If if isn’t personal what the heck is it?

Author Interviews That Rock

Julie Cross

TEMPEST
& VORTEX

Click the pics for awesome Julie links!

Okay Julie, tell the readers a little bit about  your books.

Tempest is the first book in a young adult trilogy that follows my main character, 19 year old Jackson Meyer, as he jumps through time (literally), to learn about his past and to try and save the his girlfriend, Holly. Vortex is the sequel to Tempest and it releases in the US on January 15, 2013.

Just to get us started, how old are you?

I’m 32.5 years old

What inspired you to write TEMPEST & VORTEX?

The concept for Tempest came in layers as I worked with my now editor, Brendan Deneen. My idea started with a sort of time travel story that was also about aliens and gymnastics. His idea was to acquire a teen version of The Time Traveler’s Wife. Tempest is a story that emerged from both our creative brains.

Why time travel?

The type of time travel is Tempest appealed to me as writer because I love the idea of having a character revisit moments of his or her own past. The scenes where Jackson visits years that his twin sister, who died of cancer at 14, was still alive were so emotionally powerful to write. That’s probably what made me fall in love with writing time travel.

What made you want to write in the first place?

I started writing in May of 2009. I think I was mostly looking for an escape from everyday life. The kind of escape you get from an amazing book. I read a lot and there were moments when I wanted to change the course of a book. It dawned on me that I could write my own story.

What keeps you writing?

I wish I knew the answer to that question. Once I started, I just could stop. In fact, I waited to get bored with it, to quit, but so far that hasn’t happened. It’s challenging and stimulating in a way that I hadn’t experienced before and I feel like there’s always something more to learn. It’s amazing to discover your passion, even at 29 years old. Truly amazing.

What is the best piece of writing advice you were ever given?

My first instinct is to say, Read a lot. But that’s the piece of advice I often give to writers who ask me this question, but I already read a lot so I didn’t need to hear that particular advice myself. I’d have to say reading Stephen King’s book, On Writing and the part (don’t quote me or anything) where he says something along the lines of, most importantly, you have to write a good story. It just meant that I didn’t need to feel intimidated by the idea of finding big words and creating mind-blowing symbolism and metaphors. Or even understand contracts and the publishing industry before beginning a novel. I just needed to write a good story. 

How do you discipline yourself to keep at the writing?

I only have to discipline myself to up with other aspects of my life…laundry, exercise, grocery shopping, cleaning, my kids’ homework and activities. The writing part so far doesn’t require discipline. 

When did you decide, this is what I really want to do? I want to be a writer! Was there a particutlar ah-ha moment?

When I was offered a three book deal with St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Dunne Books, all I had were questions and confusion and many of them my editor couldn’t answer right away as I searched for an agent, but he sent me an email that said basically, “Just keep in mind, from this day on YOU. ARE. GOING. TO. BE. A. PUBLISHED. AUTHOR” and he wrote it just like that and it hit me that no matter what, whether I wrote forever or not, I’d be known as a published author. That was truly my aha moment.

What is the most important thing for a writer to remember?

There is almost never one clear answer, one clear path, one right way to do anything, to tell any story, and to interpret any story. Open your mind to the realm of possibilities and don’t dwell on the impossibilities and improbabilities and all things that begin with a negative.

Do you belong to any cool writerly groups on or off line?

I’ve recently been emailing with some YA authors that I’ve met at events and doing some beta reading and critique.

If you were to mentor other writers what wisdom would you find most helpful.

I like honest critique, even brutally honest. I’m one who can handle it just fine. But I realize others need to work in phases. I think the idea of being able to pitch a story in a sentence is so helpful to new writers. Even if you figure everything out in your story and it doesn’t quite fit into a one-line mold, chances are you’ve worked out some issues while trying to get it narrowed a bit. It took me such a long time to figure out what it meant to be able to summarize a story in a short statement. Whenever I couldn’t do this, there was always something wrong with my plot. If you can address this even before you begin writing, it could be a huge factor in getting a finished product that can actually be sold.

