 Have you ever wished that you could sit down with a veteran author and ask them the real story? This week we were fortunate enough to be at the table with Michael F. Haspil. In this interview, he pulls back the curtain and gives pivotal advice. This Q&A will help you on your writing journey! Michael F. Haspil is a science fiction and fantasy author and an Air Force veteran. His novel from TOR, “Graveyard Shift”, an urban fantasy about an immortal pharaoh out to stop an ancient vampire conspiracy in modern-day Miami, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. His Warhammer 40,000 stories are currently available from Games Workshop’s Black Library and he wrote the lore for the Season VIII Battlepass for World of Tanks. Other short stories have made numerous anthology appearances including “Gunfight On Europa Station” and “No Game For Knights” from Baen. He also hosts the “Quantum Froth Dispatches” podcast which examines storytelling through pop-culture classics. He also collects and makes replica movie props. Part-time amateur Egyptologist, tabletop general, miniatures painter, antiquarian, and vampire hunter. Keep reading to get Michael's insider keys!  If you could go back to your early writing days, what one piece of advice would you give your beginner self? The one piece of actual writing advice I would give my beginner self would be not to wait once complete with a project and to immediately begin another project. Importantly, when you start working on that other project, make sure it is completely different and not tied to the original project in any way. When I wrote my debut novel, it went through about a year and a half of revisions, before I finally got a publishing deal. But when I did get a deal, it was originally for a three-book series. So, while I waited for the first book to wind its way through the publishing pipeline, I started working on the second book in the series. Well, it turns out that it took three years for that publishing contract to come through and by the time it did, it was for only one book as the Urban Fantasy genre popularity was waning. It took about another three years from then for the novel to ultimately reach publication. The book was well-received and did decently, but the publisher wound up passing on further works in that universe as, by then, the bottom had kind of fallen out of trad-pubbed Urban Fantasy. So it goes. In the meantime, I could have written whole other series. Instead, I worked on other books set in the same universe and another pop-culture adventure-based novel (similar to Stranger Things or Ready Player One) but that wasn’t picked up either. I might dust those off and publish them myself, but the moment has kind of passed. Sometimes, your life’s purpose is to serve as an example to others. It’s not pleasant, but it is the truth. What rituals or tools help you stay productive without burning out? Well, I’m not really qualified to answer that right now as I’m kind of burned out. In my day job, I write business proposals, which is an energy-sapping and thankless endeavor. My fiction writing has suffered greatly because of it, because I’m constantly having to set aside my own work to deal with grueling and unrelenting deadlines dealing with government contracts. I have found that when I am developing my own work, the best thing I can do is use distraction-free writing methods. I have a Freewrite smart typewriter that I’ve written two novels on, and it is a dream. No emails or notifications and the world just melts away and lets me enter a receptive and focused brain state extremely easily. To that end, I also use brain.fm and mynoise.net to help me enter “The Zone” and accomplish effective writing. How do you tackle writer's block when you're stuck mid-plot or with a flat character? Bottom line. Break something. If your plot is stuck, then make something go horribly wrong. The more wrong the better. And allow your characters to respond. They will rise to the occasion. But also allow yourself to jettison all the new stuff. It may break the writer’s block but that doesn’t necessarily mean it makes for a good coherent story. For characters, it’s the same thing. Take whatever it is that they are best at, whatever makes them a hero . . . and take it away. Brutally. That will jar our the writer’s block. I think of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series with this. He is merciless to his characters and while they do not love him for it, the story is better for it. But I also don’t really believe in Writer’s Block. I make my living as a writer. (Though not writing the kinds of things I would prefer to write.) I don’t get to have writer’s block. When I’m writing a business proposal, no matter how grueling or unpleasant, or boring, or about subject matter I’m thoroughly uninterested in, I don’t get to have the privilege of writer’s block. People’s livelihoods and the company’s prosperity depend directly on my ability to pen convincing prose. If I came into work one day and said I had writer’s block, I’d be fired. So, consider that. It’s the same with fiction. Do you