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Debut author Caitlin Kittredge (www.caitlinkittredge.com) is already becoming a strong force in the dark fantasy genre, with Night Life, the first book in her gritty Nocturne City series. The story follows police detective Luna Wilder, an Insoli werewolf who travels without a pack and who must rely on instinct alone. In a city where the night is filled with witches, black magicians and werewolves prowling the streets for prey, Luna has been assigned to find the ruthless killer behind a string of ritualistic murders. When she investigates prime suspect Dmitri Sandovsky, the smart-mouthed detective can’t resist the leader of a dangerous clan of Redbacks. Even though he sends her animal instincts into overdrive and threatens her fiercely-guarded independence, Luna and Dmitri must rely on each other to survive, as they’re plunged into an ancient demon underworld.

The east coast native, and current Seattle resident, spoke with MediaBlvd Magazine about giving up her job in the gaming industry to focus on becoming a full-time writer.

MediaBlvd Magazine> How long have you been writing? Have you had any actual formal training, or is it something you’ve just always done?

Caitlin Kittredge> I was born in Massachusetts, and I was raised by my mom, who was a single mom. She’s a teacher and she was also a librarian, and she home-schooled me, so I spent a lot of time in the library, growing up, which is totally why I’m a writer now. What else was I going to do? I do have an English degree. I went to college and studied creative writing. And then, I was lucky enough to actually be able to use that, when I got my day job. I was a writer at my day job, but I was a very different kind of writer. From the time I was in college, I pretty much knew that, ideally, I did want to write books or comics, or something. So, I’m very fortunate to have been able to do that.

MediaBlvd> You worked in the gaming industry?

Caitlin> I did. I recently left my job to write full-time, but I was a game writer. It was really great. If I had to have a job where I actually got dressed in the morning and had to go into work, I would definitely pick that one. The gaming industry was a lot of fun to work in. You get to work with a lot of like-minded people, and you get a chance to be really creative. And, generally, a lot more people see your finished products than they do, if you write a novel. Game sales figures are way higher than book sales figures. And, I am a gamer, so it was a pretty good environment for me. I knew I wanted to do something to use my English degree, if I could. I was actually working retail when I got the gaming job. I saw a posting looking for an entry level game writer, and I fit all the qualifications. I was like, “They’re never going to hire me. I have no experience, whatsoever, other than being a total gamer nerd.” But, they did. Apparently, I made a good impression. I sent off my cover letter and my resume, and I said, “I just graduated and I have this English degree that I’m not really using, but I would like to use it, so why don’t you hire me?” And, I guess I charmed them enough that they gave me a shot.

MediaBlvd> Was it hard to give that job up, so that you could write full-time?

Caitlin> The office hours and the time away from my own writing, not at all. The health insurance and the steady paycheck, most definitely. And, it was sad to leave my co-workers because they were a pretty great bunch. It was definitely one of those jobs that you’re sad to walk away from, but it was definitely time to focus on my own stuff. It was definitely scary, stepping into that unknown, from having been gainfully employed. I’ve had, at least, a part-time job since I was 13, so it’s a bit strange to suddenly be working for myself.

MediaBlvd> Were you confident that writing a novel was something you could do, or did you just want to give it a shot?

Caitlin> I had a lot of false starts behind me. I was really good at starting stuff. I’d get all fired up. I was just a little bit inexperienced with actually finishing something and having follow-through. And, I didn’t sit down with the expectation that everything would actually work out, although I thought it was a good idea, when I sat down to write it. And then, about half-way through, I was like, “You know, I really want to finish this.” I kept procrastinating because I was working a couple of jobs and I was dealing with being a recent college grad and not having any money. And then, I saw this writing conference that I wanted to go to and I was like, “Okay, if you’re going to spend $400 to go to this conference, you have to have a finished novel to pitch while you’re there because, otherwise, what’s the point?” It was three months away, so I decided, “Okay, I can finish this novel in three months,” and I did, and it was really bad. But, I worked at it and worked at it for another six months, reading up on the market and reading other stuff in the urban fantasy genre. I just trimmed it and trimmed it, and made it a little better with each pass. And then, when I was so sick of it that I never wanted to open the document again, I finally sent it to my friend who was like, “Yeah, you should send this to agents. It’s totally ready.” And, I said, “Really?,” and she said, “Oh, yeah!” I still wasn’t sure. No book that I write will ever be good enough for me. I’m a total perfectionist. But, I did send that one out to agents. It kind of grew on me, as I was writing it. At the end of that first draft, I was really excited. I was like, “This is really good. This is the best thing I’ve ever written.” And then, I had to tear it all about and fix everything that was wrong with it. For instance, it didn’t really have a plot, to speak of, in the first draft. I probably learned more from that novel than I’ve learned from anything since. It was total trial by fire. That ended up being Night Life.