Just for kicks… What are some of your favorite TV shows, movies?

My current favorite shows are GLEE, Dance Moms, The Voice, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, Falling Skies. My movie favorites are very all over the place, I almost never go to the theater (just for the big ones like Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, ect…). I love comedies and I’ll watch any cheesy romantic comedy, even the DCOM and ABC Family ones. I typically write/read edgy, emotionally heavy and sometimes intense thrillerish stuff so that must be why I choose the lighter movie/TV options.

If you could be a character from a book who would you be?

Katniss Everdeen. Hands down. I need her survival skills. I’m assuming while taking over her body, I’d also be allowed to acquire the knowledge stored up in her brain?

Last movie you saw at the theater?

Hunger Games

What is your favorite board game?

Monopoly.

How do you get into your characters heads?

Good question. I’m not sure, but I’m sure that I do get in their heads and become them. I leave myself and my views and opinions completely in the dust.  

What is most special about your protagonist?

For Jackson, it’s his potential to be great, however sometimes I’d have to say that comes in second to watching him fail in the process of reaching his potential. It took me a while to realize how much I wanted him to experience the struggle to be great just as much as I wanted to see him get there.

Do you listen to music while you write? If so what gets you motivated?

I usually don’t listen to music, but I could if I wanted to. I’m pretty relaxed about my writing place and time. I can shut out the world around me even if it’s quite hectic.

Other than writing, what do you like to do for fun? Hobbies?

Reading. I also love running. I’m really great at it but it brings a different challenge and a lot of clarity within the creative part of my brain.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A teacher. Always a teacher. But the type of teacher changed constantly.

If your protagonist could give one piece of advice to your readers what would it be?

Always prepare for the worst. Write everything important down in notebook that you always have on you.

What would your villain/villains have to say about that?

Well…I suppose they would support this advice fully. They are very intelligent and capable people. Unfortunately.

Any closing words of wisdom for other author-wannabees out there?

Enjoy the freedom of writing just for you even if publication is your end goal. If you enjoy reading books in your genre and you create a story that you enjoy reading there’s a good chance other people will like it, too.

And there you have it! Personal and Real with Julie Cross!

Check out Tempest & Vortex on Goodreads-http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13364300-vortex

“Surround yourself with people who know more than you and soak up knowledge like a sponge!” P.K. Witte

 

Love is in the air…

Sweet kisses, soft caresses, sighs upon angst-filled teenage sighs. Writing romance is natural, easy, simple, or is it? Gate Crashers everywhere want to know how YA and MG writers get their heads in the game. That first kiss, second base, under the shirt-over the bra, or going for the home run… How do you write it when just thinking about it makes you blush and go all sweaty palms?

It’s easy, super simple. Just do what I do. Grab your best romance writerly hat, your giant pencil and your paper…

What? Not feeling it? Me either.

Writing romance can be tricky. Luckily for Gate Crashers everywhere a group of amazingly talented writers were happy to share their feelings about writing the ROMANTIC STUFF with us!

Come on in, have a look around, have fun, learn something that just might help you with your own sloppy teen kiss scenes. Remember, keep it real. Be honest and true to your readers and they’ll love you forever.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Click the pics for these author’s writerly links!

  

Chelsea Pitcher

THE S-WORD

1. What is the most challenging romantic situation you’ve had to face with your characters? I’ve always really enjoyed writing complicated romantic situations: faeries of the Dark Court falling in love with humans; mortals becoming entangled with gods. It’s not so difficult to bring these characters together. After all, they know their love is real. It’s the rest of the world that doesn’t get it. But when it comes to two emotionally damaged humans who are masters at sabotaging their own happiness, the task becomes a bit more difficult. (Or nearly impossible!)