have a go-to technique that's saved a manuscript? I don’t have a go to technique, but I would say I have added new characters when I’ve gotten stuck and they usually come with additional subplots and that keeps things fresh and the mainstay characters on their toes. I’m not a discovery writer. I tend to have things pretty mapped out (at least in my head) before I put proverbial pen to paper. So when I put in a new character, it tends to scramble things quite a bit and get the creative juices flowing again. What's your secret to creating characters that feel alive and unforgettable? Do you start with backstory, flaws, or something else? I tend to start with backstory. I’ve played Dungeons and Dragons and similar roleplaying games for more than forty years now. So my character creation is rooted in that. One quick technique I use is to find what the character is the best at and then temper that with some limitation. A quick example would be a character who is the greatest swordsman whose ever lived, but because of a geis, the next time they draw their sword must be in the hour of their greatest need, and they will die in the use of it. That makes for a very intriguing character. It works even better if the character further restricts themselves that they will only use their own sheathed sword and never another. Have they become adept with other weapons? Or have they willingly handicapped themselves throughout the tale. Think of other such characters with details like that. Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride and his unrelenting hunt for the six-fingered man or Captain Jack Sparrow, who carries a pistol with only one shot. I’m a real sucker for stuff like that.  Revision can often feel endless. How do you know when your book is done? When it is due. As I’ve said before, I’m a business proposal writer by trade. Uncompromising deadlines dominate my life. My work is done when it is due. Same goes for fiction. There’s the initial deadline, but I’ll keep working on something until I get a green light. There’s a trap to that too. When you’ve gotten several rejections (that number has to be one you’re willing to accept), you might have to cut a work loose and move on, and that can be devastating to do. I have more “trunk novels” than I care to admit. From querying agents to hitting bestseller lists, what was your biggest publishing hurdle, and how did you overcome it? I didn’t overcome by biggest publishing hurdle and it has almost destroyed me. I’m not kidding. I had the opportunity to write tie-in fiction for an IP franchise that has dominated my life for more than twenty years. I wrote numerous short stories and two novels in that universe. But then my work was summarily rejected. It ruined me. It’s been three years and I still haven’t recovered. I’m still trying to claw my way back into creative work. It is a terrible thing to try and convince myself to continue. I’ve known other folks who have had the same thing happen to them and they never wrote another word. I’m trying not to let that happen to me, but let me tell you the Threshold Guardians are out in force. And in a way, that’s how you can figure out if you’re walking the righteous path. The universe doesn’t send obstacles your way if you’re not trying to achieve something. You only get trials if you’re on the path to the goal. So, if you’re being tested, it’s because you’re having to go through trials to achieve your goal. If you’re familiar with the Hero’s Journey, you must understand a few truths. First, God created us in His image. He is a Creator and so therefore so are we lesser creators. To make an interesting story, heroes must undergo trials. We do this to our characters and put them through often merciless tribulations . . . wait . . . did you think that didn’t apply to us? Spoiler alert. God is the ultimate author. Ya best start believing in the Hero’s Journey . . . you’re in one. How do you balance writing with the business side—marketing, social media, or day jobs—and still protect your creative energy? Normally, I try to carve out a set time that I do fiction writing stuff in. Right now, I don’t have much to market, because I don’t have anything new out yet. I’ve cut out almost all social media as it has become counterproductive. I get more bots and outrage in my feeds than anything and it saps creative energy faster than anything. I’m thinking of just leaving social media entirely. As it is, I’m down to checking it only about once a day and there’s usually very little of value coming from it. The day job is destroying my creative writing. I’m trapped in a kind of weird Monkey’s Paw curse, where I’m making my living as a full-time writer, but it’s not for the stuff I would like to be writing. But, the day job pays the bills, so it gets priority. What's one book or author that transformed your writing? Hands down, Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces. It’s become fashionable to downplay the importance of the Monomyth in storytelling because folks have been using it as a checklist, which it isn’t. It’s an analysis tool (and primarily for