Crossroads Blog Tour: Lucienne Diver & Christine Fonseca

Meet us at the CROSSROADS...

From small to big-gun presses, debut novels to bestsellers, we’re offering unprecedented (and free!) access to amazing YA authors. This October, thirteen paranormal writers will embark on an exciting blog tour that will hook readers up with great reads and cool SWAG. Today we're featuring Lucienne Diver and Christine Fonseca.


LUCIENNE DIVER is the author of the popular VAMPED series of young adult novels (think Clueless meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer), several short stories and Bad Blood, the first in her LATTER-DAY OLYMPIANS series of contemporary fantasy.

Your Latter-Day Olympian series is quite different from your vampire novels. How does it feel to leave the bloodsuckers behind?

*Grin* Oh, it’s different!  I still have an incredibly snarky heroine (so sue me, I love sarcasm), but that’s about where the similarities end.  But I wouldn’t say I’ve left my bloodsuckers behind.  I’ve been alternating writing Vamped and Latter-Day Olympians novels.  The fourth in the Vamped series (Fangtastic) will be out in January, and the second in my Latter-Day Olympians series (Crazy in the Blood, a follow up to Bad Blood) came out in digital in August and will be in print from Samhain in July 2013.

Give us the 140-character pitch for your protagonist in Bad Blood, Tori Karacis.

Ack! How’s this?

Fledgling PI with the power to literally stop men in their tracks, courtesy of a gorgon ancestress way back in her wacky family line.

You've just found out BAD BLOOD has been optioned for a major motion picture. Cast that sucker with your dream team.

I’ve always pictured my heroine Tori looking like a young Melina Kanakaredes from CSI: NY.  For Nick Armani, how about John Stamos?   (Here’s where I admit that he’s been my pin-up boy ever since I discovered boys, all those many years ago.  I still adore him.)    Sandy Longhi Conroy suggested Victor Webster, and I think he’d be great for Armani as well.  For Apollo…yes, that Apollo…hmmm.  That’s tough, because he’s a god.  Literally.  I’m thinking someone like Daniel Craig, but maybe less craggy.  (Or not, since this is Apollo masquerading as a mere mortal, so there are bound to be those imperfections that make a man interesting.  Perfection—gah, who wants to try to live up to that?)  Melinda VanLone suggested that Chris Hemsworth would make an great Apollo, and I think she's right!

Can you write anywhere? Or do you need the whole atmosphere? What are the key elements?

I can write pretty much anywhere I have a notebook and pen.  I free-hand everything first in a regular old spiral-bound notebook.  I guess because I do so much other work on the computer that my brain defaults to business when I try to type.  The creativity doesn’t flow.  So, I have trick myself to getting in the mood, and that’s what works for me. 

A lot of authors write to music, and I wish I were one of them, but I adore singer-songwriters, and that often means lyrics that tell a story, and I’ll find myself listening to the music rather than the voices in my head…and they’re such jealous creatures that if I ignore them they’ll sulk and pout and I’ll never get anything done!

She's awesome, right? Find out more about Lucienne at her website or follow her on Twitter.

Critically acclaimed YA author CHRISTINE FONSECA explores the darker aspects of humanity and delivers gothic thrillers that take you on a roller coaster of emotions. Recent titles include Dies Irae and Lacrimosa, from the REQUIEM SERIES, and the recently released thriller, Transcend.

If we gave you an elephant, where would you hide it?

Hmm…in plain sight, I guess. People would think it was supposed to be there. LOL!

Describe your writing process and the one piece of advice you would pass on to new writers.

I always start with an idea – some scene that can’t get out of my head. I’ll write down the thought or scene and stew on it for a while (weeks or months, typically). Then I will start asking myself questions in an effort to determine the storyline. Once I know the basics, I create a loose outline/plot arc and plan out the chapters. From there, I write the first draft as quickly as I can. This is always the hardest part for me. After that draft, I edit and polish. Polish and edit. Eventually it is ready for a read from my critique partners, editors and readers. Eventually!

For new writers, I would say this – be patient, tenacious, and flexible. Okay, that is three pieces of advice. But all three traits are needed in equal measure in this vocation!

           

What do you want readers to get from your work?

I really try to bring real, deeply emotional characters into my stories. I hope that readers get to experience the emotions my characters experience, and become more enlightened because of the experience – even if the “enlightenment” is simply a matter of a few moments of escape.