2. How did you get your head in the game? In “The S-Word” I found myself facing my most difficult romantic/emotional situation yet. How do I get a girl who’s closed herself off from the world to open up, even a little bit? I wasn’t looking for her to have a full-blown love affair; I just wanted her to remember that love exists. But to do this, I had to introduce her to the right kind of person. I couldn’t push her toward someone confident and invulnerable. That was exactly the type of person who’d hurt her before. I needed someone with his own deep-seated problems, someone who wanted friendship and nothing more. That way, Angie didn’t have to fear being used or manipulated. She could feel safe. And, just like that, a deeper connection was formed.

3. What is your favorite romantic book/scene from a book?There is a scene in “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” that is just perfection (though I’m not going to say when, or with who, for spoilery reasons). The kiss! Perfection. There is so much more than just physical chemistry at play (although that can be a lot of fun too!) There is sweetness, and desire. There is longing bleeding into necessity. No matter how many fabulous love scenes I read, this will always be one of my favorites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mindy Raf

THE SYMPTOMS OF MY INSANITY

1. What is the most challenging romantic situation you’ve had to face with your characters?

Without giving too much away, there’s one scene that could be romantic, but ends up being really awkward and a little skeevy psychically and emotionally. It was a challenge to keep it funny and squirm- inducing. Also maintaining likability with a character when the action goes from swoon-worthy to a little shady is always a challenge.

Sarah Skilton

BRUISED

1. What is your favorite romantic book/scene from a book?

I adore the scene in Jane Austen’s Persuasion when Captain Wentworth presents Anne with a love letter he’s written, prompted by a conversation he overheard in which Anne spoke about women’s ability of “loving longest even when all hope is gone.” It’s the culmination of 8 years of longing on both their parts, and the scene never ceases to make me sigh and/or tear up.

K.A. (Kelly) Barson

45 POUNDS (MORE OR LESS)

1. What is the most challenging romantic situation you’ve had to face with your characters? Overall, romantic scenes–both in real life and in stories–make giggle awkwardly. (Yes, deep down I’m still twelve.) So pretty much every romantic scene I write is challenging.

2. How did you get your head in the game? I think about what could possibly go wrong. I add catastrophe to the scene to add real humor and to diffuse my inappropriate giggling.

3. What is your favorite romantic book/scene from a book? Since I relate more to awkward romance, probably LOOKING FOR ALASKA by John Green or STONER AND SPAZ by Ron Koertge. Is it a coincidence that neither of these ended “happily ever after”? No. I’m weird, I guess. 

Elle Cosimano

NEARLY GONE

1. What is the most challenging romantic situation you’ve had to face with your characters? In one of my stories, the love interests can’t touch. Trying to capture the sense of intimacy between them without falling back on physical connectedness meant getting deep in their heads and hearts. It was exhausting, but a fantastic exercise in interiority.

2. How did you get your head in the game? Music helps me set the mood. Also, a good babysitter.

3. What is your favorite romantic book/scene from a book? No contest. Sarah Rees-Brennan wrote the hottest kiss scene I’ve ever read, hands down! The rooftop kiss in the rain in The Demon’s Covenant will forever set the bar as far as I’m concerned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chelsey Flood

INFINITE SKY

1. What is the most challenging romantic situation you’ve had to face with your characters? I think the most challenging romantic situation I’ve had to face with my characters is when Iris and Trick begin opening up to each other. I wanted to make their relationship about friendship as well as first love, and so I was always trying to keep the balance between confiding and intimacy and romance. I wanted them to be good friends before they ventured into the territory of kissing. I hope I got it right.

