Heart of darkness

Thank you so very much for inviting me over to your blog for a cup of espresso and a chat!  I’m so honored to have the chance to get to know you and your lovely readers.  

 *Am incercat sa traduc o parte din interviu, dar cum nu sunt chiar atat de buna la engleza(ma descurc la conversatii) si stau o tona cu dictionarul, l-am lasat in engleza. Scuze. *

Thank you so very much for inviting me over to your blog for a cup of espresso and a chat!  I’m so honored to have the chance to get to know you and your lovely readers. 

1. I know that this is the question that every writer hates, but everyone always asks: How do you get inspired? From where do you get your ideas?

There’s not any one thing that inspired me to write Cicada. I find inspiration in everything around me, and there are a lot of cumulative memories of inspiration from over the years that all culminated in this YA Paranormal Sci-Fi trilogy! However, I will say that I did include a lot of actual places from the town in which Cicada is set.

For instance, I pass a ranch on my way home every day (and sometimes night!), and out in the middle of one of the grassy fields is a small forest of trees with a dense wall of tightly grown underbrush. For years, I’ve imagined that something very mysterious was going on inside that forest, and sometimes at night I’d get creeped out while driving by it! Now readers can get a feel for that forest by reading about the “haunted forest” in Cicada!

2. What did you always want to be? How do you decided to be a writer? At what age do you decided you want to be a writer?

I have been daydreaming stories for as long as I can remember.  My first recollection of wanting to be a writer was when I was seven years old and in the second grade.  My teacher, Mrs. Rambin, would have us lay our heads on our desks after lunch while she read us stories full of magic and imagination.

Most of my early writings were stories with a twist of science fiction…even my earliest poems.  I remember sitting on the dam of a neighbor’s pond around the time I was eleven, writing a story about space travel.  In fact, I still have that little handwritten story.  It’s still bound in the same yellow notebook that I put it in way back in the sixth grade!

Growing up in Nacogdoches, the oldest town in Texas, afforded me summers full of adventure with my friends.  I call on those adventures and memories a great deal for my YA stories.  Cicada has a lot of the energy of those childhood adventures spun throughout.  One of them is something that actually happened to me when I was thirteen years old.  I was on one of my adventures in the woods with my dog, Dusty.  We made our way through the woods to a neighboring pasture and crawled through the barbed wire fence.  When we got to the top of one of the rolling hills in the grassy field, I realized I was standing in the middle of a giant circle imprinted in the pasture grass.  No one had ever told me about crop circles at that time in my life, so I just thought it was an odd occurrence that there was a strange circle in the tall grass.   Now that circle is forever memorialized in a YA novel, Cicada!

3.  How do you keep on staying motivated?  I know that to write a book is really hard work, so how could you continue this work?

That’s actually a very good question!  I suppose part of the actual work of an author is to keep oneself motivated and “in the story,” so to speak.  In order to do that, I created those inspiration playlists, and I also carry the daydream of the story around with me in my mind.  That’s when I really get a lot of writing done … when I’m daydreaming the story.

Actually putting that daydream down into words is probably the most difficult part of being a writer.  In ones mind, the story is so pure, so rich, and so rife with the sounds, smells, colors of the world of the story.  To put the wholeness of that world into words is a very tricky thing.  I’ve heard it said that putting a story into words is like wrestling a live octopus into a small jar!

When I find myself losing some of my motivation, I’ll hop into my car, put in a good CD, and take a long drive around town.  Since my stories are set in my home town, it’s easy to imagine my characters out and about at The Sonic or Starbucks.  Then I head home and put some words down.

4. I know that Cicada is a great story, so how did you decide you want to write Sci Fi?  When did you begun to write this book?  In what year did you begun and how long did it take to write this book?

Thank you very much!  I have always been enamored with Sci Fi, and besides one romance novel I wrote in the late ‘90s, I’ve only ever written Sci Fi stories.  They feel natural to me, so I cannot help myself.

 I began writing Cicada in June 2009.  I’d felt the urgent need to write something, and the whole story just sort of tumbled out of my imagination and onto the page.  It took me a year to write Cicada.  It may have taken less time to write if I wasn’t working at a day job full time and also attending college at University of Houston.

5. Cicada has extraordinary characters. Where do you start a book, with plot, characters or dialogue?

Thank you.  I really like my characters a lot … even the antagonists.  To be honest, I really don’t plot my stories.  When I start out, I know how the story begins and how it ends.  I know a few things that will happen along the way.  Then I act as if I’m just an observer who puts the story down into words while the characters lead the way.

6. Where do you write? Do you write with music, or do you have something that helps you to have imagination?

I’ve attached a separate document titled “Belle Whittington’s Writer’s Cave” to answer this question.

7. How was your life as teenager? Did you keep a diary? It was a special notebook or just an ordinary notebook? You decored it, or you have draws in it?  How was the cover?

When I was 13 years old, I was an awkward redhead with freckles who loved playing in the woods, riding my bicycle, and daydreaming.  I wrote a lot during those days, too … especially during the summer.  I think Battleship Galactica was on TV then, and it was my favorite show.  I’d watch it and imagine that I was one of the characters on the spaceship.  In retrospect, I wish I would have kept a diary, but I didn’t.  I suppose I was more interested in fiction than writing down the reality of my life. But, I did have a notebook that I carried around, and I scribbled pictures on the front of it.

9. What books did you read between 12-18 years? What was your favorite?

I think I read “Where the Red Fern Grows” (which made me cry like crazy!) and “A Wrinkle in Time” when I was twelve years old.  Believe it or not, I LOVED Shakespeare as a teenager.  And I read a lot of his works during those years.  I also read a lot of poetry.  Robert Frost and Edgar Allan Poe were among my favorites, and they inspired me to write quite a bit of poetry myself.

10. Do you like your new writer life? Is it beautiful, or how much did your life changed from the moment you published Cicada?

I adore being a published author!  It’s a dream come true, and it’s even more magical than I ever imagined it would be.  The biggest change in my life since I published Cicada would probably be that I’ve met so many lovely book bloggers and readers.  Every book blogger I’ve met has been a wonderful person, and I feel each and every one of them is a forever friend.  And I cherish each and every one of my readers.   It’s been wonderful.

11. What advice do you have for teen writers?

The most important advice I could give teen writers is to read, read, read.  Read across the genres, for you never know from where your inspiration will come.  Then write, write, write!  Get that story down onto paper.  Only edit once you are through.  And never, ever, ever give up on your dream.  Follow your heart!

12. When is your birthday? And how old are you?

Oh, do I really have to answer this question?  LOL!  Well, my birthday is in May … so I’m a child of summer.  And I’m 44 years old … but don’t tell anyone that! LOL.

13. What is your favorite quote?

My absolute favorite quote is one that changed my life.

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”  ~George Eliot

Over the course of the past few weeks, I’ve had the great opportunity to meet many Romanian book bloggers and readers.  It has truly been a wonderful experience for me, because each and every one of you are warm, lovely, and kind … and I have been swept away with your hospitality.  Just getting to know each and every one of you reminds me why I write YA, and it also makes me want to plan a trip to Romania! <3

I hope each and every one of you know that I treasure you and invite you to stop by any or all of my social networking sites to say “hi”.  I adore hearing from my readers, and I always respond.

  Thank you very much for the interwiew! It means a lot.