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Spider Brains – Interview with Susan Wingate
I’m pleased to welcome Susan Wingate, Amazon best selling writer and author of the newly released young adult novel; Spider Brains.
First, a little background:
SUSAN WINGATE’s poem entitled “The Dance of Wind in Trees” appeared in the April 2013 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review. Her award-winning, Amazon best seller, DROWNING is now available in audio book version and book one, SPIDER BRAINS, of her 3-Book “Susie Speider” YA Series is Available Now (Astraea Press). In 2012, two of Susan’s books made it onto the Top 10 Amazon Best Seller list, twice. DROWNING (contemporary women’s fiction) won 1st place in the 2011 Forward National Literature Award for the category of Drama. DROWNING also won a finalist award for the category of Women’s Fiction/Chick Lit in the 2011 International Book Awards and reached #1 on the Amazon’s Best Seller list. A vibrant public speaker, Susan offers inspiring, motivational talks about the craft of writing, publishing and marketing, and how to survive this extremely volatile ePublishing industry. She presents these lectures at writing conferences, libraries and book stores around the country. She also loves to visit with book clubs for more intimate chats.
Thank you for joining us at Scribbler’s today, Susan.
What is your book about?
SPIDER BRAINS is a story of a high school nerd, Susie Speider, who transforms into something amazing.
What character or person inspired the creation of Susie Speider?
I can’t remember this poor girl’s name but someone who used to wander the halls of high school, back in the day, at my high school in Phoenix. That school has since closed and is just a memory now. Although I did see they had a thirty year reunion. They posted the photos on Facebook.
Is it difficult to incorporate romance when you may have to censor because the book is targeted to a specific age group?
Not at all. This questions goes to the issue of knowing your character inside and out. The age of the protagonist and her background, her experiences in life don’t allow her to get into situations that might be inappropriate at her age. Although Susie is a very smart fifteen year old, she’s mostly naïve, as one will see when they read SPIDER BRAINS.
How deeply do you flesh out your characters before sitting down to write?
Mostly, they know me and wheedle their way out to the crosshairs of my sight. After they step out onto center stage, I ask them questions, like this interview is asking me questions. Some questions go so deep that I can build an entire short story out of them. That’s when I know I’m getting somewhere. I also write out checklists and review them before writing each day.
Which secondary character was your favorite to write?
I think Tanya, which is pronounced Tănya, not Tonya. Although her part is small, she’s an awesome juxtaposition for Susie. I think Tănya’s agent wants her to have a main role. J
When brainstorming an idea do you begin with character or plot?
Character. Always. If you don’t know the character, how can you know the plot. Plot is character. The storyline follows the character’s thoughts and actions, her hopes and dreams.
Would you share an excerpt from Spider Brains?
Love to! This is excerpt is Chapter Two of SPIDER BRAINS, where we see Susie after her transformation into a spider.
TWO – Transformation & Invasion
The air felt crisp and rustled my spiky leg hairs as Delilah galloped along the streets, me hanging onto her like a cowboy holding onto the reigns of his trusty steed. Finally, we reached Morlson’s home.
Delilah jumped up high to the dumpster there behind Morlson’s bedroom window. Then she launched herself, I nearly fell off but a spear of silk shot out, like, automatically, and attached itself to her ear. Delilah caught the edge of the fire escape ladder, me hanging off as if I were the next great Flying Wallenda!
But. Are you hearing what Delilah did? I mean, she got up to the ladder! That’s amazing. Azin’ amazin’!
Cats astonish me. They can get anywhere they want.
And…
Without silk rope to do it!
Still, I had turned into this black hairy-headed, lanky, spiky black body-suit-wearing, wall-climbing dynamo! I could hear and see and feel and taste and smell and sense every miniscule thing around me. But, even though it was me, it wasn’t, ‘cause I had shrunk to the size of a nickel! It was as if I had become some ultra-athletic gravity-defiant whiz of a teenager who could leap and scurry and had the strength of fifty teenagers all bundled up into one, me, the magnificent, you guessed it…
Susi Spidr!