2. How did you get your head in the game? I got my head in the game very easily – perhaps worryingly so! Because my protagonist, Iris, is a sort of idealized version of teen me, I find it very easy to get into her head space. I simply remembered my teen crushes, and then wrote the scenes that I would have loved to have played out with them – if only I’d have dared initiate a conversation with them in the first place! That’s what’s so lovely about Trick – he actually moves into Iris’s garden – he really couldn’t make it any easier for her at all. Or so it seems…

 3.What is your favorite romantic book/scene from a book? It’s a bit obvious, but I’m struggling to remember any that I love more, so therefore, my favorite romantic book is Pride and Prejudice. The way that Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett misjudge each other, and hurt each other’s feelings before finally coming to understand each other (enough to get married at least!) is quite, quite satisfactory.

 

 

 

Kit Grindstaff

THE FLAME IN THE MIST

1. How did you get your head in the game? The Flame in the Mist’s main character, thirteen-year-old Jemma, has a budding romance with her loyal pal, Digby. Though it’s years since I was her age (though not quite as far back as the book’s medieval-ish setting), getting into her emotions wasn’t hard; a quick trip down memory lane to a specific day, a specific boy, a specific moment…I’d be there in a heartbeat. Keeping in mind the prescriptions for Middle Grade—no steam, nothing that pushes the boundaries of adolescence—once I started molding my experiences into Jemma’s, words made memory even sharper: a gasp-worthy glance, tentative hand-holding, the anticipation of a first kiss…Describing those things made them fresh all over again—hopefully as much for the reader as for me. So to get into the game? Close eyes, drift away, remember the sweetness, then paddle ashore and seal it—maybe with a kiss—onto the page.

2. What is your favorite romantic book/scene from a book? Before I Die by Jenny Downham… With only a few months of life left, sixteen-year-old Tessa…(has) made a list… —ten things she wants to do before she dies. Number one is sex. Starting tonight. The blurb of Jenny Downham’s Before I Die almost put me off, since the “starting tonight” makes it so obviously a marketing hook. Sex sells. But the book delves far deeper than its blurb implies. Beautifully written and moving on every page, the development of Tessa and Adam’s relationship is just part of the emotional ride, weaving sweetness into a painful story. To go into detail would be spoiler-ish, but more tender, loving and extraordinary scenes would be hard to imagine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                     Janci Patterson

CHASINIG THE SKIP

1. What is the most challenging romantic situation you’ve had to face with your characters? For me, all romance is hard to write. It’s not easy to write attraction that feels real, without falling back on clichés or being overdramatic. Romance is drama, but it has to feel compelling and fresh to the reader, so that they’ll fall in love right along with the characters. It’s always a careful balancing act.

2. How did you get your head in the game? In CHASING THE SKIP, the most challenging part of the romantic tension was for me to write Ricki’s immediate attraction to Ian–and have the reader take her seriously. The first time I wrote the scene where Ricki first meets Ian, it was terrible. I ran it through my writing group, and they pointed out all the places where I was telling the reader how Ricki felt instead of showing it with visceral detail, and all the places where the phrases I used were tired or unimaginative. So I went back through and tried to replace the overdramatic with the dramatic, the cliché with the sensory, and the tired with the fresh. It took several passes for me to get it right, but when I was finished with the final draft of the scene, I was pleased with it. I suppose that’s always how I get my head in the game: I fail in the first draft and then rework and rework until it shines.

Polly Holyoke

THE NEPTUNE PROJECT

1. What is the most challenging romantic situation you’ve had to face with your characters? In THE NEPTUNE PROJECT my heroine Nere finally gets to kiss Cam, the boy who has always been her best friend. I wanted to explore that moment when friendship can turn into something deeper, when HE finally admits he really cares about her, and SHE finally wakes up and realizes that she might truly love him. But just when Nere gets into kissing Cam, government soldiers charge down a hillside, and moments later they cut Cam down. Poor Nere doesn’t even know if Cam is going to survive as she has to leave the beach and enter the ocean forever.

2. How did you get your head in the game? I tried thinking back to my first kiss (ninth grade while off stage during a musical) but it was WAY too wet and clumsy to be an inspiration for a great first kiss. So, I fell back on my imagination and wrote the kind of kiss I wish I’d experienced that first time around.

