To celebrate 13 weeks of winter, Hàlön Chronicles is conducting one interview a week for 13 weeks. We’re also partnering with other sites and artists to bring a fuller, richer experience to our readers.
Join us on the hashtag #13Winterviews, or check out this season’s articles:
Welcome to the Season | Winterviews Partners | 2019 Blog Hop | Book Pairings | Winterviews & Solstice Eve
To kick off our Winterviews season we enter the realm of dragons and say hello to Fantasy Author Jimi. A. Rodriguez and his 2018 release Chaos.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Hi, everyone! I’m Jimi Rodriguez, an author from Houston, TX. I’m married with two beautiful children. I graduated from THE Ohio State University and earned a Master’s Degree from Ohio University. Since graduating, I’ve taught mostly mathematics classes to grades 6-11. Teaching is one of the highest honors I’ve had in life. Daily, I’m trusted with the most precious commodity people have: their children. I hope I’ve taught my students as well as I want my own children taught.
In my first year of teaching, I spent a lot of time promoting literacy. Though I teach math, every good teacher knows we’re all reading teachers. Without literacy, there is no teaching to be done. I read great books to my boys (I worked at an all-boys school) including Percy Jackson, The Hunger Games, Divergent, and more. Though we thoroughly enjoyed each of these books, we ran into the same problem. There were no male characters my boys felt they could relate to. My boys had tough upbringings, wanted to be men more than anything, and made a lot mistakes in pursuit of “growing up” in life. Percy, Four, Gale, and Peeta are all fantastic characters, but they had very little in common with my boys. My goal was to write a book they would love, and it ended up more special than I could have imagined.
What types of books do you write, and why?
I chose to start my writing career with a YA Fantasy series in two parts. First, I find teenage protagonists to be the most fascinating. They are full of hope, optimism, and their futures are unpredictable. I also work with teenagers, so I wanted to write a book which could rekindle their love for reading they lost as children.
Fantasy is my favorite genre because who doesn’t love magic? I grew up in deep poverty with a single mother, so books about escaping to a magical world/school where the protagonist could make a better life for themselves always appealed to me. I felt like the main characters in these books were a little too goody-goody for my tastes however. Having been lucky enough to go to college, which was a magical place to me, I certainly didn’t make every correct decision. I succeeded because I persevered through my mistakes and learned from them. I wanted to write a story about someone who doesn’t appreciate the literal or figurative magic of the world around them as an homage to that experience.
What were your early influences, and how does this manifest in your work today?
Growing up in poverty presented me with unique challenges, but also gave me a healthy perspective on struggling to succeed. My main character and I certainly have a lot of differences, but the unrelenting will to fight for a dream is something we share. Had I not been lucky to have such a doting, loving mother, I think I could have ended up on the wrong path like JT. The absence of caring fathers is a common theme in my book, probably because of my own experience going through life without one. Fatherhood is a dimension of storytelling I am excited to portray in books 2-4 of From Chaos Comes Order.
The other part of having a single mother raising me was the value I placed on the strength of women. To this day, I have never met a man as strong as my mother. Her resolve to raise my brothers and I as good men, provide for us, and show us unconditional love is like nothing I’ve ever seen until I met my wife. I strived to find balance in the representation of power, but I would argue the most intelligent, powerful characters are almost all women. I didn’t set out to accomplish anything like that, but I can’t believe it’s a coincidence.
Are there aspects of the craft that excite you more than others?
Might sound weird, but it’s the actual storytelling. The mechanics of writing and editing do interesting me, but even if I couldn’t write, I’d orate my story. I think listening to or telling a story is a deeply human experience. I discovered my talent for it in college, but since I began teaching, I have honed the skill of captivating a mind with words alone. I often feel I can tell my story as well as I can write it, if not better. The challenge for me is matching the writing mechanics to the beautiful story playing out in my mind. I guess we’re all similar in that regard.
