JC Kang has plenty of books you can enjoy. My first experience reading one of his novels was Songs of Insurrection. An intriguing music-based magic system fueling a plot set in an Asian-inspired secondary world? Count me in. I’m a sucker for world building, and Kang delivered that in spades.

About the Author

JC Kang’s unhealthy obsession with Fantasy and Sci-Fi began at an early age when his brother introduced him to The Chronicles of Narnia, Star Trek, and Star Wars. As an adult, he combines his geek roots with his professional experiences as a Chinese Medicine doctor, martial arts instructor, and technical writer to pen epic fantasy stories.

http://jckang.dragonstonepress.us/
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We already have your official bio, now we want to challenge you to describe yourself in ten words or less…Go!

Dashingly handsome, supremely intelligent, unabashedly modest dragon in man’s clothing.

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Who or what are your inspirations when it comes to writing? Is it a particular author or authors, art, history, culture, current events, something else? How have they influenced your work?

History and scientific discovery inspire a lot of my world building.  For example, when news about j1407b, a brown dwarf with rings 300x larger than Saturn’s came out, I wondered how something like that would affect the mythology of a pre-modern civilization.

As for authors: Weiss and Hickman for inspiring me to write at all; Tolkien for his macro-level worldbuilding; GRRM for his micro-level worldbuilding and viewpoint character perspectives; NK Jemisin for her worldbuilding; Jacqueline Carey for character quirks.

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What do you love about self-publishing and on the flipside what drives you nuts about it? What aspects of self-publishing do you excel at and in what ways do you struggle?

With self-publishing, I like the total control over pricing and advertising, as well as artistic decisions.  What drives me nuts is not about self-publishing itself, but that there are some fantasy readers who refuse to try it out.  Overall, I feel I’m pretty good at knowing how to reach my target audience.

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What does your daily writing process look like? What do you do to get in the writing zone?  How many hours do you write or do you go for a word count? Tell us everything!

Oh gosh, I’m a serial procrastinator.  On a good day, I might get 5k words down. On a day when I’m distracted, maybe 100, or none at all.  It really doesn’t matter how much time I have to write, as much as how good I am at blocking out distractions.

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What do you think makes a good story?

Compelling characters, intricate plots, textured worlds, beautiful wordsmithing, and most importantly, the awesome twist that we should’ve guessed from all the clues!

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Name a self-published novel that you love that you think needs more attention and tell us why.

Alisha Klapheke’s Waters of Salt and Sin.  It has all of my answers to 5; she has all the vibrant characters of Rhett Bruno/Jaime Castle in the Buried Goddess Saga; creative worldbuilding of Phil Tucker’s Chronicles of the Black Gate; the sneaky plotting of Dyrk Ashton’s . What sets her apart from say, Alec Hutson, who is an unparalleled wordsmith, is how well she can evoke images and emotions with simple prose.

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What comes first for you, character, plot, or setting?

As a reader, it doesn’t matter to me. Obviously, if all aspects are amazing, I’m the happiest.

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What is one thing you’ve learned about yourself as a result of writing?

That I’m an even worse procrastinator than I thought.

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If you could meet one of your characters for an afternoon around town, who would it be and why?

I have a soft spot for beauties, so it would be Kaiya, the Dragon Charmer.

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If you were to write in a genre other than fantasy, what would it be and why?

I actually have a rom-com that is 1/4 written.  Maybe one of these days, I’ll finish it.  I also have a cyberpunk-Xianxia story in the works.