Q&A Interview and Giveaway with Jocelynn Drake

LITERAL ADDICTION Paranormal Book Club (http://www.literaladdiction.com/) and Book Monster Reviews are very proud to welcome Jocelynn Drake to our sites today!

Jocelynn, the eldest child from a Midwestern family, began her writing future at the tender age of 12, re-writing and recording the entire story of Robin Hood as she thought it should be told in the tattered remains of a notebook.  Since then, life has taken many twists and turns, but the one constant has been her love of writing and desire to tell an incredible tale, and we, as fans, are certainly grateful for that!  J

Jocelynn is a New York Times Bestselling author, and has captured fans attentions and hearts with her DARK DAYS series as well as her work in the “Unbound” anthology that she collaborated on with several of our other favorites. 

To the great sadness of her readers, after just 3 years, DARK DAYS is coming to a close with Book #6, “Burn The Night” having just been released on June 28, 2011.  While we’re all greatly saddened that we won’t have any more Danaus and Mira, we’re very excited to see what Jocelynn brings us next!

Jocelynn’s Q&A Interview can also be found over on the Author’s Corner page of LITERAL ADDICTION , so head on over to the L.A. site as well, and make sure you enter the contest there too.

Also, don’t forget that Jocelynn will be doing a 2 hour interactive Live Chat from 5:00 – 7:00pm EST (4:00-6:00pm CT/3:00 – 5:00pm MDT/2:00 – 4:00pm MDT) over on LITERAL ADDICTION’s Contact Us Page Chatroom (http://www.literaladdiction.com/contact-us.php/ ).

**Remember, in order to be eligible for the Giveaway Contest drawing following this Event, you must be a Member of the LITERAL ADDICTION forum where the Q&A is posted, as well as a Follower of Book Monster Reviews Blog, and leave Comments regarding the Interview to BOTH sites with your email address! 

LITERAL ADDICTION/Book Monster Reviews:  Hi Jocelynn!  Thank you so much for being with us today.  We can’t wait to learn a little bit more about you, and let our members, followers, and guests have a chance to talk one-on-one with you a little later as well!

Jocelynn: Thank you so much for having me!  It’s been a whirlwind few days as I celebrate and promote the release of the final Dark Days book as well as turn in the first book of my new series to my editor.  The past few years have been such an amazing roller-coaster ride and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

LITERAL ADDICTION/Book Monster Reviews:  We hope you don’t mind, but we’d like to start by learning a bit more about the author behind DARK DAYS…

Q1):  This is our staple starter question…  Can you tell us 3 things about yourself that we couldn’t find out on the Internet?

Jocelynn: That’s actually a hard question since it seems like most of my life has been made available on the Internet over the past few years.  I mean, is there anything you can’t find on the Internet now?  But let’s see what I can come up with…. I have a growing collection of Disney snowglobes.  I have well over a dozen now and have been collecting them for more than decade.  I love their intricate details and the tinkling music that dances from them when you wind the key.  I have a somewhat unhealthy infatuation with all things Batman.  I have nursed this infatuation for more years than I can count and my dream of dreams is to write my own Batman story for publication.  I am currently considering getting a Batman-related tattoo. And finally, I hate cleaning the kitchen.  The dishes just pile up and pile up.  But I guess the other good part is that I don’t cook so it really takes a while for the dishes to pile up.     

Q2):  What do you feel are the most challenging and most rewarding parts of being an author?

Jocelynn: Sometimes the most challenging part is coming up with something new to say when it feels like everything has been done a hundred times already.  Sometimes it’s learning that it’s not about doing something no one has done before, but saying something in a new way.  Making it yours.  One of the most rewarding parts will always be hearing from the fans of the books.  I love hearing people cheer on certain characters or saying how much they hate other characters.  There’s something intoxicating about eliciting an emotional response from a person on the other side of the globe you might never have known about before.

Q3):  What is your fondest childhood memory?