The soft distinct cadence of a saxophone hung loose in the night, like someone dancing under the stars the way mom and dad used to, on top of their roof, listening, perhaps to John Coltrane… possibly the greatest, most incredible sax player out there! I nearly forgot the task at hand when pussy hiked her way to the top of the ladder, like a lion scaling the side of a mountain.
Then there we were. On the landing. Outside Morlson’s.
Holy Fish Lips!
And, there she was, fish lips, lugging around inside her apartment, vacuuming, hair in curlers, SMOKING a longer than normal brown cigarette, like something a Frenchman might smoke.
Every so often she stopped, took a puff, drawing the cloudy air into her lungs and holding it. When she couldn’t hold it any longer, she’d open her lips into a big round circle and poke out a series of wobbly smoke rings, like, thirteen of them! Ghastly. The rank odor wafted its way through the window where me and pussy watched. I coughed a tiny little spider cough and pussy sneezed. Morlson turned to the window although the vacuum cleaner still sputtered away.
We ducked lower than the sill to avoid being found out.
When we resumed our position, Morlson’s cigarette hung off her lower lip, all slack, like.
Her level of toadiness just ratcheted up about four trillion notches on the scale of toadiness.
“Wait here, pussy.”
Delilah sat and began washing her face with her hands. I knew I’d best be moving to avoid being washed off her ear and into her kitty mouth. Horrors of horrors.
I crawled up the front of her brownstone and in through the window where we’d been staring at the QUEEN OF TOADS.
Everything felt so incredible as if my entire body could sense every tiny fissure of the hard red clay of the brick wall. Every microscopic sensory nerve ending seemed to be on high alert, like how ex-President George W. Bush was with the Iraqis and the Afghans.
Like… when in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout! A bit high-strung. That was me that first time out as Susi Arachnid.
After slipping through the crack in Morlson’s window, I ventured down the wall onto her baseboard and waited for her to stop vacuuming. She was heading through her bedroom door and into the larger expanse of the apartment.
Looking around the room, the colors of her furniture, her shag carpeting, her linens, and the wall paint exhibited tones in varying shades of cigarette ashy-ness. As I was focusing on the boring qualities in her home, she lumbered back into the room withOUT the vacuum cleaner. And, this time, instead, with a glass of whiskey, it looked like to me. The cigarette had been puffed down to a mere inch from its butt and looked as if she were going to get all of its worth out as she pinched it nearly flat between her thumb and index finger, the way I’d seen some of the stonies at school do with their cigarettes.
I wondered, right then and there, if they made teeny spider-sized cameras that I might snap a pic or two of our lovely teacher so that I might plaster them all over Facebook, MySpace and Twitter! Te he! Wouldn’t that be funny?
Definitely the stuff of losing votes for Teacher of the Year Award! W00T. And, just as I had begun to fantasize about all the possibilities of inventing a camera for spiders, she plopped into bed, adjusting the pillows behind her like the back of a chair, picked up the remote, turned on Biggest Loser, tapped out another ciggie and began to down her cocktail of choice.
It was a sight to behold. Stunning.
As she watched TV, every minute or so she’d utter, “Mmm. Mmm. Mmm,” in diminishing chords, and wipe a tear from her reddened eyes. After about three times of her doing this I simply got fed up with her, and, if a spider can roll all four eyes together? I did.
I’d had enough.
She deserved a great big smack down.
Do you have a particular daily writing schedule or process you stick to?
Yes. I get up early, usually by 6:30 in the morning and after I get my cup of tea, I sit down to write. I take my career seriously. I work a good eight hour stint and then by the time my husband gets home from work, I can stop and enjoy our family life.
How did you connect with your agent/editor?
Fortunately, a friend of mine, Anthony Flacco, read my second novel “Bobby’s Diner” and liked it so much that he referred me to his entertainment lawyer, who also represents writers’ work.
What Author has had the greatest influence on your writing?
