Author Interview: Latency by Nathaniel Koszer

R
Hello cinnabar moths or any moth you’d like to be, welcome to the Writers Triangle, Cinnabar Moth’s podcast about all things publishing and books. Today we’re here with Nathaniel Koszer, author of Latency. Latency is our March release. Nathaniel, how’re you doing today?

N
I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me on the call.

R
It’s a pleasure having I’m really excited to talk with you today about the release of Latency. And I’ll ask you, are you feeling excited about the release?

N
Yes, and in ways I didn’t really expect going in. I just tweeted about it. But I’ve been checking the the Amazon listing a lot. And whenever I see the, the rankings, the like the sales rankings suddenly jumped. I get excited, because I know like, yeah, oh, there’s another pre order. I got another one. So that’s been a an anon on foreseen area of excitement, that I’ve been really enjoying.

R
So you’re excited about the release of the book, but also seeing, you know that there is actually excitement for potential readers who are looking to get into the book, even before it’s released, is also building up some of that excitement for you? Yeah,

N
and especially if it’s, you know, like, obviously, friends and family have ordered copies, and so like those I expected, but then every so often, there’ll be one like, Oh, I wonder, you know, three days after I talked to anybody about it, someone will order? And I’m like, Oh, I wonder who that was, you know. So, yeah, it’s exciting to think about.

R
Yeah, I can imagine, you know, wondering, like, who who might be connecting with the concept of this book and be excited about it? Must be enjoyable thing to think about? Exactly. Yes. And so with the upcoming release of latency, are you looking forward to doing anything with it? Do you have anything special planned to kind of celebrate the release?

N
Yes, but I guess to understand it fully, there’s a little bit of a background that would be needed. So there, if I had to choose the main character in the book, it would be Sarah because you know, there’s six protagonists, but it’s her her revenge plot that unites all the characters, it’s the inciting incident, so to say. And so she’s called Sarah throughout the book s era. But that’s really a nickname her her full name is Serafina. And then, near where I work in downtown Manhattan, there is a restaurant called Serafina. So I’m hoping to do a little book release party with with close friends with my family at Serafina to celebrate Sara filas story coming out.

R
Yeah, that sounds really exciting. And I didn’t know that. So was the main Serafina taken from that restaurant? Or is it just kind of a happy coincidence?

N
It was a happy coincidence. When I wrote latency, and we I think we’re gonna get into that in the next couple of questions. was a while ago before I worked in downtown Manhattan, so I had no idea that that Serafina the restaurant existed.

R
Okay, that’s actually a really neat coincidence. Yes. So writing a book is a major accomplishment. Is latency, the first book that you’ve ever written?

N
It is the first book I ever wrote. Before that, I only wrote a couple of articles for work like newsletter articles, and some little sci fi things. But that being said, it has been so long since I first wrote latency that in between the time that I got connected with cinnabar, moth, and then was a years long gap where I wrote other novels, so I kind of honed by skills a bit. And so the, the version that’s coming out now is very different from the first book Latency.

R
That makes a lot of sense, you know, as we tend to write stories, and then we might put them down for a while and then come back to them. And it’s like, you know, I could make this better.

N
Right. Well, to, to their credit, Kisstopher. The, the advice that they gave me, when we first connected and when the contract was first signing anything, it was it turned an OK story into an amazing story. And so I have a profound amount of respect and appreciation for that.

R
That’s wonderful to hear that you’re able to find support with cinnabar moth, particularly with kisser received back to help you with forming a story that you can be, you know, happy to publish. And so I want to ask you a little bit more about latency. You mentioned that, you know, you wrote this quite a long time ago. How long did you actually start writing

N
The proverbial first pen to paper moment was around New Year’s of 2016. So I don’t remember if it was very end of 2015, or very beginning of 2016. But it was right around there. So it’s, it’s been eight years. Since since I started.

R
That’s quite a while. And how long did it take before you finish that first version of Latency?

N
I worked on it on and off for until starting in January and finished in August around just about.

R
Okay, so that’s about five or six months or so.

N
Yeah. And I can usually draft quicker than that now. But, yeah, it was about five or six months.

R
So you got that first version? And then did you put it down for a little while? Did you work on it some more, and then eventually put it down? Well, what was your process?

N
So it started, as all of it’s now a four part series, the energy crisis series. And when I first started writing it, I only had the I thought it was gonna be one book, I thought it was going to be the energy crisis was was the book of I got to about the 100,000 word mark, and realized I had, essentially an entire novels worth of work to go. So I’ve tried to find a good stopping point. You know, a good place to stop and say like, Okay, this is the first book, and then I’ll do the second one. And so finding that point was what took a while and then writing the two or three chapters, at the end, to kind of sum up the remit to make latency into its own book. That’s what really took the longest amount of time. But what I really had to like, put it down and think about it before I picked it back up and finished it.

R
So you had the experience of that you had this story in mind that you were just writing out, and then you eventually looked down like, this is a little bit more than one book. Right? And then from there, you had to do the trimming and everything. What was that writing process like for you of, you know, starting with an idea, realizing there’s more than one book and having to figure it out from there.

N
It was challenging, but I didn’t really mind the challenge. The I started writing. In 20, the end of 2015, I had a lot of a lot of things that were causing me like anxiety, anger, like a lot of stuff going on in my in my personal life. And, you know, having all that anger and anxiety, all that extra energy built up with no outlet. And having, like, all these story ideas bouncing around in my head, I figured, like, Okay, I have all this energy, I’m not sleeping, because I’m anxious, I might as well, you know, channel it into a book. And that’s what turned into what eventually turned into latency.

R
So the writing process for you was sort of a, a way to release some of the negative emotions that you’re feeling some of that energy that you had into something productive and positive, rather than letting it simmer.

N
Exactly, it was like my alternative to therapy, I guess.

R
That makes a lot of sense. You know, writing is a great way to release a lot of ideas and thoughts. And I know, having read Latency that I don’t necessarily see any of that emotion behind it, in terms of like you as an author, but I do think that the story itself has a lot of emotions in it that are very vibrant and bring the characters to life.

N
It was definitely there was more emotion in it in the first draft. The my beta readers helped me kind of dial it back quite a bit.

R
Okay. Yeah, I guess that would be kind of part of the process with that. And then from there, you know, you mentioned earlier that there’s several protagonists in the story, right. And there’s, you know, Sera, or Serafina is the main character of those protagonists. But this is a small cast of leading characters can use and from I can tell it revolves around, you know, their journey together the power they embrace together and their journey to overcome what is essentially an oppressive government. What inspired the story for you

N
There was a couple places a couple sources of inspiration. I’ve ever since I was a kid, you know, like, elementary school age, I love sci fi. And I especially loved stories where there is a group of heroes so you know, your your X Men stories, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dragonball Z, that those kinds of storylines. And in a lot of them, that is especially X Men, oppressive and fearful governments, you know, they’re they’re ubiquitous that you know, that’s not a hard leap to make to put superpower people with oppressive governments. But But to get back to it, it was an I so obsessed with those characters and that concept that I used to get in trouble in elementary school because my, my teachers thought I was daydreaming or you know, just not paying attention. And in reality, I was just like, in my head, thinking about my own little characters that you know, we’re in the vein of X Men are ninja turtles, and just thinking of like, like stories for them. And I guess those those little characters that elementary school, Nate was thinking about eventually turned into turned into the protagonists and antagonists in in latency. And there was a couple other inspirations like the when the matrix came out, I was fascinated with a lot of ideas in that. Especially the idea of the machines in the matrix using, like, the human body using human body heat and neural impulses as a fuel fuel source. And I always thought it would be a cool idea. And I always thought of it in the concept of why didn’t somebody write a book or a movie, where humans use that energy source? You know, instead of robots doing it, you know, enslaving us and using the energy. And when I realized that those two ideas could kind of be combined, was when I really started thinking about, Hey, maybe I should write the story. And latency came up, it

R
I think that’s an awesome inspiration to go from, you know, your childhood influences into your experience with the different media and all that coming together in a really beautiful way. With latency, I do think you captured very well, this feeling of, you know, the the ragtag group of, of special people, using their strengths and using their companionship to overcome the obstacles that they face and the challenges that they face. And their journey together really drew me in as a, as a reader. Do you find that difficult to capture that companionship? Or is it pretty easy for you, because you had all this inspiration to draw from?

