In the second of my series of interviews with fellow new authors and writers, I present you today with Alex Yehorenkov. Alex is unique and also uniquely interesting. He runs the facebook group Writer's Fight Club which I joined a while back and is such an incredible character. He's currently trying to break the English speaking market after many years in the Russian literary world. His remarkable series Snake God is out there now; a deeply intriguing combinatation of Western, magical fantasy, steampunk, post apocalyptic sci-fi and Lord knows what else, he has a way of getting you engaged from the get go; even if it's just because you want to know what is going to go on next! I like different and I love things which refuse to fit into the rules of genre so I am very much interested in reading more about the Snake God!
I would recommend taking a look at. Alex's Amazon page here and I advise a good browse! he has a lot of cool stuff on there! His A Girl Named Murder series will mess with your mind in ways you cannot imagine!
So, without further ado, to the interview!
So, who is Alex Yehorenkov? You have 2000 words (ish, very ish)
It’s hard for me to pinpoint my identity, for a reason. I suppose I’m a Renaissance Man of sorts, kind of like Leonardo Da Vinci. I worked in science research, was an art director in advertising, wrote for magazines, TV and movies, designed video games and produced them, worked as a corporate expert in UX and monetization. I also used to play in several rock bands, composed songs, and still dream to be a musician once in a while. I could say I am a writer, but then again, I don’t write all that much: I only wrote 3 big books so far, and have 2 in progress. And I certainly don’t “write every day” -- I even used to speak up against this common advice. However, since writing is something that more or less persists in my life, I usually say it’s my primary occupation.
How did you first get into writing?
I was about three years old, and my parents asked me what I want to do when I grow up. I told them I want to make cartoons: it was the most amazing thing I ever saw at that point, so I wanted to be a part of it. They told me, well, you know you have to come up with stories for your cartoons first, right? It made me think. Since then, I played with my toys in a different manner: I named them, came up with their backstories, placed them in different situations and assigned roles for them, and so on. I tried to write my first novel when I was 8. It was a story of several gentlemen looking for treasure on some island populated by Indians (yeah) who lure them deep into the jungle and then start killing them one by one. I never finished it of course, same as the second one, which I started at 20.
So you have a gosh ton of stuff published in Russian, tell us about those.
My third and first-published novel, A Girl Who Owned the Universe, written when I was 22, was a bestseller in Russia. This, along with my translations of Chuck Palahniuk, earned me some fame: I had an agent in Moscow, well-paid jobs with TV and movie studios, a couple fan clubs, and so on. I learned a lot of inside stuff about Russian media and overall climate of the country (I’m Ukrainian), so my third novel, dealing with Moscow TV and glamour magazines, called Earth Dot Sky, turned out a pretty disturbing picture of Russian society, and made me 100% sure it’s never going to be picked up by my Moscow publisher. I published it through a minor house without proper marketing capabilities, so it never really sold. My short stories were popular enough though, so I remained a recognized media figure in Russia all the way until the war. After they annexed Crimea, being a Ukrainian patriot, I decided to burn this particular bridge and start over in the West. This is something I’m still doing.
Snake God; steampunk, western, magical, fantasy, horror what the fah???
The main thing I was looking for in Snake God is this feel of terra incognita, a feel of exploring some new and mysterious land which would seem somewhat recognizable, and still unknown and dangerous. I was obsessed with American West since I was a kid, so it started from a simple concept: what if Wild West still existed in 2012, and Mayan prophecy about the end of the world would not be a joke for its residents, but rather something quite real and logically possible? This, of course, required some adjustments to history: I needed to isolate both Americas from the Old World and slow down the progress a bit, that’s why sci fi and post-apocalyptic aspects were inevitable. And surely this universe, a Wild West of XXI century, required some retro-futuristic aesthetics: this is where steampunk, clockpunk and dieselpunk came along. Now, to make a REAL terra incognita out of this alternative USA, I decided to borrow the atmosphere from The Roadside Picnic, a feel of the Earth tainted by something alien, something that came from outer space and made some areas dangerous and anomalous. This was back when GoT just gained popularity, and I read a line in a video game review (I guess it was Tom Clancy’s Division) which said “No post-apocalypse is possible without a big fuckoff wall”. This is how the Wall of Glass so prophetically appeared at the place of Rio Grande, splitting the land into two distinct territories and providing me with anomalous volcanic glass I built the nature of this new world.
Seriously Snake God, go on….
