~Interviewed by Sofia, TPC
What is your favorite part about writing a book?
“I think it’s the discovery as I’m writing. Even though most of the time I have a direction as I’m writing, you don’t always know every single detail that you’re going to be putting into a book and sometimes further down the line that detail becomes important. Sometimes it’s kind of like a magical moment.”
Did you write a lot as a kid, or did you start doing it when you were older?
” I wrote a lot as a kid. When I was very young I would write little random stories about scenes- I would see a picture and then I would write a story about what I thought was going on in that picture. I wrote plays- and lots of poems in high school.”
If you could cast a movie version of your book, who would you cast as your main characters?
“I’m not sure, but I do have a Pinterest page (Marysbb) and if you go there I have a ton of pictures of people who could play the characters. And it’s not all about what they look like, it’s a lot about the attitude of the people in the pictures.”
Who do you look up to in the writing world?
“Sonya Hartnett, Marie Rutkoski, Robin Lafevers, Leigh Bardugo– so many I admire.”
What sparked your idea for this book?
“For the Kiss of Deception, I wrote a list of all the things I wanted to explore in the book and one of those things was about watching the news and seeing how history repeats itself over and over again- watching all the ways that we wage war on each other but no matter how much we hate each other and wage war, there are always two young people somewhere that will fall in love and find a way to be together.”
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
” Read. Read a lot. You can take all the classes you want, but reading helps you internalize all the good aspects of writing. Reread the books you love, the first time you read it you can just fall in love, the second time analyze the story. What did the author do to draw out these feelings in you? Then write every day because so many people say they want to write but if you don’t do it, you aren’t exercising those muscles. If you can write just one double spaced page every day, in a year you’ll have a pretty good sized novel.”