And the YA Spring Fling continues through April 3! You could win e-books and swag aplenty, including ten copies of the first Monkey Queen e-book and one set of three signed Monkey Queen paperbacks along with a signed and personalized Michiko and Beth notecard! http://www.sarahdaltonbooks.com/#!the-books/cait
After the cut: I am interviewed...
So when the YA Spring Fling was arranged, I signed on to do an interview. I answered the questions and forwarded it on. Somehow, a lot of those questions went away. Hopefully, no one will mind if I post the "original" interview (in quotes because I redid a few answers, cut one question and added another) here.
Tell us something about yourself.
Hi,
I'm Robert Dahlen, and I love telling stories. Always have. After a
few failed attempts to break in traditionally, I stopped trying for a
while, but then a series of events led to me dusting off a proposal I
had written for a comic book series and revamping it into a prose
series. I've published three books so far, with a fourth almost
finished and a fifth in progress.
Aside
from that: I live in northern California. I have a very nice hat. I
have a lot of fannish interests and very little spare time to indulge
in them. I bake an awesome chocolate chip cookie. And I have a
fondness for penguins.
Tell
us more about your books.
The
Monkey Queen is a contemporary fantasy adventure series about
Michiko, a teenage hero who's out to save the world (she's starting
small) and Beth, a college student and geek girl who joins up with
Michiko when a mutual friend is kidnapped. They encounter hobgoblins,
ogres, Lords of Faerie, gremlin craftsmen of varying degrees of
sanity, nosy landladies, ravenous monsters, airship pirates, a dark
sorceress, a troll with a taste for babies, and a snarky guinea
pig...and that's just in the first three books! It's fantasy with
heroines, humor and heart.
What’s
your favorite thing about spring?
The
sense of renewal, of new possibilities, of reborn hopes and dreams.
What’s
your least favorite thing about spring?
Daylight
savings time. Took me a week to adjust this year.
What’s
the best thing about being a writer?
When
someone takes a moment to tell you how much they enjoyed what you've
written. When you've finished a story and that feeling of
accomplishment sets in. When you find the right word, come up with
the great line of dialogue, figure out how to get the plot rolling.
What’s
the worst thing about being a writer?
When
things get stuck, when the words and ideas don't come or won't go on
paper.
Coffee
or Tea?
Coffee!
I have a day job, but I leave home very early every Friday morning,
stop at a coffee place, and get the weekend started right with
caffeine and writing before heading in to work.
Plotter
or Pantser?
(For
those who are wondering what that means: “Plotters” work out a
great part of the story before they start writing; “Pantsers”
make things up as they write.) Plotter for the overall story, pantser
as I go. I like having the basic plot in place when I start, so I can
work details into each scene that'll lead into later scenes, but I
also like having the freedom to improvise as I go. I always seem find
all sorts of things I never expected to find, sometimes while typing.
And nothing's set in stone, so I can always go back and rewrite or
edit as needed.
Why
do you write YA?
By
accident, I guess. I didn't have an age group in mind when I started
telling Michiko and Beth's stories; I just wanted to tell the best
stories I could, for all audiences. As it turns out, their stories
were a great fit for YA.
What
are your top tips for surviving a bad review?
Rejection
sucks. Believe me, I know. In the long term, you have to remember
that you have a lot going for you, that people like you and what you
write, and that for every bad review you get, you still have many
good ones, even if they haven't been written yet. In the short term?
Lots of unhealthy comfort food and a nap. Then, write some more.
What
are your top tips for surviving a zombie apocalypse?
What
makes you think I'd survive? My fate in a zombie apocalypse is almost
certainly to be zombie bait, tied to a chair and left in the road
with a sign reading "FREE LUNCH!"
What
inspires you?
All
sorts of things! I listen to music, on an iPod set on shuffle, and
sometimes the right melody or riff or lyric
comes up and jumpstarts
my creativity. The books and comics I've read, the movies and TV I've
seen, all stir in my subconscious. I get some of my best lines and
ideas just thinking, while doing chores or taking a walk or at my
office (don't tell my boss!). And as I mentioned above, sometimes
just writing does the trick. Basically, I can find it almost
everywhere.
Heck,
even my cover artist, Willow, can inspire me! When we were working
out character designs for the cover for the first book, she surprised
me by drawing Michiko with her red scarf. I loved it, and I reworked
some scenes to add the scarf to Michiko's description, and that led
to me rewriting this bit from the first book that I'm now quite fond
of:
The
Monkey Queen smiled. "I need you, Beth. How would you like to
help me save the world?"
Beth
had not expected to hear that. "M-m-me?" she said.
"Yep!"
Beth
stared at Michiko. She saw the scarf drifting in the evening breeze,
Michiko's smile, the excitement and joy in the Monkey Queen's eyes.
The geek girl part of Beth stirred, the part that wanted to chase
Golden Snitches, stand with the Browncoats, ride on the Catbus, the
part that wanted to take the wheel of an airship and set a course for
the second star to the right. And that part almost said, When do we
start? But the realistic side of her spoke up first.
"Michiko,
I don't know," Beth said. "I'm no hero. I'm not a fighter
or a wizard. I'm just a college student. Okay, maybe I'm a college
student who's read every Discworld book and watches way too much
Doctor Who, but I'm nothing special. The only things I'm good at are
sewing cosplay outfits, diagramming sentences and finding plot holes
in bad movies."
"Seems
like you're qualified to me," Michiko said.
"But
it sounds dangerous...it sounds crazy...oh, this is all too much."
Beth shook her head.
"Maybe
it is, but do you know something, Beth?"
"What?"
"You
haven't said 'no' yet." Michiko grinned and winked.
Where
can readers find your books?
They're
all on Amazon, and you can start at my Author Central page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00NBIWICQ
Or search your favorite e-book store for “Monkey Queen” or
“Robert Dahlen”! And drop by the Monkey Queen Books blog for
news, sneak previews and much more!
http://monkeyqueenbooks.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment