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By Christina Radish
Former teacher-turned-author Melissa Marr’s latest release, Ink Exchange, takes readers back to the breathtaking world of her New York Times bestseller Wicked Lovely, where faeries live among mortals and nothing is what it seems. Unlike Aislinn, the main character in the first book, 17-year-old Leslie knows nothing of faeries and their intrigues. When she is attracted to an eerily beautiful tattoo of eyes and wings, all she knows is that she has to have it, convinced it is a tangible symbol of changes she desperately craves for her own life. The tattoo does bring changes, but those changes will bind Leslie and Irial, ruler of the Dark Court who is battling to hold his rebellious and newly-vulnerable fey together, drawing Leslie deeper and deeper into the faerie world, where she is unable to resist its allures, and helpless to withstand its perils.
Marr (http://Melissa-Marr.com) spoke with MediaBlvd Magazine about this dark, ravishing story of temptation and consequences, and how there are always choices in life.
MediaBlvd Magazine> How long have you been writing and have you had any formal training?
Melissa Marr> I’ve had absolutely no formal training in writing. I’ve taught literature and composition, though, so I suppose, in terms of formal training, what I learned was how to deconstruct the text, how to analyze text, and what makes it work and not work. Since that’s really useful when you’re editing your own work, I guess my formal training came down to how books work and how stories work. My training to teach literature actually helped me to construct literature. I had training by teaching.
MediaBlvd> When did you decide to give up teaching and make a career out of writing? Was that something you had been planning to do for awhile before you actually did it?
Melissa> No. I always wanted to write, but I had heard how very impossible it is, and how you can’t make a career at this, and how it’s impossible to support yourself and your family. I believe that, as a parent, I have an obligation to support my children and be an equal breadwinner, so I wasn’t very comfortable with pursuing this. I had this master plan that, once my children were older, I would take a couple years and give it a go. But, I was teaching part-time and started writing, and I gave myself three years to teach part-time and write. I wrote a novel that didn’t really work out, and then I wrote Wicked Lovely, in a matter of four months. And then, it just got blurry. Between starting the novel and getting the deal, it was a total of six months. Because it happened so quickly, and because the publishers of Harper U.S. and Harper UK were putting so much emphasis behind it, I didn’t think I could do justice to teaching and writing and being a good mother, and so something had to go. I figured I had been teaching and, hopefully, eventually will be able to teach again, but for now, it seemed best to concentrate on being a good mom and writer. I finished out my semester. I had an obligation to my students, so I finished that. I had been planning to resume full-time teaching, the following Fall semester. I sold the book in March, and so I finished out the Spring semester, and then did not resume full-time teaching in the Fall. Instead, I just went to full-time writing.
MediaBlvd> Where do you think the confidence came from that enabled you to sit down and write your first novel?
Melissa> I don’t know that I had a whole lot of confidence. I read my reviews and it’s wonderful that people are enjoying the books, but sometimes it all still seems rather surprising to me. I like telling stories. I like books. I like looking at narrative structure. It just seemed like something fun to try. My goals for success were so much lower than what I’ve achieved. It’s been a lot of surprise, and not a whole lot of confidence. I spend a lot of time saying, “Wow!” I feel very lucky, and I know that some of it was just being at the right place, at the right time, and some of it was just this particular book. In any job, there’s no guarantee that you’ll continue to be able to do it, so I’m just going to ride it while it’s here, and see. But, I have faith in the fact that I have a few things I’d like to say, and I have faith in the fact that I can look at my text and say, “This works and this doesn’t work,” and I have pretty awesome editors. I think a lot of the confidence just comes from stubbornness and good luck.
MediaBlvd> Was it always the fantasy genre that you wanted to write, or did you experiment in any other genres first?
Melissa> Actually, the first thing I started writing was horror fiction. I wrote a couple short stories that were kind of horrific, and I wrote a couple of children’s picture books, and I queried for those in my three-year window. But, the response I kept getting was that they were too sophisticated, the language was too lyrical, and they just simply didn’t work. So, I switched. It wasn’t necessarily that I want to write it. I don’t think I could write high fantasy. But, I grew up believing that faeries, ghosts and vampires are real, so using that as a setting in which I can talk about issues that matter to me, like volition, seemed like a good mix. In college and graduate school, I was very interested in the supernatural as a world in which you could explore things that we maybe can’t talk about, out front. For instance, Mary Shelley used Frankenstein to talk about metaphors of motherhood. In Dracula, you can talk about the idea of the new woman and sexuality and the fear of foreigners. There are so many interesting ways that supernatural literature has been used to talk about things that we’re a little more uncomfortable with. And so, when I started writing novels, using that possibility was something that just felt very natural to me. I can reach a smaller segment of people by writing a high literary text, or I can reach people doing something that’s got commercial appeal. If I do something commercial, and it’s got some real world issues, it enables me to continue what I like doing as a teacher, where I’m contributing to society, but in a way that I reach more people. My goal was to have themes and approach it from a literary structure, thinking about narrative constructs, but also address issues and have fun, all at the same time.
MediaBlvd> For those who might not yet be familiar with your work, what can someone expect from Wicked Lovely?
Melissa> I would hope that they would expect to meet characters that are identifiable and real. You get to glimpse into a world where the things that we expect aren’t always what we get. There are some characters in there that I think encapsulate the experience that all of us have had, whether as teenagers or adults, where you have to function by rules that aren’t the ones that you’ve made. Assessing how you can do that and still claim independence is something we all do. So, I would hope that what they could find would be a decent story and something they can identify with.
MediaBlvd> What is the meaning behind the title of the book?
Melissa> There were 300 titles that we went through. We had lists and lists, until we found one that we were all happy with. I used the term “lovely” more often than I realized I did. And, there’s a segment in the book where I refer to the faeries as “wicked” and “lovely.” They’re tempting and they’re dangerous, they’re enticing and deadly. They’re contrasts. And, because of that, I liked the idea of having the two words together. That’s the traditional image of faerie. They’re gorgeous and deadly. We don’t call them “the good neighbors” because they’re really good. We call them that so we don’t anger them because they’re dangerous. And so, playing with that seemed fun for the title. And, it was the first title that I was really willing to fight for. There were a number that we considered, but we needed one that worked both in the U.S. and the UK. Most of them worked for one, but not the other, and we just kept going through list upon list upon list. That was the first one that I was just committed to and ready to fight for, and I didn’t have to. Everyone loved it. And so, it worked out pretty well.
MediaBlvd> Was there a specific inspiration for the world that you created, or for Aislinn?
Melissa> The world, to me, is just a logical manifestation of folklore. To have it work, you need the verisimilitude. In the old stories, you’re walking down the road and this person stops and asks you to help them, and you choose to help them or not help them, and it turns out that they’re actually a faerie and you are either terribly punished or wonderfully rewarded. That’s what I grew up with. That’s the folklore that was the root of the stories that my family told. The idea of everything around you being magical and mysterious, sometimes that’s just how life feels. You look at the ocean, you walk through the desert, you stand in front of a beautiful painting, you go to the symphony, and it is magical and mysterious and dangerous. And so, that’s the world I wanted to give my characters. I like folklore and I like faery tales, and these characters just felt real to me. I knew the word that meant vision, which is Ash’s name. Somehow, in trying to understand what that meant, it bloomed into characters that felt pretty three-dimensional to me. And so, I just wrote a little bit of one character and a little bit of the next character, and thought about how they would interact with each other and, suddenly, there was a book. I didn’t have a concrete inspiration as much as life. Living is inspiration, every day. It’s just a matter of which detail of life influences you, on that day. There’s magic all around you. There are a lot of creative people that have a sense that there’s magic all around. We might call it fairies, or we might call it art, or we might call it the Mojave, but it’s there. The world is pretty cool.
MediaBlvd> Can you talk about the road that you went through to get this published? Was the book an easier sell than you expected it to be?
Melissa> Oh, yes, much easier than I expected. I had sent out queries for my middle grade novel, which was the first one I wrote. I wrote that over six-month period, and then started Wicked Lovely almost instantly. I had been sending out queries for that and in academia you say, “This is what I’m working on currently,” so I did that in my query letter and I actually got a request for Wicked Lovely before it was even finished. That was my first clue that maybe it was going to go somewhere. And so, I wrote a query letter specifically for it, and sent it out to my top choices. I did that on the 6th of January and, within a matter of days -- hours in some cases, and weeks in a couple -- I had lots of requests. And then, I started sending out the text, as they requested, and by Valentine’s Day, I had two offers. By the 18th or 19th of February, I picked one of my very top choice agents, which was pretty awesome, and she said it really was ready to go to editors right away. We didn’t really need to do any revisions. So, we did a quick draft and made sure there wasn’t any copy edit stuff, and then we structured a list of editors that we liked for an auction and she set that up, and it went out to them. The editor I ended up going with received it on a Friday, and the next morning, she ended up forgetting to have her tea and breakfast because she got caught up in the book, and actually called my agent on a Saturday, within 24 hours of receiving the book, and said, “I want this! I need this!” The following Monday, other offers started coming in and we just never made it to auction because Harper Collins offered a pre-empt and, when they did that, they offered it as a joint acquisition with Harper U.S. and Harper UK, so the whole process was blindly quick and has stayed incredible since then. Sometimes, you’re just in the right place at the right time, and I guess this was one of those cases.
MediaBlvd> Ash has a real strength and courage to her and doesn’t want to be persuaded from following her heart. Does that come from your personality, or did that just evolve out of developing the character?
Melissa> I will admit that that one’s a little bit of my personality. I believe that, if you know in your heart that something is right and you believe in something passionately, grab hold and just run with it. The only time I’ve been afraid to do that is with writing. I wanted to write for a long time before I was willing to allow myself to do it. Sometimes, you have to put responsibility first. I proposed to my husband within a matter of days of our first date. I just knew. That’s my opinion of life made simple. When it’s right, it’s right. You just grab hold and go with it. That’s what I’m trying to do with the writing career. So much of my life has changed, but it feels good and it feels right, so I’m just going to grab hold and keep going. I think there’s something to be said for that. If people follow their passions and take the step and jump, it’s amazing what can happen. I would have never expected to have the kind of wonderful relationship I have and the bliss of motherhood, and I would have never expected my writing career to go this way. But, sometimes, if you take the risk, it works out beautifully. I wanted to give that to my character because that’s what I believe in. Sometimes it’s just about the character, but sometimes there’s things that, if you believe, as a person, there’s something to be said for telling people that it’s possible. You have to find a character whose voice you can hear. For me, the easiest way to do it is that I have multiple characters. I could be wrong, but right now I don’t know that I’d be interested in writing just one character. I like the different characters, and watching them interact. That’s what managed to get me past it. I had tried, a couple times, to start novels in my little three-year window there, and they just weren’t right. The voice became too much my voice, not the character’s voice. And then, all of a sudden, I had the little epiphany moment where I said, “Aha, this is what was missing.” I had hoped that someday I would get to that, but it didn’t feel right then, so I pursued the path I was on. I loved teaching. Teaching is an amazing, amazing experience. It’s a total natural high, when your students understand a piece of text. But, I had hoped that, one day, a story would come to me that was meant to be written. Traditionally, when I wrote stuff, I’d shred it afterwards, or throw it in a fireplace, or crumple it and throw it in the trash. When I wrote Wicked Lovely and I couldn’t do that, I knew there was something to it. I’d finally found the right story. They just grab hold.
MediaBlvd> With Wicked Lovely, which came first for you, the story, the setting or the characters?
Melissa> The way I write is like watching a movie in my head and taking notes on it. The very first scene I wrote was the scene at the courtyard with Ash. I saw the scene, and that was the one that I started the book with, even though it didn’t end up the first chapter. But, it comes as a package deal. I don’t know the whole plot proper until I’m done, and I don’t know the beginning until I’m done because I don’t know where to start the story until I know where it ends. It comes with setting and motivations and characters as these scenes, and then my challenge is just figuring out how they all loop together and what they mean. There was a short story I’d written before this, and there’s a scene in the short story that is actually towards the ending of the novel. I had written that scene and it bothered me for about a year, until I realized that I needed to write to see how we got to the scene, because the short story wasn’t doing it. And so, I started looping that scene, and then I got the others, and there was a novel. It comes in pieces, but not in terms of character first or plot first or setting first. It comes in pieces, in terms of chunks of the story. I think that’s the best way, personally. I don’t understand writing linearly. My brain doesn’t work linear, so why would my narrative. One of the hardest parts of starting writing is that we do go into it with expectations of how things are going to work, and some of those expectations actually cobble us. One of my expectations was that I shouldn’t talk about some of these darker issues. And so, my first attempt at a novel didn’t work because there were so many things where, just when it started getting interesting, I’d shy away. I had to tell myself that it was okay to talk about some of these things. You have expectations, but that limits your perspective sometimes. You have to shake those.
MediaBlvd> Did you do any research for this world, when you were creating it, or do you prefer to work entirely from imagination?
Melissa> I didn’t do research, in the traditional sense. I grew up with folklore and I read it for fun, and so that stuff is in my head. I did some research, in terms of going through my books and finding which quote I wanted at the start of which chapter. And, for Ink Exchange, I had to do research on the construction of the tattoo machine. I like to do research, but I’m also a fan of “write what you know,” so I guess it’s somewhere between the two. My biggest research is probably that I walk around with my camera and I take pictures, in order to get visuals in my head to help me create settings. I did a lot of that. And then, if there are things that don’t make sense to you, you can look them up. My character Seth lives in a renovated train car, and I was concerned about how that would work, layout wise, with some of those details. So, there’s some research that’s required as you go, but when I write, I generally just have little brackets in my text that say, “Check clarity on this,” or “Research this,” or “Verify,” and then I go back and get those. But, there’s something nice about just spending a few months letting it all simmer in your head, and then putting the pen to paper and it being there. Just like everything, it’s a mixed approach.
MediaBlvd> How important are the names of characters for you? Do they hold special meaning, or do you select them randomly?
Melissa> Oh, there’s no randomness. Every one of those was chosen for etymology. I have a book where I keep character names and their meaning, and each one of the character names has a significance. Even the street names have significance. Some of them, like Seth for instance, was not just based on significance, but also based on when he would have been born and how popular his name would have been for babies born in that year. I was a geek about that one. I like the idea of putting clues in. If you look at the characters’ names, you might have a hint as to what’s going on in the plot, sooner than later. It’s fun for me. And, I can’t really write until I know the characters’ names. That’s very important for me. Once I know them, I can hear their voice. I need to know what they look like, what they sound like, what they like, what their names are and where they come from. Once I know that, they’re more real to me and I can hear them better.
MediaBlvd> When you were developing the main characters, did you draw from any aspects of yourself, or do you prefer not to do that?
Melissa> When you’re writing from a character’s point of view, you need some point of identification with them, but I wouldn’t want any of them to be too much like me because then you run the risk of, if the character shares too many traits with you, the next one will sound too much like the last character, and you don’t want that. But, I do give them some traits. Ash bites her lip a lot, which I do, incessantly. Donia is a little bit of a pessimist, which despite my “grab hold and believe,” sometimes I have a pretty severe pessimism streak. With Keenan, because of a reason outside yourself and not because it’s naturally what you want to do, I gave him that. In Ink Exchange, the next main characters have other traits that are from within me. I feel like I need some point of identification within them, in order to understand them, but I try to give them as many characteristics that aren’t like me as possible, too. They become entities that can breathe without me. I think that’s important. Grams is the only character that’s totally based on me being very conscious with construct. She’s my homage to my grandmother.
MediaBlvd> Was it a conscious decision to write for the Young Adult market, or is that just where the novel fell?
Melissa> When I started writing Wicked Lovely, I realized was intended for the Young Adult market. But, I don’t like boxes. I don’t know that I necessarily want to be a Young Adult author or an urban fantasy writer or, some days, even if I’m going to continue writing. This particular book, for this particular experience, was a Young Adult book because I was dealing with some Young Adult issues. That’s just where you are on that day, that year.
MediaBlvd> When you decided that the Young Adult market was what you were writing for, was there anything that you had to be aware of, or was there anything you had to change from the original manuscript? Do you have to be conscious of certain things, when you’re writing for that market?
Melissa> I don’t know if there’s a set-in-stone rule that one has to follow. I personally believe that there are things that I need to be conscious of because I’m coming at it from the perspective that I’m a mom and I’m writing for other people’s daughters and sons. And, I’m a teacher, for many years, so I believe there are things that I have to be conscious of, in order to live by my ethics. But, obviously the things that are significant to me, aren’t necessarily the things that are significant to the next person. My editor didn’t ask me to change anything, in terms of content and construct. There just weren’t any issues there. For me, being conscious of messages I’m sending is pretty important. I think it’s significant that my main characters don’t have to sacrifice their identity in order to be in a relationship. Writing for a Young Adult audience, I think that’s a healthy message. There are some things that I put in there because I was writing for a Young Adult audience, like being responsible with sexuality. Wanting your partner to have STD testing is actually like giving flowers. It’s a nice thing. It’s a good thing. It’s a smart thing. We live in a world where that’s a consideration. So, there are things like that, that I put in there because I’m a mom and a teacher, but I suspect that many of those same things would be very appropriate for an adult audience. And, I’ve seen them done in adult books and cheered for them. I don’t feel like I was hampered, in any way. There’s a little bit of language, there’s a little bit of sex, there’s a little bit of drinking, and I think that it needed to be there because it’s honest. When you’re a teenager, that’s part of your world. For these particular characters, to suggest that they don’t swear and they don’t have sex and that alcohol isn’t around would be a lie, and I have too much respect for teenagers to want to lie to them. A lot of people don’t realize how very brilliant teenagers are. I’ve been teaching for 12 years. I happen to think that some of the most insightful and interesting things I’ve learned in life, I’ve learned from the 15- to 60-year-old crowd because I had older adults in my classes, too. I think it’s foolish to suggest that our teenagers aren’t every bit as intelligent and fascinating as adults. I’m the mother of a teenage daughter and she’s just awfully smart, so I have a lot of proof that teenagers don’t need dumbing down.
MediaBlvd> The idea of choice is a big theme in your work, especially with all the different choices that Ash faces in Wicked Lovely, the outcomes of which affect the rest of the story that follows. With all the things that you’ve been through in your own life, do you think it’s important to show people that, no matter what life throws at you, you can still fight to make choices that will give you what is your own happy ending?
