The Last Alignment: Book One

Nathaniel Stewart is the indie author behind a novel entitled, "The Last Alignment: Book One" which was published back on July 31st, 2012. His piece is the first of a Young Adult/Fantasy series about the intertwined lives of five teenagers and is currently only available as an ebook at all major ebook retailers. We have conducted a short interview with him:

What inspired you to write about teens?

I initially came up with the idea for The Last Alignment Series when I was fifteen, so I daresay that that is the underlying reason as to why my main characters are all sixteen. But now that I am twenty-three, I think that there is an interesting uniqueness and rawness to teenagers that I wanted to explore and work with. It goes without saying that the teenage years are some of the most vital in anyone’s life. It’s during that time that one “discovers themself” in every aspect of the phrase. They form their moral codes and standards, they get more in tune with their conscience and sense of right and wrong, and it really is a crazy, confusing journey into becoming a young adult. I think that is one of the aspects of my book that is really cool because my audience will get to watch as my main characters grow and they will get to see all of what Awbrey, Hudson, Androse, Zander, and Natalye go through on their journeys to young adulthood and beyond.

Did you like the whole Fantasy genre when you were a teen yourself? How did you craft the characters in your book?

When I was a teen I read everything. It didn’t matter what kind of book it was, but I definitely loved Fantasy a bit more than any other genre. As far as the characters in my book, I will never forget how I came up with them because I was actually sitting in church. My Dad is a pastor, and I was one of those teens who always had a pen and paper with them wherever they went. I was sitting there on my usual bench spacing out, and then Awbrey was the first character to pop up in my mind. I started writing down random facts about her like her age and what she looked like, and a “fun fact” about my book is that it is actually presented in the order that my main characters came to me. Awbrey was first, and then Hudson, then Androse, then Zander, and then Natalye. It was the same for all of them. I wrote down their names, pieces of information about them, and then I built up from there over the years.

Is life after death intriguing to you? How did you make it so in your book?

I believe that life after death is an intriguing topic for most people. For those who believe in some sort of afterlife whether it be Heaven or Hell, purgatory, etc., most of us wonder what there is after we take that last breath of life since none of us can ultimately be sure. We don’t know if that is it, or if there is something more regardless of one’s faith. In the context of my book, I definitely play around with a few ideas, but I purposefully don’t make it too evident what I’m getting at. As the series goes on, however, it will become clearer.

Can you give a synopsis of your first book?

Well, “The Last Alignment: Book One” is about the intertwined lives of five very different teenagers. All of their families have a lot of history and deep ties to one another, one being that they all share a very specific yet vastly different set of supernatural abilities. A great evil has returned, a man that the kids’ parents believed they took care of. And now, it is the teenager’s responsibility and duty to go after him and stop him from carrying out his plans, only they haven’t come into their full powers yet which leads to a whole other set of issues on top of everything else.

Transitioning from a college student to an indie author, what were the challenges? How does the changing landscape of the publishing industry affect your pace of writing more books?

For me, transitioning into an author was not too difficult on top of my other studies. I’ve been writing since I was twelve, so when I realized that I was going to go forward with The Last Alignment, I was as prepared to take that step as I could’ve been. I was confident in my ability as a writer, and the fact that most of my professors at my college had complete faith in me was what gave me that final push toward making my dream a reality. Being an indie author definitely comes with a lot of challenges in the sense that you are the driving force behind your own projects. But, one could argue that that is also the beautiful thing about it as well.

The fact that digital publishing is making it easier for writers to become authors is great, but it’s tedious all at the same time. Because you don’t have to go the traditional route to publish your work, it means that you are the master of your own affairs and that anyone can finally put their stories out there to the world. And on the flip side, that is the exact problem. Anyone can publish a book or ebook, so how do you make yours stand out? How do you set yours apart and get people interested?

As a reader, I know what it is like to find a great series and fall in love with it. And if you happen to find a series that has not been completed, the anticipation is one of the best things about the experience. I personally don’t necessarily feel any pressure to have a pace as far as production, but I definitely aim to release my work within reasonable time spaces. One thing that I am very excited about is the release of a free short story that I will be publishing very soon. “The Possession of Sarah Allis” is a piece that got left on the cutting room floor from TLA Book One, and so hopefully this will hold some of my readers over while I am working on book two of my series. This is something that I definitely plan on making a habit. I feel like if someone pays for my work and loves it, then the absolute best way that I can think to thank them is to put out free pieces of writing whether it be “deleted scenes,” outtakes, or just entertaining spin-off stories.

You can follow Nathaniel on twitter @NateStewart_TLA