Who would you credit as your strongest muse?

Hands down, music. I have been a musician since I was six. And ever since then, she has been the springboard for my imagination. Through music, characters are born. And the characters of my stories are always the main muse through the writing of the story. It’s kind of a unique and bizarre process, but it works for me.

Get the latest news on Christine at her website or follow her on witty tweets.

Crossroads Blog Tour: Janet Fox

Meet us at the CROSSROADS...

From small to big-gun presses, debut novels to bestsellers, we’re offering unprecedented (and free!) access to amazing YA authors. This October, thirteen paranormal writers will embark on an exciting blog tour that will hook readers up with great reads and cool SWAG. Today we're featuring Janet Fox.

JANET FOX 

writes award-winning fiction and non-fiction for children of all ages. Her most 

recent work is the young adult historical novel SIRENS (Speak/Penguin Young Readers), 

a "noire romance" set in the 1920s in New York City. She lives with her family in the 

mountains of Montana.

SIRENS is a pair of love stories, a gangster and a ghost. We're in! Give us the one-paragraph blurb to really reel us in.

“The “Roaring Twenties” was the age of flappers and bootleggers. Josephine Winter, seventeen, is sent to live with relatives in New York City after her bootlegging father receives a threat, but bookish Jo harbors her own secrets. While she finds friendship with lively Louise O’Keefe and romance with sweet jazz musician Charlie, she also comes to realize that the reason she’s sent into the city has everything to do with what she may know. Haunted by the spirit of her missing brother, Jo uncovers a nest of family lies that threaten everyone she loves, and Lou, in the thrall of the dangerous, seductive gangster Daniel Connor, is both Jo’s best friend and potential enemy. As Jo unlocks dark mysteries and Lou’s eyes are opened, the girls’ treacherous paths intertwine. In this “noire romance,” Jo and Lou together will have to stand up to Connor in order to find their hearts and hang onto their souls in the decade of decadence.”

What was the coolest thing you saw during your deep sea dive?

Oo – this is awesome. The submersible I rode in didn’t have great battery power, so we had to be kind of conservative with it, and that included using the lights outside our individual portholes. So the lights were out for a long time as we descended (which took about 3 hours). Somewhere close to the bottom I was given the okay to turn on my lights.

Well, you talk about aliens...we have them, right there in the oceans. Spirals and whirligigs, ladders and flagella – there were things floating outside that porthole that no one has ever seen before, nor is likely to see unless they go the way I did, because those delicate creatures would never make it up to the surface. How do they survive the great pressures at the ocean bottom? How do they cope without light? How do they create bioluminescence that makes them look like moving fireworks?

We have many mysteries yet to uncover right here on our own sweet planet.

What is the best writing advice you've ever received?

Never give up. Never surrender. (Ten extra points if you can identify where that came from!) Seriously – persistence is the key to creating something beautiful. Because with every new project your work gets better. So stick with it. Never give up.

You're a superhero fighting for truth, justice and the creative way. What writing "villains" would you banish with your mighty pen? (and what will your costume look like?)

Costume first (always dress for the occasion): spandex, green. Head to toe. Now, those villains? Wait...didn’t they fall into blithering idiots when I walked out in the costume. I mean, really!

Good point, Janet. Scope out Janet's website for a glimpse of her superhero costume, or follow her on Twitter.

Crossroads Blog Tour: Ty Drago & Carrie Harris

Meet us at the CROSSROADS...

From small to big-gun presses, debut novels to bestsellers, we’re offering unprecedented (and free!) access to amazing YA authors. This October, thirteen paranormal writers will embark on an exciting blog tour that will hook readers up with great reads and cool SWAG. Today we're featuring Ty Drago and Carrie Harris.


TY DRAGO is a published novelist who makes his home in New Jersey. His latest novel, THE UNDERTAKERS: RISE OF THE CORPSES was released by Jabberwocky, Spring 2011.

Undertakers - what a great concept! Why are yours so special?

That’s a hard question to answer.  Maybe it’s because I didn’t sit down intending to write a “zombie” novel.  I started with the kids.