Jocelynn: I have a lot of wonderful childhood memories because I was lucky enough to grow up with an amazing, loving family.  I would never have gotten here without my supportive parents and my annoyingly perfect younger brothers.  Sometimes my favorite memories are the small ones.  I was sitting on the floor in my room, reading over something I was working on.  I couldn’t have been more than 13 or 14 at the time.  My dad came home from a long day at work and presented me with a brand new Webster’s New World Thesaurus.  Now, you have to understand that my dad wasn’t a shopper.  All gifts were acquired by my mother because she just understood these things.  But just out of the blue, my dad stopped at a local super discount store and purchased my first thesaurus.  It still had the price tag on the back and I think it only cost him $2.  But it wasn’t the value the world gave the gift, but the value he saw it in.  He not only thought of me when he was out at a store, but he knew exactly what I needed.  I haven’t used the thesaurus in years because of the thesaurus built into Word, but it sits right beside me at my desk and I wouldn’t consider writing a book without it.

My second fondest memory is very similar.  A rather young version of myself was sitting in my room, writing once again.  My father stepped in randomly and gave me a common first class stamp.  The 25-cent stamp featured a beautiful pink rose with “LOVE” written on it.  Many years later, I still have the stamp.

    Q4):  You started writing young; did anyone or anything special inspire you to become an author?

Jocelynn: I don’t know if there was anything in particular that inspired me.  I was a voracious reader, starting from a very young age.  When I was little, I would walk over to the bookshelves in my bedroom, pull down an enormous stack of books and just lay down on the floor and read everything in the stack.  Every weekend I looked forward to when my dad would drive me down to the library so I could get a new stack of books.  One of the first places I drove to when I got my driver’s license was the library.  I lived and breathed books, so I guess in my mind it was only a natural step to move from reading to writing books. 

Q5):  What personal dreams have been realized for you as a result of your writing?

Jocelynn:  So many and they seem to have fallen over me so quickly.  My greatest dream was simply to be published.  I honestly never thought that would happen and I was quite stunned for a long time when I acquired my first contract.  One of my books has also appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.  I feel like I should just stop dreaming after that, because I feel like I’ve achieved more than I deserve.  But I have also managed to meet a few authors that I have long admired and I count several amazing writers as good friends.

Q6):  If you could describe your life up to this moment in 3 words, what would they be?

Jocelynn: busy, chaotic, wonderful

Q7):  If you weren’t a writer, what career do you think you would have pursued?

Jocelynn:  For roughly 10 years, I was involved in the financial industry.  My father spurred that interest and I have to admit that the frantic energy on Wall Street is quite addicting.  I still write articles on the doings of the stock market and I think that I would have focused more on that if I had not become a full-time writer.  

LITERAL ADDICTION/Book Monster Reviews:  O.K, now we’ll get to the slightly more ‘bookish’ questions…

Q8):  If you could spend the day with one of your characters, which would it be and why?

Jocelynn:  I’m actually quite torn with this question.  I haven’t spent much time with Mira or Danaus in a while and a part of me wants to say either or both of them.  But then I think that I’ve written six books from their point of view.  I know them and I also know that they will always be dancing in the back of my mind.  Sometimes, I think I would like to meet up with Tristan at a quiet coffee house one night and ask him if he’s ever forgiven me for what I did to him.  Sometimes, I think I would like to go for a moonlight stroll with Valerio because he is so sexy and secretive.  I sometimes wonder if he’s nursing a wounded heart over his separation from Mira.  Other times, I think I would like to chat with Nicolai and try to find him a good woman.  And at the end of the day, I would give Mira’s friend Alexandra a call and apologize for not getting around to the wedding I had always planned for her.

Q9):  Do you feel that there’s an underlying message in your books that you hope your readers will grasp? 

Jocelynn:  Oddly, that’s one of the reasons I always hesitated in trying to publish a book.  I always felt like I had to have something to say, some valuable moral to share with the world.  In the end, I think in many ways the Dark Days series became more about exorcising my own personal demons.  I think Dark Days is partially about pushing forward when it seems like all the world is against you because it’s the right thing to do.  And I think it’s partially about being willing to take a chance on someone when it seems insane because you just might learn something valuable about the world and yourself.  And in the end, I think the books are largely about acceptance, particularly of yourself.

Q10):  What were the challenges (research, literary, psychological, logistical, etc) in bringing DARK DAYS to life?