mythological and religious texts). I’ve found that the loudest detractors haven’t actually read it. Instead, they’ve read one of the dozen distillations that, by their very nature, don’t cover the entirety of the source material. The second book I would cite, which didn’t quite transform my writing, but is a great book to refer back to, is Alexandra Sokoloff’s Screenwriting Tricks for Authors (and Screenwriters!): STEALING HOLLYWOOD. I find myself revisiting it over and over. Full of great stuff (and yes, including a distillation of the Monomyth). Yet a third book to recommend. Deborah Chester’s The Fantasy Fiction Formula. I highly recommend it. Especially for the discussing regarding Scene and Sequel and pacing throughout a novel. Great stuff. After years in the industry, what keeps you excited about fiction writing? That there are always possibilities. It’s funny, I started fiction writing as just a way to entertain myself and my friends. Then I tried to be all professional and make a living at it. Failed spectacularly. And now I’m back to writing fiction as a just a way to entertain me and my friends. It’s just my circle of friends has grown a bit. I’ve come to terms with understanding that the level of success I chased earlier wasn’t realistic, not with my current day job circumstance. But, there are always possibilities.  Every writer faces self-doubt. What’s a moment in your career when you questioned your work the most, and how did you overcome? When I wrote a couple of novels for an IP I’ve been involved with in one way or another since the late 80’s and the project completely collapsed. It wasn’t completely my fault, but I also can’t absolve myself of the responsibility for its failures. When that happened, I thought to myself, “Self? If you can’t write in this IP that you know inside an out and has a gigantic (and somewhat forgiving) fanbase, then I probably just can’t write successfully.” I haven’t overcome that. It’s been nearly three years since that’s happened. I managed to pen a few short stories (of which I’m very proud), but haven’t made much progress on my novel length works. How do you reconcile the tension between writing what you love and writing what the market demands? Have you ever regretted following (or ignoring) trends? I don’t. I write what I want to. Probably not the most sound strategy, but I am predominantly traditionally published. Trad Pub takes such a long time (18 to 24 months at last glance) for a work to go to market that if you’re writing to a trend, it’s already over by the time your work would hit the shelves. It’s just not worth it. Ask me how I know. If folks are self-publishing, that’s an entirely different ballgame, but I’m not experienced or qualified to comment on that side of things. What’s the hardest storytelling lesson you’ve learned—perhaps a technique or perspective you initially resisted—and how did embracing it elevate your fiction? That sometimes being coy or secretive with the big twist isn’t really the right way to tell the story. With my debut novel, Graveyard Shift, my protagonist is an immortal pharaoh passing for a cop in modern-day Miami. Initially, I kept that fact from readers. My protag kept doing supernatural things throughout the novel, which I felt would be a good mystery to draw the reader in. But it had the opposite effect. So, when I finally revealed it, the readers had already made up their minds about who the character was or wasn’t and when the reveal didn’t meet their expectations, they were disappointed. My editor suggested that I include the information as early as I could. It was pretty much a page one rewrite of the entire novel. But it is a much better story for it. When crafting a novel, how do you decide which themes or messages to weave in without making the story feel preachy or heavy-handed? I adhere to the old apocryphal quote from Samuel Goldwyn (paraphrased), “If you want to send a message, send a telegram. Otherwise, just tell the story.” Themes are inevitable, but message-fiction is almost always heavy-handed and bound to cost you a portion of the audience. Look at the current state of pop culture in the last decade and the wreckage of zombie-franchises that had their stories co-opted in favor of messaging. I abhor message-fiction, because ultimately it becomes a form of propaganda. Themes are a different idea entirely, at least to me. If you’re telling a good story, there will be a theme. But it may not always be apparent while developing the tale. So then it is your job as an author, once the theme makes itself apparent, to go back through and add the seeds and breadcrumbs so it all seems like you planned it from the start . Was there ever a time when you had a project fail—a book that flopped, or a rejected manuscript? Did that setback teach you something unexpected about yourself, your craft or your career? Yes. As I mentioned, I had the chance of a lifetime to do an IP tie-in novel, and it blew up in my face. That was my chance at having a real career writing fiction and it was gone. You can’t dwell on a disaster like that, and time does heal wounds. But I’ve since largely moved on from that IP. I still participate, but not with the rabid fan enthusiasm I once had. And I can see a future where I will no longer participate at all. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had never undertaken the project, because I’d still have all the wonder, entertainment, and joy that IP used to bring to me. The magic is just gone now. Also, it forced me to come to terms that I would not achieve many of the goals I’d set for myself. It’s not the most positive message, but it is the truth.  Looking back on your career, what are you the most proud of? A short story I had a very quick turn to write about one of the most hated characters in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and that’s saying a lot. The character is a thoroughly corrupted villain with few redeeming qualities. I penned a short from his point of view, with no apologies for his villainy, and somehow managed to have him come to terms with his own nature. I’ve received the most and the best fan mail about that story. And how it genuinely aided people in the real world. I’m very proud of that. Success can be as daunting as failure. After a major win (like a bestseller or award), how did you handle the pressure? I’ll let you know what I get something like that. My smug answer right now is that I’ll handle the pressure just fine. I dwell right now in the land of negative pressure. Cortisol sustains me. So, if I’m around for a lottery win or something. I don’t think the positive pressure will affect me much. (Except maybe for hubris, I could see going down that road of pride going before the fall. That’s an arc I could see playing out.) What advice would you give new writers chasing their first big break? Make sure that your work is ready. I mean really ready. Get some objective criticism by people who understand storytelling and literature, who aren’t afraid to hurt your feelings and listen to their advice. When new writers finish a work, there’s that urge to put it out in the world so they can celebrate with you. Don’t do that. Let the story marinate. Otherwise, you might prematurely put the story out into the world and sabotage your chances of having it turn into something really worthwhile. Looking back, what’s one choice you made early in your career—about your writing, publishing, or mindset—that you credit for your longevity as an author? Not to quit. My mindset has changed over the years. But I love worldbuilding and character development so much, I’ll never stop. Now, it might be that no one else will ever read any of my future works, but I’ve come to peace with that. So I’ll continue making my playlists and elaborate daydreams involving my characters populating fantastical worlds. I relish the words and putting down the ideal turn of phrase and I don’t see myself stopping that while I still have the wherewithal to undertake it. If you could leave one word of advice for future writers, what would it be? Be patient but also don’t wait. As an example, I recently submitted a short story for publication, and it took the editors nearly 300 days to return with a very polite and encouraging rejection. What do you think my mental state would have been if I opened my email every one of those three hundred days expecting an email from them? Heck, most places won’t even tell you if you’ve been rejected. You must be patient, but don’t wait for a response, work on the next thing, and then the next thing after that, and then the next thing after that. In one word, be Relentless. Find out more about Michael F. Haspil at https://michaelhaspil.apocprod.com/ Buy Graveyard Shift here.  Police procedurals go supernatural in this gritty urban fantasy by Michael F. Haspil in Graveyard Shift. Alex Menkaure, former pharaoh and mummy, and his vampire partner, Marcus, born in ancient Rome, are vice cops in a special Miami police unit. They fight to keep the streets safe from criminal vampires, shape-shifters, bootleg blood dealers, and anti-vampire vigilantes. When poisoned artificial blood drives vampires to murder, the city threatens to tear itself apart. Only an unlikely alliance with former opponents can give Alex and Marcus a fighting chance against an ancient vampire conspiracy. If they succeed, they'll be pariahs, hunted by everyone. If they fail, the result will be a race war bloodier than any the world has ever seen.  This post was complied by Brandy Vallance, a literary agent with Barbara Bova Literary Agency, an award-winning author, and a Story Consultant for Writing Day Workshops. Brandy is the winner of two national writing awards, one of which included a $20,000 prize. Her novel, THE COVERED DEEP, has been featured in USA Today & Writer’s Digest. WITHIN THE VEIL has been called “passionate and riveting” and Publisher’s Weekly encourages those who like sweeping Scottish sagas to dive in because “the journey is wonderful.” Brandy loves helping writers break the chains of fear and self-doubt. You can find out more at brandyvallance.com.  Attend a Writers Conference in 2026:
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