Little Library Muse

Friday, October 25, 2013

Crossroads Blog Tour Day 6: Author Lucienne Diver

Do your characters ever ambush you and take over the reins of the story?
All the time! Novels start with characters for me. When they won’t shut up, when they take over my waking life and won’t let me sleep because they have so much to say…that’s when I know that I’m ready to start writing and that I’ve got to develop a plot for them and find them something to do before they take over my life. Ornery beasties that they are, they like to do this when I’m on deadline and trying to get to the finish line of my current project, in which case I write just enough in the new voice to satisfy my muse for a time and then put the project on the backburner of my brain. Once I’m ready to return to it, generally my subconscious has been at work, and I find I know a lot more about the storyline than I did before. It’s brewed. I still have to apply sugar and spice and everything nice, but the basis is there.

Why do you think vampires hold so much appeal in fiction and television?
Vampires are the ultimate bad boys and girls, the ones your mother warned you about. Who doesn’t like a bad boy? I know I do. I think that’s the appeal. Vampires live outside “traditional” society. There’s a feel of anything goes when you don’t show up on film or can mist or mesmerize your way out of trouble. Then there’s the whole supposed-to-be-dead thing. They can’t catch you if they’re not looking for you or don’t believe in your existence. There’s a certain freedom in that, but also a certain danger of being exposed. It’s spicy and different and intriguing. All those good things.

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Crossroads Blog Tour Day 6: Author Carrie Harris

So, you’ve inherited a time traveling device and you have the opportunity to go anywhere, where would you go and who would you see?

I’d go to Jim Henson’s workshop back when he was working on the Muppets. I lurve comedy with a lurvely lurve, and he’s always been my comedy idol. I think it would be so awesome to spend some time with him and have the Swedish Chef chase me with a cleaver and stuff. I think laughter will always be an important part of my books—my next two books are Sally Slick and the Steel Syndicate and Demon Derby, and both of them are more serious than anything I’ve ever written. But they’re still funny at the core, and I think it’s because of all that Muppet watching. Which is AWESOME.

On your bio it says you’ve worked a variety of odd jobs, do any of those experiences make it into your stories?

Answer: Absolutely! I used to work at the national center for research in mad cow disease, and there were brains in jars on the shelves. Not. Exaggerating. I saw brain-only autopsies and looked at brains under microscopes, and I took some of the things I learned and used them for the zombies in Bad Taste in Boys. I took my autopsy experience and put that into Bad Hair Day. Sadly, I wasn’t able to draw from any experiences for my next two books (Sally Slick and the Steel Syndicate and Demon Derby). Which is really disappointing. I’d like to race tractors and fight demons. I need to get on that.

Thank you soooo much for participating in the tour! I love visiting awesome blogs—it makes me feel like a rock star…who visits awesome blogs. 

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Crossroads Blog Tour Day 6: Author P.J. Hoover

What do you think are the key elements to crafting a good heroine?

To me, the most important thing in a good heroine is having a nice character arc. Having the character change and grow over the course of the novel not only makes the character more relatable but helps parallel the story, too. Characters, like everyone else, will make mistakes. It’s making these mistakes and learning from them that really make a character grow.

What’s your favorite thing about Halloween?

I have a bunch of tombstones I painted and put on spikes in the front yard. Each year I love taking these out and hammering them into the ground. They’re so much fun, and everyone who walks by stops to look at them.

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Thursday, October 24, 2013

Cover Reveal & Giveaway: Scan by S.E. Fine & Walter Jury

Expected Release: May 1, 2014

Publisher: Putnam Children's/Penguin

Links:
http://hollywoodcrush.mtv.com/2013/10/24/scan-cover/
http://m.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/manager-turns-ya-author-gets-650562

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Crossroads Blog Tour Day 5: Author Dorothy Dreyer

You wake up to find yourself locked in an abandoned warehouse and have no idea why there’s blood on all over you…then you hear something move behind you. What happened?

I wipe my slick fingers on my jeans as I stand up, adjusting my eyes to the darkness. Slowly, things start to take shape. How did I end up in this warehouse? I rub the bump on my head and try to clear the dizziness.

Then I remember.

I ran in here to escape. That … thing is coming after me. It’s already scraped its long, sharp, yellowing claws through my skin, making my arms and back bleed while I fought it off. I only barely managed to escape its grip and lock myself in this warehouse, finding a wooden loft to hide in, before I passed out.

How much time has passed? Is the creature gone? Has it continued to search for me elsewhere, or is it lurking about outside, waiting for me to emerge?

I reach for the metal railing of the loft, the wooden floorboard beneath me groaning in protest to the shift. I can’t see a thing. It must still be dark outside.

I rub my eyes and hear a scratching noise. But wait—that doesn’t make sense. I spin on my heels and survey the darkness behind me, squinting into the black abyss as I try to make out a shape, a silhouette, anything.

