By Christina Radish

Photo by Michael Ott

With three book series (Georgina Kincaid, Vampire Academy and Dark Swan), in three different genres (Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance and Young Adult Fantasy), Richelle Mead (www.richellemead.com) is living her dream. Determined to be a writer since the age of 3, the Michigan native now has a successful career as an author with a full schedule of upcoming releases on her plate.

In her debut novel, Succubus Blues, Mead introduces readers to Georgina Kincaid, a disgruntled succubus living in Seattle, who just wants to lead a normal life. Although being a shape-shifting demon who seduces and pleasures mortal men seems glamorous, not being able to get too intimate with her current flame, best-selling writer Seth Mortensen, without taking part of his life force, puts a damper on their relationship. Funny, sexy and sad, Georgina’s story continues in the second book, Succubus on Top, with Book 3, Succubus Dreams, due out in the Fall.

This week, Book 2 in Mead’s popular Vampire Academy series, Frostbite, hits stores. The first book introduced Young Adult readers to Rose Hathaway, a teenager with human and vampire blood, known as a Dhampir, dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting her best friend, Moroi princess Lissa Dragomir – a mortal vampire with an unbreakable bond to the earth’s magic – from the fierce and immortal Strigoi, who are determined to make her one of them. Fighting bad guys quickly proves easier for Rose than fighting her feelings for her gorgeous tutor, Dimitri.

As if the year weren’t already packed enough for her, Mead’s third series kicks off in September with Storm Born, about a powerful shaman, named Eugenie Markham, who banishes spirits and fey that cross into the mortal world. Somehow, even with all of that, Mead found the time to speak to MediaBlvd Magazine about keeping up with three acclaimed book series.

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

Richelle Mead> I got my undergraduate Liberal Arts degree in Michigan. There were some English classes in there, and I had one creative writing class, but there certainly wasn’t a huge amount of that. I think most of learning to write just came from reading a lot. If you’re exposed to good writing, it seeps into you. And then, I later got a Master’s Degree, also in Michigan, in Comparative Religion, which is a cross-cultural study of religion, not a Theology/Minister degree, as some people think. It was an analysis and historical examination of religion and myth. After that, I moved out to Seattle, which is where I’m at now, and I got another Master’s Degree. I’ve been a professional student for awhile. I have a Teaching degree, to teach English to high school and junior high students. That, if anything, gave me the biggest grip on grammar. I’m now fanatical about grammar rules in my own writing -- things that I never knew before, until I actually had to teach that. That’s my background, education wise. But, the amount of that that actually filtered into my books is small. I haven’t had a huge amount of writing classes. I’ve written fairly well, since high school, and I think a lot of it rubs off. Same thing with the research. It’s stuff I’ve always been interested in, just on the side. Some of it was in my degree, certainly with the religion and mythology stuff, but a lot of it was just already there.

MediaBlvd> When did you decide that you wanted to have a career as a writer?

Richelle> I always had this idea that I was going to be an author. When I was little, I had a short story published in a children’s magazine and I was involved in young authors things when I was in elementary school. But then, as I got older, it became less of a reality, so I didn’t actually start considering it as a career until, maybe, 2003. In 2003, I started writing a sci-fi book, just because. I’d always written, off and on, but never really finished anything, and I just started working on that. Some friends of mine were reading it and we had a thing, like when they used to serialize novels in newspapers. I’d send them installments and then they’d eagerly wait for the next one. When I finished that, I decided I was going to start selling novels, and that’s where it took off from, even though that one never actually sold. 

MediaBlvd> Does the fact that you’re now getting published take any of that anxiety off of you, or do you still feel like you have to prove yourself?

Richelle> It’s a different kind of anxiety. Now that I have an agent and a publisher, there’s a whole set of anxieties that have been taken away from me. I’ve had remarkably good luck. I feel very fortunate, with my subsequent writings, that I can hand them over and my agent goes off and will try to sell them, versus when you’re trying to get an agent. So, that stress is gone. But, there is a lot of other stuff to worry about now. After Succubus Blues, I sold two other series, which wasn’t so bad because I wrote them on my own time. But, now that they’re all sold and contracted, I’m on someone else’s time. And so, I have suddenly noticed that I constantly have a deadline for something. That presents a whole new level of scariness.