Melissa> That’s pretty much my theme, in a nutshell. Yeah, very much so. I’ve been in some places that have been unpleasant and, when you’re there, you have to make a choice. You can accept it, or you can keep fighting, as long as you believe and know that you’re only out of choices when you stop making them or you stop breathing. And, maybe not even then because I’m not sure what comes next. As long as you keep going, as long as you keep choosing, as long as you keep believing, anything is possible. My grandparents and parents raised me to believe that, and that particular belief has gotten me through some things that have been kind of harsh. I believe it, I live by it, and it’s gotten me to a point where I couldn’t be happier with my life. There were times that I was in places where, if you had told me that I would be where I am now, I would have had a hard time believing you. But, I just kept making choices, and here I am. And, I have friends who have done the same thing. I have a friend who was a heroin addict and she just kept making choices. Sometimes, they were wrong choices. But then, she made more choices and now she’s in a wonderful place. I believe that choices is the single most important thing in my book, which is why I had trouble with the whole fated love. I never believed that that was necessarily romantic. The idea of being told that your future is determined for you sounds horrible. It sounds like a horror novel, to me. I wanted to play with that and overturn that and say, “No. Having choice is cool. It’s good.”
MediaBlvd> The relationship between Ash and Seth is really beautiful. Did something inspire that?
Melissa> Partly. Seth is a result of my amazingly good luck of knowing some astounding men, in life. I’ve met so many men that are just fabulous. They’re supportive and sexy and smart and interesting and well-rounded and individual. I thought, “If I were going to create a guy that would be perfect to pull Ash through this and be there as one of her choices, he was a good model for that.” I like to believe that they’re a healthy example of a relationship, getting back to that whole mom thing that I’ve got going. I’ve heard from people that Seth is very unrealistic, and I laugh. In fact, one of the people that told me he was very unrealistic is one of the men he’s based on. People say, “Guys are not really this supportive, they’re not really this smart, they’re not really this wonderful,” and I think that’s a big, fat lie. There’s some amazing men out there, and so, I wanted to give one of those to my character. He does have flaws that we don’t get to see as much of because we see him through the perspective of Ash, who’s very much in love with him. If we saw him from his own perspective, he does have jealousy and he does have hang-ups. Everyone does. But, because I’m working from a limited point of view, that doesn’t show up as much in the text. It’s not based on one specific person or relationship, but I could give you a laundry list of men I’ve met that just make me say, “Wow!” They’re out there.
MediaBlvd> Was it intentional to make him flawed, by talking about his history of one-night stands, or describing his tattoos and piercings?
Melissa> I guess the one-night stands thing was to make him more flawed and to point out that she’s got reasons for being hesitant about the relationship. The piercing thing was just because, to me, that is the ideal of attractive. I like pierced and tattooed, and unusual and artistic. To me, that makes my pulse go a bit more than the guy in a suit. That’s just my personal taste of what sexy is. Give me a good voice and some piercings and some ink, and I’m right there. Sometimes it’s one characteristic that pulls it all together. So, I wanted him to have some of those characteristics that make him sexier to me. And, I wanted to point out that it’s not always the mainstream. I grew up a black fingernails, torn jeans, black leather jacket girl, and obviously the people that I’ve chosen to date have often been a little bit more alternative than mainstream. I’ve dated some mainstream guys, and they were perfectly fine people, but in my opinion, there’s not enough Young Adult books where you see the people that are a little bit more unusual and tattooed and pierced as interesting, as how I see them and how they really are -- fabulous and sexy and wonderful. Instead, you see them as the supporting friend, or the person that needs to be altered in order to become more mainstream, and I think that’s really disappointing. I think individuality is probably one of the most attractive characteristics that you can find. So, that’s why Seth has those traits.
MediaBlvd> Does music play a big part in your writing?
Melissa> For me, I have different songs that I would listen to when I’m writing that I don’t often listen to when I’m doing other things. Marilyn Manson is an exception. I listen to him in the car, when I work out and when I play. Some of the Gaelic music that I absolutely love writing to, or Mazzy Star or Poe, I don’t listen to so much when I’m driving or relaxing at home. It’s interesting how it can help you create the moods for the words that you need. I came to a grinding halt with Ink Exchange when my headphones broke and I was only getting sound out of the one earpiece. I was like, “Everything has to stop. I need to drive to the store and get new headphones because I can’t write without music.” It was off-balance because the one side was out. And I like to put on headphones so it completely blocks out the world, and just crank it. That’s how I write. That’s how it works for me.
MediaBlvd> In Wicked Lovely, the story of your main mortal characters parallels the story of your main faerie characters, and it’s a really interesting comparison of two very different worlds. Did you set out to do that?
