Welcome to the first-ever guest post on my blog, by none other than author, agent, and all-around awesome person, Lucienne Diver!!! Thanks, Lucienne, for being here.
Without further ado...
As all writers know, it’s not just a job, it’s a commitment—or we should be committed…or something like that. It’s true.
I joke that I started writing so that I could give the characters in my head other people to talk to so they’d leave me alone. Sadly, it doesn’t really work like that either. I get a character like the teen fashionista Gina from my Vampedseries (trying to beautify, not belittle, the world one person at a time), and a short story absolutely doesn’t satisfy her. She wants a novel, then two. Before I know it, she’s insisted on at least four…and her own blog. Oh, and an interim short story between the release of books two and three so that she’s not gone from the fans’ minds and hearts for too terribly long. (Can you say diva?)
Or take my newest heroine, Tori Karacis, former circus brat, current P.I. from Bad Blood. It’s not enough to have Tori in my head. That I could live with. She’s smart and snarky, and the two of us could definitely hang. But her family! OMG. Her grandmother (living) and grandfather (deceased) both had steaming piles…er, pearls…of wisdom to impart during Tori’s formative years (which explains a lot). For some reason, they felt the need to share with the class. Of course, I decided that if Tori and I had to be warped by their wisdom, so did my readers. Thus, some of their wit appears as chapter openers sprinkled throughout the book. If I had all the time in the world, I’d even consider setting up the website that Yiayia (Tori’s grandmother) runs, called Goddities. It’s essentially a scandal sheet on the Greek gods who—oh yes, my friends—are still running around in modern times, though their diminished worship and power has led to the need for actual (gasp) day jobs. Talk about a crazy cast of characters!
Add in murder, plots, mayhem and destruction and…well, my head is a very scary place to be.
The fun thing as an author is that you get to welcome other people into the insanity that is your world.
So come, walk a mile in my shoes. And, uh, sorry about the squelching. Poseidon isn’t terribly thrilled with me at the moment.
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For Murder and Mayhem:
Bad Blood, first novel of the Latter-Day Olympians
Available digitally June 2011, print in May 2012
For Fangs and Fun:
Fangtastic (forthcoming January 2012)