MediaBlvd> Was there any point in time where you thought you might give up writing and try something else?

Caitlin> There were certainly times when I thought I would probably always have a career, other than writing. But, there were never any times when I thought I would stop writing. Even if I just had to do it as a hobby, I would still be doing it. Although, let’s be honest, the money and the publishing and the validation is a huge part of it. If somebody says, “I don’t do it for the money and the validation,” then they’re probably lying. But, there were certainly times when I thought, “I’m never going to be able to make a living off of this. I’m going to be working in my cube, for the rest of my life.” And then, I slowly began to realize that I might actually be able to make a living off of this. That was pretty cool.                   

MediaBlvd> Can you talk about your road to getting published, and how that went for you? Was getting an agent and getting published easier or harder than you expected it to be?

Caitlin> Getting an agent was definitely easier than I expected. I had heard all these stories from people who had been trying, for years and years, to get represented, never mind published. But, I worked really hard on my query letter. I studied a lot, before I actually did anything, which is where I think a lot of people go wrong. I really studied the market, and I studied who was selling in my genre, and what made a really good query letter. And, I had one of my friends, who had already gone through the process, and who had gotten an agent and gotten published, look it over and nitpick it to death. Then, I cried a little bit, and I rewrote it and made it better. And, I made sure I had a great first five pages that were really attention getting. I picked agents that I could send pages to, for the first round, and that ended up being the only round. I sent to about 20 agents, got 15 requests for material, and ended up with two offers of representation. My agent, Rachel Vater, was the one who actually called me first. She was the fastest, so she got me. And, she’s just a fabulous person. We talked on the phone, that first time, and I could totally tell that we clicked, and she just got where I was coming from and why I was writing the stuff I was writing. And, she got my sense of humor, which some people don’t always get ‘cause it’s pretty dark and weird. Rachel said, “I love your book. I want to represent it. Let’s talk.” So, I said, “Great, okay.” And then, she gave me a couple of minor edits. We’d been together for about a month, when she sent it out to publishers, and it took about another month to get all the editors to come back. We ended up having three offers, and the book ended up going to auction. And then, my editor, Rose, at St. Martin’s was the one who won the auction. So, I was sold to St. Martin’s with a three-book deal, which was really exciting.

MediaBlvd> For those who aren’t yet familiar with your work, can you talk about your Nocturne City series and what Night Life is about?

Caitlin> Night Life is an urban fantasy crossed with a gritty, noir police procedural because I love old writers, like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, and I also love all those old movies. That just added a whole gritty feel to the world. And, it’s set in Nocturne City, which is a fictional place because I couldn’t find any real settings that incorporated all the elements that I wanted to use in mine. The city really is a character in the book. It has its own history, and its own energy. And, the story follows Luna Wilder, who is a homicide detective and a werewolf, which she ties to keep under her hat because werewolves aren’t very accepted in the society that I’ve set up. She gets on the trial of this ritualistic serial killer who leads her down this path and into the underworld of the city, which she’s never really explored before because she really prides herself on not having a pack and being a loner. She falls in love, and there’s danger and adventure. And then, at the end, everything blows up. Well, not really. But, there’s a big finish.

MediaBlvd> Was there something specific that sparked the idea for the story, or was there a specific inspiration for Luna? And, did the werewolf aspect or the police detective aspect come first?

