MT Angel is joining us today to talk about her novel, I Am The Grave. Here’s the publisher’s description:
Kaleb, Harley, Beau, and Z all have dreams of escaping their hometown in Portland, Oregon to rise in fame on the alt-rock scene. As they meet and form a band, they soon discover that they have more in common than mere musical aspirations. One by one, they awaken to their magical abilities from a source known as the ‘Tarot’. With the help of their zany band manager, they come to realize their mission: uniting the Tarot once and for all and restoring balance to the world.
No big deal, right?
What’s MT’s favorite bit?
It is a difficult yet noble task to narrow down which part of ‘Arcana Book I: I Am The Grave’ to geek out about. Writing for my four angsty male protagonists, fighting their personal demons while coping with the burden of possessing tarot-based magical powers, is personally gratifying in itself. But my favorite part of this book came about when imagining what powers – and characters – might be evoked from the Tarot.
Even if you’re not intimately familiar with the Tarot, I’m sure there’s images that come to mind when you think of the cards. Some portray pleasant scenes, like couples falling in love or having fun. Notorious images on scarier cards, like death and the devil, might evoke such fear that you abandon all desire to ever receive a tarot reading. But for as long as I can remember, I’ve been inexplicably drawn to the images portrayed through the Tarot. As a kid rifling through the cards owned by my childhood best friend, I found myself conjuring up whimsical fancies of who these cards might represent, their stories, and their pasts.
When writing the first book in the Arcana series, I was brought back to this place of personifying the cards. The novel is set in the early-2000’s, following four young men who learn they are members of the Tarot and form an emo-rock band. As they learn more about each other, they are tasked with the mission of locating their magical artifacts and working to unite the scattered powers of the Tarot. Earnestly accessing my very crude artistic abilities derived solely from wanting to be a manga artist at age 13, I drew mock-ups of each of the cards, personifying the characters that will make their appearance throughout the series.
This was no small feat – there are 78 tarot cards. But it was the pandemic, we were in quarantine, and I was bored. As someone cursed (blessed?) with ADHD, boredom in my hands either leads to exorbitant imagination, or pitiful self-destruction. I think I made the right choice.
What started as a small stream erupted into a cataclysmic overflowing aqueduct. The characters sprung to life from my 03 Micron pen nearly without my consent, materializing as a myriad of life forms: some human, some not. In creating these Tarot archetypes, I drew inspiration from sources ranging from the 1961 classic camp film Mothra to prevalent protagonists from 90’s anime like Cardcaptor Sakura.
The other aspect of this art-as-inspiration character-building I enjoyed was figuring out how these characters might be associated with the setting of the novel, the early 2000’s emo-rick scene. I wrote the first version of this novel as a 13 year-old fangirl of emo-rock music, posted in little chunks online (thank you Deviantart). In addition to letting me express my love for this genre, it also helped me explore some of the darker things my peers and myself were experiencing: self-harm, addiction, loss of a parent, and trying to fit in as a weird emo kid in the early 2000’s. As I thought to personify these characters, I thought of the figures in that music scene that might interact with my up-and-coming young musicians: band managers, rival musicians, even groupies. So, if you think you spot your favorite pop-punk lead singer personified in one of my characters, you’re probably right. And you’re welcome.
The last (and dare I say most thrilling) part of this process was imaging the magical systems that the Tarot might evoke. And there’s no shortage of material to work with! Aside from being a 78-card ordeal, the Tarot is split into ‘major’ and ‘minor’ arcana, with the 56 minor cards split into four suits: swords, chalices, wands, and pentacles. Each of the ‘minor arcana’ is further split into four elemental groups: earth, wind, air, and fire. If that weren’t enough, each of the 22 ‘major arcana’ cards possesses their own unique magical system. Confused yet? Good.
As a textbook over-thinker and accomplished hyper-focuser, I had no problem imagining how all of these magical systems would interact. For instance, what would it look like for a sword-wielder with air-based powers to attack? How might their power turn against them, given the double-edged nature of the sword? How might personality traits associated with the swords – cunning, cynicism, curiosity – manifest in each of the 14 cards of this suit? (Do you see now why I wanted this to be a four-book series?)
Questions like these engulfed me for nearly half a year, helping me cope with the anxiety and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I begin writing the second novel in the Arcana series, I truly hope you will enjoy the purposeful unfurling of these characters, making guesses at their place in the Tarot, along with their magical abilities. And if you don’t, maybe you’ll appreciate the misadventures of four young men trying to make it big as a band, learning to love each other despite their mental health struggles and the hurdles of toxic masculinity. Either way, win-win.
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BIO:
MT Angel considers herself to be 50% data wizard and 50% magical girl. When she is not writing dark fiction novels and short stories based on her nightmares, she spends her time researching violence and trauma as a doctoral student and wrangling big data. In addition to plunging deep into the depths of the collective unconscious, MT Angel enjoys eating noodles and watching birds.