MediaBlvd> For those who aren’t yet familiar with your Succubus books, what can readers expect from them?

Richelle> A whole bunch of different things. It’s one part fantasy, one part romance, and there’s a mystery in there. There is just a whole bunch of funny elements. I guess people can expect a dark, serious side to it because, certainly, there’s a lot of depressing things going on within it. And, at the same time, I like to think that it’s funny, too. There’s a lot of off-the-wall humor. I really enjoy throwing in random wacky things, like the vampire who’s on a low-carb diet, that I just feel make it fun. I think the feel of it is a lot of fun, and I hope it will appeal to a lot of different people -- those who are looking for something more serious, and those who do like the funny, upbeat styles of writing that are out there right now.

MediaBlvd> What kind of character is Georgina, and was there a specific inspiration for the character or her story?

Richelle> It’s hard to explain where she came from. The story came from a mix of a few different things. When I was trying to sell my sci-fi novel, I was student-teaching at the time, for my second Master’s Degree, and I was listening to an Anne Rice book on tape, during my commute. I had never actually read any Anne Rice before, and I thought the whole idea of having something like a vampire as an empathetic character was really interesting, even though the style wasn’t exactly my thing, the way it was told. So, I had that rattling around in my head. And, I went to a writer’s conference, trying to sell the sci-fi novel, and I discovered it was too long for a first-time novel ‘cause they usually want them concise. So, while I was there and just going to different workshops, that was the first time I ever heard the buzz word of “chick lit,” and that style of writing. It just hit me that it would be fun to have that sympathetic character, like Anne Rice’s vampires, mixed in with a totally different voice, like what you find in chick lit. And so, that was where that idea came from. But, I wanted to do something different. I didn’t want to do a vampire ‘cause I felt they were overdone, and I wasn’t all that interested in them. It just came to me that a succubus would be interesting to do. At the time, I, like so many writers, actually thought I was pioneering a whole new genre. I hadn’t heard of anybody, like Charlaine Harris or Laurell K. Hamilton. And so, I was kind of surprised. Once it was done and I had sold the book, I suddenly discovered I was in good company, in that way. I don’t know where the character came from. She just sort of grew out of that. She was hard to write because you do want a sympathetic character, but at the same time, you have someone whose primary vocation is to suck away men’s souls. It was hard because I wanted her likeable and, at the same time, I had a feeling that that would be a hard life for someone. There was a lot of trial and error, and then, finally, everything just started to click. Now, I feel like I know her pretty well. When you write a first book, it’s always an experiment, in getting to know the characters. By the time I went on to the second one, that book almost wrote itself because I knew everybody so well, by that point, and I knew exactly what to expect from them.  

MediaBlvd> How quickly after coming up with the story and Georgina did all of the secondary characters come into play?

Richelle> Her immortal friends developed very quickly, now that I think about it. The whole thing developed extremely quickly. I don’t know where they all came from. I just knew I wanted a group of support characters who had their strengths and weaknesses, and assorted wacky flaws.

MediaBlvd> Did you do any specific research for the story or any of the characters, or do you prefer to work entirely from your imagination?

Richelle> Most of my rules, on succubi and other things, like the demons and the angels, I’ve researched facts about. I like to ground it in some element of -- and I don’t want to say reality ‘cause it’s all coming from folklore and mythology -- scholarly background.  I like to start with that kernel, and then I extrapolate from there, and improvise my own world and rules, from that point. That’s been true for my other books, as well. My other two series started with something I found, looked up and read more about, and then I just built my own world on top of that.

MediaBlvd> Where will you be taking Georgina’s journey?

Richelle> The way I’m seeing it, every book is going to have some sort of self-contained conflict that she has to deal with, that makes her develop as a character, and has its own share of intrigue and fun. And then, there’s going to be an over-arcing love story because that is her primary concern. She desperately wants this long-term relationship with someone and she can’t have it, for a number of reasons. The meta-story that’s going to go through all the books is her struggle to work through this and see if she can get that.

MediaBlvd> Since you’ve known for so long that this is what you wanted to do, it must be gratifying for you to now be in a situation where you have too much work, instead of having no one interested in what you’re doing?