3. What is your favorite romantic book/scene from a book? I love OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon, and that book is so full of romantic scenes, it’s hard to choose just one. I probably like the scene when the time traveling heroine tries to return to the present, but she can’t leave Jamie, the young highlander she’s fallen in love with in the past. When she returns to him, prepared to stay with him forever, he’s fallen asleep in an abandoned croft, and it’s clear he fell asleep crying. That sweet scene makes me tear up just thinking about it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liz Fichera

HOOKED

1. What is the most challenging romantic situation you’ve had to face with your characters? Every romantic situation is a challenge unless you understand what’s in the head of your characters. I think the biggest challenge is the detail, and the best romantic scenes are the ones of subtleties. They’re the ones with a lot of lead-up, conflict and tension before the couple shares that special first kiss, that special first anything. As a reader (and writer), I don’t want the mechanics. I know how it’s done, for crying out loud. I want to understand the emotion and angst behind the build-up because that’s where the intrigue, the compelling reason to keep turning the pages, reside. In other words, I don’t want to read how they kiss or roll in the hay; I want to understand and be shown why they want more than anything in the world to be together.

2. How did you get your head in the game?Music is key. I love New Country for their love songs. Every song tells a little story, and I love that.

3. What is your favorite romantic book/scene from a book? I adore and respect any author that gets me emotionally invested in his/her characters and writes great angsty build-up while still leaving a little for my own imagination. Yes, please.

Hilary Weisman Graham

REUNITED

What is the most challenging romantic situation you’ve had to face with your characters?

Well, I’m about to face it in the new MS I’m writing. It’s a light sci-fi that features a romance between two teens of different races, both of whom have pressure from their families and/or communities to “stick to their own kind.” The romance part will be fun when I get to it, it’s writing the racism in their backgrounds that’s agonizing.

How did you get your head in the game?

When I’m writing a romantic scene, I find myself getting totally get wrapped up in the romantic tension. I think all authors vicariously experience their characters’ emotions, but as an old married lady, it’s especially nice to feel all swoony and starry-eyed again.

What is your favorite romantic book/scene from a book?

There are so many great romances in books, but I have to say that I’m partial to the ones that end tragically, like in John Green’s THE FAULT IN OUR STARS or LITTLE CHILDREN by Tom Perotta. Though I’m not quite sure what this says about me psychologically.

There you have it! Thoughtful words of wisdom on the craft of writing romance for the youth reader. Is it simple, easy? Not exactly. But it is possible and fun and really makes you get your head in the game. Try it. Keep it real. Be true to your readers. Just do it.

Spread the love of reading and writing!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

It’s been awhile since I did a backjump mainly because of the holidays. I’m sure we’ve all been doing some of the same things. Putting aside what we want to do in favor of what our family wants. And if you are like me you are getting to the point where you are ready to get back to work.

As I was perusing Pinterest I found this gem.

The text on the pin says:
In San Francisco in the 1870s, a group of painters, writers and the culturally interested formed the Bohemian Club. The Club rented inexpensive quarters where they could meet, talk, and exchange ideas after painting, working, or following their shifts at the local newspapers and magazines. Each summer this group would move to a rustic camp along the Russian River north of the city, and there enjoy close experiences with the out of doors.

Oh how I dream of having a place like this. With better hygiene of course.

Hey folks. I’m a senior in the Fiction Writing program at Columbia College Chicago and every once in awhile I’ll post from the “Writing Student Perspective.”

I’ve always been a visual person. You know those tests that’ll tell you if you’re a visual, auditory or tactile learner? Well, if you could score negative points, I would have done so in auditory. Seriously, you would have thought I was deaf. Where I’ve always scored highest is in visual.

Every time.

I think it started when I looked around at three years old and realized I had no siblings, and that if I wanted to have a vivid, creative playtime I was just going to have to imagine it myself. This is where books came in. My mom believed in the importance of reading to me every night so I was introduced to new worlds constantly.