This is always such a difficult questions because there are so many amazing authors out there who have influenced my writing. I’d have to say a combination of three—Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and Kurt Vonnegut. Although I now have to add one more, Leo Tolstoy to that list. ”Just reading Anna Karenina is like a lesson in writing.”
What was the best piece of writing advice you have ever received?
Sit and write.
If you could sit down to dinner with any of your favorite fictional character’s whom would it be?
That’s easy, Kilgore Trout, Kurt Vonnegut’s main character in “Breakfast of Champions.” He’s a hoot.
Favorite Quote?
One by Isaac Asimov, “If the doctor gave me only six minutes to live, I’d type a little faster.”
Go to snack while writing?
Chips and salsa.
Do you have a sure fire method of dealing with writers’ block?
I write something else. I walk my dog Robert and I sit and pray. No lie. I pray all the time. When our hearts are anchored in our faith, we can go forward into the world with peace. I pray. I walk. I write. Not always in that order.
Can you share what project is coming up next for you?
I have to complete the next two books in the Susie Speider Series for my publisher Astraea Press. Those books are titled “Ant Brains” and “Chicken Brains.” But I’m currently working on a special story called “Way of the Wild Wood.” It’s a story about a young girl, eleven years old, who, after her mother dies, gets lost in the woods.
What is the strangest characteristic about yourself? (that you are willing to share)?
I think this is a better question for my husband. He’d tell you! LOL. But sitting here thinking I can’t see one strange thing about me. That must mean I’m pretty darned perfect and, of course, normal. What is normal, anyway? I don’t think I’ve come upon it in my life. Okay. I’ll answer it. I’m as close to normal as one can get. That makes me peri-normal, right?
What one piece of advice would you give to an aspiring writer?
Don’t listen to anything negative about our industry. Keep your blinders tight to your temples and focus only on the page, your story and the character. Sit and write and don’t get up until you’re done.
Thank you for joining us today at Scribbler’s, Susan.
To keep up with Susan check out:
Official Website: http://www.susanwingate.com
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/authorsusanwingate
Twitter Page: http://www.twitter.com/susanwingate
To purchase your own copy of Spider Brains:
Amazon Book Link: http://amzn.to/12ue1FV
All Books Amazon Page: http://bit.ly/xg3P4P
Posted in Author Inerviews
1 Comment
5/16/13-Daily Prompt
Pretend you are a recovering alcoholic who falls off the wagon while attending your high school reunion. Start your story with “I hadn’t had a drink in nearly 10 years” and end it with “If only I could remember where I left my pants.”
5/15/13-Daily Prompt
Working the night shift at your local hospital, the effects of the full moon turn your normal night on the ward into…
His Southern Temptation-Interview with Robin Covington
I’m pleased to welcome, Robin Covington multi published, contemporary romance/paranormal writer and author of the best selling, sizzling new release; His Southern Temptation.
To begin, a little background on our author:
Robin is a member of the Romance Writers of America, the Washington Romance Writers, a faculty member at Romance University, a member of the Waterworld Mermaids, and a contributor to the Happy Ever After blog at USA Today.
A Night of Southern Comfort, her best-selling debut novel earned 4.5 stars and was touted by RT Book Reviews as bringing a “fresh, modern feel to the genre while still sticking to the things that get our adrenaline pumping — sex and danger”. When she’s not exploring the theme of fooling around and falling in love, she’s collecting tasty man candy, indulging in a little comic book geek love, and stalking Joe Mangianello.
Robin lives in Maryland with her hilarious husband, brilliant children, and ginormous puppy.
Thank you for joining us here at Scribbler’s today, Robin.
What would you most like your reader’s to know about you?
That I am a reader first. I love romance. I love the angst, and the sex, and tears, and the laughs and I adore a happy ending. I write romance because I love it and I want to give others the escape that it gives to me.
Oh…and I don’t like my food to touch. Very important fact to know about me. ; )
Tell us a bit about your newest release; His Southern Temptation?