Jocelynn:   There were a lot of challenges in bringing the Dark Days series to the world.  There is so much emotional upheaval in the books that they were at times very exhausting to write because I was so involved with the characters.  But oddly one of the greatest challenges was simply in the details.  I had to do a lot of research for the books because Mira and her crew were constantly hopping around the world to locations that I had never visited before.  I had to read up on the locations, checking hotels, travel pictures, and various routes so that everything was correct and crisp in detail for the readers.  Then there was just the trouble of getting everyone from point A to point B.  When dealing with nightwalkers, you have to be very aware of the time of day, the time the sun sets and rises, and different time changes.  And then there were also times I had to keep track of the stages of the moon.  It’s these little details you had to keep a close eye on or they would trip you up.

Q11):  Why do you feel you had to tell the DARK DAYS tale? 

Jocelynn:  Sometimes I don’t feel like I really had a choice in the matter.  I had been slowly working on different versions of Mira in little stories that had no beginnings or endings.  She was just there, always there, talking in the back of my mind.  She was always there with a smirk, just waiting for me to finally tell her tale.  In the early days, I knew we were searching for something but I didn’t know what.  At least not until I was flipping through a video game review magazine one day.  That’s when I spotted the image of the man that would become Danaus.  It’s like Mira and I were struck by lightning.  We were filled with such energy and we could finally move forward with Mira’s story.  We had been waiting for her Danaus to find us.  It was only after I finished writing the book that I thought about trying to get it published.  While I was writing it, the only thing I thought about was the story.

Q12):  Since unfortunately we’ll never get to read it, can you tell us about something you had to cut from the “Burn The Night” manuscript?

Jocelynn:  Actually, my first drafts have a tendency to run short when I write them.  I almost never cut out scenes and there aren’t any deleted scenes for “Burn the Night”. 

Q13):  If you have Danaus and Mira in a room with a panel of readers as an audience, what would you want to ask them and how do you think they’d answer?

Jocelynn: I have found that many readers have focused very tightly on the reluctant romance between Mira and Danaus.  And I think they would like to know if they believed they could have a “happily ever after”?   I think Danaus would simply frown at the question, but secretly give Mira’s hand a little squeeze under the table.  Mira would give a little knowing smirk, and say “We don’t live in a world of ‘happily ever after’ but I believe that it’s something that Danaus and I are willing to die fighting for nonetheless.”

Q14):  Do you have a scene from the series so far that was your favorite?  Those of us who’ve read it will no doubt recognize it, and those of us who haven’t will want to seek it out…

Jocelynn:  Only one scene?  Ha!  No.  I’ve got lots, but let’s see if I can pare it down.  I love the scene in the James’s library in “Nightwalker” where Mira is sitting real close to Danaus and they almost …..  And in “Dayhunter”, I love the scene in the church between Mira and Danaus when he finally tells her what he thinks he is.  It’s one of the first moments in the series where Danaus is truly vulnerable.  There’s the kiss in “Pray for Dawn” and then there’s the scene that everyone seemed to be waiting for in “Wait for Dusk.”  In “Burn the Night”, I think it’s where Danaus tells Mira that he’ll be “her Rowe.”  I think in that moment, we not only fully understand everything that Rowe risked and sacrificed for Aurora, but we also see what Danaus is willing to risk and sacrifice for his cherished enemy/lover.     

Q15):  Is there anything you wish were different about your books and/or the series as a whole, either something that you were held back on for 1 reason or another, things you had to do to set the story up for the next book, etc?

Jocelynn:  There were several plotlines that were in the original and early planning of the series that never happened.  There was one book I had lovingly thought of as “the date book” in which Mira and Danaus would travel to Portland for Alexandra’s wedding and solve a kidnapping/murder plot. But at the heart of the novel would be Mira and Danaus stumbling to find their footing in a new, shaky relationship.  But things changed in the plotting and I never got around to the book.  I don’t regret it.  I am very happy with how things worked out and I think it is the best story that could be told.

Q16):   Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?  If so, what do you do to get the creative juices flowing again?