Whether Max and I were running around with the Wild Things or I was writing my own story to David Wiesner’s Tuesday, I would spend hours in my own head. So much so that my report cards consistently had variations of the “Kelly is very creative, I just wish she would pay attention in class” notation. I was too busy running around Narnia. Or drawing sheep for the Little Prince. Or illustrating the cover of The Jungle Book with added characters of my own creation. What’s that? You don’t remember a scene where a hippo chased Mowgli through a jungle of purple and pink vines? Read between the lines, it’s there.

I continued to use my vivid imagination throughout grade school and then became part of the theatre program in high school to use another outlet. When I went off to college, writing took a back seat and if I did take a creative writing course it was a traditional workshop where the teacher stands at the front and you have a good chance of looking at the back of someone’s head while they read their piece. I didn’t know any different since every writing class I had ever taken followed this pedagogy.

When I joined Columbia’s Fiction Department a year and a half ago, it was a bit like – and I apologize for the sappiness – finding a long lost true love.

Here was a program that didn’t just want me to see the scene in mind; they wanted me to see it in more detail, in different lights, in different places with different characters. They wanted me to push my seeing to see gestures, objects, actions. They wanted me to see in the moment, to not only observe but also be there, as part of the scene in various vantage points and point of views. They wanted me to dip my fingers in my character’s pockets and listen in on their conversations.

It fed into everything I had naturally done but took me deeper, and in taking me deeper opened my storytelling up so that I could truly understand the control I had over my own seeing and how to communicate what I was seeing.

Often I hear people compare seeing in the mind to seeing things cinematically. I do agree that it comes close to what happens in a workshop session, but just as a movie can’t convey all the nuances of a book, neither can it compare to immersing yourself into a scene as a writer. Movie angles are limited. You don’t always catch every character’s reaction. You may not know that the mother painted the baseboards a pastel yellow and that the father can’t stand it and wants to rip them off the wall one by one.

For me, place (setting) is where I do most of my seeing. Places ground me in a reality, whether or not the place is real or imagined. It gives me tangible things to touch and smell and feel in addition to the seeing. When we’re asked to find an object in our place, I actually look at that object like it’s on a rotating platform, like the ones dealerships use to sell cars. Then I pick it up to feel the weight of it and put it in my character’s hands or in their pocket or on their dresser. Usually that sparks something – movement, action – and a scene starts to develop.

Being a student writer at Columbia has given me the tools to better communicate what I see in my mind and what actually makes it to the page. Going to school for writing was a tough decision at the time I was making it. It’s a decision I know now that I will never regret.

Getting Real With Real Authors

If it isn’t personal, what the heck is it?

Author Interviews That Rock!

Miriam Forster

CITY OF A THOUSAND DOLLS

Click on the pics for Miriam’s excellent writerly links.

HERE’S THE BLURB!

Nisha was abandoned at the gates of the City of a Thousand Dolls when she was just a child. Now sixteen, she makes her way as Matron’s assistant on the grounds of the isolated estate, where orphan girls are apprenticed as musician, healers, courtesans…and assassins. Only when Nisha begins a forbidden flirtation with a handsome young courier does she let herself imagine a life outside the city’s walls. Until, one by one, girls around her start to die.

And We’re Off!

Just to get us started, how old are you?

Ten years away from being the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. (Lauging and grinning ear-to-ear )

What inspired you to write CITY OF A THOUSAND DOLLS?

A single line in a book about Guinevere that referenced her being groomed for someone. The idea of an entire city where girls were groomed for different places in society took hold of me and wouldn’t let go.

Are you drawn to murder mysteries?

I’m a huge Agatha Christie fangirl and reread a bunch of them every year. Also Sherlock Holmes. I used to be much more into contemporary mysteries then I am now, and I still have a special place in my heart for the genre.