Melissa> No. I do like to set up parallels and I like to set up mirrors. I like the idea that if you make one choice, this is where you go, and if you make another, this is where you go, and you have to stay there. In Ink Exchange, I did that a lot more consciously. There are a number of things where I chose the same phrase-ology, in order to make clear that it is an intentional parallel. But, I really don’t know how much of it was intentional with Wicked Lovely. Some of it was just that those were their stories. I write one character’s point of view forward for awhile, and then I go back and write the other character’s point of view in, and then I go back to the third one, and then I just loop around and hop between them. And so, some of the parallels could be a result of the way I write, but I don’t know that I had much of a concrete plan when I went into Wicked Lovely. I had more of an understanding of where I was going with Ink Exchange, before I was there. With Wicked Lovely, I knew parts of it, but there were other parts of it that I didn’t know, going in. With some of the fairy tale references, for instance, I didn’t consciously try to put fairy tale references in there. There were a few places where I said, “Ooh, this would be a fun fairy tale reference,” but a couple of them just sort of showed up, and that’s fun. That’s the difference, to me, between going out and researching to clarify a point, which I do sometimes, and writing what you know. I read folklore and fairytales for fun, so it just shows up where it needs to be.
MediaBlvd> Were any of your characters particularly fun or easy for you to write, and are any of them particularly difficult for you?
Melissa> I don’t know that any of them in Wicked Lovely were easier or necessarily more fun. Keenan is actually the one that felt the most natural to write, which is interesting because he’s the character that I get the least compliments on, so I’m not really sure what that means. Everyone tells me that they love Ash or they love Donia, but Keenan’s the one that, for me, was the easiest. I could just sit down and write him. I understood him in a way that I didn’t initially feel with Ash and with Don. Once you go through that first bit where you switch back and forth between the main points and you kind of know them, they just become voices in your head, and you just listen to them and write them down. I can pick up their threads and write from their perspective more easily than I could when I went to the next novel and chose three different characters to do points of view for. There was that whole learning curve, all over again. With Ink Exchange, there was one character that was very much the easiest to write, in a way that none of the others have been. It was the only character that I think I could actually write from first-person point of view, whereas the others, I very much feel like third-person is necessary. I don’t know how that works.
MediaBlvd> Without giving anything away, what can fans of Wicked Lovely expect from Ink Exchange?
Melissa> My second book is about the Dark Court and takes place, linearly, after the first one, but it doesn’t follow the same primary characters. My theory of life is that every one of us is starring in our own drama. The person next to us is starring in their own drama, and sometimes their drama is more interesting. What I’m able to do, by switching main characters, is look at these other people and their other crises. I have trouble sometimes with series fiction, when you see the Buffy joke, “Oh, look, another apocalypse,” and I didn’t want that. So, I have other characters, set in the same world. And, we see these same characters from Wicked Lovely. They do show up in the story, and they are factors in the story, but they’re not the primary characters, as they are in Wicked Lovely. It’s the consequence of having two new queens and a new world going on. So many things have changed. Obviously, that’s going to have ripple effects to other parts of the world they live in, and so, I picked that up and went forward with different characters, in different ways. That’s what the third book will do too.
MediaBlvd> Have you had any interest in the film rights for your work, and is that something you’d want to see happen, at some point?
Melissa> It’s not something I’m particularly concerned about, one way or the other. I don’t watch a lot of film and I don’t watch TV. I watched Buffy faithfully because Joss Whedon’s cool, but for the most part, I’d rather read a book, go out and hike, go to a museum, go to a party. I’m just not so good with sitting around. So, I’m not particularly concerned. I’m not like, “Yeah, they could sell!” If they do sell, that’s fine. We’ve had interest. There was one discussion that I ran the other way from, and there are other people that have approached it. My big thing with film rights is that I would like, if they do sell, for it to be to someone who has the understanding of the world and is willing to impose their creative vision on it. I don’t necessarily want to be a part of it. It’s no different than translating my words into German, in my opinion. And so, I’d like it to be someone who has an interesting creative vision that could take it and run, rather than necessarily a true-to-the-word thing. I gather that is probably a little bit weird, but I’m fascinated by seeing how things are interpreted and re-created. The idea of seeing art based on my characters fascinates me because I like seeing how my words can create something different from what I’ve created. So, I’m interested in the objective curiosity way, but if it doesn’t work, that’s cool too.
MediaBlvd> Do you have any anthologies coming out?
Melissa> There’s an anthology called Love Is Hell that will be out from Harper Collins in the Fall (November 25th). It’s a follow-up to their supernatural romance anthology. They have an adult version of it too, called Dates From Hell. It’s a similar idea. It’s a supernatural series of short stories with a loose thematic tie. And, there’s a manga series I’m doing too (due out in 2009).
MediaBlvd> Are those both set in the same world, or are they something entirely different?
