Christine Michele Estopare, Dark Fantasy and Fantasy Romance Author
How does Christine Michele Estopare describe herself? The wife, Marine Corps veteran, and “dog mama” says, “I’m a productivist, vinyasa yoga enthusiast, mindfulness newb, video game player (Monster Hunter World, anybody?)”.
Christine uses the pseudonym C. M. Estopare for her books “…so a (cover designer) doesn’t wind up (correctly) misspelling my middle name and because CM is just so catchy.” This fear is real to Christine because “I learned (how to spell my name) while on active duty. Should I be embarrassed that I learned how to correctly spell my own middle name around (age) 22?”
When Estopare is not busy taking care of her dog and being wife to her husband, she says writing, publishing, and marketing even her days. “But when we get down to the nitty-gritty of life beyond the keyboard, we’re all really just people trying to make sense of our personal realities aren’t we? That’s my little philosophical tangent for ya.”
Estopare’s charismatic responses and personality glow through-out this article, making it a fun read.
HER WORK
Interviewer: Which is your favorite of all the books you’ve written?
Estopare: From writing about bad ass shield maidens to assassins that take out dragons with stilettos--my favorite book out of all the ones I’ve written is one I don’t even have the guts (or marketing sense) to publish. A story inspired by the bittersweet history of Geisha and the seedy underbelly of Japanese prostitution districts, The Way of Flowers was a passion project that follows my personal passion for the history of paid sex (Japanese style).
Interviewer: How many hours a day do you write?
Estopare: So who here has heard of the Pomodoro technique? The tomato timer? What you do is set a timer for 25 minutes--write till your fingers burn--then give yourself a five-minute break. I’ve found that this has upped my word count from 1,000 words per hour to around 2,000 and 3,000 on a good day. Usually (if I’m not editing a project) I do around 5,000-10,000 a day. And, because I’m weird, I only write in fourteen-day sprints. So, from 6am-11am, I get in my daily word count and trust my creative mechanism to have the project done at the end of the 2-week stint. Writetrack.com helps me keep track of how many words I’ll need per day to hit my goal. Writetrack is useful and (here’s the best part) it’s totally free.
Interviewer: How many unpublished and work-in-progress (WIP) books do you have?
Estopare: I’ve been laughing for five minutes now. My passion projects. Every single one of them. That would be about three. Two being Japanese historicals and one being a cyberpunk serial inspired by Overwatch. You just kind of know when something is going to eat away at your purse and make you just die a little inside while looking at its income report. I could add two more projects to the list, but I’ve recently stumbled upon a serialized fiction seller (?) called Radish and it’s insanely easy to publish serialized versions of your novel and get paid. You only need to use a stock image as the book cover so there’s less of an overhead.
Interviewer: How do you select the names of your characters?
Estopare: Please don’t pin me to a corkboard for this, but normally I go through Behind the Name (Behind the name is a fabulous website for finding everything from names to where the names originate from) and choose a name that just screams--you’ve got to pick me or your soul will weep (and it’s also usually based on the type of culture the world is based on). Sometimes, I even go so far as to using generators.
PERSONAL LIFE
Interviewer: What in your personal life have you included in one of your stories?
Estopare: I lived in Okinawa (Okinawa is a little island off the coast of Japan) for a good two years. In a recent project for Radish, The Azure Dragon, the main character has an Oiran friend (a well-paid courtesan) who is half big sister half seriously serious antagonist. You think that she’s the bad guy....until she gets kicked out and returns to the main character as a shell of her former self. That character deals with some serious suicidal ideations that I personally dealt with while stationed in Korea (from Okinawa). I know it’s normal to cringe at the idea of adding mental health issues to projects, but I think it broadens the scope of understanding for those that might never deal with something so troubling themselves but might have friends that do. The main character ends up just...taking comforting care of her. Feeding her, helping her take care of herself and eventually putting her into the care of someone who can better help her out.
Interviewer: How do you balance life and writing?
Estopare: There’s a thing called “Maker time” that’s between 6am-11am. After that, it’s admin time, work out time, husband time (usually in that order). I make weekly to-do lists every Sunday to make sure I’ve got everything in order in advance. And, surprisingly, having less of a choice about what I do makes things a lot...easier. Crazy, right? Take away choice and in comes clarity.
A book that seriously helped me with goal setting and weekly planning is Your Best Year Ever. In it, Michael Hyatt goes through how to set awesome goals and how to keep habits. He even goes so far as recommending that you do an After Actions Report every Sunday and to do a quarterly review of your goals every three months (because we change, so why shouldn’t our goals?). This one book made me believe in New Year’s resolutions again.
Interviewer: What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?
Estopare: Trusting the process. I mentioned earlier that I write in 14-day sprints. Well, sometimes--usually around day 10--I get stuck. Like seriously stuck. Usually, when I get stuck, I roll away from the computer and just let the stuckness percolate. I’ll come back to it the following day with the solution, but the hardest part is rolling away from the computer and trusting the process. Trusting my creative mechanism to work it all out (and when you don’t force it, it always comes through). Trust the process. And as Dean Wesley Smith says, “Trust the damned process.”
LEARNING CURVES
Interviewer: How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?
Estopare: Publishing my first book taught me two things: write to market (sure you all have heard that one before) and write without the market in mind (say what?!). Contradicting, I know! But I’ve learned in the long run that if you write what you’re passionate about usually there’s a market for it. And if there’s not (contradiction!) make one. It doesn’t have to be on Amazon. You could reach out to a serialized fiction seller like Radish, Tapas, or Wattpad. You could sell from your website or create a web serial. There is potential in every project, but sometimes it might take a little while to find it. If you don’t have the time, then writing to market is extremely useful, but also a great way to burn out. So, patience is truly a virtue!
INSPIRATION
Interviewer: What is your favorite motivational phrase?
Estopare: “There is always, always, always something to be grateful for.” Buddha said something along those lines. Also, for kicks, “There is value in your work.”
Interviewer: What is your favorite book and why?
Estopare: The Commoner by John Burnham Schwartz. The Commoner follows the life of Princess Masako, a commoner who rose up to become a Japanese princess. Being a princess in Japan is akin to being a cardinal in a gilded cage. One constantly filled with your own droppings at that. At one point in her life, she was considered a “prisoner” of the Chrysanthemum Throne. And The Commoner details why.
There is one particular chapter in the book where Masako loses her ability to speak. Not because there is something wrong with her physically, but because she feels as if her voice had literally been stolen by her overbearing mother-in-law and the rest of the palace. Her inability to speak was a kind of silent rebellion on her part and I broke down in tears reading it because--haven’t we all felt caged at one point? Unable to escape unless it’s in a body bag (or a shoe box if you’re a bird). Reading that chapter was like seeing a beautiful still life of depression and it moved me. I seriously recommend the book for a stay at home moms and women working in misogynistic workplaces. It really cleansed my soul.
Interviewer: If you could tell new writers anything, what would it be?
Estopare: Patience is a virtue. Write to market if you want money immediately. Write what you love if you have the resources to wait. Rapid release strategies are the bomb for whatever you’re writing--passion project or a write-to-market. Marketing is your friend and it loves you very much, mind its quills though. Don’t forget to make time for your loved ones and time for life. If something isn’t working, try not to force it. See yourself completing it at an allotted time, and give it space. Oh, and take care of yourself. Please, take care of yourself. This life is so very brief.
Interviewer: Where can people find you?
I’m most active on Instagram cause I’ve got crazy photo manipulation skills (no really, don’t laugh). Feel free to friend me on Facebook, too! I love talking shop with other indies.