What made you want to write in the first place?

A computer game. No joke. In high school I had a game called Heroes of Might and Magic III. It was a turn-based strategy game where you built your army and collected resources and fought random groups of monsters as well as other players. I didn’t actually PLAY the game very much, but I bought it because it had a fantastic map editor. You could build an entire fantasy world from scratch, with castles and dragons and sirens and treasure. So I built this whole world and then I thought. “I should write a story about this.”

What keeps you writing?

Partly the love of what I do, but also belief. I believe very strongly that the right words and the right story can do amazing things, can heal and inspire and comfort and challenge. The world is pretty messed up in a lot of ways. Writing might not be a lot to give, but it’s what I have. (It’s a whole universe of great stuff to give, my friend.)

Your cover art is gorgeous, how did you feel when you first saw it?

I was stunned. It was so far beyond anything I’d even imagined and it was totally different then what I was expecting. But the more I looked at it, the more I fell in love. I love that the girl is present, but not the whole cover, and I love how strong and awesome she looks. And I love that she looks like my main character too.

What is the best piece of writing advice you were ever given?

“Write another book.” It’s advice that’s saved me so many times while I was querying because it takes the pressure off. Plus you learn things from a new project that you would never learn in revisions. I wrote four books between writing City of a Thousand Dolls and selling it, and every book taught me something that I could take back to City and use to make it better.

Do you belong to any cool writerly groups on or off line?

I’m a member of the Lucky 13ers, an awesome group of fellow debut authors, and I’m lucky enough to get to hang out with the wonderful writers at the Enchanted Inkspot blog as well. I have some awesome critique partners here in Boise too.

 

Just for kicks… What are some of your favorite TV shows, movies?

I love pretty much any show that starts off with a shot of a dead body: NCIS, CSI, Bones, Castle. Criminal Minds is my favorite, which worries me sometimes. And BBC’s Sherlock, of course. I was really into Doctor Who for a while and still want to get caught up, but the angst in season six was KILLING me. I can do murders, but not tons of angst. As a general rule, I’m much more into TV shows than movies, with a few glaring exceptions.

Last movie you saw at the theater?

The Avengers. For the second time. (This is one of the glaring exceptions I mentioned before.) And if you get me started on how much I love that movie, this will turn into a shameless fangirl post. J (Let’s all join the “Shameless Fangirl Club!”)

What is most special about your protagonist?

Nisha was an interesting person to write. I love a good kick-ass fantasy heroine, but that’s not what I wanted for this book. I wanted to write a girl who was insecure and made mistakes and had emotions and attachments and lapses of judgment. But she’s also independent and determined to protect the people she cares about. I see her arc as going from someone who’s uncertain and afraid to someone who can confidently step forward and put everything on the line for someone else. I don’t know if I succeeded, but that’s what I was trying to do. (Beautiful character arc, one we should all strive for.)

If your protagonist could give one piece of advice to your readers what would it be?

“You can’t change what’s been done, no matter how much you want to. But you can move forward.”(I love this because it holds true for everyone everywhere.)

How about your villain? What advice would he/she give readers?

 “Some people are more important and special than others.” (Villains give bad advice.)

Any closing words of wisdom for other author-wannabees out there?

My writing advice is simple: write for love and keep writing.

My publishing advice is this: Never pay an agent upfront (agents are paid after they sell things.) And never trust a “traditional” publisher who asks for money. Writers have more options than they’ve ever had, which is great, but you need to be educated. And be careful. There are a lot of scammers out there.  I recommend Writer Beware and Preditors and Editors as good resources.

http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/

http://pred-ed.com/ 

(Great recommendations. Let’s stay safe and aware!)

And there you have it! Personal and Real with Miriam Forster

Please show your writerly love and leave a comment for Miriam(or Gate Crashers)

“Surround yourself with people who know more than you and soak up knowledge like a sponge!” P.K. Witte