N
Um, it was a little difficult, but not in not in a direct way. The companionship really came from a desire to avoid things that annoyed me about other stories, for lack of a better for a better term. There’s a couple and I’m not going to name names, but there’s a couple of stories I read, where, like, there’s a very dramatic, you know, interpersonal drama, like, you know, if it happened in real life, yeah, that that would rip apart the friendship, that would be the end. But in certain books, you know, those traumatic moments happen. And then later on in the book, they’re back together, like nothing happened. So I didn’t want to go that way. I especially didn’t want to go the way of the drama coming from like a simple miscommunication, or like somebody holding back an important piece of information that, you know, could have changed everything. And on the flip side of that, I don’t want characters who didn’t never disagreed, who, you know, just everything was Buddy Buddy the whole time. So I wanted to have characters that had differing opinions, but who were also, you know, showed empathy, you know, understood where their fellows were coming from, and would, you know, work through the differences that were in a believable way. And that endeavor, I guess, led to this sense of support and camaraderie that I think you picked up on.

R
Definitely leaves because when I was reading through the book, I found that the characters felt very real in their interactions with each other in a way that, like you mentioned, some books feel a little bit off, sometimes, even without naming certain names. There’s just this sense of like, who these characters really follow up with doing this, or if they really cared about each other, or if they’re intelligent, and, you know, adults communicating, would this really be something that would happen? Right. Whereas with the interactions, and latency, I did feel very much that they were while their personalities were different, and their specialties in their strengths were different. There was always a sense of the understood, they had a common goal that they were working towards together, right. And I personally found that very inspiring as for my own writing, and make me look at my own writing, and see if I could make some improvements in terms of my characterization to to better build those bonds.

N
That might be the nicest thing I’ve ever heard someone say, thank you. I really love it, I types to think that I influenced you as a as a writer, because you’re amazing. Thank you.

R
I think that you’re, you’re fantastic as well. And so I want to follow up a little bit more about latency. And to me, every story has its own message. And with latency, the message seems to be recognizing, you know, the strength of people’s ability to inspire and support each other, and the value of finding those who share our values and experiences and then the ability to then overcome obstacles together. Was this the message you intended for the story? Or was there something else in mind as you’re writing it?

N
I guess but you thought about it much more deeply than I did. The really the the message if if I had one was was much more simple. The standard the violence begets violence, oppression, you know, doesn’t and won’t ever keep peace, you know, that that sort of thing. What, what I did want for you, in terms of my desires for creating the creating latency, I wanted characters who certainly had empathy for one another. And, you know, that goes to the question we just talked about, but I really wanted, like my wants and desires were much more superficial. It was I wanted a story of a small group of badasses who were so powerful that an entire army couldn’t couldn’t take them on. And but at the same time I wanted, you know, whatever, you didn’t want just five characters or six characters being dropped into a war zone and kicking ass like, you know, whatever unified them I wanted that to be somewhat grounded, somewhat believable. And so the empathy, the support, the shared experiences, the shared desires, that’s I think, what provided that that mechanism for something believable that would, that would bring them together.

R
Yeah, I certainly found it unbelievable. And they were definitely very badass characters, like you mentioned, I think all of you had wonderful moments to shine in the story where you kind of gave them the spotlight to do their, their thing. And then, you know, there are times that they’re working together to overcome things that they couldn’t have, you know, no spoilers, but there are times they had come together to overcome certain challenges and obstacles that they wouldn’t have been able to do on their own, even if they want it, despite how strong they were. Because you know, you’re facing the government and army. Sometimes it’s a little bit hard for one person, no matter how badass you are. And so with the experience of going through writing latency, and then, you know, putting it down for a while coming back to it, and the experience of publishing and everything. I want to ask you, what’s your greatest takeaway from latency for you as a writer?

