On April 8, Calvin senior Weston Fields became a published author for the second time. The Weather Belt is the second novel in a series that Fields plans to complete as a trilogy soon. The series, The Guardians of Kawts, is part dystopia and part science fiction.
Fields is a religion and philosophy double major, with minors in writing and ministry leadership. The Guardians of Kawts series has been his main writing project recently, but he’s also written several short stories. Fields told Chimes he’s been tinkering with the idea of publishing novels of his own since first learning about dystopian literature in his eighth-grade English class. That dream came true last year, when he self-published his first book on April 9, 2024.
To celebrate the release of the sequel, Chimes met with Fields to learn about his books, his goals for the series and what the writing process looks like. The books are available for purchase on Amazon or through the Barnes and Noble website.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Chimes: So, I would appreciate it if you can introduce me to the world of your books a little bit. Can you give me a synopsis of the series?
Fields: So, it’s set in a future version of Earth. The first book is more straightforward dystopian, but the second one is more science fiction. In the past of this world, there was a great cataclysmic war against an army of robots, sort of a standard rogue AI uprising scenario. And the events of my books are set a couple hundred years after that fact. So, the population of Earth is a lot smaller, and the surviving groups are a lot more isolated from each other.
Chimes: Is there some kind of grand quest that the main characters go on? What’s the arc of the story?
Fields: The story primarily centers around the main character — whose name is Timothy — and some of his friends and other people he meets while fighting against the leaders of the government [presiding over] the group of cities where he lives, which are called the Council. In typical dystopian fashion, they’re a rather oppressive government. The first book mostly follows Timothy as he sort of realizes that fact. And they succeed in pushing them out of the towns, but in the second book, the one that just recently came out, that one picks up where they’ve now invaded a neighboring country and taken it over.
Chimes: What got you inspired to start on this project?
Fields: So the original genesis of it goes back to 8th grade English class. We had a unit on dystopian books, so we were all assigned to read The Giver by Lois Lowry. But I read really fast, so I finished the book long before it was actually due to be finished, which turned out to be a problem because we had a big packet of worksheets that we were supposed to go through along with the book. So I talked with my teacher and we decided that I would read some other dystopian books and fill out the worksheets about those. So that process really kind of gave me a sense for the genre of dystopian books. And I thought, “I could write one of those.”
So that was sort of the original birth of what became this series.
Chimes: What’s something you’ve learned throughout the process of going from that idea to a final product that’s actually published?
I mean, obviously there have been a lot of ways I’ve gotten better as an author since that initial 8th grade draft. One thing I’ve learned a lot more about is writing good character arcs. That took a few drafts for me to kind of learn how to do that well. And just publishing in general. I mean, I self-published my books, but I did a lot of research.Even with all that research, there’s still a fairly steep learning curve when it comes time to actually do the things.
Chimes: So far, have your books been met with commercial success?
Fields: I would not say that they have, although I did actually sell a decent number of copies of the first one. I did not break even on the project. But it does usually take a few books before writing books is actually economically sustainable.
Chimes: So, what drives you to keep going towards that goal and to keep putting in effort?
Fields: I think a big part of it is just… I like the stories that I’m writing. I mean, I really enjoy world-building. A big part of that is discovering stories that take place in those worlds. So I guess I just have stories that I want to write, even if it’s not necessarily profitable for me to do so.
Chimes: You’re a religion and philosophy double major. Do your books draw from elements of religion or philosophy?
Fields: Yeah, there’s definitely a strong religious, philosophical strand that runs through them. The extent varies from project to project, but the ones that are currently published, it’s a more explicit strand. Because in the city where these stories take place, religion is one of the things that’s banned. So the main character starts out with no exposure to religion of any kind. And part of his journey over the series is wrestling primarily with Christianity.
Chimes: Where are you hoping that the writing journey takes you next? Are you going to continue the series or are you going to try something new?
Fields: I have a lot of writing projects that I’d like to work on. Perhaps too many. I am planning on finishing the series that I’ve started. It’s set to be a trilogy. It’s also set to be sort of the foundation for a larger universe. In addition to that, there’s a whole different branch of stories I have in the works that will be part of more of a fantasy-style series.
Chimes: What would you say to another Calvin student or someone else who’s got an idea and is maybe an aspiring writer?
Fields: College is a great place to hone your writing. Especially when we have creative writing classes at Calvin in fiction specifically. I’m even taking a class right now where I’m writing creative non-fiction, like essays. Even that has given me some new writing tools in general that I can apply to writing fiction.
Chimes: Recently, there have been a lot of conversations swirling around the broader culture about writing, especially with AI-generated text getting more common. What has it been like for you to work through the process of actually creating something yourself, in light of that?
Fields: I will say off the bat, I’m not terribly concerned about AI replacing authors. Even if AI does get to the point where it can write good novels, humans can also still write good novels. So I think it might increase the competition somewhat, but it wouldn’t necessarily make writing obsolete. Like I mentioned before, I write primarily because I have stories that I want to write. So for me, the actual writing of those stories is an important part of the process.
