1. What inspired you to write your first book?
NaNoWriMo! The National Novel Writing Month is a yearly challenge for people to write an entire 50,00 word novel in the month of November. Anybody can sign up on their webpage and connect with an incredible community of people who will cheer each other to the finish line. I had participated in the past but never reached the 50,000 word goal. November 2006, though, I was determined to finish. I was also very pregnant with my daughter, who was born on December 5th. I had the basic idea that I wanted to write about three college students who investigated the paranormal. I took that and ran with it, and by the end of November, I had the 50,000 word manuscript that would become Haunted.
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2. Writing can be a difficult job, what inspires you to keep going?
I love telling stories, and the world is full of them. I get inspiration from everywhere – memories, news stories, songs, weird things I find on the internet – and the seed of a story will form in my head. I need to write to find out how that seed grows and what it will look like in bloom.
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3. What are you working on now? What’s next?
This past November I participated again in NaNoWriMo, and wrote 50,000 words of a sequel to Haunted. The novel isn’t finished yet, so I’m still working on it. I also discovered in the course of writing it that if I’m aiming to make this a series, the book I’m working on is more of a Book 4 than a Book 2! I’ll probably take some time off to write some short stories before making another attempt at a book 2, though.
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4. What’s your writing process, schedule, or routine?
I write while my kids are in school and my husband is at work. I usually drop him off around 10 am, go to the local Starbucks to write until 2pm, at which point I go to pick up the kids. Sometimes I can write a little while they’re watching PBS Kids, or at night after they’ve gone to bed, but it’s far from a sure thing.
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5. Who is your favorite book character of all time? Why?
Ooh, tough one! My answer is a little bit odd: Mrs Whatsit from A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. She’s not the central character, but she’s the one that has stuck with me the most. She’s full of incredible hope and power and kindness, but she lives in my head as an old woman clothed in a muddled motley mishmash of old clothes who comes into the Murry house dripping wet from the storm outside. I find her compelling because she has such incredible depth from the very beginning: entirely mysterious, entirely charming, and entirely her.
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6. What advice would give to aspiring writers?
1. Read. Read as much as you can. Good stuff, bad stuff, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, plays, in your genre and out of it.
2. Write. Write as much as you can. Write when you can. If you have ten minutes a day to write, then write like hell for those ten minutes. Give yourself permission to write crap. Keep writing when it’s bad. Keep writing when it’s good. Keep writing.
3. Keep going. When it’s lonely, when the words won’t come, when you paper the walls with your rejection slips and it feels like you’ve been rejected by every editor on the planet. Screw up your courage and keep going.
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7. What’s your favorite quote?
“Every first draft is perfect, because the only thing a first draft has to do is exist.” – Jane Smiley
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8. Who would you most like to have a cup of coffee with? (Dead or alive)
Explain…
Pope Francis. I’m Catholic (and I have a Masters degree in Theology from a Jesuit seminary) and I’m fascinated and inspired by his humility and fearless love.
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9. What is your biggest pet peeve?
This might be strangely specific, but I hate it when a book, movie, or TV show says that witches were burned in Salem Witch Trials. All the convicted “witches” were hanged (and one man was crushed to death with stones for refusing to testify). Nobody was burned for witchcraft in the Americas. I completely lost interest in the TV show Sleepy Hollow when it was revealed that Icabod’s wife was “burned for witchcraft.” I noped right out.
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10. Tell us something quirky about you.
When I was in college I was part of the Anti-Gravity Society, a group for learning and practicing juggling and other circus arts. I learned how to juggle balls, clubs, knives and torches, and also how to crack a whip and swallow fire. I’m very rusty now, but I still have my clubs and my bullwhip. I haven’t swallowed fire in a while, though!
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11. Favorite comfort food?
Lefse, which is a Norwegian flat bread made of flour, cream, and potatoes. When I was a kid, we would get a big box from my grandma and grandpa up in Minnesota. It was packed full of all manners of joy: presents and ornaments and candy and wonderful, wonderful lefse. It’s delicious and reminds me of happy times. I need to see if I can convince the Publix to get some on special order…
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12. Star Wars or Star Trek?
Star Wars if the three prequels vanished off the face of the earth (seriously, George, what were you thinking?) and Star Trek if we’re talking about the J. J. Abrams reboots (I look forward to all the hate mail!) Of course, J. J. Abrams has been tapped to direct three new Star Wars movies…
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13. Sunrises or Sunsets?
Sunsets. For one, I grew up in Naples, which is in southwest Florida. Sunset over the Gulf is amazingly beautiful. In addition, I am so not a morning person! Most of the sunrises I’ve seen were after all-nighters as an undergrad at Yale. The campus is very beautiful in the delicate blue and pink and yellow hues of the impending dawn, but I was usually too worn out to appreciate it!
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