Richelle> Yeah, it’s definitely great. I can write a first draft pretty quickly. I usually do my 350-400 pages in about six weeks. I did Succubus on Top, the sequel to Succubus Blues, and then I did the Young Adult one, Vampire Academy, and I did Storm Born (the first book in the Dark Swan series), which is my third series, and I felt like this unstoppable person. Now, it’s getting so much harder. Before, I had these grandiose plans that I could just have an unlimited number of series. I recently had an idea for something and I had to tell myself, “Just don’t go there,” because I really don’t think I can handle a fourth series, at this point, until I have these under control. But, yeah, it is good. I’m glad to have too much stuff. But, it’s gone in a different direction than I expected. I didn’t expect it to feel like this.

MediaBlvd> Is it hard to keep all of the characters for all of these series separate, in your head?

Richelle> No. I keep the worlds and characters pretty separate. I know them so well, and they’re so distinct in my head, and each story has its course that’s laid out. I don’t have too much trouble with that. I’d say, if anything, the biggest problem with three series is that I write them all in first person, and you have to make sure they’re not all being told by the same person. You want to keep the voice different for each one. With Succubus Blues and Storm Born, that was a big concern. But, those have come out with pretty different styles and voices. I think my Young Adult one, Vampire Academy, is pretty distinct too, though sometimes I feel like I have Georgina, Jr. telling that story. That’s probably the hardest thing to watch out for, so that I don’t slip into a different character while telling that.

MediaBlvd> Your Succubus books are very character and story driven. How do you find the right balance between the romance, and telling the story and developing the characters?

Richelle> I don’t know. I always think of the characters first. I always have this fear that, if left to my own devices, I’d run off with these intense character studies and no plot, whatsoever. Because I have that fear so often, I work out my plot meticulously. I’m afraid of going to plot and suddenly finding I have nowhere to go with these characters that I’ve developed. I think that balances it because I do have a strong drive to be close to my characters and to create these realistic characters. My need to make sure I have something to do with them ensures that they’re all balanced, but I couldn’t really tell you any more than that. Someone who read it commented to me that I must be more of a plot writer than a character writer, which astonished me because I do struggle so much to make sure the plots are tight and going somewhere.

MediaBlvd> Does Georgina’s sense of humor come from you, or is it all the character?

Richelle> I definitely have a similar sense of humor as her. The same little oddities and things that appeal to her, and her comebacks, are things that come straight from me. But, the nice thing about writing is that she’s an idealized version of my sense of humor. She’s always so much funnier than I could ever be because I can go back and think of things, after the fact. She’s never down on the lines. She’s always got some comeback. So, it’s my humor, but better.

MediaBlvd> How long did it take you to write Succubus Blues, from when you got the idea until you were ready to look for a publisher?

Richelle> About six weeks. It actually went pretty quickly.

MediaBlvd> Then, how long did it take for you to sell it, once you were ready with it?

Richelle> From the time I finished it, it was 11 months later. I finished it in January of ‘05, and I sold it in November. However, I was not actively trying to sell it, in that time, so the time frame is a little off. I finished it in January and I queried about 10 agents, which I realize  isn’t a huge amount. At the time, it felt like so many. And, I either got no responses, or rejections, from those.  One person gave me feedback that the beginning was a little confusing because it was a conversation. It was a group of people hanging out. And so, I noted that. And then, I got busy because I was finishing the Master’s Degree for teaching, and I sort of put the whole thing on hold for quite a few months. Then, at the end of that summer, I went back and thought about that first chapter. I fixed the first chapter and wrote something completely different, and then I sent it to, maybe, five more agents. That’s when I got my agency that I’m with now. So, really, the only thing I changed was that first chapter, and that’s what it took to get an agent. And then, once we put it up for sale to publishers, it sold in under two weeks. It was really fast.

MediaBlvd> Without giving anything away, can you give any hints about Succubus Dreams, which you have coming out, later this year? What can fans of the first two books expect from Book 3?

Richelle> Succubus Dreams is the center of the series, and as such, it’s a real turning point in the series because we kind of lose the status quo. A supernatural mystery and Georgina’s love life still play central roles, but I think the ending will shock a lot of people.

MediaBlvd> How many Succubus books are you contracted for now? Do you have an end-goal in mind for the series, or are you writing it more open-ended?

