I was super excited to be asked by Emily of Lalone Marketing to take part in an ‘Author Speed Dating’ event right before the signing. Basically, each blogger that participated would get 5 minutes to talk to all 10 authors – hello! Yes, please! I was so excited because I’ve done interviews before but never in person – this was both amazing and scary at the same time, but it was an absolutely wonderful experience.
So, each day for the next two weeks, I’ll be spotlighting one of the authors that I got to sit down and chat with last Saturday – in case you missed it, Day 1 was S.C. Stephens, Day 2 was J. Sterling, Day 3 was Amanda Bennett, yesterday it was Jillian Dodd and today we have the fabulous Rebecca Donovan. Rebecca was actually the first author I talked to – and I was so nervous! This is one of Brooke’s favorite authors…and while I’ve met/seen her before…this was just different! She was super nice and patient with me though and…I actually got lucky because I had twice as much time with her as I did all the other authors!
We asked last week on our Facebook page for some questions for the authors – so I tried to incorporate as many of them as I could into the interview…I added the name of whoever ‘asked’ the question! Now…let’s get to the interview… 🙂
Lisa: We asked our followers to give us some questions – so I’ll start with those, what are some of your favorite books? (question from Kristen Kocher)
Rebecca: My favorite books? I actually love horror fiction, dystopian, sci-fi – things I don’t write. So one of my favorites is His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman – The Golden Compass – and I loved The Book Thief, How to Kill a Rock Star…
Lisa: I LOVE that Book
Rebecca: Amazing book! One of the most understated books.
Lisa: Yes! I think she is amazing!
Rebecca: I love The Sea of Tranquility – Katja, I’m a huge fan of hers and I know she’s my friend, but I’m also a huge fan.
Lisa: That’s actually how we got the name of our blog, was from Drew, ‘True Story’. Is there anything in any of your books that you would change if you were given the chance? (question from Kristen Kocher)
Rebecca: I lived and breathed them so – no pun intended – for so long, and I messed with them…I actually at one point messed with the first (Reason to Breathe) so much before I published that I stripped it – so no!
Lisa: You’re like –they’re perfect!
Rebecca: No…I mean, I just….I can’t…I can’t…
Lisa: You can’t imagine it being anything else
Rebecca: Once it’s out there you just have to go and just do it
Lisa: If you weren’t a writer what other profession would you be working in? (question from Deborah Favorito)
Rebecca: Well I was an event planner, I used to plan weddings and I was good at it, so probably I would do that.
Lisa: Did you like doing that?
Rebecca: Yeah!
Lisa: How long from concept to completion of your first book? (question from Tanya Gaunt)
Rebecca: My first? Took me…cause I was kind of stuck inside in the winter and I had nothing else to do so it took me about 6 weeks to write it – the first draft.
Lisa: Oh wow!
Rebecca: But then I had it for a year and a half and I messed with it for a year and a half. Umm…like What If, I just wrote, it took me 7 months – so it’s like having a child, each one has a different, like birthing experience.
Lisa: What is your go-to snack food when writing? (question from Nicole Montgomery)
Rebecca: Mountain Dew and chocolate – like usually like a Lindt chocolate, a rich chocolate, something…yeah, chocolate and Mountain Dew!
Lisa: I was going to say – I have a signed Mountain Dew (from you) on my bookshelf from Vegas! Brooke loves Diet Mountain Dew so I was like teehee, I got one!
Rebecca: I don’t like Diet! No! It’s not the same!
Lisa: Which of your characters will you always hold a certain soft spot for? (question from Andie Lea)
Rebecca: Hmm…well, Emma, just because of her struggle and what she went through. But Evan, I created as my perfect guy. Like he doesn’t exist and I just made him so perfect because that was just kind of my fantasy boyfriend kind of thing so I got to make him however I wanted to be – and I’m pretty happy with that!
Lisa: Which character can you relate to the most? (question from Andie Lea)
Rebecca: I dabble my personality into my female characters, so I have a little bit of Sarah’s energy and her crass and – but I have a lot of Emma’s intuitiveness…and so, yeah, I put me – any of my friends are like ‘Oh that’s so you – I can hear you talking” – so I think they know – if you know me.
Lisa: I think it’s hard not to insert yourself a little bit into your characters.
Rebecca: Some people can’t – don’t and I don’t know how to do that.
Lisa: What do you think is the most difficult…beginning or ending a storyline? (question from Andie Lea)
Rebecca: Beginning. Absolutely the beginning. I write the beginnings over like 5 times. Yeah – endings I know, because I’m building myself – I know the ending before I start. So I’m building myself up through the whole writing process to get to the end.
Lisa: How often are you thinking and jotting notes down about the characters and storyline that come into your head? (question from Andie Lea)
Rebecca: I don’t take notes on them – but I live and breathe them always. They’re always talking to me and I…sometimes, will talk out loud. But yes, they’re always there – I’m haunted.
Lisa: So you don’t need notes.
Rebecca: I’m haunted by voices.
Lisa: If you could sit down face to face with one of your characters, who would you choose and why?(question from Andie Lea)
Rebecca: Jonathan because he’s so messed up and I want to understand him.
Lisa: Who decides who and what goes on your covers? (question from Lorie Glowania)
Rebecca: When I was indie, that was me – I completely designed those, I had a company do it – but it was my…
Lisa: It was your concept.
Rebecca: Yeah. But with these (gesturing towards paperbacks) I had some direction, but really what it was was they give you an image and you’re like okay…so how do we do this! Like for example, this one (Reason to Breathe) looked like there was nothing really, like she was looking out of a car window and it just looked like she was looking out a window – and I was like nope, let’s change that. This one (Barely Breathing), was a whole open stairwell and there was a window in front and I’m like, nope, let’s change that. And if you look at it the door is opening the wrong way. But, Out of Breath, the same thing like so I had to make it…
Lisa: Tweak it a little bit.
