Interviews: Cassy and Alex

This week, we're being a little self-indulgent and reading each other's novels from NaNoWriMo! To kick it off, we're interviewing each other today!

Alex Interviews Cassy

Tell us a little bit about your book:

For a long time, I've been interested in the Cassandra myth (because my name is the same, if that's not completely obvious.)  So I took that myth and put it in modern day. Here is this girl, who has this ability to see the future, but she has to do normal things... like go to public school

How did you come up with this idea?

I... kind of just told you.  :)  I mean, this PARTICULAR idea to set it in modern day came around during a writing exercise in my Creative Writing class in college.  I just chose a NaNo to actually formulate it.

What was the hardest part about writing this book?

Oh, jeez, keeping track of everyone probably.  I mean, there are a lot of characters, who all have individual looks and you have to make sure you SHOW that.  And it's really hard not to make them all look exactly alike (especially because most of them are related.)

What was the easiest part?

The dialogue.  It was so easy to create these voices for characters, these back and forths, the inside jokes.  It's always my favorite part.

Who is your favorite character? Why?

That's a toss up.  I really loved writing Cassandra.  She was fun to do.  But, as a character, I probably like Hector the best.  I have a special place in my heart for Hector.  He's just such the quintessential big brother. 

If your book were being turned into a movie, who would you cast for the main characters?

Oh... hrmm... That's such a hard question!  Well, clearly Jennifer Lawrence would play Cassandra, because she's awesome (though, we'd have to dye her hair red.)  I always imagine Clive Owen as Hector, but I think that might mostly because he's already played Hector. 

I think the kid who plays Jacob in Twilight would be a good Archer.  Archer needs to be mean and big and buff. 

Past that... I'm not really sure.

What are you working on next?

I'm (kind of) working on a "Admin Assistant" novel.  I'm collecting stories from my years as an admin/receptionist, and other stories too, and kind of putting them together in a collection.  I'm not anywhere near where I need to be to start writing.

Which, shameless plug, if anyone wants to pop over to my other blog and tell me their crazy customer/clients/boss stories, I would LOVE it.  I would totally credit you in the book, too.  Because I'm awesome like that.

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Now it's my turn to ask Alex questions!

Let's start with a typical one: Where did the idea for Epilogue come from?

I started with the title, actually. I was explaining to a student at the library that an epilogue is the "where are they now" at the end of a novel, like the montage that comes right before the credits in a terrible '80s movie, and the way I explained it made me think of a post-apocalypse type of story, like the epilogue of mankind. It sounds horribly cheesy now that I actually say it, but that's definitely what I was thinking.

If you could make one major change on it, right now, what would it be?

I didn't do any editing at all to this book, so... everything. But no, if I had to pick one, I'd work on spacing out the end. It's all really rushed, because I knew I was getting close to my 50,000 words, and I wanted to just finish it and be done.

What was your favorite part of the book?

I honestly don't want anyone else to read this book, so I don't feel bad about giving this away: When Anselm tricks Chaya and Lester into the truck and locks them in. Anselm was one of those characters who (writing-wise) just did whatever he wanted, and I wrote it down. Almost everything he did, I didn't have to think about very hard. I like when characters do that in my head, because then their actions and dialogue seem more natural, like it's what a real person would do.

What do you do in your spare time?

You know perfectly well that I have no spare time! Ha. No, but seriously... I read a lot, for this blog, of course. I watch things on Netflix (I'm currently catching up with the new Doctor Who) and craft things. I'm on a partial crafting swap hiatus, so I can plan my wedding. I also blog like a champ: I have a grammar blog, a personal blog, a wedding blog, and of course, this blog.

I know there must be a million books in your TBR pile.  What book are you just dying to read?

The rest of the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin is now on the pile, thanks to last week. I also can't wait for the next book in the Divergent series to come out, and I want to read the rest of the Unwind series, too. There are a lot of Ellen Hopkins books I haven't gotten to, as well.

What project(s) are you working on?

April is NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month), as everyone will hear about from me on Thursdays all April here on Review Me Twice. I'll be posting my daily poems on my grammar blog. It's also the first session of Camp NaNoWriMo, where I'll be writing at least 50,000 words of a novel called Comorbidity, about a guy who is the last surviving carrier of a deadly disease that cannot survive outside of a human host, so he is held captive so the disease can be studied. I would also like to explore the possibility of us creating a NaZoWriMo (National Zombie Writing Month) here at RMT.

What's your favorite part of writing?

I love naming my characters. I use 200000-names.com to come up with names that not only sound right, but mean something. For example, Chaya in Epilogue is a female Hebrew name that means "alive," because I intended for her to be this awesome survivor chick. (I lament that she becomes sort of a damsel-in-distress character; that's another thing I would fix in heavy editing.)