Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Camilla Monk. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Camilla, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
Curiosity, curiosity, curiosity. Nothing feeds my creativity and my drive to write like discovering new places, things, and concepts, and then asking questions about them.
I binge US, Canadian, and French news, fall into deep and bizarre Wikipedia rabbit holes, and subscribe to way too many newsletters on subjects that range from scientific news and Archeology to fringe conspiracy theories.
Every new and weird fact is like a glass pebble on the beach, a marvel that I’ll store up somewhere in my mind, either to be forgotten on a top shelf or to be summoned at random while I’m writing. Octopus penises, the Russian Tu-144 crashing at the 1973 Paris Air Show, or that late-19th century scientist who inflated his own intestines with hydrogen in the name of science: no information is too futile for me to file.
In other words, I’m happily living on what you might call the more comfortable end of the autism spectrum.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Like most aspects of my life, my writing career feels like a joke that was taken too far and to surprising results.
I grew up in Paris in a Franco-American family. I studied law and business, only to somehow end up designer website and doodling things. I saw a bit of the world, then, a decade ago, started writing a romantic suspense novel—SPOTLESS.
I subsequently managed to trick not only an agent, but also a publisher into buying it, even though it was already becoming clear at the time that I wrote whatever went through my head with no regard for genre conventions, plot consistency, or basic literary skills. That they didn’t run when I told them I intended to have killer platypuses in the second book of my series is a testament to how little supervision was exerted on their roster of authors.
What went down next is basically my villain origin story: SPOTLESS was released with little fanfare but gathered a dedicated following. My publisher at time then hastily dropped the second book in the series, BEATING RUBY, with even less promotion, having already determined that the series was a failure and would end here.
Undaunted (or rather too French to know the taste of either fear or humility), I then immediately went on the attack, and fought my publisher head-on to get my rights back. I succeeded after only two short months, and went on to self-publish the next three books and novella in the series. My publisher had sold 10,000 copies of my books. I went on to sell ten times as much in the two years that followed.
There is, of course, more to how I mysteriously got my rights back so fast, but I’ll leave readers to speculate as to what went down. Blackmail? Terrorist threats? The possibilities are endless…
I have persisted in my writing endeavour since, been translated in Japanese, Turkish, and Hebrew, and will be releasing in 2025 the first entry in a spin-off to the Spotless series, titled THE COUNT, ten years after my writing adventure started.
The moral of this story is that some bridges are worth burning, and even nuked.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
By now you should have gathered that I am not qualified to give anyone any sort of advice.
I would say, though, that what got me to a place I’m happy with was:
– Cultivating my creativity (and a sense of immaturity I will never depart myself of.)
– Persistence in all things (I know it’s super cliché, but as goes a popular French ad, “100% of winners tried their luck.”)
– Never, ever compromise on my personal quality standards. If it’s not good enough for me, it ain’t good enough for my readers. If I have to spend three years on a book, invent an entire proto-Celtic language, and do my own faux-19th century engravings as did for OF BLOOD & LIGHT, I will, because I want—need—for the vision I have in my mind to materialize as faithfully as possible.
Similarly, in my early days, I declined a few publishing offers because editors asked me to compromise on my story and vision in a way I couldn’t accept. Is that a form of conceit? Surely. But I can live with the opportunities I’ll pass on as long as my creativity remains fulfilled.
Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?
Oh, that one’s easy: TIFFANY YATES MARTIN from FoxPrint editorial. Tiffany was my first developmental editor on SPOTLESS. She believed in me—and still does, far more than I do myself—and taught me the ropes of dev editing, pacing, stakes . . . everything that *makes* a book.
We went on to work on the rest of the Spotless series together, as well as a couple of fantasy books (I enrolled her help after I became self-published because I couldn’t imagine releasing that third novel unedited.) Through rather painful processes, especially for books 2 and 3 of the Spotless series, and thanks to her grace and guidance, I learned how to process editing failure and the need for heavy rewriting.
Came a point when she said I might no longer need her. I have been self-editing since, but I dream of doing another book with Tiffany, just for the sheer pleasure of basking in her science of writing and watching a good product take shape in our hands.
She turned me into the monster I am, an author who never hesitates to kill 20,000 words if they don’t hit the spot. I owe her everything and then some.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://camillamonk.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/camillamonk/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camillamonkofficial/
- Twitter: https://bsky.app/profile/camillamonk.com
- Other: https://web4writers.com/
Image Credits
The cover of SPOTLESS was designed by me and painted by ASEVC (https://www.deviantart.com/asevc)
Copyright Camilla Monk:
All art shown for OF BLOOD & LIGHT and OF PEARS & SPEARS was created by me, cover included.
The doodle taken from the fifth book of the Spotless series, ISLAND CHAPTAL & THE ANCIENT ALIENS’ TREASURE.
The picture of my desk and Struthio Security cup (SPOTLESS merchandise.)
Copyright Alma Publishing:
The Hebrew covers of the Spotless series.
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