I’ve always loved the idea of a child army, fighting a war that the adult world doesn’t know about.  The Undertakers actually grew out of a series of poorly drawn comic books I did as a kid about a group of child superheroes called “The Kid Kidets”. Yes, I spelled “cadets” wrong; I was ten.  They all had superpowers and lived in a secret base deep in the Antarctic.  And their leaders were a brother and sister team named Tom and Sharon Jefferson (I changed the spelling to “Sharyn” for the Undertakers).

Much later, when I decided to write a middle grade series, I remembered the Kid Kidets.  The Undertakers, of course, have no superpowers – and the villains they face are much nastier than anything their predecessors had to deal with.  But the concept is the same.

The point is, I started with Will, Helene, Tom, Sharyn and the rest and then I gave them the Corpses to fight.  I think that’s what makes the story work as well as it does.

You suddenly can no longer write...now what?

Writing is breathing.  Honestly, I don’t know how I’d survive if I had to give it up.  Maybe I’d become some other sort of storyteller, though I have no idea what that might look like.

Next question!  This one’s giving me the heebie-jeebies!!!

Does your day job as a business analyst provide any fodder for your fiction?

I sometimes take the names of coworkers and kill them off in my books!  For the record, I always tell them ahead of time and we all have a lot of fun with it.  James Dye is a project manager I’ve known for years – a truly great guy.  For fun, I bump him off in the first chapter of Queen of the Dead.  He gets his head ripped off by the title character!

Aside from that, I tend to keep both jobs pretty separate in my head.  Very different skillsets!

What are you working on now?

I’m about halfway through the second draft of the third Undertakers book.  The working title is “Capitol Corpses”, though I’m not in love with it. I’m kind of leaning more toward “The Corpse Eater”.  There’s a monster in it with a taste for Corpse flesh!  But that’s enough spoilers! : )

For more about Ty and The Undertakers, check out his website and follow him on Twitter.

CARRIE HARRIS is a YA author, mad scientist and monster prom chaperone. Or, as her short sweet bio suggests, she is a whack-a-ding-hoy and she writes books that are also whack-a-ding-hoy. Her newest books, BAD HAIR DAY and BAD YETI are slated for release November, 2013.

You list cooking as one of your favourite hobbies - along with fighting evil - what's your most famous family dish?

I’m less famous for one dish than I am for a series of dishes. We throw bacon parties at the Harris household, usually in conjunction with one of the Comedy Central celebrity roasts. There’s nothing like sitting down to a meal of bacon dip, bacon wrapped water chestnuts, bacon casserole, chocolate covered bacon, and bacon maple cupcakes and watching a bunch of comedians insult David Hasselhoff. And no, I’m not making any of this up. And yes, I’m hungry for bacon now.

It's Halloween - costume or no costume? And what's your best ever disguise?

Absolutely a costume! I always dress up. One year, I was driving to a Halloween party in my slasher film cheerleader costume, complete with slit throat and all kinds of gory yuck all over me, and I passed an elderly couple on the highway, and they took one look at me and actually drove off the road! This story is only funny because no one got hurt. Once I found out about that, I was pretty proud!

Great website! How important are websites today for authors?

I’m so glad you like it; my web designer is a psychic and pulled those pictures straight from my head. I won’t ever play poker with him, because he’ll WIN.

I think websites are really important because people have so many choices of what to read and watch and listen to, and a good website gives you an instant feel for what to expect from an author. The minute you go to my site, you know to expect monsters and NOT to expect seriousness. And that’s really a reflection of what my books are like. I think it’s a terrific tool, not just for me to market myself to readers, but also for me AS a reader to find awesome books and then apologize to my husband for buying them.

Please define a whack-a-ding-hoy.

Whack-a-ding-hoy means crazy. But not just plain old garden-variety crazy, more like the kind of nutballs that either gets you committed or gets you a show on Comedy Central. I’m hoping not to be committed. And I don’t think I’d like to be on TV, but if they need someone to write a sitcom about monsters, I AM SO THERE. And I’m rambling. Why am I rambling? I like popcorn. And bacon.

And that is an example of whack-a-ding-hoy in action. Sometimes it’s easier to understand these things when you see them yourself. I AM SO HELPFUL, AREN’T I?!?

Er…yeah. Thanks for having me and for not calling the men in white coats. I really appreciate that.

For more from this very talented whack-a-ding-hoy, check out her awesome website and definitely follow her rambles on Twitter.