{"id":3981,"date":"2016-08-06T00:01:17","date_gmt":"2016-08-06T04:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tellest.com\/?p=3981"},"modified":"2016-09-08T07:21:01","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T11:21:01","slug":"interview-michael-deangelo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/interview-michael-deangelo\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Michael DeAngelo"},"content":{"rendered":"
Hello there folks. \u00a0We’re busy busy busy this month, but we’ve finally got some time to talk about a few things. \u00a0First off, we’d like to formally welcome Erika Castro to the Tellest team. \u00a0She’s going to be our social media guru. \u00a0As of right now, she’s the reason our Twitter page looks as delightful as it does. \u00a0She’s also taking on a new responsibility today as she sits\u00a0Michael DeAngelo (that’s me!) down for an interview on all things Tellest.<\/p>\n
Let’s give her a warm welcome as she joins this wonderful team!<\/p>\n
Without any further adieu, here’s an\u00a0interview that’ll give you some insight into the vision for Tellest in the near future:<\/p>\n
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Erika Castro:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0First of all, thank you for the opportunity. \u00a0It’s going to be a lot of fun working with Tellest and all the people who make it awesome.<\/em><\/p>\n Michael DeAngelo: <\/strong>Well we’re definitely very lucky to have you here. \u00a0You’re going to fill a role that I’ve been lacking in lately, so we’re very grateful to have you as part of the crew.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n EC:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0I hope I’ll prove myself as we move forward. \u00a0Should we move forward with the interview?<\/em><\/p>\n MD: <\/strong>Take it away!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n EC:<\/em><\/strong> What made you first interested in writing?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n MD: <\/strong>When I was younger, I was always making up stories to be a part of, but they originally started as pipe dreams for games.\u00a0 I fantasized about making these big sprawling games like Final Fantasy, because Roleplaying Games were always a big part of my life.\u00a0 I used to tell people I wanted to be a software engineer, because I heard it and didn\u2019t yet know the term \u201cgame developer.\u201d<\/p>\n For the longest time, I always thought that writing a story from front to back was out of reach for me.\u00a0 Those were for far smarter people than me\u2014it was beyond my capability.<\/p>\n It\u2019s silly but letting go is probably what gave me the opportunity to really dig into writing.\u00a0 I was lucky enough to work fairly quickly in school, and we had 90 minute classes.\u00a0 During a math class, I ended up finishing a test ridiculously early.\u00a0 I knew that Baldur\u2019s Gate II was coming out soon, and I knew that you could develop a character biography for yourself.\u00a0 I started writing one for the character who would eventually become my original main character, and the rest grew out of control from there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n EC:<\/em><\/strong> Why fantasy?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n MD:<\/strong> Fantasy has always scratched a particular itch for me.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure why, exactly.\u00a0 It\u2019s just always been a part of my life.\u00a0 I learned to read and write playing King\u2019s Quest on the Apple II.\u00a0 My favorite movies growing up were Willow and Princess Bride and Goonies (a pseudo-fantasy, if ever there was one).\u00a0 And I\u2019m a huge fan of videogames, as I said, with Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy and the Secret of Monkey Island being huge influences in my life and in my writing.<\/p>\n While my Dad had always been a big fan of fantasy and sci-fi, it was my aunt who I think really planted the bug in my brain.\u00a0 We used to play a very simplified version of dungeons and dragons when she would babysit me, and I think that was probably what got me started wanting to build worlds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n EC:<\/em><\/strong> How old were you when you wrote your first story (not published)?<\/em><\/p>\n MD:<\/strong> I believe I was five or six when I wrote some incoherent mess about a shark that didn\u2019t want to eat fish\u2026 he wanted to be their friends.\u00a0 It\u2019s very possible that Pixar used this wonderful book as inspiration for the sharks in Finding Nemo. <\/p>\n EC:<\/em><\/strong> Is there a particular author that inspires you?<\/em><\/p>\n MD:<\/strong> R. A. Salvatore is the storyteller who speaks to me the most.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until I read about Drizzt and Wulfgar and Bruenor and Regis and Catti-brie in The Thousand Orcs<\/em> that I really go the push into storytelling.\u00a0 That book was also given to me by the aunt that imparted all that love for fantasy in me.\u00a0 I received that on my seventeenth birthday, right around the time Baldur\u2019s Gate II was coming out, and it just happened to be the perfect storm of creativity and intellect to get me going.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n EC:<\/em><\/strong> Was there a particular book\/story you wrote that made you think that you had something going here?<\/em><\/p>\n MD:<\/strong> I think that\u2019s both the blessing and the curse of being someone who continues to write books.\u00a0 When I wrote my first book, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.\u00a0 I was very impressed with myself, but if I go back and read that, I\u2019m appalled.\u00a0 It\u2019s horrible!\u00a0 But at the same time, I\u2019m glad that I believed in myself back then.\u00a0 If I had started writing and immediately found disgust in my work, I don\u2019t know that I would have ever continued doing what I am. There\u2019s a trend with my work, too.\u00a0 I\u2019ll go back to a book I wrote five years ago and be disappointed with it, and I have no doubt that something that I write this year will feel a tad undercooked five years from now.\u00a0 But I feel that it also shows that I\u2019m growing as a writer and a storyteller, and for that I\u2019m grateful.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n EC:<\/em><\/strong> Is the character Kaos Kreegan based on anyone you know?<\/em><\/p>\n MD:<\/strong> He is, and while other people might be ashamed to admit this, I\u2019m just going to own up to it.\u00a0 Kaos is an obvious straw man.\u00a0 Kaos was supposed to be someone that I could aspire to be\u2014maybe not the fighting prowess and the treasure hunting and all that jazz, but certainly his values.\u00a0 We spend three books with Kaos where he\u2019s this white knight willing to do all these things, but we never really see him break.\u00a0 He sticks to his guns, so to speak, for better or worse.\u00a0 I can tell you this though: writing a straw man character gets kind of boring, especially if you aspire to be the best you that you can be.\u00a0 When we see Kaos again in the future, we\u2019re going to really work at breaking him a little bit!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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