Philippa Gregory Q&A and Changeling Widget

Changeling, the first YA novel by Philippa Gregory is finally released this week!!  I for one am so excited for this amazing looking new series.  To celebrate the launch a fantastic widget has been created which you can find here -  http://www.orderofdarkness.com/widget/

Simon & Schuster have also done this incredible question and answer session with Philippa Gregory, which I am thrilled to share with you!!!

How was writing a book for teens different from writing a book for adults? I don't think there is any difference for me in terms of the craft of writing. I think that the quality and enjoyment of the novel should be at least equal to a book for adults. 

      

          Do you have a favourite character in your new teen series? I created the two principal characters of Luca and Isolde and liked them so much, but then I was amazed to find that the servant character of Frieze just jumped off the page. He is funny and full of common sense, wonderful with animals and has a great loving nature. His role just grew through the story as I came to like writing about him more and more. He is very important in book 2, and I think I will end up with a cast of 4 principal characters rather than 2.

   

         When you are writing a multi-book series, do you work from an outline (know all the beats) or do you work toward an ending (know how it all ends)? This has been the first series that I have written that is not anchored completely by the historical record, so I have revelled in the freedom of it and have worked on each novel quite independently. I know where the whole series ultimately ends, but I don't know yet how I will get there. It's a truly creative process, I feel as if I am making it up as I go along and loving this.

          Why did you set your new teen series in the 15^th century? The date of 1453 is such a key one - people really believed that it was the end of the world. It is this belief that means that Luca has his job in exploring the "end of days" and also means that there are so many manifestations of the supernatural that people report.

       

 How is it working with fictional characters rather than real historical figures It has been a real holiday from the demands of accuracy and research. It has set the novelist in me free for the first time in a long time. I love discovering and researching the historical characters, but to be able to create characters from imagination has been a real treat.

Question And Answers with JULIE KAGAWA

The lovely ladies at Mira Ink gave me the awesome opportunity to ask Julie Kagawa five questions on the back of the release of The Immortal Rules (Review HERE)
It was such a fantastic chance to be given and so after a lot of pondering these are the questions and answers we got.....

     1. As a fellow animal lover I know the horrid jobs we get - what is your least favourite?  (mine is the cat litter tray)
Fortunately, the hubby does that one (the litter box) for me. Apart from that, let’s just say that I have a long-haired dog and sometimes I have clean up the fur at the hind end of him. This is generally a task that requires scissors and copious amounts of paper towels, followed by a good hosing-off of everyone and everything involved

 2. If you could have dinner with 1 of your characters, which would you choose and why? 

Ash. I’m a sucker for the stoic, brooding, bad boy. And how can you turn down the whole heroic, sacrificing knight? Plus, think of all the money you could save on air conditioning…

3.      What do you do to find writing inspiration?

I find inspiration in manga and anime. I think the blend of action, humor, and tragedy that you can find in both makes for a very compelling story. I also find inspiration in video games, which give me both inspiration and needed down time.

 

4. What made you change from the world of animal care to writing?

It wasn’t really a change. I was always writing, even when I was working in the animal care / animal training space. When I got published, it became a time thing… in order to meet deadlines, I didn’t have time to keep trying to be a professional animal trainer. Since I have 4 (while 10 if you count the chickens) animals at home, I still get plenty of opportunities to train, care for, and (most importantly) play with all kinds of cute and fuzzy critters.

 

5. What’s your guilty pleasure? (in books, music, TV whatever?)

Video gaming is probably my biggest guilty pleasure (except that I don’t really feel guilty about playing them). I think modern video games are wonderful story-telling platforms with complex story lines that present the players with decisions that affect the world of the story. Final Fantasy X can still make me cry. I also get a kick out of games like The Sims that let you build worlds and control the characters within them (sounds a lot like writing, right?).

Huge Thanks to Julie for taking the time to answer my questions!!