This story is one of the sexiest, funniest and most-heartbreaking books I’ve written. Lucky Landon is back in Elliott VA to settle down and lead a quiet life and get away from the death and darkness he had in the military. He’s proud of his service but what he had to do isn’t an easy burden to carry. But, he still has hope and he believes in love and he wants all of that with Taylor Elliott, the little sister of his best friend.
He’s willing to risk everything to have her and convince her to take a chance on the two of them. She’s been hurt and doesn’t believe in love but he’s determined to change her mind.
Taylor is a modern woman we can all relate to. She’s strong and she’s been hurt and she’s afraid to put herself out there. She struggles with the eternal question of whether you really can have it all.
When you wrote A Night of Southern Comfort did you plan this first story as a series or were you in your mind simply writing a stand alone story?
I saw it as a full blown series in my head. All four books and all four men were clear as day in my mind’s eye. So, while I wrote it knowing it was supposed to be the first in a series, I made sure it could stand alone —since I didn’t know if anyone would ever buy the other three.
Are your Southern comfort boys a composite of men you know or completely from your imagination?
I grew up in a small Southern town in VA and these guys are composites of my family and friends that I knew growing up and still know. I did change the names and events to protect the guilty and make sure I could still go home for Christmas!
What is your secret to seamlessly weaving such scorching curl your toes sex scenes with such a good old fashioned page turning suspense story?
I have no idea. I LOVE writing sex scenes. They are my favorite thing to bring the character development along as the story develops. People always show more than they think when they make love and that is the best time to show them grow and change.
The suspense stuff is really secondary to the love story but I love to set my characters against a little intrigue. As Lucky says, “Nothing gets the libido going like a little gunfire” and I think he’s right.
Do you figure out deep backstory for each of your characters before beginning or invent on the fly as your write?
I work from classic archetypes when I develop the characters and I know them pretty well when I start writing. Things do evolve as I write the book, but I always know two things when I start:
- What is the one thing they absolutely don’t want to do to reach their goal
- What is the one thing they would do anything to keep the love interest from finding out.
If I know these two things, then I’m golden.
When brainstorming story idea, do you begin with character or plot?
I start with the first line of the book and then I develop character and plot in tandem. Now the first line might not always stay the first line or it might not stay in at all, but I get that line in my head and I keep asking question until I figure out who, what, where and why.
In HST, the first line when I wrote the book ended being the first line of the second chapter when it was all said and done. “You never forgot the sound a round chambered in a gun three feet from your head.”
I started asking myself – who is holding the gun? Why? What kind of person is so familiar with he sound of a bullet chambered in a gun?
And it went from there . . .
Do you have a minor character you’ve written into one of your stories that you would like to turn into a protagonist for a future book?
Yes, I have two characters in my upcoming Brazen release, Playing the Part, June 10, 2013). Lincoln St. John-the rockstar best friend of the hero- will get his own story next year and in the same book, the heroine has a best friend, Chris, who I would love to write his story. That would be a complete change for me because Chris is a gay man but I think I’ll take the plunge and give him his Happy Ever After.
How about an excerpt from His Southern Temptation
If William Teague Elliott IV knew his baby sister was working the pole at the Jolly Gent he would castrate Lucky and enjoy doing it.
Lucky knew this, just like he knew someone was running drugs out of the back room, that he was drinking substandard watered-down whiskey, and he was going to hell for thinking that Taylor’s tiny g-string bikini was the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen.
Adjusting to accommodate the hardening in his jeans, he leaned back in his chair, stretching out muscles sore from the past few weeks of unaccustomed farm work. The life of a Marine wasn’t one of a desk jockey, but making a living out of the land was entirely different. His father made Lucky’s former drill sergeant look like a sweet, little kindergarten teacher.
“Whoo hoo! Shake it Bambi!” A guy up front yelled out Taylor’s ridiculous stage name and shook his overly large gut and matching ass. The guy was harmless, not even trying to offer her a tip, so Lucky eased back in his chair. He shifted the brim of his ball cap down a little lower in an effort to hide the movement of his eyes as he switched between watching Taylor, the bar where they were serving underage patrons, and numerous pervs drooling over the dancers. Didn’t anyone watch porn in the privacy of their own homes anymore?