Caitlin> As for inspiration, I hadn’t read much urban fantasy, when I started writing the book. I was tired of vampires, although I do love vampire fiction. If it’s good, I totally love vampires. I’m still totally into them. I just don’t write them very well, for some reason. They’re not really my creature of choice. I love werewolves, and I love all the thematic implications that come with shapeshifting and having something else, under the skin, and the whole duality of man and nature. The English major in me was like, “Oh, themes, fun!” So, I decided I wanted to write a story about a werewolf and, because my second love was mystery, I decided I wanted to write a story about a werewolf who fought crime because I thought that would be great. And then, it all proceeded to go horribly wrong for about a year because I couldn’t find my inspiration. Then, I decided that I had to make my main character way less angsty. I was trying to write to this market that I didn’t really know much about. I basically just had to write what I wanted to write. I had been trying to write like all these other people, and I just had to write like me. My real stumbling block was that I wasn’t letting my own voice come out. And, when I did, that first draft just poured out of me. It was really fast. I think it took me three months to write the first draft, and then it took me nine months to fix it because it was so broken. When I finally did write Luna, as she appears in the novel, I really wasn’t seeing a lot of strong female heroines who are also human. They were all very superhuman and very flawless and perfect, and if they had issues, they were like, “Which hot vampire should I go out with?” That’s great, if those are the only issues you have, but I want to see a woman like me. I want to see someone who struggles to pay her bills and who has boyfriend problems and work problems, but still has a sense of humor about the whole thing because you have to, if you work in a crappy job, like homicide detective. I knew plenty of real women who are just amazingly smart and funny, and they weren’t really being represented very well. Buffy was off the air, at that point, and there was really nothing for women of my age and my generation to identify with, who weren’t running around in high heels and a silk dress, inside a goth club. And, again, I’m not knocking that style of fiction. It’s great for escapism. But, I couldn’t write like that. I wanted to write somebody who was really real, and Luna was real. I just fell in love with her because she was so strong, but also so flawed, at the same time, and I love flawed heroes and heroines. She really appealed to me. The appeal of setting Luna in this gritty, economically depressed city, and having her work the late shift in homicide, was that you meet some really interesting people. I know that from having a night job, myself. It can get very interesting. I was really into the descriptions, when I was creating the city, just because I love creepy locales. I grew up in Boston and Cape Cod, and that has a lot of great, creepy, run-down stuff. Now, I live in Seattle, which is one of the most visually interesting cities in America. It’s got some really great old neighborhoods, and great industrial areas. Boston is great, in an entirely different way.

MediaBlvd> How soon after you started to develop Luna, did the secondary characters come into it?

Caitlin> Some of them had always been there. Dmitri had always been there. I knew I wanted her love interest to be this extremely macho, alpha guy who wasn’t really used to dealing with a woman like her, so they’d have that chemistry. He’s all, “Come here, woman, I must protect you!,” and she’s like, “Back off, man, you’re smothering me!” He was one of those macho guys, but he totally has a heart of gold, so he wasn’t this alpha asshole, which I was so over, when I wrote the book. I was like, “No romance heroes! We’re going to have somebody who’s real.” And, her cousin, Sunny, sprung up out of necessity because she needed at least one female friend to bounce off of, and I figured the only person who would probably put up with Luna would be somebody who was related to her. And, I would say Sunny is the character in the novel who’s actually most like me. She’s low-key and a little bit more rational than Luna, and doesn’t go running off half-cocked, which I almost never do. And, I needed to give her some guy at work who didn’t think that women should be on the force, so that’s where Bryson came from. She doesn’t have a strong father figure, so I wanted to give her somebody who was a little bit older and a little bit more stable to identify with, and that’s where Mac came from. Some of the characters just popped up, out of nowhere, like the guy in the tattoo shop, and some of them were sort of planned, or they came out of necessity. I have the most fun with my secondary characters. I’m contributing a story to a witchcraft anthology, that St. Martin’s is putting out, later this year, and that’s actually a story told from Sunny’s point-of-view, set in the Nocturne City-verse, and that was a lot of fun to write. Secondary characters really have the ability to be the most interesting because they’re not fettered by all the obligations of the main character. You can be a little more fun and wicked with them than you can be with the main character. And, you can kill them, if necessity dictates, which you usually can’t do with your main character, at least in a series.

