For this last day of the LIES I LIVE BY TOUR, check out my interview with Lauren Sabel!
1. What inspired
LIES I LIVE BY?
LIES I LIVE BY came to me like a fever. Or rather, the
main character did. I had been obsessed with reading about the United States
remote viewer program during the Cold War (1960’s-1980’s), with no thought
about a plot coming out of it. (I am like that, you know. Obsessive.) So after
several books of me going “WOW!” from my favorite spot on my couch, a character
named Callie Sinclair emerged.
2. Who is your
favorite character to write? Or your favorite scene?
I loved writing Callie. She is very me (except the psychic part), and so her voice came to me
naturally. She’s a complicated girl, both brave and whiny, confident in some
ways yet full of self doubt in others. In fact, she was so me that when my
editor asked me to make Callie more likable
in the second draft, it felt like
she was asking for Lauren 2.0. So hopefully she’s more likable now! J
3. What is one
piece of writing advice you would give aspiring novelists?
Don’t give up
because a few people don’t believe in you, even if they are people you trust or
admire. Nobody knows who will be
successful in this world, or which writers or writing styles readers will love.
If anybody claims to know what will be popular or valuable to readers in the
future, don’t believe them. Nobody knows. (That’s why JK Rowling had a bunch of
rejections with Harry Potter.) YOU know if you are good; and if you trust that inner
knowledge, and follow it, it will take you somewhere.
4. When did you
first know you wanted to write?
When I was seven years old and heard a clever Shel
Silverstein poem. I thought, “I want to be able to twist words like that.” It
was like hearing verbal gymnastics, the way Silverstein made you think and feel
so many things at the same time. (Poem,
pics, and full story here: http://laurensabel.com/?page_id=2) Luckily, my parents were supportive of my
creative ways, so I was encouraged to daydream and create fictional worlds all
day for years, much to the displeasure of all of my math and science teachers.
5. Why did you
write YA? What about the Young Adult genre captivated you?
Being a teenager is HARD. In comparison, being an adult
is easy. Adults are rather boring: we go
to work, raise children, work on our relationships, clean the house, go to
sleep and do it all over again the next day (hopefully with great joy in our
hearts), but teenagers, they LIVE.
They do the hard part of living: the searching for self
identity, the ups and downs of friendships and relationships coming together
and breaking up, the finding out about what you want to do and who you want to become.
That’s hard work. And in the midst of all that hard work, they are
expected to lead a “normal” life, which has often been imagined for them
already by their parents or teachers. But in truth, there is no such thing as a
normal life. There are only people, unique, talented, anxiety-ridden people,
struggling to find meaning in their everyday lives, trying to celebrate the
fact that they are exceptional.
ABOUT LIES I LIVE BY:
Romance, intrigue, and action collide in this psychic twist on the classic spy novel.
Callie Sinclair is literally out of her mind; as the government’s youngest psychic spy, she finds valuable information for top-secret missions. Her work keeps her headaches at bay, but it means she must lie to everyone she loves, including her longtime boyfriend, Charlie.
When a new psychic arrives at the office, Callie can’t help but flirt; Jasper already knows her in a way Charlie never will.
But as her love life gets more complicated, so do her visions. People halfway around the world seem to be in danger...and people in her own backyard, too. If Callie can’t find a way to alter future events, she could lose the people she loves—and her mind. Literally.
Lauren Sabel’s enthralling, romantic novel captures the thrill of exploring a unique power in a dangerous world.
LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | iBooks | The Book Depository
Lauren loves her husband, her family, her friends, and stories that end happily. (Unfortunately, hers never do.) She also loves digging into her mind and revealing tiny gems she didn’t know were there.
Lauren learned to mind dig while getting her MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa, a Buddhist college in Boulder, Colorado. Before Naropa, Lauren studied film in Rome, where she developed her love of crypts and other beautiful creepy things. She also worked in the film industry in New York and San Francisco, focusing mainly on film festivals, as she can never pass up a good party. In San Francisco she worked for Chronicle Books, where she was inducted into the fascinating world of book publishing.
For the past eight years, Lauren has been teaching college students the joys of creative writing, whether they like it or not.
In 2008, Lauren was published in Undiscovered Voices, an anthology of the best new writers for children in the U.K., where she was living at the time. Then life got very exciting very quickly. She signed with Jodi Reamer Esq. at The Writer’s House Agency in New York, and they made magic happen, and that magic is named Katherine Tegen. (aka: Katherine Tegen Publishing, Harper Collins).
Lauren's first book, Vivian Divine is Dead was published June 3 2014. At that time, I was obsessed with reading books about the remote viewers who helped the US government during the Cold War. My book LIES I LIVE BY came out of how that research blended with my imagination. Callie, the 17 year old psychic spy, burst out of me with a voice of her own, and 18 months later, she was ready.
Lauren believes that being a teenager is an act of courage, and is proud of anyone who manages to stick through it, despite the pain. :)
Tour Schedule:
Week 1:
6/1: Avid Reader - Review
Week 2:
Giveaway:
3 Finished Copies of LIES I LIVE BY (US Only)
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thank you for hosting this tour1 i love your blog tours--I get to know the authors and their work very well in a fun way.
ReplyDeleteOooh, I definitely want to read this book now!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you liked my interview and I hope you enjoy the book!
DeleteLauren
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ReplyDeleteThanks for posting my interview and hosting my tour Hannah! It was fun 😊😊
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