It took hundreds of hours of discussions and tweaking to create a believable setting and characters that fit their environment and culture.
Rob Long and Andrew Dolberg – 7 November 2023
The Back Flap
The Great Weather Diviner is a young adult fantasy novel about the untold origin story of Punxsutawney Phil. When a flood strikes the small mining town of Punxsutawney, Junior the groundhog embarks on a journey to uncover why nature itself has turned on his people.
As Junior confronts difficult questions about responsibility, environmental protection, and the power of storytelling, he sets out to find the Guardians, legendary superpowered animals from his childhood stories who have always offered help in times of need. Along the way, he is pursued by Callidus, the evil raven overlord who seeks to stop him from discovering the truth about the Guardians and his family’s role in their community’s history.
With the help of his new friend Jill, a brilliant hedgehog, Junior strives to create a more harmonious future for all animals in their fantastical world. The Great Weather Diviner is a thought-provoking and action-packed adventure that addresses themes of self-discovery, generational change, and the consequences of greed.
About the book
What is the book about?
The Great Weather Diviner is about a young groundhog’s adventure to find his purpose and save his town. The story is a fractured fairy tale, reimagining the origin story of Punxsutawney Phil and Groundhog Day. In this version, Philip Rodington the IX–or “Junior”– lives in an animal-only world. When a devastating flood strikes their small mining town, Junior embarks on a quest to uncover the truth behind the disaster and save his home from the threat of the evil raven overlord, Callidus. Along the way, he confronts difficult questions about responsibility, environmental protection, and the power of storytelling. With the help of his new friend Jill, a hedgehog inventor, Junior sets out to find the Guardians, legendary superpowered animals from his childhood stories who have always offered help in times of need.
When did you start writing the book?
Summer of 2020.
How long did it take you to write it?
About 2 and a half years, including edits based on feedback from beta readers.
Where did you get the idea from?
Rob grew up in Punxsutawney, PA, surrounded by the lore of Punxsutawney Phil and Groundhog Day. He wrote a short story reimagining those stories as a hobby during the early Covid lockdowns, and that eventually became the idea for the full book.
Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?
We spent a lot of time crafting the world of Erda and the unique dynamics of an anthropomorphized fantasy land because we wanted to get it exactly right. It took hundreds of hours of discussions and tweaking to create a believable setting and characters that fit their environment and culture.
What came easily?
The easiest part of our writing process was deciding on the themes we wanted to portray and weave those ideas into the story. This was always meant to be an allegory about climate change, and we wrote the plot and characters with that in mind.
Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?
Every bit of fiction is based in part on the author’s reality. In this case, two authors. While no character is directly based on a real-life person, some of their characteristics are derived from people we know. In the case of the villain and antihero, some of their characteristics were drawn from the reverse of people we love.
We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?
The way that we think about fantasy and adventure was certainly based on works by J.R.R. Tolkien, Rick Riordan, Sarah J. Maas, Hank Green, Eoin Colfer, and Christopher Paolini, among others. Most of those influences write for an adult audience, and we spent a lot of time conceptualizing how to reach a similar depth of their story writing when writing for our intended younger audience.
Do you have a target reader?
The Great Weather Diviner is a must-read for all ages! Middle School-aged children will enjoy the action-packed adventure and loveable characters. Adults will find more meaning in the allegories about climate change and our collective responsibility to take action and care for our communities.
About Writing
Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?
We co-wrote this book start to finish, which is a unique process in comparison to most authors. Before we ever put pen to paper, we spent hundreds of hours talking about the world we wanted to create and fleshing out the characters, plot, and themes. Once we were ready to write, we created a loose outline. For the most part, we traded off chapters. One of us would write a chapter and the other would edit then we would switch roles for the following chapter. For the most part, each chapter was written in a single sitting, and we really thrived on that momentum.
Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?
We do outline, but the outlining process looked very different for different parts of the book. Before we wrote chapter one, we made a loose outline of the full story, but that really only included the main plot beats. We then created a character growth timeline for a handful of characters, and that really informed how the plot grew from the beats into the full story. That process worked for the first and second acts of the book. Once we finished those parts, we had a writing retreat at a remote cabin and over the course of three tireless days, created an extensive outline for the third act. This was much more in-depth than the original outline and included every story beat, every character’s involvement, every conversation to be written, and even some big moments from the battle sequence. We wanted every moment to land perfectly, and we wanted to make sure that we wrapped up every loose end. Once that outline was done, we returned to the writing process and stuck pretty close to that organizational structure.
Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?
By the nature of our co-writing process, we edited each other’s work as we wrote. So, each chapter received multiple rounds of edits between the two of us before the next chapter was written. These edits were anything from line-editing to complete re-writes of scenes. At the end, we each did a few more passes of the full book to ensure everything flowed properly.
Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?
Andrew cannot sit in silence. While I write, I listen to a lot of indie rock and Taylor Swift, but also the soundtracks for big cinematic adventures like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc. Rob rarely listens to music while he writes. If he does it’s something like Explosions in the Sky without vocals.
About Publishing
Did you submit your work to Agents?
Yes, we queried about 20 agents before deciding to move forward with Morgan James Publishing without an agent.
What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?
We really enjoyed the prospect of our own entrepreneurship driving the process. Both of us are entrepreneurs and small business owners, so we have experience with the pressure and jack-of-all-trades nature of our own enterprises. Morgan James Publishing has been an amazing partner for us, and they are all about empowering their writers to maximize a book’s impact.
Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?
We worked with an incredible artist named Madison Brake to create the cover. We had extensive conversations with her about how we wanted the characters and world to feel (on top of the descriptions from the book) and she really brought everything to life. After the cover was done, we continued working with Madison to create more merch and graphics that we’re excited to roll out to our audience.
Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?
A little bit of both! We do have a marketing plan, social media calendar, email blast calendar, and some documents that just have random ideas we’ve come up with along the way. Then we build on top of all of that with our day-to-day spontaneous ideas and suggestions from others.
Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?
Do it! This process has been unbelievably rewarding for us, and that’s before our book has even hit stores. We’re excited for others to read our novel, but we’re also just incredibly proud of the book we created because it’s a message and a story that we care about. One other piece of advice is to approach every problem as an opportunity. You didn’t get a rejection, you got feedback about what didn’t work. You don’t have writers block; you have an opportunity to experience the world before you bring those experiences back to your writing process. Always try to find something to learn when things don’t go exactly your way.
About You
Where did you grow up?
Rob grew up in Punxsutawney, PA and Andrew grew up in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
Where do you live now?
Rob lives in Delray Beach, FL, where he is a City Commissioner. Andrew lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
What would you like readers to know about you?
We hope that our passion for protecting the environment and preventing climate change is evident throughout our book. We didn’t just have an idea for a story, we had an idea for how to frame big, real-world issues in a way that both young and old readers will understand and appreciate. Otherwise, we hope readers know how much we appreciate them for picking up our book!
What are you working on now?
We are BUSY! On top of our day jobs and some other side projects, we’re already working on a sequel to The Great Weather Diviner as well as a spinoff story for younger readers. We’ll have more news on that soon!
End of Interview:
Get your copy of The Great Weather Diviner from Amazon US or Amazon UK.