Melissa> The manga is set in the same world. They came to me with an offer, which was very cool because I think manga art is just gorgeous. I love art. And so, they asked for me to write a three-book series, set in the same world. I have a bizarre amount of creative control, as to what I want to do with it. It was just a story set in this world, in a series of books, so that’s fun. The same thing with the short story. They said I could set it in this world, or any other world. They just wanted me to write a story. So, it’s been really fun. They’re interesting side projects. It’s nice to clear your palate before you start the next novel.
MediaBlvd> How long does it usually take you to write a novel? Are you a fast writer, or do you prefer to take time with it?
Melissa> The first novel that I’ve done absolutely nothing with, but query and put on my hard drive, took me six months. Wicked Lovely took me four months. Ink Exchange took me about 11 months. There’s not a whole lot of rhyme or reason. I think Ink Exchange took a little longer because I was moving cross-country, and I went on tour for Wicked Lovely. I had revisions for Wicked Lovely and copy edits and translation notes. There was some stuff that took up some time, and every time I would get back into the novel, I’d have to stop and do a bunch of stuff for Wicked Lovely, which was fine and interesting, but once you lose your character’s voice, for me at least, it takes a little while to get it back. So, I guess I write a novel between four months and a year, depending on what else I’ve got on the plate. When I write, I’ve got weeks where no words come at all. And then, I sit down and I’ve got 14-hour chunks of time where I don’t want to leave my desk. I pretty much live and sleep at my desk, and that’s kind of fun too. I suppose the next one could take several years. It’s hard to say. I just roll with what comes.
MediaBlvd> Do you have any specific writing habits, like a particular location or time of day that you prefer? Do you prefer to write every day?
Melissa> I prefer to write at my desk, if at all possible. I have written long-hand in other places, but for the most part, I like to be at my desk with my headphones. I prop my feet up on the file cabinet next to me and crank my music. I have my tea and my water, and I pretty much just stay, as long as the words are coming. And, I like that. That’s how I’m most productive. In terms of time of the day, I write best late at night because there’s no email, there’s no distractions, there’s no anything I have to do. It’s just me and the machine. I don’t think I have any other habits. I don’t write every day. If the story’s coming, I will. There were a couple weeks there, with Wicked Lovely, where I wrote every day, every free hour I could get. When I wasn’t at the machine, I was writing notes on pieces of paper and putting them in my pocket. And, that happened with Ink Exchange too. I had little Post-It notes everywhere. In my opinion, the writing process isn’t just at the desk, with my fingers on the keyboard. Sometimes, part of the process is walking around with a camera or listening to music or hiking in the desert, or what-have-you. I think that’s all part of the process because writing, in my definition, is not just the physical act of putting words down. It’s all the other things that go into it. Sometimes, a particular text requires more meditation and hiking, and another text requires more music. It’s all very different, from piece to piece.
MediaBlvd> Since you’ve made the decision to write full-time, what has been the most difficult aspect of this career for you?
Melissa> The most difficult aspect is less about writing full-time and more about the sense of emphasis that my publishers put on the books. I’m very grateful and I very much love their support. However, there’s a sense of a loss of privacy, in some areas, that I’ve had a really hard time with. It’s less about the writing full-time because a lot of teaching is very independent work too. There’s a lot of grading, there’s a lot of lesson planning, and I taught online for awhile, so I’m used to the solitary nature. What’s harder for me is things like having to answer the telephone when it rings. I have trouble with that. I don’t like the telephone. There are times that I’m offered a wonderful publicity opportunity that I have to go to, and it might be when I’m in a particularly good place with my writing and I don’t want to leave my desk. And, there are times that I’ve been in some of these meetings and people have asked me questions that have been harder for me to answer. I don’t like talking about my husband and children. They’re very much private territory for me. I don’t like talking about where I live. I like my little bubble. I like my privacy. I like being able to shift off and just be Melissa, the mom and wife, and have that freedom, separate from my job world. It’s been hard for me to adjust to some of the consequences of the book being well-received. I feel very grateful and I understand it, but sometimes the hardest part is feeling like my life is not as entirely my own anymore as I would like it to be.
MediaBlvd> Do you enjoy getting feedback from other readers and writers? What are some of the most common things that you hear from them?
Melissa> I actually get fan email, which is awesome. I absolutely love hearing from readers. One of the coolest things is when people say, “Hey, I think you might like this particular coffee shop,” or “Hey, I think you might like this museum,” or “Hey, I think you might like this book,” or “Hey, there’s this band.” I love hearing, “I read this and I thought you might be interested in it.” That part is just amazing to me. And, I love hearing people say, “Hey, this resonated. This character felt familiar to me,” and things of that ilk. That’s been just awesome. And, I’ve met some of the coolest book sellers and librarians. I absolutely love all that. If people want to reach me, I’m very receptive to that, as long as they don’t ask me about my family. I’ve met some very cool writers too. That’s been fun. I started an urban fantasy community, Fangs, Fur and Fey, on Live Journal because I’ve met so many writers and was emailing with them. I thought, “You know, I’m talking about the same thing with several people, simultaneously, so why don’t we all just talk about it in the same place?” Having discussions about folklore and things of that nature has been cool. I like that.