MediaBlvd> When you spread out a story over multiple books, how do you decide what to resolve and what to leave hanging, in each book?

Caitlin> Because it’s what I like to read, I tend to write plots that are self-contained, in each book. Certain elements of the larger story of Nocturne City carry over to each book, in my series, but what I really carry over, from book to book, is the emotional arc of the characters -- their relationships and their issues with each other. That’s what ties the series together, for me. If I have to read five pages of info. dumping at the beginning of a series book, to figure out what happened in the last book, my eyes are probably going to glaze over. Characters can come back and plotlines can recur, but expect that there will be a story that starts on page one and wraps up on page 350. But, what happens to Luna, as far as her growing into herself and into being a werewolf, and what happens with her love life, and what happens with her relationship with her family, carries over from book to book, and that changes and grows. That’s what I’m hoping will keep readers coming back.

MediaBlvd> How do you know when you’ve hit the right amount of the suspense and action, balanced with the character development? Do you have someone read it over for you, or are you able to gauge that yourself?

Caitlin> With the Luna books, I have to write really detailed outlines, beforehand, to turn into my editor, so I’ve pretty much ironed out any kinks, before I actually start writing. And, I do keep myself in check. I do scroll back to see what the last time was that something happened, as far as these two people talking in this scene. And, I’ll be like, “Okay, I probably need to make something happen pretty soon, to move the action along.” But, ideally, every scene in my books either moves the plot or moves the characters toward something. I really try not to have anything unnecessary and, if I do, my agent usually writes in big letters, “Take this out. You don’t need it.” I rely on her a lot because she’s the queen of trimming and making everything really streamlined. She’s totally a lifesaver. I would ramble a lot more, if it wasn’t for her.

MediaBlvd> Did you make a conscious decision to write this series in first person, or was that just how you felt the story was best told?

Caitlin> I consciously decided to write this in first person because it’s a mirror of the old Chandler and Hammett stories, just with a fantasy twist, and those are all written in first person. And, I felt like the reader really needed to get inside Luna’s head, for this kind of story. I do write in third person. I wrote another series, that my agent is shopping right now, that was in third person. It does depend on the story, but this one was a conscious decision to write in first.

MediaBlvd> Will you be continuing to explore the relationship between Luna and Dmitri? And, is writing sex scenes easier or hard for you than you expected it to be?

Caitlin> Yes, the relationship between Luna and Dmitri will continue to grow and change, over the course of all the books. Dmitri is not going away, but someone else might be coming in. Let’s just leave it at that. I don’t want to give away too much. With sex scenes, I actually go in more for sexual tension than for actual sex scenes, and my editor actually suggested that maybe we should spice up the love scenes a little bit. And, I was game for it. I had never actually written a sex scene in my other stuff because I tend to go more for the building up to it, with little touches and looks, and stuff like that. I find that a little bit more interesting to write. But, once I got into it, I didn’t actually have a problem. It was all sort of like writing a dream sequence. It was a part of the story, as a whole. I like to think that my sex scenes aren’t in there just for the sex because sex scenes can be really telling about a character. Luna is very broken, that way. She has a lot of issues with relationships. I used the sex scene as a vehicle to show just how many issues she had, and what her and Dmitri were up against, if they wanted to have a stable relationship. I try not to just titillate. I really do. I don’t know if I succeeded in Night Life. I try to put some story in my sex scenes.

MediaBlvd> How do you know how far to push things, or if you’ve gone too far?

Caitlin> My attitude towards sex is the same as my attitude towards violence. I write very real. I want you to see what would really be happening, in any given scene. I’m not going to cut away from somebody’s head getting chopped off, and I’m not going to cut away from two people getting into bed together. I don’t want to be porny about it, which is more of a language thing than how much you show, but I’m going to show it. It’s going to be in there. I’m not going to cut away. That’s cheating your reader, and cheating yourself. There are some genres where people expect you to cut away, like in cozy mysteries, which really don’t have much sex at all and, if there is any sex, it’s usually fade-to-black. But, urban fantasy is great because you can show as much or as little as you want. There aren’t a lot of set rules for the level of visuals. There’s nothing worse than a badly done sex scene. People will ask you if you’ve research everything in your books, and they’ll ask you if your main characters are you. And, I’m like, “She’s a werewolf, what do you think?”