Jocelynn:  Despite my best efforts, writer’s block does occur on occasion.  It’s usually in the planning of fight scenes.  Sometimes I just force myself to type, even if it’s total garbage.  I just keep typing.  It’s usually ugly and painful and slow, but I push through it.  Sometimes I do my best thinking when I drive.  Other times, I walk away and pick up a book in another genre to read for a little while.

Q17):  This is another of our staple questions…  What question have you always wanted to be asked in an interview but never have been, and how would you answer that question?

Jocelynn:  Honestly, after completing interviews during the past three years, I feel like I’ve been asked every writing/book-related question under the sun.  I guess one question would be: “When you finish a book and are once again faced with a blank page, are you ever afraid that you won’t be able to do it again?” 

Actually, yes, I am afraid.  I pour so much of myself into each book and I sometimes fear that I don’t have anything left to keep writing.  I worry that I’m going to run out of interesting ideas.  I worry that I’m going to start to repeat myself.  And then after a little while, the ideas and the characters overwhelm the fears and then there’s only you and the page that’s quickly filling up with words, spilling onto a new page, building until there are a growing stack of pages.  After a while you stop worry about whether you can because you’re nearly done.

Q18):  With DARK DAYS coming to an end, do you think we’ll ever hear about Danaus and Mira again in a spin-off series, etc?

Jocelynn:  I just don’t know.  I have been working with Mira and Danaus for roughly seven years.  A part of me just can’t imagine not working with Mira and Danaus.  I slip so easily into Mira’s mind and voice.  But I look at the Dark Days series and I can confidently say that their story is done.  I don’t have any more plans for them.  Are there sketches for stories regarding some other characters?  Yes.  Will those ever be turned into published books?  I don’t know.  I’ve just learned to never say never.  For now, I have other things to work on.

Q19):  What’s next for Jocelynn Drake? 

Jocelynn:  I am happy to say that I am quite busy at the moment and hard at work on new stories.  Looking ahead, I am happy to report that I haven’t completely closed the door on Mira just yet.  When I was at a book signing this past winter, there was a loud request for a story that focused on Mira’s past with Valerio.  I was always hesitant to tell that story because it would have to be written as a historical and didn’t fit in the general frame of the Dark Days series.  So now that the series is closed, I have finished a novella that is technically a prequel to the series, set approximately 200 years before “Nightwalker,” looking at an episode in Mira’s past when she was romantically involved with Valerio.  It’s going to be released only as an e-book and we are hoping to have it out this fall.

In the meantime, I have just handed in the first book in my new series that focuses on a tattoo artist in a world inhabited by all manner of creature and lorded over by witches and warlocks.  In this highly magical world, humans have learned to gain an edge by visiting a tattoo artist.  For the right price, the tattoo artist can give you a tattoo that might give you good luck, love, or even hex and ex.  The first book is tentatively slated to be released next summer.

But before that, we are looking to release a pair of short stories set in the tattoo artist series before the first book to give readers a taste of what it to come.  At the moment, I am working on the short stories.

Q20):  Is there anything you would like to make sure and say to your readers while we have you here today? 

Jocelynn:  I’d simply like to say “Thank You.”  Thank you to all the readers who have taken a chance on my books.  I have loved writing them.  I love spending my days and nights with Mira and Danaus, and you have given me that wonderful chance.  Thank you for loving them as much as I do.  I feel that they are safe in your hands.

LITERAL ADDICTION/Book Monster Reviews:  Jocelynn, thank you so much again for answering all of our questions.  It’s been fabulous having you, and we’re very excited to talk to you one-on-one a little bit later in the Chat. 

Jocelynn:  Thank you so much for this wonderful interview.  It has been a perfect walk down memory lane as I reflect on so much that has happened in the Dark Days world.  Mira and Danaus will be missed, but never forgotten.

CONTEST:  Jocelynn Drake is giving away a SIGNED copy of her new release Burn The Night. 
To Enter, Post a comment on the interview and make sure you leave a valid email address.  Any comments without an email address will NOT be entered into drawing. You must also be a follower of the BMR blog.  GOOD LUCK!!!!

Don't forget to drop by the LITERAL ADDICTION website (http://www.literaladdiction.com/)  and enter to win their contest too!!!