What books or websites are your go-to places while editing?
I think Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott should be required for any burgeoning writer. I obsessed over making my first draft perfect for From Chaos Comes Order. To no one’s surprise, it was still awful. I won a watty award for it, but I can’t help but think it was because I made a positive impact on the community, and the story did possess a great deal of potential.
The main website I used for editing was twitter. I ended up seeing a lot of informative articles about editing in my feed. I read upwards of thirty articles about words to watch for, tightening my prose, the structure of my narrative, and more.
I also enjoy reading Brandon Sanderson’s brilliant novels. I don’t think it’s a good idea to compare your work, but my goal isn’t to sell a hundred books and call it a day. I want to be the greatest of all time, no matter what challenge I take on. If you don’t want to be better than your favorite writer, what are you working for?
Tell us about your current WIP or your latest book release.
My first novel, Chaos, first in From Chaos Comes Order released on 12/5/18 on amazon.com. I chose to self-publish because I wanted to my entire creative vision in tact. I had a clear goal to write a story inner-city boys could relate to, but also one which held a wide appeal. I wanted to write the book I always wanted, a mysterious, brutal, magical world with a main character I could identify with.
Insert Jacob Titus, my main character. His heart is always in the right place, but with a mother diagnosed with a rare case of early-onset Alzheimer’s and an absent father, he makes a lot of mistakes. The lack of guidance is evident as Jacob gets older and the stakes get higher for his actions. He foolishly skips magic classes at his school, hangs out with a dangerous crowd, and tries to fill the void his mother left in his heart by sleeping with as many women as he wants. My boys wanted nothing more than to have JT’s freedom, get the girls he could, or be as “cool” as he appears to be. As JT matures, my readers see his power grow.
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Surviving in a school of magic and murder is not easy! Jacob Titus is a forgotten boy from Eslor Island. With an absent father and a mother who battles Alzheimer’s disease, Jacob has long learned to care for himself. When he is discovered by a magical talent hunter, Jacob makes the difficult choice to leave his home and enter the Valcrest School for the Promised. As his school years go by, Jacob has to spend as much time trying to stay alive as he does finding a cure for his mother. As violence and blood lust at the school escalate, Jacob must learn to figure out who he can trust. All he wanted was to save his mother. Now he must save himself. Read more > |
Tell us what it is you do.
My wife and I are accepting donations for our non-profit, all-encompassing community center. SWITCH Arts and Recreation Center will be located in the greater Houston, TX area. The purpose of SWITCH is to serve all ages and families of the greater Houston area through daytime, evening, weekend, summer, and after school programming in arts and recreation in order to develop healthy minded, multi-talented, skilled, and determined individuals with integrity, sportsmanship, confidence, and humility.
In short, the idea is to provide access to quality training in the areas of arts, sports, and academic development to an area with a high concentration of at-risk youth. We believe keeping kids busy, happy, and healthy is one of the best ways to help them reach their full potential. A child could leave school on a bus to SWITCH, where they can potentially be in a basketball, dance, singing, volleyball, and acting class before their parents pick them up. Our own two children are multi-talented, but we have the resources to reveal this talent. We had to drive all over the city (in Houston traffic!) to get my daughter to various classes in sports or fine arts. We would like to make this process much more accessible to a community that desperately needs it.
SWITCH Arts and Recreation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
How can potential clients get in contact with you?
To donate time, money, or resources to SWITCH Arts and Recreation, or for further questions, please contact us at switchartsandreaction@gmail.com. Flip the SWITCH!
Be sure to learn more about Jimi Rodriguez at his website: www.jimirodriguez.weebly.com. You can also follow him on Twitter, like his Facebook author page, or connect with him on Goodreads.
Purchase From Chaos Comes Order – Book One: Chaos.
Admire Chaos’ cover as much as I do? Contact my talented cover designer, Courtney Dye.
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Great interview, and it’s awesome to meet another Brandon Sanderson fan!