OPEN BOOK: Introducing Ally Morgan!

Welcome to OPEN BOOK, where we open the book on our authors and discover their literary stories!

In this edition, we'd like to introduce Ally Morgan, author of the latest fantasy to be OBSESSED with - The Raven, the Rook, & the Crow

What was your planning process for writing this novel like?

I spent a little over a year reading about and researching traditional witchcraft in the southern states. The history. The origin. How it was linked to the lore of the region and even stumbled across family history and anecdotes about the lineage of women that I came from. As I was researching, I was handwriting the plot and scenes and specific notes on a legal pad. Stopping to research answers to questions that would arise or ideas that would spark and then hopping right back into the story.

After that initial year, and with the entire Collective Trilogy's plot scribbled onto every page of a legal pad, I sat down with the first books title and began to type. Referring to my notes as I went. Some things changed drastically, and some were word for word by the end. It was an incredibly humbling but also cathartic and exhilarating journey from pen to the end. And now I have The Raven, the Rook, & the Crow in a tangible book, which seems so surreal.

What is the story behind the title?

Each book of the trilogy starts off with an excerpt from an ancient text. The Raven, the Rook, & the Crow comes from a prophesy in the world of the story. A gentle warning to safeguard themselves because sometimes, enemies and friends and even yourself can all appear to be birds of a feather.

Who or what inspired your characters?

As I write, not just this novel but every novel, I feel like I insert a part of me into at least one character. Maybe it's a feature or a flaw. A quirk or an intense dislike of pickles. But everything else comes from just about anywhere. Some friends, some not so much friends. I took the time to drop bits of my family into The Collective Trilogy, names or attributes. My three children make appearances throughout the entire series in various ways.

I also think that some of the inspiration comes from who I wish I could be or who I wished other could have been to me and mistakes I made in the past.  Having the characters relive in their own way some of these scenarios is a chance to peek into that sort of 'what if' life and a fun way.

Where do find your writing inspiration?

For this debut novel, I was craving something and couldn't find it. I'm not arrogant enough to believe that something like this didn't already exist, I just couldn't find it. So I just started writing it myself. Then I sort of got sucked into my own imagination and the story ran away with me as I hung on for dear life just trying to get it all down on paper. 

The inspiration for the rest of my manuscripts come from anywhere - a brief interaction I saw two people have on the street. A daydream. Something absurd my son said that made me laugh. An absolutely bonkers story from a friend during a wine-fuelled ladies’ night.  My ever-listening, ever-creating brain gives me a near literal light bulb moment each time. I just jot it down in my embarrassingly large notes app and tuck it away for a later story.

Where do you find it easiest to write?

It's not so much a place as it is a vibe. I can write anywhere I can set up a laptop. But I need to feel alone. I wrote a chunk of this debut novel sitting at a window seat in a coffee on a busy main road in Knoxville, Tn where I lived for over a decade. All I needed was good coffee, something to eat, my '10-hour Thunderstorm sounds' playlist, and space to work.  I spend hours there once a month at least typing away. So much so that I felt like I had to thank them for the rent-free office in the acknowledgments. I do enjoy a little get away to write, but it's not the place but the space that it offers that I thrive in.

Where and when do you get most of your writing done?

Now, I do most of my writing at a small desk beside my bed. I have my little coffee mug warming plate thing, my corkboard of post notes, notebooks and everything all scattered and stacked in a system that only makes sense to me.  The dream is to have a dedicated office in a couple of years where I can have the space that I envision. My library and my little speaker with thunderstorm sounds to help drown out the world so I can focus on the ones I want to build across the pages of these books.

What piece of writing advice have you found the most helpful during your writing career?

In college, I had a professor for a Poetry class. He was a professor across multiple creative writing courses, so he was quite knowledgeable. I loved his dry humor and snark. His criticisms were fair and always smothered in wit and goodhearted chiding. He pushed all of us to be fearless as we wrote and strip it down to the raw roots of it all before adding any layers back to the story.

I think as a world builder, he helped me most by telling me to use all five senses when I want a reader to be emerged into the scene. To write like someone was watching it on the screen. I find myself searching to satisfy that specific criteria in each story I sit down to tell or each story I edit for someone else. Because to me as a reader, that is what I want. I want to be pulled into the story so completely that I hold my breath when the main character does because I can feel everything they do.

Did you encounter Writers Block? If so, how did you overcome it?

Ugh. Yes. The dreaded block. I honestly don't know if there is one thing that I do to overcome it, because for me it usually very situational. Sometimes it is the story just not progressing how I want it to. A character giving me issues. I'm stuck on a word choice. Or I'm just not in a great headspace to write that death scene and do it justice. Or - gasp - I just don't want to write.

Sometimes I just need to take a step back, read a good book, eat a good meal, have a good drink with a friend. Sort of ctrl-alt-del my brain and come back later.  I'm often writing two things at once so I can bounce between the two stories when one isn't moving the way I want it to also. I just always find that after taking a breath instead of hammering away, I usually find my way past the problem eventually and end up where I needed to be all along. 

Are there any books which have inspired your writing?

I don't know that there are any that inspired my writing, but there are heaps that influenced how I write. Particularly when something is done really well by an author, it makes me revisit how I do that in my own writing and could I improve it.  For example, Two of my favorite books are Hawke by Jescie Hall and God of Fury by Rina Kent. I love the way these authors captured the guilt and emotional vulnerability of half of the mains in these two books. The depth of emotion from an incredibly impactful trauma from their respective pasts is so tangible and executed perfectly on page to me.

These stories made me look back at my own writing and find ways to better inject my writing with kind of emotion. I hope I found a way to do that for my readers as well as they did for me.

And finally… Why should people read your book next?

Is 'because I asked them nicely' an appropriate answer?

In all seriousness, The Raven, the Rook, & the Crow at its root is a story about a woman finding out that the world is bigger than she knew. It's about grief and what comes after and how we grow as humans in that after, finding our path and our people.

And on top of all of that is a good story about magic and love that, I hope, keeps you turning pages until the very end. I hope it leaves you wanting more from the next two books in the series.

As a reader, if you love stories of fate and magic with banter, spice, and an impenetrable sense determination from a red-headed bartender who has a weakness for brownies and a dark, broody man with icy eyes, then The Raven, the Rook, & the Crow as well as the rest of The Collective Trilogy right up your alley.