N
Have my, I guess, my, I don’t know if it’s a takeaway, but the biggest learning experience actually came from querying latency, not not writing it so much. I really, I queried it hard with the because when I got into or when I first started querying, I did not know about indie publishers, like I was brand new to the world, like this was not some dream that I had had since I was a kid. I knew nothing about the world. I thought, you know, you go get an agent, you do go for one of the big five publishers, and that was that. So I queried agents hard for about 18 months with some success, like, you know, some requests for partials and whatnot, but ultimately it never it never went in anywhere. And I kind of given up on not not giving up per se, that’s, that’s too strong. I put latency on the backburner to focus on on other projects. But I still, you know, kept my nose to the pavement and kept, you know, following lots of people on Twitter. Staying not not saying being less active posting on Twitter, but still following people and reading tweets. And it worked out because about a year later little indie publisher with a well known very, like a fantastic reputation, randomly tweeted one day that they had a 2020 for opening and asked for a submission. And that was you guys, that was cinnabar. Moth, though had I, you know, completely thrown in the towel and deactivated my Twitter or, you know, stop, stop going on to Twitter, I would have missed my opportunity. So it was just a lesson learn that, you know, the grind will pay off, if you if you keep at it, you know, and just your opportunity can come from anywhere. So look for it and seize it when it comes. Because Because if I had not done that, like we wouldn’t be talking to here today.

R
Like, that’s a wonderful messaging of making sure that you keep Are you aware of your options, you keep an eye out for them. And I’m personally really happy that I am talking with you today. And I had the opportunity to read latency because it’s a wonderful story. Thank you so much. So with latency, you know, it’s coming at this upcoming Tuesday, are your friends and family excited about the release?

N
I think they’re more excited than I am, frankly. And really surprised me. So, like, don’t get me wrong, when when this opportunity with you guys popped up. You know, I was very surprised. I’m incredibly grateful. But since I was in that querying grind for as long as I was, I guess it came as less of a shock to me like, like, you know, because I saw the whole process of, you know, my, my query letters getting better, my drafts getting better, and eventually finding the, the right company. Whereas my family, like they knew that I was querying, and then didn’t hear anything about it for two years and change. And then all of a sudden, they say, oh, yeah, I got an offer to contract, I’m gonna get a four book series. And yeah, now now everybody’s like, Oh, my God, it’s so exciting.

R
I think that’s awesome that you have all this excitement, I can only imagine how it must feel to, you know, have the support. And then also to have, you know, all this contract for those four books relate, but the latency? And with that, you know, how does it feel to know that your book goes to the list in the US Library of Congress.

N
I really didn’t understand how big a deal that was until relatively recently. Like now, now I understand, you know that the latency is literally going down in history because of it. And that’s a huge deal. But since I didn’t dream of like, it wasn’t like a lifelong dream to become a writer, like, eight years ago, I thought I had a good idea for a book and wrote it down. And that that was really the start of everything. So I think that being listed in US Library of Congress is something that other people, it’s a much bigger deal for other people than it was for me, but I do recognize that it’s quite an accomplishment.

R
It makes a lot of sense to me, you know, with not not knowing a lot about it now. And to it’s just kind of like, Oh, cool. Another thing on top of all the excitement and the rush of it, all right, right. And so, you know, the books coming out this upcoming Tuesday, it’s the journey for the first book, essentially, for its publication processes kind of coming to its end now. What do you hope happens next?

N
Well, certainly, I hope that everything goes smoothly with the sequels. And I assume well, we’ll talk about that a little more later. But besides that, it’s hard for me to say because I it’s tough to me to think about that. I’ve even gotten this far. Like with every step of the way, you know, I wrote writing the book, getting a beta read querying. I always hoped for the best but try to keep my expectations reasonable like how What you know, how many people finish a book? Okay, well, I finished the book, how many people you know, get through the beta reading phase? And like, actually, people liked it. Okay, they liked it. Well, how many people query and actually get an offer? Okay, well, I got that. But you know, how many people actually, you know, sell well enough to make a living or like, so, you know, I’m trying to keep my expectations reasonable, but I am hoping that hope will win out again, you know what I mean?

