Thank you so much, David for popping over to Dark Obsession Chronicles! I know you've been on your travel adventure, lounging at the beach, and working on your next book - and I'm just tickled pink you could find a few moments for me.
*Alana takes a moment to look up from her notes, and her jaw drops open.*
Wow, you really are Mr. Blue Eyes... what were we up to again? Oh,
right, blog tour... blue eyes... I meant interview. I thought it might
be good to warn you, I scattered some of my favorite quotes from The Moon Dwellers in the interview. Just thought I'd
sprinkle some great little nuggets I found during my read of the ARC.
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"The stallion in me
wants to jump up, say, 'I'm here, and I'd love to meet you!' but
thankfully my mind's black hole implodes upon itself, evaporating and
returning clarity of thought."
So, I thought I'd get some of the thoughtful questions out of the way first, and then finish off with some fun stuff!
Why were you drawn to write a YA dystopian novel?
*Alana stares with rapt attention*
*David tries to answer without getting freaked out by Alana’s staring* Thanks so much for taking the time to interview me, Alana!! As
many of my readers and friends know, I tend to be rather excitable, so
please don’t get annoyed with the multitude of !!!s that will surely be
included in my responses. As another disclaimer before we
get into it, I’m just a smidge sarcastic (don’t give me that look Alana,
it’s a pinch at the most), so please take very little of what I say
seriously. Except for the really good stuff, that is!
Hmm, well that’s a great first question. My interest in YA dystopian really goes all the way back to 2008, when I first read The Hunger Games. That was before everyone had read it and I was being a major book pusher (which is pretty normal for me), trying to get all my friends to read it. My
the time I’d written and published my first trilogy (The Evolution
Trilogy), the YA dystopian revolution was in full swing and I was pretty
much obsessed, reading
every dystopian book I could get my hands on. One day I
thought to myself, “Self, you could write a pretty darn good dystopian
book,” so I got started right away, which is what I do.
It’s
well documented that I have serious OCD, such that when I dive into a
project, I am all the way in, to the point of crazy,
my-wife-wants-to-strangle-me obsession. So I finished the book in about thirty days, let’s call it a month just to be conservative. *winks, yep, that was my sarcasm* I
dove into the beta stage with a fervor, and to my utmost delight, my
early readers came back with extremely positive feedback, along with
some awesome constructive feedback. I edited, rewrote, revised,
edited, added a prologue, changed the tense, and edited some more, and finally the book was ready!
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"No
matter how much I try to wish it all away, my past is the zit that you
pop, watch bleed, watch heal, only to see poking from your skin again a
week later."
I've only read a small number of dystopian books and I did notice
some parallels with City of Ember. Have you read that book, and if so
did it provide any inspiration for your work? If not that book, then
what books, or movies proved to be muses for the Moon Dwellers?
I’m
actually so glad you mentioned City of Ember, because I had a bit of a
freak out moment when I was in the beta stage for The Moon Dwellers. I was bored, because I wasn’t currently working on any projects and I was just waiting for feedback from my beta readers. So I was trolling through potential dystopian books to read and I found City of Ember. When I read what it was about, I freaked out, thinking my idea had already been done. I
purposely
haven’t read City of Ember, as I don’t want to be accused of copying,
and I truly hope my book stands on its own and doesn’t seem to similar,
but I’ll have to leave it up to the readers to decide as I still haven’t
read City of Ember.
So to answer your other question, City of Ember didn’t provide any inspiration for The Moon Dwellers,
but I definitely drew inspiration from some of the other dystopian
books I’ve read, like Divergent (omg I love that book so much), The
Hunger Games (one word: awesome), and The Maze Runner (cooler than Dairy
Queen ice cream cakes).
from Amazon
