nothing inherently new, but it lends a sense of grounding for reads I think; one moment there can be this big fantasy battle, the next there can be a slice of life with the characters in the book attempting to explain what a cheeseburger is. I always liked the idea of personal struggle and the concepts of guilt and regret as the main evils within a story, rather just a dragon or some physical monster. The series itself is fairly long, with ten planned books, three already published. The brothers serve as a viewpoint rather than the main characters or even the heroes\/driving forces of this world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T:<\/strong> Ten books!\u00a0 That\u2019s massive.\u00a0 What do people say when you tell them you\u2019re going to be working on such a large saga?<\/p>\n TC:<\/strong> The most common thing reacted when you say you wrote a book is \u201cwhoa, that\u2019s awesome\u201d follow thereby with silence or a joke about \u201cbut who still reads?\u201d Being that I see how young adults react to books in a classroom setting it does not surprise me to hear it, even from adults. Knowing the size seems only to further the pointlessness of reading. The books are to me a trophy, an example of overcoming something that has been with me. I love to write, my handwriting is terrible, and my grammar might not always be on point, but I feel, and those who read my stuff, tend to say, they enjoy what I do.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n T:<\/strong> I\u2019m usually pretty good about tracking other books down, but I didn\u2019t see any links for the follow-ups to this tale.\u00a0 Can you let people know where to find the sequels?<\/p>\n TC:<\/strong> Same places as book one, though my publisher thought having my name as T. D. Cannon<\/u><\/strong> had a better ring to it, I agreed so the listing changed. Amazon and barns & nobles do not have the follow(s) listed with the same one. Last I checked, typing in \u201cArtesque book two\u201d still brings it up. The first books can absolutely be seen as a standalone, as such it was published first, and I gave more liberties to the publisher. For the rest of the series I will be pushing forward with more control.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>You\u2019ve had challenges with your writing, as you have severe dyslexia.\u00a0 How has this changed the way you approach your storytelling?<\/p>\n TC: <\/strong>Contending with dyslexia is something I have always dealt with. While it helps me connect with students in my profession, it yields me no benefit when I sit down and actually plan to write. I can get several pages into a plot point only to go back and reread what I wrote, often finding the silliest of mistakes. Though sometimes it helps, as some of the languages within the series are just common words with a bit of dyslexia flair and phonetic spelling<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T:<\/strong> It helped you write your own language!\u00a0 Do you typically write the traditional way, or have you experimented with things like Dragon: Naturally Speaking, or other dictation softwares?<\/p>\n TC:<\/strong> I write the traditional way, just keyboard. I have used a few other softwares, but I prefer just the keyboard.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>Obviously, this is not the last we\u2019ve seen of your stories.\u00a0 What do you have in store for readers who enjoyed the first book?<\/p>\n TC: <\/strong>For people who enjoyed the first book the second and third were published together, so anyone can continue through them. At the moment, I am attempting to find a high traffic website for my stories to be published on. I still like having the hardcopies, plus the copyright that comes with it, but I hope to have my series for free online in the future.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T:<\/strong> I know that at least for a while, Wattpad was big, and it allowed people to put their stories up on a chapter by chapter basis.\u00a0 People would turn up for what happened next, and it let them feel more invested.<\/p>\n TC:<\/strong> I actually posted my first story to Wattpad about two weeks ago, so far, no traction. Larger online formats like that take time or you have to get in when the website first starts. I have begun looking at others.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>Besides the challenges of writing and crafting a story, what has been the most difficult experience you\u2019ve felt in the publishing process?<\/p>\n TC:<\/strong> I always knew I would be a teacher, even in grade school, so I opted out of social media to avoid problems. Therein lies the issue: you can\u2019t market without a social media, at least not efficiently. I don\u2019t regret that decision, but it makes getting the book out so much harder.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n T:<\/strong> Have you considered putting together an author website or a newsletter to go along with your other material?<\/p>\n TC:<\/strong> I have, biggest hang up for me is being a teacher, social media can cause problems, even an author website with comments can cause issues. Newsletters are one thing, but I am still unsure how I would get the information out without some social media.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T:<\/strong> A lot of authors have done something like Booksweeps, where you give away your first book in the series in the hopes that they could get reviews.\u00a0 You could include a link to your newsletter in the front and back matter of the books.<\/p>\n TC:<\/strong> Not a bad idea, I had done a few sweepstakes raffles with my book on Goodreads and a few other review type websites. Unfortunately, the only review I ever got from the program was comical to say the least. It was from a 60-year-old woman who said she liked the story, but that the font size was too small.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>When did you get your start with writing?\u00a0 What inspires you to craft stories like these?<\/p>\n TC: <\/strong>I have always enjoyed telling stories but did not start writing anything down until high school. As for inspiration, I generally do not like reading, but when I do, I enjoy old stuff, plays, Greek stories of heroes, old mythology, or folklore, that kind of stuff. It seems funny, but along with my spelling issues as a kid, I had issues reading. I never enjoyed third person narrative heavy books I read a lot of in school, and I do not particularly enjoy past tense or passive voice in writing. I enjoy a certain type of flow and spacing within books, which is why within my own stories I purposely chose a font size and spacing style that makes for a quick read. No one wants to read a wall of text, just the sentences above this as an example.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/World_map.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n