Richelle> I currently am contracted for six Succubus books. I’ve always had an ending planned for it, which really helps as I write each book. At the moment, I think I could do the series in seven books, but if there’s demand, I can probably extend it.

MediaBlvd> Can you talk about your Vampire Academy series? What makes it Young Adult, as opposed to your other books?

Richelle> That series also follows my pattern of researching some myths, and then going with it from there. It draws on this old Romanian story about vampires, where there’s two kinds of vampires -- living vampires and dead vampires. That’s the premise of this world. These two races of vampires are at war and the dead ones are winning. My protagonist is a teenage girl who’s training to be a bodyguard for one of the living vampires, who is also a teenager, and her best friend. What makes it Young Adult is the fact that we do have teenage heroes that we’re following in the book. They go to school and they do all the normal things like that. Certainly, compared to the Succubus books, the content is toned down, as far as any language, violence or sex, so it’s geared for a younger audience. Although, I’d say the market for that is an older teen audience.

MediaBlvd> How many Vampire Academy books are you contracted for, and do you think that’s where you’ll be ending the series, or do you hope to continue it beyond that?

Richelle> There are currently five contracted Vampire Academy books total. I could definitely wrap up the story arc in that many, though I know there’s demand for more. So, I’m still deciding where to go with that.

MediaBlvd> Can you talk a little bit about Frostbite, and what fans of the first book can expect from that one? How have the characters grown and changed from Book 1 to Book 2?

Richelle> The characters are definitely growing. Rose is still wild and unpredictable, but in Book 2, we see her actively struggling for self-control. This becomes crucial to saving the lives of her friends, when what seems like a benign ski trip suddenly takes a dark and deadly turn.

MediaBlvd> What can you say about Book 3, Shadow Kiss (out in November)?

Richelle> I just finished writing it, and I loved it. I can’t say too much, except that it’s the darkest one yet! I think readers will really like it, but there are some very unexpected twists in it.

MediaBlvd> What is your Dark Swan series about?

Richelle> It’s the same publisher (Kensington) as Succubus Blues. It comes out about one month before Succubus Dreams. The Dark Swan series is a little less of a romance than the Succubus series, though there’s certainly still plenty of romance and sex in Storm Born. The protagonist for that one is a shaman. She’s a freelance person, who kicks back spirits or demons or fey that creep over into the human world from the Otherworld, and she has a lot of animosity for all of them. Through the book’s plot, she ends up having to cross over into the Otherworld and actually interact more intensely with these things she’s always been fighting. She’s more of an action hero than Georgina, which is fun to write, for a lot of reasons. Georgina is more of a thinking hero. She unravels things. She’s not someone that gets in fistfights. And, this character, Eugenie Markham, is more of a physical heroine, who fights things and has to defend herself. She can also die, which sounds really boring except that I have found a little trouble with the Succubus series, in having a character who really has no fear of dying. You lose a lot of your suspense, in that way. And so, I can put the Dark Swan character into much more danger because there is actually a risk that Georgina doesn’t have.

MediaBlvd> Do you have a set amount of Dark Swan books?

Richelle> No. That one’s a total mystery! I think the story arc could be done in 5, but I’m still deciding. I haven’t written the second book yet, so I think that’ll give me a better idea.

MediaBlvd> When you have two series that are already successful, does that put more pressure on you for the third series to also live up to that?

Richelle> Certainly. It almost puts more pressure on the successful series themselves, though. The Vampire Academy series has a lot of buzz and devoted fans, and I’m very anxious to live up to their expectations!

MediaBlvd> Are the sex scenes easy for you to write, or was that something you had to work on more?

Richelle> They’re getting easier and not easier, as time goes on. I was originally asked to make the sex scenes in Succubus Blues more detailed, so that took me to a different level that I hadn’t expected. And, it was kind of weird, working through that. But, I eventually got into a groove with that, and it was fine. And so, I’m pretty comfortable writing them now, but it’s weird to think about people reading them. That’s a strange thing. Writing them isn’t hard. The hardest part now is that I’ve read a lot of authors where their sex scenes are essentially the same sex scene, over and over, and I want to make sure I don’t fall into that trap, be it through a new language to describe it in, or something new and different in the act itself. The hardest part, now that I am comfortable with it, is to make sure I’m not repeating myself and getting monotonous. You definitely have to leave that self-consciousness at the door. One thing that’s helpful is to find something that’s more amped up and intense than what you’re going to write, like erotica. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like yours is as extreme, if you can find something that’s pushed the envelope that much further. You’ve just got to let go and realize that this is what you’re going to write, and it’s what you want to write, and don’t think about what other people are going to think.