MediaBlvd> Are you someone who enjoys reading reviews, or do you prefer to stay away from them?
Melissa> I kind of like knowing. For instance, when I taught, I absolutely loved getting the teacher assessments where I’d hear, “Here you succeeded, and here you kind of missed the mark.” If I hear feedback, it helps me know what I can do better. I know I can do better. I’m sure of it. Everyone does better. You just need progress, that’s the whole point. If you can’t get better, why do you keep doing it? So, there’s part of me that’s very interested in that, and there’s another part of me that’s a little bit unsure. I like hearing what readers think. I got a review from Publisher’s Weekly that was very sweet. They gave me a star, and that was kind of cool. It’s nice, but a lot of times my reviews for Wicked Lovely made my book sound better than I felt like it is. It is a first novel and I knew I could do better. I think they were kinder than I am with my writing, and so, I feel a little bit like I don’t necessarily want to read the ones that say nice things because I don’t want to delude myself into thinking that it’s better than it is. I let my agent filter that for me because she’s pretty cool.
MediaBlvd> Is there anyone’s advice that you rely on, if you get stuck on plot or character development?
Melissa> My muse. I talk to my agent some about stuff like that, but she’s more of a sounding board. I have a couple friends I talk to. But, in terms of plot and character, not so much. Sometimes I’ll ask, “Does this make sense? Am I being clear enough here?” Obviously, feedback there is excellent. But, I don’t belong to a critique group or circle, or go to conferences, or any of that stuff. I just write.
MediaBlvd> Do you have any idea what’s next for you?
Melissa> Harper Collins bought three books, and Ink Exchange is the second one. I’m currently working on the third one, but I’ve also got the manga series and the short story. And, I have another project that I’m not allowed to talk about. I’m really excited about it and I’m working on it, and it’s very fun. So, I’ve got a couple things I’m working on. I like to be busy. I like to have a lot of things going on because it just builds this fun, chaotic energy.
MediaBlvd> Do you feel more confident now, as a writer, or are you still worried about the possibility of failure?
Melissa> I’m sure that people will hate my writing. That’s inevitable. I’ve read brilliant pieces of literature and hated them. So, if I can hate things that are really, really good, and my book is not literary, than surely people will hate mine. That’s my kind of failure. But, I don’t worry about that because I think that’s inevitable. It would have been a failure, if I didn’t try, and I did try, so I haven’t failed. I would feel disappointed, if I don’t earn out because my publishing houses have a certain amount of faith in me and I don’t want to let them down. So, I guess some of it’s just a matter of how you spin that word. Personally, failure for me would have been giving up, which I didn’t do, so in that case, I succeeded. Another way of failure is simply living up to my obligations. I completed the tasks that they requested of me, and now I just need to make sure that they don’t take a loss by believing in me.
MediaBlvd> What do you hope that young people will take away from reading your work?
Melissa> That there are always choices. If you’re not content with the path you’re on, just keep choosing. Don’t stop. That’s the big thing for me. It’s all about choice. That’s what life’s all about. That’s what everything is all about -- believing in yourself, believing passionately and making choices. And, knowing sometimes there’s going to be consequences, and considering whether or not the consequences are worth the choice that you’re about to make. If you believe they are and you’re willing to pay that price, sometimes it’s still the right choice.
MediaBlvd> What kind of advice can you offer to aspiring writers who are not only looking to get published, but who would also like to have a career as a writer?
Melissa> My best advice is that you don’t need to network. You don’t need someone to open the door. I wrote a query letter, I wrote a couple books, I mailed some stuff, and that’s it. I didn’t know anyone inside the business. I didn’t have anyone giving me recommendations, introducing me to their agent or their editor, or saying, “Hey, you ought to read this book.” I didn’t have any of that, and I’m doing okay. If you want it and if it’s your path, keep going. Don’t waste your time trying to get someone else to help you prop open the door because, even if they do help you get in the door, you still have to perform. The notion that people need to network is the one thing I have not liked about the new path that I’m on. There have been a number of people that I’ve met, over the years, that suddenly looked me up because this friend or that friend, or they themselves, want to be a writer, and there’s this notion that door-opening is necessary, and it’s not. My experience proves that. I’m not saying there aren’t people that have gotten doors opened by networking, but it’s totally not necessary. So, that’s my big advice. Have faith in yourself, keep writing, keep trying, keep going, and don’t think that it’s about who you know because it’s not.