I hold my breath, but can’t stop the loud pounding in my chest.

With shaking hands, I reach out in front of me, then take a step back. The floorboard beneath me cracks, breaks, splinters apart and makes me lose my balance. The scream is lost in my throat as I plunge to the warehouse floor below. The impact shudders through me, the pain like knives stabbing every muscle and bone in my body.

My head spins, my vision doubles. And I just barely make out the eyes looking down at me and the low, rumbling growl as I lose consciousness.

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Crossroads Blog Tour Day 5: Author Ty Drago

Website

If you could be any character in your favorite book, who would it be and why?
Tom Jefferson, Chief of the Undertakers, represents everything that I most admire in a person. He’s more than courageous. He’s a natural leader and utterly selfless, having dedicated his life to saving lives and defending the Earth. Will may be the beating heart of the Undertakers’ saga, and with good reason. But Tom is its soul.

As it happens, that character and I go back a long way. I first invented him (and his sister Sharyn) as an eight-year-old hand-drawing comic books. I’d share these badly rendered comics with kids in the neighborhood and, for a few years, Tom and Sharyn had a lot of amazing adventures. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to have revived them both for the Undertakers!

What’s your favorite scary movie?
A CABIN IN THE WOODS. Joss Whedon’s tongue-in-cheek “slasher” movie is one of the most brilliantly original films I’ve ever seen. It’s one of those stories (like the original Matrix movie) that I wish I’d come up with myself! And that’s about the highest compliment I can pay to any storyteller!

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Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Crossroads Blog Tour Day 4: Author Elizabeth Holloway

GUEST POST: You are lost in the desert with a pen, a post –it and an umbrella. You have no water but one piece of chocolate candy. In the distance you think you see something…what is it and how do you get to safety?

My hand burns. I crack open one eye and glance at it, half expecting the thing to be engulfed in flames. The skin is red and there is way more dirt under my fingernails than I thought was possible, but it’s not on fire. The desert sun has changed position and my hand is now out of the protective shadow of the umbrella.

I pull my hand back into the shade and let my eyes slip closed again. It’s still too hot to walk. I probably have another hour before the sun sets and the temperature drops. I’ll walk then. Now, I need to stay protected from the sun under this umbrella I found half buried in a dry river bed.

I don’t know how long it’s been since the wind snatched the post-it note out of my hand and I chased after it, getting myself lost in the process. It feels like days, but that’s not possible. The sun hasn’t gone down yet.

The post-it crinkles as I yank it out of my pocket. I smooth it out and read the gas-station clerk’s number. He was cute and all, but not cute enough for all of this.

Why in the world did I have to chase the post-it? When the wind snatched it way I could have sucked it up, gone back in the store and asked him for his number again. But, no. I decided to run out into the dry wasteland. Because I didn’t want to look stupid. Well, I look stupid now, all curled up under a dilapidated umbrella with one hand burnt to a crisp and the half-eaten chocolate bar I bought at the gas station melted to mush and staining my pants. Plus, I’m thirsty as heck.

Good thing I still have the pen he used to write his number in my pocket. I can use it to… Wait. The pen is just as useless as the post-it.

I ball up the number and almost chuck it into the dirt, but I stop mid-throw. The desert gets cold at night. Really cold. If I can’t find my way back to the gas station and my car tonight, I might need the paper to build a fire. And I could use the pen as a straw if I happen to find some water. I shove the post-it back into my jeans pocket with the pen.

Maybe they’re not so useless after all.

Something glitters on the horizon. I sit up and stare at the line where the sky meets the dirt. Heat waves distort the air, undulating like ghosts in the sun and the miniscule amount of hope I had disintegrates. No one has come to rescue me. The shimmer I saw was a mirage.

But it happens again. A quick shimmer of light at the top of the hill. I jump to my feet and knock over my umbrella tent. A gust of wind catches the umbrella and it slides across the ground. I grab it before it’s carried away. There is no way I’m losing this umbrella. If that light turns out to be nothing but a discarded candy wrapper or a shiny rock, I’m going to need it.

I hold the umbrella over my head and make my way across the hard-packed earth, like the Mad Max version of Mary Poppins. I don’t know what the irregular bursts of light are, but I’m going to find out.

The lights are farther away than they seemed at first. I walk for what feels like forever, being careful not to step on any snakes or scorpions hiding out in the rocks. As the sun slips down and kisses the horizon, the lights grow bigger, brighter. And they’re coming in pairs. Like glowing white eyes, they peek up over the hill and disappear behind it.

The roar of the highway rolls over the hill like an angel’s choir and a cross between a laugh and a sob squeezes from my throat. I drop the umbrella and run faster than I have run in my life.

I have no idea where I am, what highway that is, or how far away from my car I am, but it doesn’t matter. If I can flag down a car, I can get to a phone. Good thing I didn’t throw away Mr. Cute Clerk’s number. It’s my ticket home.

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