Welcome to BookView Interview, a conversation series where BookView talks to authors.

Recently, we talked to Cordelia Kelly about her writing and her recently published book, The Well of Souls (Port of Lost Souls), a gripping read that seamlessly blends adventure and emotion. (Read the review here).

What inspired the premise of your book?

What I really wanted to do with The Well of Souls was take a common trope in the YA fantasy genre, the ages-old immortal who falls in love with a teenager, and turn it on its head with a gender role reversal. I wanted a jaded female vampire, one who has seen everything, and yet somehow sees the world as fresh and new from the perspective of a young man – one who is kind and loyal and sees the best in life. You don’t often see that trope from a strong female’s point of view, and I wanted to dive deeper into the concept.

How many rewrites did you do for this book?

I do so many rewrites! I write my first draft fast and sloppy, and as I result, I must comb through it again and again, reshaping it until it is the manuscript I want it to be. It’s hard to know exactly how many. 14? 18?

How long on average does it take you to write a book?

I write a first draft in about three weeks. But there is a great deal of planning and outlining before that point, and lots of edits that need to happen afterwards, so in all it’s about four months of solid work. The quickest I’ve ever written a first draft was five days. I took a writer’s retreat and wrote 100,000 words. I will never do that again; I had a migraine for a week afterwards – I do not recommend.

Tell us a little bit about how the story first came to be. Did it start with an image, a voice, a concept, or something else?

The first concept of The Well of Souls was based on a dream, about a group of humans and vampires trapped underground. They were enemies and yet they were forced to work together for a common goal. The dream was intensely creepy, and stuck with me for a long time. Usually when that happens I start to work out whether something could be built on it.

Which character was most challenging to create?

My main character, Lola Monteux, was by far the most difficult character I’ve written to date. She is a blend of old, jaded vampire as well as a 16-year-old teen with conflicting emotions and a longing to belong. Trying to get these different aspects to balance and for her to also be somebody the reader likes was a challenge. Lola is a morally grey antihero; she’s literally a demon and begins the book with a murder.

As the story goes along, however, she taps into her humanity. That was when I really got a sense of who she was and who she was going to become.

What in particular attracted you to the YA genre?

I have loved young adult books for most of my life, and I think what I love the most about them is they are imbued with a strong sense of hope. At the end of story, the demons have been defeated and the good guys win in the end, if only they are brave and strong and true. Added to this, though are new concepts of love and independence as characters explore the world on their own and develop into the people they will become. It’s a heady mix and I’m still enamored with the concept.

What is your favourite childhood book?

Hands-down the best books from my childhood was The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce. I discovered them when I was eight years old, and it was as though a door opened inside my head. For the first time I found true joy in reading.

Those books will always hold a very special place in my heart. I would love to be able to inspire that joy of reading and of magic and adventure in my own books.

What is your greatest failure? What did you learn from that failure?

My greatest professional failure was when I dropped out of law after my articling year. It had been a difficult year, and I discovered a legal career was not what I wanted. I stepped away from the law firm I was working for and was at loose ends for a while, working as a receptionist. At the time, it felt like a massive failure, as I watched my friends and colleagues rise into glamourous careers and knowing I was never going to be anywhere close to that.

In hindsight, however, I can see what an amazing move it was for me. It set me down the path towards doing something I adore. I moved into journalism and on to creative writing. You can’t judge yourself for things that feel like failures in the moment: truly, you don’t know what’s going to happen in the long run. It might be the best thing that ever happened to you.

What’s next for you?

I have so many projects in the works right now! Not only am I working on the next two books in the Port of Lost Souls series, but my next novel is coming out in the fall. It is a young adult high fantasy, The Sibyl and the Thief, about a girl who is cursed with invisibility and doomed to fade away to nothing. She meets a blind weaver who swears she can help her, and she follows her into a haunted forest as a last chance to save herself. It will be released through Brown Cat Press this September.

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