MediaBlvd> Is it ever frustrating to have so much work finished, and then have to wait for it to come out?

Richelle> Yeah, actually, that was very frustrating, at first. Succubus Blues took a year and a half, from sale to release, and that drove me crazy. Part of the reason I wrote Storm Born was that I really wanted to have two books out in 2007. It was kind of depressing to find out they couldn’t schedule that one until 2008. I was disappointed by that. However, after going through the Vampire Academy experience, which Penguin was able to turn out much more quickly, for a number of reasons in their schedule, that process has just been insane. Everything I had to do for Vampire Academy was pushed together and done almost on top of each other, whereas the different stages of Succubus Blues editing was done throughout many, many months. Now that I’ve gone through that, I suddenly have a new appreciation for the time span of the others. I would definitely have loved to have seen them out in print sooner, and it was strange to be plotting the third Succubus book, Succubus Dreams, when no one had even read the first. But, there is a reason that the publishers take the time that they do. There are so many steps that you’ve got to go through, in taking the book to print. You don’t want to rush things. You want everything to be perfect. 

MediaBlvd> Can you talk about the story you have in the Eternal Lover anthology for Kensington? How did you decide what to write it about, and how does it fit in with the rest of the series? And, do you have plans for any more anthologies?

Richelle> The Eternal Lover novella is called “City of Demons,” and follows Georgina when she gets summoned for demonic jury duty. It’s a story that fits between Books 2 and 3, but it isn’t essential for following the series. As for how I decided to write about it, I don’t know. These things just pop into my head sometimes! I’ll be another anthology this fall of vampire Young Adult stories. It’s being put out exclusively by Borders.

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

Richelle> I actually work best in my house. I know there are a lot of people that need to get out and go to coffee shops, but that’s actually very distracting for me. So, I definitely like working at my own house, at my own computer. As far as a good time of day to write, it used to be nighttime, and then it shifted. My brief stint teaching has given me a little more productivity during the day. Usually, I’ll sit down to work, maybe an hour or so after I wake up. As far as how much I write per day, it really depends on what I’m doing. When I’m starting a new book and I’m in that first draft stage, there’s usually a lot of momentum and a lot of excitement, and I will write for many, many hours a day, often in batches. I’ll sit down for three hours, and then I go take a break to eat or work out, come back for another three hours, and repeat. That can often end up with nine-hour days, and that’s very hard because that’s continuous typing. I was actually in hand therapy after I finished Storm Born because, with that intense of a pace, I had done so much damage to my wrists and hands, I had to go heal myself up. And then, when I finish my first draft and I’m doing my own editing, that’s much more sporadic ‘cause the pressure is off, at that point, and it’s hard to maintain a schedule. It depends on if I have a goal or not. If I want to show it to my agent in a certain amount of time, I may be putting in just as many hours as I was before, in cleaning it up. Although, often, after working that intensely, I need to back away from the book. It’s healthy to give it a little space. I call it putting it in cold storage ‘cause I just need to not look at it for a little while.

MediaBlvd> Are you the kind of writer that likes to plot everything out, or do you like to see where the story and the characters take you?

Richelle> I definitely need to plot it out. I get so fixated on my characters, when I start thinking of something, that I’ve found it’s really important to know what I’m going to do with them next. My first novel -- the sci-fi novel -- has characters that are so beautifully drawn, my friends who have read it are heartbroken because they’re in love with these characters and they want them to do more, but I did not plot out my story in advance and it meandered. That’s why it ended up being far too long to reasonably sell. I just didn’t have their direction. And so, to make sure that doesn’t happen again, I outline everything. I have a very detailed synopsis before I write any novel. It usually works out to be about 15 pages, single-spaced, before I’ll sit down and let myself start writing the novel.

MediaBlvd> Are you ever surprised with a direction the story takes you in?

