This week I wrote an essay for largeheartedboy.com about the music I was listening to when I wrote BLACK OUT. Music plays a large part in my process and that was especially true for this novel. Click here to see what I wrote.
Favorite book for Ocean: Squids Will Be Squids by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith
What I'm reading: Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
A couple of weeks ago, I got a charming email from JJ Cooper, an author about to release his first book with Random House Australia. JJ spent seventeen years in the Australian Army, deploying on two tours of duty in East Timor and one tour to the Middle East in 2003. He specialized in Human Intelligence, including interrogation (as a practitioner and instructor). JJ's debut thriller, INTERROGATED, will be published by Random House Australia in 2009.
He asked me to answer a few questions for his blog and I happily did so. Here is our interview:
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1. What's one thing we may not know about you?
I'm an introverted extrovert. Meaning that I exhibit all the qualities of an extrovert -- you can dress me up and take me out to a party, I'll chat and dance and laugh and be sociable. But by the end of the evening, I'll be drained and exhausted. In my heart, I'm just a hobbit who'd rather be at home with a cup of tea, making up stories.
2. What television show would you like to make a guest appearance on?
"Alias" -- no hesitation. I need a hot pink wig and a pair of leather boots, some type of coat that swings dramatically with all my way-too-cool kung fu kicks. I want to be a bad-girl, turned good-girl, with a dark past and a bad attitude. Or maybe a good-girl turned bad-girl, pretending to still be a good girl.
Hmmm ... the plot thickens.
3. What's your greatest sporting moment?
This question assumes that I've had some type of sporting moment, that I've ever actively played in or watched some type of organized sporting event of my own free will. Which I haven't. I did study Kung Fu for eight years until the small matter of pregnancy and motherhood derailed my martial arts aspirations.
In spite of many years of hard work, I did remain persistently mediocre in my kung fu practice, though I enjoyed and miss it immensely. I'm also an avid kayaker. But I'm not sure there's much sports glory in paddling about the Gulf of Mexico and Intracoastal with one's two-and-a-half year old. No crowd- cheering, anyway. But it IS a special, quiet, kind of great moment to share something I love so much with someone I love so much. So I guess that would be it.
4. What's your ideal holiday destination?
Well I live in a subtropical climate, just a short walk to the beach. So, I dream of snowy holidays ... fire places and warm blankets, mountains and towering pines. I've always wanted to go snowshoeing or cross country skiing but have never done that. So I suppose that's my dream holiday destination. Though I have a month in Paris coming up this summer. And you won't find me weeping into my crepe over that, either.
5. How many comments to this blog post would I need to have you read and comment on my first thriller, Interrogated?
I'd be thrilled to read your book, JJ. Just send it my way. But I hope you get a million comments to this blog post and that everyone runs right out to buy five copies of your book each as soon as it goes on sale.
Congrats on a huge accomplishment. And best of everything to you!
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JJ's blog also details his journey to publication. It's very good reading and will be fascinating to all aspiring writers. Check it out: jjcooperaus.blogspot.com
What I'm listening to: The Killers/ Hot Fuss
Favorite Book for Ocean: Your Personal Penguin/ Sandra Boynton
So, I'm not on the road this year -- not on the "real" road. I still consider myself to be on tour, though. Virtually. I am quite high tech these days.
At first it felt very strange to be staying home as BLACK OUT approached publication; I've been heading out, visiting stores and meeting readers and booksellers for the better part of six years. I've toured twice with my daughter at age 4 months for BEAUTIFUL LIES and just over a year for SLIVER OF TRUTH. I knew taking her on the road at two and a half would be really too hard for me, and unfair to her. And I'm not hardwired to leave her. So, I made this radical decision. Lucky for me, my publisher agreed.
But because I'm not on the road, I have finished my next book and am at work already on the one that will publish in 2010. I'm not in an airport waiting for a delayed flight to take off. I'm not eating some awful fast food meal while sitting in a parking lot before a bookstore event. I didn't wake up this morning, unable for a moment to remember what city I'm in. These are all good things.
The best side-effect of not being on the road this year is that it has encouraged me to get creative about my connection with readers and booksellers. My Virtual Book Tour, as I like to call it.
For example, a fabulous bookseller I met on MySpace, Linda at Burgundy Books in Connecticut, has invited me to visit her store via speaker phone. Linda has invited readers and I have sent bookplates with my signature. And we're having a good old-fashioned booksigning ... except I won't be there. I asked her if she was set up for a video-conference, just to show how cool I am. But no, the phone will have to do and I'm looking forward to this. With gas prices soaring, and airline tickets getting more expensive, and with everyone -- publishers, booksellers, readers and authors alike --watching their budgets, maybe this kind of event is a new twist for the author appearance.
Meanwhile, I'm "traveling" other ways, too. I'm connecting with readers and booksellers on the social networks -- which I love. How else would I be able to get to know so many people and stores in places where even the book tour might not have taken me?
I love chatting with my new Facebook and MySpace friends, sending bookplates, hanging out with booksellers in this totally new way.
I'm also very excited that to be working on an essay for largeheartedboy.com about the musical component to my process. Music plays a huge role in my writing -- offering inspiration, motivation, creating mood. And this was especially true for BLACK OUT. So keep checking back for that.
It should also be said that the folks at Crown/ Shaye Areheart Books are on the razor's edge of everything real and virtual. They created this amazing widget for BLACK OUT that you absolutely must see. (If you don't know what a widget is, you're not the only one. But I can tell you this -- it's really cool.)
So, if you're hip and high tech like me ... I'll be "seeing" you around as I cruise the information superhighway on my virtual book tour. (I know; I'm a true geek.)
By the way, the winners of my newsletter drawing for a set of signed first-edition hardcovers last week are Carmen (Newark, NJ) and Jen (Lorian, OH). Congrats!
What I'm reading: Unaccustomed Earth/ Jhumpa Lahiri
Favorite Book for Ocean: Once I Ate A Pie/ Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan
Charest (This may be one of my favorite books ever for O. It is so beautiful,
funny, sad, gorgeous. If you've ever loved a dog, you'll love this.)