R
That makes a lot of sense. You’re, you’re trying to combat you know, the mix of excitement and the positive side of things like, Okay, let’s keep me grounded. Let’s not get too worked up. Yes. Speaking of hope are, are you hoping to make writing your career

N
it would be nice, light. And I’m pretty fortunate that my my day job, I worked for city government, and I do like it like, I like my coworkers. I like the work that I do. So if that was the rest of my life, I’d be okay with that, too. But especially last week, I took off, I took the week off from work to watch my kids and, and when they were napping, or in school or whatnot, I would I was writing. And that was pretty nice. Like, I could definitely get used to that kind of life. So and I definitely have a couple of ideas. Like obviously, it is, energy crisis is a four book series. So I have that to work on for the next two years. That’ll be my, you know, my, my project until, until the last one is out. But I did also write a children’s book a couple of years ago, inspired by my wife’s pet rabbit, which the she adopted the rabbit when she was still living in Japan as a pet, and then when she moved here, she left the rabbit in Japan with her parents. But a few years later, we flew over there to go get the rabbit and then flew back from Japan to New York City with the rabbits so I wrote a children’s book about that. Oh, wow. And that would be I think it would be cute to have that published one day and make a little career out of out of writing children’s books in addition to somewhat violent adult science fiction.

R
Yeah, it does sound like a very cute story just from hearing about it. It sounds very sweet, you know, writing a story about your wife’s pet rabbit. And, and about that. And so with the, you know, looking at the the mix of of writing that you’re thinking of doing, if you could choose, would you choose to primarily work in science fiction and children’s book? Or do you think you would want to explore other genres as well.

N
I can see myself getting into fantasy. I’ve had a couple of fantasy ideas and little things that I’ve worked on over the years. So I could see myself exploring that genre as well. Certainly, that’d be the extent of it. Like, I don’t think I’m good enough at character writing for romance, and I don’t the, you know, nonfiction and everything out there. I don’t have any current inspiration. So. Okay, yeah,

R
I I’d be excited to meeting you, right, because I’m a huge fan of the energy crisis series already. And getting back to latency. I want to ask you, do you think you would make a better TV series or movie assuming that you know, you had the choice?

N
Is the choice just between those two?

R
Do you have another medium that you have in mind? Maybe comic book?

N
Oh, I didn’t even think of comic book that’s interesting to know, I was thinking video game. Just because yeah, it’s you know, the multiple POVs the multiple characters with unique superpowers. The battles that you know, progress in scale. I always thought of it as being an interesting concept for a video game. But if I had to choose between TV or or movie, it would, I would go for movie just because there’s a lot of epic fight scenes that I think would be better on the big screen.

R
Okay, I hadn’t considered the video game idea at all. But now you mentioned that I do think that would be a very interesting experience to you know, experience these really badass character moments as well as the the characterization everything follows up on that If you with with video games, we naturally we have a voice acting right? Do you have any voice actors in mind that you think would be really good for a specific character?

N
I don’t know enough about voice actors to answer that question. I had thought about casting for movies, funnily enough, but not for for video games. If you wanted to hear that.

R
Yeah. Who do you think would make for great casting for a movie?

N
So, the one I thought about the most was Lupita Nihongo. As for Sarah, I, from the moment that I thought of Sarah, I thought that Lupita what was her? She She Lupita is the is the inspiration for Sara’s whole persona. And even more so after Black Panther came out with like her characterization of Nicaea. I was like, Yep, I, I made the right choice. And then the only other character I thought about significantly besides her was an antagonist named Captain Byron, who is supposed to be this massive, you know, seven foot tall, very intimidating, very scary presence. And there’s a wrestler in the WWE called The Great Khali who’s like seven foot one 370 pounds, something like that, that I thought would be would make a great captain Byron does.

R
I saw him being seven foot one is already intimidated, just to think about. It does sound like it’d be a pretty good fit for you know, the towering character that you’re imagining. And I do think that looping around goes very talented actress. Yes. And so following up on the idea of, you know, latencies coming out as a movie, what level of control? Would you want over that movie creation process?