MediaBlvd> When you sold the books, you sold them as a three-book contract, so are you planning on only doing three books, or are you developing the story arc for more than that?

Caitlin> I actually have a 10-book story arc in mind, so I would be really interested in continuing the series, and there’s definitely more Luna stories to tell than what’s contained in the three books. And, there’s definitely more stories for her supporting characters to tell, after those 10 books have concluded. I set up Nocturne City to be an infinite universe, where you could maybe follow Luna for 10 books, and then follow someone else for 10 books. There are infinite stories to tell, so it’s nowhere near done in the three books.

MediaBlvd> What can you say about the next book in the series, due out in August?

Caitlin> It’s called Pure Blood, and it’s the second book in the series. That one focuses a little bit more on the politics of Nocturne City, and Luna gets saddled with a partner that she really doesn’t want to have. There is a murder that happens that sparks a gang war between two rival clans of witches. Luna is caught in the middle and she’s trying to make peace. And, she’s also trying to deal with the fact that her and Dmitri’s relationship does not have the approval of his pack. They have stated that either he will break up with her or they will kill her, so she has to find her way out of that. Poor girl. That’s worse than having to meet your boyfriend’s parents. She hates me.

MediaBlvd> Do you have a favorite character to write for, or are any of them particularly difficult for you?

Caitlin> I love Luna, obviously. She and I have a bond, at this point. And, believe it or not, as the books go on, I actually really started to enjoy writing Bryson, the asshole cop. He’s so fun and over-the-top, and just blurts out what he’s thinking. He has no filter between his mouth and his brain. He’s sort of bumbling and silly, and I tend to feel sorry for characters like that. He plays a larger part in Book 3 and, as I was writing his scenes, I found myself laughing a little bit. I was like, “Okay, you’re kind of fun to write. You can stay around.” I hadn’t planned for him to be more than a one-off, in Book 1. And then, I needed another cop character in Book 3, and I thought, “Oh, I can just bring him back.” I wrote the scene and was like, “Oh, this is actually really fun. He’s great!” He grows as a person, a little bit. I think he had to go to sensitivity training, or something.

MediaBlvd> What is the story that you have in My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon, and how did you decide what you were going to write about?

Caitlin> The story is called Newlydeads, and it’s a snippet from the Black London universe, which contains my new series, coming in 2009.  This particular story got written because I love H.P. Lovecraft, and cheesy tourist attractions, and thought combining the two would be a lot of fun.

MediaBlvd> Do you have any specific writing habits, like a particular location or time of day that you prefer to write? And, do you write every day?

Caitlin> I do write every day, or try to, unless I’m on the road or doing a convention, or something. I get up and I tend to do email, in the morning. I get all my administrative stuff out of the way. Then, I write in the afternoon for about four or five hours, usually. And, I write a little more at night, if I’m on deadline. I don’t really have a specific place or time of day. I try to keep myself pretty adaptable because, if you have to be sitting in your favorite chair with your feet on your favorite ottoman, then you cripple yourself as a writer. If you’re writing consistently and selling consistently, you’re always going to have deadlines. You’re going to have to write, no matter what. You’re going to have to write in airports, in hotels, when your kids are screaming, or your boyfriend’s asking you why you aren’t paying attention to him. You’re just going to have to figure out a way to sit down on your butt and do it. So, I try not to get myself too into a routine. I’ll take my computer to the library or the coffee shop, a couple days a week, just to get myself out of the house, and to keep my ability to write with distractions going on, fresh. And, I do really like to listen to music while I write. I usually have my big playlist open on shuffle, and I’ll just let it run for my whole writing session. I either like to have the TV on, very soft in the background, or I like to have music playing, just to give my brain a little bit of stimulus. Otherwise, I find myself staring at the screen, going, “I don’t want to do this.” But, it doesn’t seem so much like work, if I have a little something else going on. It helps me keep from looking at the clock, too, because if 10 songs have gone by, that’s probably about an hour.

