I was already a writer by the time I realized I wanted to claim it as a career. That’s backwards, isn’t it? :-) I hated writing when I was in high school and college, and I accidentally became a writer after lucking into a job at an educational texts publisher when I lived in NYC. I went from inputting changes to proofreading to copy editing to writing, and ended up writing full time. I think it took a year or two of writing before it hit me that I’d become a writer. (I’m so not kidding.) Who knew I’d come to love it so much? And I have no idea what the first thing I ever wrote was, but I can tell you I wrote really bad poetry in high school. :-)
Who is your literary hero?
I’m not sure I have one literary hero. I LOVE Laini Taylor’s and Franny Billingsley’s writing, how they can create a world so alive it practically breathes right on the page. I think Sarah Dessen writes fantastic dialogue and creates wonderfully wacky secondary characters. Aidan Chambers writes perfect dialogue—it’s amazing, real, and can be so, so funny.
How much of your characters are based on your traits or someone you know personally?
That’s a really interesting question...I’ve never thought about it. Of course there’s some of me in each of the characters because I’m the one imagining them, and I absolutely steal traits from the people I know. But there’s not one single character that is strongly based on a real person. Each character may start out with a borrowed trait, but through the process of writing and revising the book, the characters become their own people—unique in their own right. So, I’d say there’s a little bit of me or people I know in my characters, but the characters are mostly creations of their own.
Describe your main character in six words.
Sera: healer, intelligent, creative, strong, warm, caring
Luke: seer, bold, funny, intelligent, quick witted
Describe the world you’ve created in six words.
real, fantastical, dreamlike, harsh, surprising, intensified
What scene was your favorite to write?
I think my favorite has to be the first section of the last chapter with Luke and Fey. That was a LONG time coming and I was excited to finally see it arrive!
What scene was the hardest for you to write?
The final scene between Sera and Jonas in the last chapter. I had NO IDEA what was going to happen there and even went through about three different scenarios before I found the right one. For some reason, that one was just really, really difficult to get right.
What are you working on now?
I am switching gears to take a little break from the Intangible series, and am starting to write a New Adult contemporary romance. I’m just at the planning stages at the moment, but am so excited to write something new. And then I’ll come back and write the next book in the series. There’s more to the story, for sure. :-)
What's your favorite thing to do when you're not writing?
Spending time with my favorite people on Earth—my husband and kids—especially getting outside for hikes, walks, playgrounds, or just skipping rocks down at the lake.
Thanks so much, Serenity!