Richelle> Every once in awhile, yes. Usually, when I’ve done that much planning and detailing, I stay on track and not a lot happens that’s surprising. But, Storm Born is the one that comes to mind. That one really did go off in different directions than I expected, and I’m not entirely sure how that happened to me because it was so well plotted out. I very much wanted that one to be an episodic series with an action heroine who has whatever it is she has to defeat, in each book. It’s become more of an epic type thing now, which people will see once they read it, but I hadn’t intended that. I had wanted to have much more self-contained novels, but it’s definitely tied in. So, yeah, it does happen. Not very often, but it does, and I’m really not sure how that happens.                      

MediaBlvd> Have you ever had times when you’ve sat down to write and just not been inspired to write anything, or does the outlining prevent you from having that happen?

Richelle> The outline saves me from that a lot, if the outline is good. I have sat down and discovered that my outline is flawed, and that I didn’t plan out something well enough, and I’ll stall, at that point. I’ve also had plenty of writer’s block, in just doing the outline itself. Because it is so detailed, I really have to have the story fleshed out and decided before I can even write the outline, and so, if I’m stuck on something, I can sit there for a very long time, in the order of days and weeks, and that’s extremely frustrating. I always have this fear that somehow I’ve hit the writer’s block that’s going to afflict me for the rest of my life. It always lifts, but it can be very frustrating, depending on how long it lasts.

MediaBlvd> How do you work past those moments?

Richelle> Usually, doing other things is one part of it. It’s one of the few times I get to read other books, which is nice ‘cause I usually don’t read other novels, when I’m working on my own. And, now that I’m in a phase with books actually coming out, there’s a lot of promotional work that has to be done with it, so there’s always other things to do. I guess the best thing is just to stay calm. Provided I don’t have a deadline the following week, I can just tell myself to wait it out. It always lifts. If I can stop myself from panicking or getting depressed over it, it usually works out fine.

MediaBlvd> Do you enjoy getting feedback from fans, either through emails or at conventions? And, is there anything that you hear from them most often?

Richelle> I love feedback! It’s still staggering that people love what I write enough to contact me. As for what I hear the most, lots of times people want to know the status of other books. Mostly, they just tell me how much they like the characters. I never get tired of that.

MediaBlvd> Is there one character in particular that fans have said they like a lot, or that they’ve told you they don’t like, that has surprised you?

Richelle> Rose is the person most people like, though no one’s told me they hate the others. A lot of people identify with her, and I’m often asked if she’s based on anyone. For the record, she isn’t!                           

Richelle Mead at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention Book Fair held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Houston, Texas on April 28, 2007.

Richelle> Maybe slightly more the reviewers, but it’s really split. They’re two different audiences. There are the reviewers whose job it is to critique a story, on so many different points. Not that your average reader isn’t doing that too, but someone who loves urban fantasy or paranormal romance will read it and have an emotional, visceral response to it, which is different than a reviewer’s. They’re two different things, but they’re equally important, and each one is gratifying. It’s neat because they’re different kinds of feedback.

MediaBlvd> Have you ever had an editor come to you with corrections that you just didn’t agree with, and how do you deal with that sort of thing?

Richelle> Vampire Academy had a lot of culling of it. But, I haven’t been opposed or at odds with my editor, by any means. It’s just been an odd process because it started out as a pretty short book, like so many Young Adult ones are, and then I was given leave to expand it and build up the world and the characters, which I was so excited about. And so, I did. But then, we ended up with a lot of new material that we had to cull out and decide what we were going to do with. It really just becomes a mediation process because, at least in my experience, no one’s going to make you do something you’re absolutely appalled about. When we had differences, we both put out our reasons why it would make the book stronger. For most things, where we each wanted something, we found a compromise that still achieved the same goal. I’ve been lucky, in that regard. As far as the Kensington books, there’s been almost no changes to them, whatsoever, from the form I submitted them in, so I’ve been very lucky over there.

MediaBlvd> Do you have a favorite story or book that you’ve written, whether published or unpublished?

Richelle> I think Succubus Blues is always going to be my favorite. I don’t know if it’s because it’s the one that got published first, but I certainly feel extremely close to it and the characters, and I think that’s always going to be my favorite. Succubus Blues will always be my favorite child, so to speak.

MediaBlvd> What is your proudest accomplishment in your career, thus far?