Where do you get your ideas your stories?
Everywhere. I listen the radio – music and stalk radio – I read other books, the newspaper. I eavesdrop on people’s conversations at the grocery store. I will hear a snippet of something and just have to spin it out.
Do you have a particular daily writing schedule or process you stick to?
I write something everyday – my minimum is 5 pages- and I’m usually very disciplined to get it done. Writing is a muscle and I need to exercise it everyday or I get lazy. Well, I am lazy and I have to fight it everyday.
I write in my office. It is the last 11 feet of my huge closet (8 feet by 22 feet) and I have it decorated and comfortably decorated. I sometimes write in the morning before work but usually at night when everything is winding down.
How do you balance the need for self promotion vs your writing time?
It is very difficult. I love to write but publishing is a business and I have to feed that machine. But, the bottom line is that if I haven’t put down my 5 pages at least, then I haven’t worked today and if I don’t work, I don’t have anything to promote.
How did you connect with your agent/editor?
I do not have an agent at present – stay tuned. My editor and I usually talk at least once by email every day or couple of days. We talk on the phone when we are brainstorming or actively editing a book. My editor, Alethea, is amazing and I love her. We “get” each other and I covet her input and guidance. We also brainstorm together and that has led to a couple of contracted books. I could not do it without her.
Do you have a favorite book?
No. Too many to count as my favorites. I’m a reader and my keeper shelf is overflowing. Now, if I could only take one author on a deserted island, I would take Shannon McKenna’s books. Hot, sizzling, suspenseful and the best alpha males ever.
Her book, Extreme Danger, is probably the best book ever written.
Favorite author?
Shannon McKenna is my idol. But, I have others that I study and wish that I could be them when I grow up: Jo Davis, Hank Edwards, Harper Fox, Jill Shalvis, Josh Lanyon . . . . I could go on and on.
If you could sit down to dinner with any of your favorite fictional character/s who would it be?
From my books? Lucky Landon. He makes me laugh all the time.
From another author? Adrien English from Josh Lanyons series named after the same character. He’s a bookseller and smart and I think he would be an amazing conversationalist.
What’s your next project?
I’m currently writing the final book in the “The Boys” series. It’s Beck’s book and he is so much fun. Next, I try something completely different – a paranormal. It’s going to be epic.
When you do an interview like this what is the one writing process question you hope not be asked?
Anything having to do with a muse. I don’t have one and don’t believe in it. This is a job and I need to get my butt in the chair and write – something I love to do. If I waited for the muse to hit me, I’d always find something else to do because writing is hard. The most fun ever—but hard.
What is the strangest characteristic about yourself? (that you are willing to share?)
I do not like to linger over a meal. I eat and then I want to go. For someone who is very social and loves to talk, I’m anxious as hell to get away from the table and the remnants of a meal.
Thank you for joining us today at Scribbler’s, Robin
To keep up with Robin check out:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nicole-Helm/125277964228020?ref=hl
Twitter: https://twitter.com/robincovington
Website: http://robincovingtonromance.com/
Blog: http://robincovingtonromance.com/burning-up-the-sheets/
To purchase your copy of His Southern Temptation go to:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/His-Southern-Temptation-ebook/dp/B00C2RVPWQ
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/his-southern-temptation-robin-covington/1114954596
Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/his-southern-temptation/id627967168?mt=11
Posted in Author Inerviews
6 Comments
5/14/13- Daily Prompt
Your too good to be true job, turns out to come at a very high personal price you are not sure you are willing to pay…
5/13/13- Daily Prompt
Because of school prank gone wrong, you are forced to go to…
5/12/13- Daily Prompt:
Write about the scene at the The Kasino Club, the only bar in Stanley, Idaho, on an ordinary Tuesday night. Stanley’s population is just under five hundred, and it’s best known for being the coldest place in the lower forty-eight.
Today’s prompt is from the San Francisco Writer’s Grotto’s 642 Things To Write About.
5/11/13- Daily Prompt
It’s all you could expect…