Fantasy? No. Even though it has a lot in common with The Dark Tower, there’s no fantasy in Snake God. In fact, I avoid using supernatural stuff in all of my work. Seemingly mystical things may happen, but they can always be explained by common science, or at least some sort of scientific system I came up with. I have a degree in Mechanics and Biomechanics, so Snake God, even though not being focused on science fiction, is carefully built using the laws of physics and biology. Machines, devices, even monsters -- everything in Snake God runs on science and is scientifically viable, no matter how crazy it may look at first. Even that Mayan prophecy is coming true because Quetzalcoatl wants it to, and the Snake God himself is a human being -- in fact, he’s a former military engineer born in the United States. A lot of stuff in Snake God seems weird or magical or even Biblical -- but in the end, it’s all about evolution, adaptation, and technological progress. The ultimate question of the trilogy, I suppose, is “how far a human being is ready to change in order to survive, and will it remain a human being by going that far?”
Albina; ever thought of collaborating with your sis?
We challenge each other sometimes. I often recommend people to write in a genre or form they hate: no better way to find new limits and explore new reaches than this. When I told this to my sis, she said: you hate fantasy, and you hate using real people as characters. So, let me write something I hate, and you write a fantasy story about me. This was very typical of her of course, but in the end, I started this fantasy cycle called A Girl Named Murder (oh yes, also without supernatural), and she wrote a romance novella (“a housewife book”). It was overall a useful and fun experience, though I feel I gained more from it than her.
Does the situation with your sister and your depression affect how you write? How?
My sis was my muse for a long time. And I don’t really have depressions. My writing, as banal as it may seem, is mostly affected by the need to make money and take care of children. When I’m old and rich (or just old), I may actually end up writing much more.
Your Writing guide too; plug away my friend;
I wanted to write a book on writing for a long time, and didn’t expect it to arrive so soon. However, as WFC evolved, I shared a lot of articles on writing with the group, and finally noticed they seem to cover more or less every writing-related topic, from outlining and writer’s block to vaguer things like art, money, and fame. At some point I realized I should just collect them all into a book on writing, and it’s going to be quite useful a book. So I did.
So what gave you idea for your group, The Writer's Fight Club?
As I started exploring the available Facebook groups for writers, I noticed there are basically two types of groups: it’s either a “friendly supportive community”, heavily moderated, where people are afraid to speak up and criticize -- or it’s a trollfest and spamfest of a group, where most of the thread is taken up by memes, useless “writing challenges”, and poorly educated attention seekers from all over the world competing over the number of likes and comments. Not a single group was a proper workshop, a training ground for a young writer. So I decided to create one. And, given my past as Palahniuk translator and the planned group’s spirit, I picked this name.
Are you Tyler Durdan?
I’d say yes, but I’m afraid my sister is going to kill me for that. Given her character, she’ll want Tyler job for herself.
New writers, serious best advice?
Start with grammar. No-one will call themselves a carpenter while being unable to strike a nail properly. Grammar is just that -- it’s the basic tool of a writer. Still, many people start calling themselves writers -- or even self-publish a book! -- before they actually learn this tool. And no, this is not what editors are for. Editors provide the final layer of polish, they’re not there to hammer every nail properly instead of the author.
Ok controversial perhaps but what most irritates you with the world of writing today?
The Death of Print of course. On one hand, I’m glad the world of publishing goes through all these changes, with all the new opportunities opening up for the people who write. On the other hand, as Chinese say, “may you live in interesting times” -- this period is so transitory and tumultuous a new writer has basically nowhere to go. Traditional press is quickly dying out, and, given the picture, every traditional publisher will try to minimize financial risks. Picking up a new, unknown author is a major financial risk for a publisher, so it’s not going to happen too often these days, especially for people who work on a fringe of genres like I do. Self-publishing is quite a powerful tool, but self-marketing still remains a problem for a standalone author who is not yet rich and famous, and, given the nature of self-publishing platforms of today, it’s quite easy to be lost amongst the huge river of crap generated by ambitious young authors no longer constrained by an editor. Overall, we’ll have to wait and see what it all comes down to.
So what's your way forward in 2018? What can we expect?
I’d like to finish the second book of Snake God of course. And there’s The Life of Number Two, a story of a billionaire who cloned himself. Both are very long-term projects however, with no set deadline, so it’s more of a wish than a plan. In between, I’d like to write two more A Girl Named Murder stories this year.
Poetry or prose, be honest? Why
I consider prose the most complex and intricate form of poetry, so I mostly stick to it. Unless someone wants a freestyle rap battle of course -- I’m always up for one of those.
Thank you Alex! Now give the man some well deserved love and visit his pages below;
Writer's Fight Club:
The Snake God Home:
Also give some love to a few on his covers here. Got to say one thing; the man can design; or his sister can!
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