Richelle> Just getting there. Getting that sale. I have a greater and greater appreciation for that now. The more I talk to people who are either starting out in writing or who are querying and trying to make that first sale, I realize how far I’ve come. When you start writing a book, I don’t think you realize how treacherous the waters are, that you have to get through to get to that sale.  There are so many things. The writing books that are out there only give you some information, and there’s so much you just have to learn the hard way. So, when I meet these people who are still back there, I realize, “Oh, my gosh, I went through all of this, too.” I’m just so pleased and excited that I was able to do that.

MediaBlvd> After you reached that goal of being published, did you set another goal for yourself that you’d like to reach, at some point?

Richelle> I just want to work on the series I have now and keep making them the best that they can be. I guess my goal is to just maintain the same level of quality. My goal is for them to all be successful, but the thing that I can currently control is just how good they come out. My goal is to make sure I don’t over-extend myself or start rushing because the deadlines are getting so intense. That’s my biggest concern. Eventually, many years away, these series are going to wrap up, and then something new will come. I’m excited to do that, someday, but for now, I’m content with these.

MediaBlvd> Now that you have a successful career as a writer, was there anyone who told you that you’d never succeed, that you hope is seeing your success now?

Richelle> No, there’s no one that I hold any animosity toward, or anything like that. The biggest thing I had was people who were nicely telling me that it wasn’t realistic to expect to make a career out of writing. There was no slam like, “Oh, you’ll never make it.” I was writing the sci-fi book during the Master’s Degree for teaching, and I wished I could have stopped that program to write full-time. The feedback I got from people was, “No, no, you have to do the reliable thing and the thing that’s safe. Don’t go out on that limb.” I got feedback from the “Don’t take a chance” mentality, and so, it’s neat to see that taking a chance does pay off. There’s no one that I feel like, “Ha ha, I showed you.”

MediaBlvd> Do you know what’s next for you, as far as your writing goes? Are you currently working on something?

Richelle> It’s a busy year! I just finished Vampire Academy #3, Shadow Kiss, and I love it. That’s out in November. In October, the third book in the Succubus series, Succubus Dreams, will be released. The Dark Swan series, about a fey-and-ghost-fighting shaman, comes out in August, which I’m very excited about. The first one is Storm Born. And finally, the Young Adult vampire anthology comes out in the Fall, near Halloween.

MediaBlvd> Do you have anything that you’ve written in the past that hasn’t been published, that you’d like to get out?

Richelle> That sci-fi novel I keep mentioning. It would be nice to see that out, someday. Knowing what I know now, I see the flaws in that structure, and it would take a lot of work to fix it up, but it would be neat, after putting in that much time, to see it out, someday. Although, I have to emphasis the someday because I couldn’t take on a fourth project right now. Even if I knew, “Oh, I could go ahead and make another series out of that,” I think it would kill me.

MediaBlvd> What advice can you offer aspiring writers, who are not only looking to get published, but who also want to make a career out of writing?

Richelle> It sounds cliche, but persistence is the biggest thing. First of all, just keep writing and finish the novel. I’ve run into people at conferences who have been writing a novel for 10 years, and they take six months off at a time. Certainly, for some people, writing a novel takes a long time. But, many cases, when that’s happening, people aren’t putting in the time, every day, or every week, or whatever it takes for them. It’s definitely important to just keep writing. And, if you finish a book, start another one. That’s advice you’ll hear a lot, and that is really good advice. As far as selling it, the thing I also have to keep saying, over and over, is learn the system because it is complicated and there are a lot of rules for querying. I’ll run into people who say, “I don’t really want to bother with query letters ‘cause it seems really hard.” First of all, you don’t have a choice. Second, if you do learn the rules and learn how it works, you can do it. My other piece of advice is that the system works. I see a lot of people throw up their hands and say, “Oh, you’re just going to go to the slush pile.” I was essentially taken from the slush pile. I did meet another agent at my agency at a conference and she recommended I send something to them, but I didn’t have any other inside connections, other than that meeting. They still had to read my work. A couple of good friends of mine, who are authors who also got deals, were completely from slush piles. They sent the query, they got an agent and they got a sale. Trust the system. You’ve just got to make sure you do what it takes. Finish your book. Keep querying. And, don’t give up, even if you get rejections.