N
I don’t know much about making movies. So yeah, if I had to take on a bigger role, I guess I would, but I assume a consulting role would be, you know, the extent there are certain things that I would probably asked to, like be required, contractually. The one that comes to mind immediately is the story is supposed to take place in, you know, 25th 26th century. And the idea I had was, by that point in, in Earth’s history, so races that we know, today really wouldn’t exist, we would have intermixed so much that it would be pretty rare for someone to be identifiable by like, the racial racial classifications of today. Sarah is really the only one she she’s a black woman. But every other character, is what you and I would consider, like mixed race by today’s standards. So I definitely would want to see that reflected in the casting choices. Besides that, there’s nothing I would really do, there’s nothing else that I feel as strongly about controlling, I guess

R
That makes a lot of sense. And thinking about it, when, as we integrate, see, there wasn’t really a lot of mentioned really, of a race at all, which I looking back on it, I really do enjoy the kind of low key representation that that and involves I am because I’m a mixed race. And so you know, reading, seeing the cover and seeing the, the my skin tone reflected in the characters, and I’m seeing that it’s not something that’s significant to the story. It’s just who they are, was very pleasant for me as a reader as well.

N
Very glad to hear that.

R
I’m glad that that’s something that you you would try to maintain because I think that would make for a very enjoyable viewing experience as well in the in the movie. And so let’s imagine now that you know, it’s gone through the process they picked up for that movie they’ve made done all the screenwriting and everything that’s coming out. Would you want to go to the premiere? And if you did, who would you take with you?

N
So I’m a little bit of an introvert. So go out, go into Premiere does sound fun, but it sounds like something that would be fun to do once. And so there’s, you know, if there’s a premiere for all four of the books, you know, maybe I’ll skip the second, third and fourth, but the first one I would go to, and obviously my wife would be the the first choice of She’s actually there’s a character in the book, who is named in homage to my wife. So I think it would be cool for her to see the character that that is named after her. And if my wife couldn’t go for whatever reason, or didn’t want to because she’s a little bit of an introvert too. I would love to bring my mom. She was my very first beta reader. She is my biggest fan. She’s been my biggest supporter these eight years. So I think she deserves it.

R
Sounds really lovely. And I didn’t know one of the characters named after your wife. But that’s, that’s very sweet. And really exciting to see on the big screen that character portrayed

N
For anybody who’s listening to this look out for the character named May – M A Y. That that is the character named after my wife.

R
Oh, okay. I’m not gonna say anything more, because, you know, I don’t want to have any spoilers about the character.

N
Yeah.

R
Now they know I can think back on it and give it another read looking out for that. And so following up on this you mention that you’re kind of an introverted, like your wife is as well. So imagining that, you know, let’s say the Energy Crisis books became really popular, and you gained a lot of fame with that. Would you like to be as famous and well known as Stephen King? Or where you lost your anonymity? Or do you look for something a little bit more low key?

N
Maybe not Stephen, King, famous? Stephen King. I feel like you could have never read a Stephen King novel, and you’d still know what he looks like. So I don’t know that I would want to be that famous. But also like, I wouldn’t necessarily want to be completely unknown, either. Maybe closer to like a Suzanne Collins, I guess, because she wrote a great series wrote a very popular series, she she made a lot of money, got her bag. But nowadays wouldn’t like she she’s not a heavy presence on social media or anything like that. So really, it would only be fans of her work, who would recognize her, you know, as she’s going about her day. So I think that would be more the the level of fame that I would try to try to go for. And if I had any say in the matter.

R
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, you have mentioned that you’re, you are introvert. And I do think that maintaining your privacy a bit is always nice to have. Right. Right. And so, Nathaniel, I’d like to thank you for talking with all of us to and beyond the writers triangle. It’s, it’s been a real pleasure having you.

N
It’s a pleasure being here. Thank thank you for so much for the interview. This was awesome.

R
And to all of our beautiful moths, thank you for listening. And be sure to buy Latency coming out this upcoming – upcoming Tuesday, March 5. Now, a quick thing, can you tell us where we can find you as far as social media goes?

N
So I’m on Instagram, Twitter, or x, whatever you want to call it, and blue sky. My my handle is the same at all of them. It’s NateJKlol.

R
Wonderful. And for every listening, be sure to visit cinnabar moth.com, where you can check out the transcripts and we’ll also have a link to Nathaniel social media. And Nathaniel, it’s been a real pleasure talking with you than having you on. And I hope that everybody listening has enjoyed the interview as well. For now, bye-bye.

N
Thank you for everybody for listening and thank you for the interview.