MediaBlvd> Do you enjoy getting feedback from fans, in regard to your work?

Caitlin> Oh, my God, yes! I’m a fan, myself, of several things, so I know how important fans are to your work and making sure that your work sells consistently. And, I just love hearing from people who have read the book, even if they didn’t like it. All authors say that, but really, if you didn’t like the book and you have a compelling reason, I’m really interested to hear it. I love talking to fans. I love talking to people who have read my book. I love getting fan mail. I hope to get lots more because I like answering it.

MediaBlvd> Is there something you hear most often in the feedback you get?

Caitlin> They all really like Luna, so that was good. I wanted to make her different from the other urban fantasy heroines, and likeable. And, they seem to really like the world, which means so much to me because I worked really, really hard on creating a world that was interesting and alive, even though it was totally fictional. My world getting compliments was a big moment for me.

MediaBlvd> What has been your proudest professional accomplishment, thus far?

Caitlin> Definitely getting my book from sold to publication. Writing it and nursing it through the agent process, and then getting an editor and getting it all spruced up, and going through its page proofs, and doing all the publicity that I’ve been doing, I’m so proud that I managed to stick with it and get it from this little idea that I had in my head, to a book that I can hold in my hand.

MediaBlvd> Do you have any idea what’s next for you? Are you working on something right now, and do you have anything else scheduled to be released?

Caitlin> My agent is negotiating with my publisher for several things, one of which is going to possibly continue the Nocturne City series. And, I’ve also written another series, which involves magic and demonology, that she’s shopping right now. So, hopefully, I’ll be a dual series author, by this time next year.

MediaBlvd> Is that another female-centered story?

Caitlin> There are actually two main characters in that one, and one is male and one is female. The female main character is a police inspector, and the male main character is a mage, and the whole story is set in an alternate version of London.

MediaBlvd> Do you want to continue writing in the urban fantasy genre, or would you also like to explore other genres?

Caitlin> I love fantasy and speculative fiction, so I will probably always write something with a little bit of an element of that in it. But, I also love mystery and I love horror. If the market changes, I could definitely see myself doing something else. I’m pretty adaptable. I just really like to write good stories. I wouldn’t rule out anything.

MediaBlvd> Is there something that you’d like to write, in the future, that you haven’t had the chance to do yet?

Caitlin> I really love comic books. Comic books are my first love, and I would love to be a comic book writer, in addition to a novelist. Doing either a series based on my own work, or working on an established series, would be totally awesome. And, I also wanted to be a screenwriter, for a long time. So, if I ever got the opportunity to write for movies or television, I would love to do that, too. I have a background in that, but just decided to write a novel because breaking into television writing is so hard. I figured I’d sneak my foot in the back door. If I have a pipe dream, it would totally be as a television writer because I’m in love with the serial format, even more than film.

MediaBlvd> What advice can you offer to aspiring writers who are looking, not just to get published, but to have an actual, long-lasting career?

Caitlin> I know everyone says this, but Rule #1 for somebody who actually wants to write professionally is just to do it, every day. Everyone says it because it’s really true. If you can’t produce consistently than you can’t expect to have a career where you have deadlines and people expecting you to turn in manuscripts on time. The second piece of advice I’d give is to figure out what you really want to write, kind of like what I had to do, when I started to write Night Life. Don’t worry about the market. Don’t worry about what everyone else is writing. Figure out what you want to write and what makes you passionate, and then just write the best version of it that you can. If writing your book isn’t incredibly hard and frustrating, then you’re not learning anything. So, it should be challenging and it should hurt and you should want to throw it across the room because you’ll be a better writer, when you’re finished. And then, you’ll write another book and it will be hard, and you’ll be better still. And, eventually, you’ll hone your basic skill set enough that you can start to experiment with some really interesting stuff, like voice and format and point-of-view. It never really gets easier, if you’re doing it right. If it starts to get easy, that’s a sign that you probably need to kick it up a notch. We all want to think, “I’ve got this down! I’m a professional. I’m published.” But, no, not really.