Rebecca: Yeah – I said silohette her, I didn’t really want to see her too much – make it darker, so like I gave them…
Lisa: A little bit of creative input.
Rebecca: Yeah. I do like these two (Barely Breathing and Out of Breath), I don’t like this one (Reason to Breathe).
Lisa: Really?
Rebecca: No, I don’t like her, she’s not attractive – I don’t want you to see a face. I don’t want to show you a face.
Lisa: Yeah, I’m the same way.
Rebecca: What If , you’re going to see a face – because I actually met her! It was so bizarre, I was so freaked out – because I met her at Cochella, I was like…
Lisa: I know your face!
Rebecca: I created you! How are you here?
Lisa: You’re my character!
Rebecca: I was so freaked out, she’s actually a model in LA, and so we’ve been in touch and she’s actually going to be my cover model.
Lisa: Oh nice!
Rebecca: I know…but it’s so bizarre!
Lisa: I know, but I’m the same way with covers and stuff like that – that’s who the character is in my head now, I’ve got it. What is your process in writing? (question from Lorie Glowania)
Rebecca: Umm…again, I know the beginning – I know the major points, so I plot them, and I use a calendar to keep my plot, my points on there, so it’s chronologically accurate.
Lisa: Oh good.
Rebecca: Umm…and sometimes I do it in pencil because sometimes you move things and then I just draw…I just breathe from point to point, but again with What If I actually wrote out of order – and I’ve never done that before.
Lisa: Yeah that sounds like…scary
Rebecca: So this…I definitely wrote chronologically. That one, I just had like a scene and I wrote it and then I found a way to connect it and I actually had to re-write them eventually but I at least got it out. Again…every book feels like it has a different feel. So there’s no method to my madness I suppose.
Lisa: Where is your favorite place to write? (question from Cynthia Mae)
Rebecca: Um…I love writing by the ocean, I draw a lot of energy from being in that like serene setting. I don’t currently live…I live in the woods right now, which is fine and good – but I have my office, I like to usually, again, different experience – I wrote Reason to Breathe in bed. Like sitting in bed, with a pillow propped up and the others I wrote on a chaise – What If I wrote at my desk actually.
Lisa: Every one is different
Rebecca: Yeah, I know – it’s again and I don’t mess with it – I’m so superstitious about those type of things – like where ever I feel the energy, wherever I feel the mojo come in…
Lisa: You just go for it.
Rebecca: I don’t mess with it – actually the last week of What If because everything was like – I had such a hard time writing that book so the last week that everything was just flowing out, I did the same thing every day – I wore my hair in a braid everyday, I had a cheeseburger and French fries everyday and two Mountain Dews and that’s it! Every day for that entire week because I didn’t want to loose that rhythm!
Lisa: That’s so cool though!
Rebecca: OMG I was so…(laughs)
Lisa: What was your original inspiration to start writing? (question from Rachel Talavera)
Rebecca: I’ve always written – I was always a very imaginative child, I had imaginary friends and we played a lot, so eventually when it go to the point where I could write it down, for school, I was that child that had to read her story in front of the class as like an example because I just came up with these crazy stories. So…and I always journaled – I wanted to be a journalist originally. Umm…so it’s just always been a part of me, always lived inside of me.
Lisa: What are the top 3 things on your bucket list? (question from Kimberly Talbot)
Rebecca: Umm…I want to go to Africa, I want to white water raft the Zambezi River…
Lisa: Oh wow, cool!
Rebecca: Umm…I want to…hmm…I want to start a non-profit for abused teens. And I want to…something with traveling – I love traveling.
Lisa: Me too!
Rebecca: I just want to have like no limit to wherever I can go. I just want to see the world.
Lisa: Favorite Characters POV to write in?
Rebecca: Umm…huh…I think it’s more intuitive when I write from a teenage girls POV because I really am 16. So, it comes out so easily. But yeah…but I like being challenged, I liked writing from a 20 year old guys POV, but it’s just really hard because it wasn’t intuitive, it was counterintuitive.
Lisa: Right
Rebecca: Because they don’t – they are very observant, they don’t go into detail- it was really…yeah – I had to keep pulling me out of it, so it was really challenging.
Lisa: Who do you FanGirl over?
Rebecca: Oh my gosh…I don’t know – like I’m not a…I’m a very like ‘let people live their lives’ type of person. Like I will obsess over their product and if anything I’m more of a musician – like I love music, so it’s more bands and stuff, but I don’t know if – I don’t know! Because I don’t approach people, I just kind of let them live.
Lisa: I know I’m the same way – I don’t want to be an imposition.
Rebecca: Right. I appreciate what they give me but who you are – and sometimes I’m afraid to know – I don’t want to know because what if I don’t like you?
Lisa: Right, yeah. And once you do know, what if you know something you don’t like!
Rebecca: Yeah! Like no – I just want to like your music! Cause some people have made awful decisions in their personal life that come to fruition and I can’t listen to their music anymore.
Lisa: Right.
Rebecca: If you’re not of sound character, I can’t support them.
Have you read Rebecca’s amazing Breathing Series?
The Breathing Series
Add Reason to Breath to your GoodReads ♦ Add Barely Breathing to your GoodReads ♦ Add Out of Breath to your GoodReads
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Optimism seeps from every pore of my body. I truly believe that what’s supposed to happen… will! In that regard, I don’t know how to give up; it’s not part of my biological make up.
I’m a passionate (and some would say, overly enthusiastic) person. I learn by doing (and have been burned more times that I’d like to admit), but I will always throw my entire self into whatever I do – fail or succeed.
I think this is evident when I write, leaving nothing behind and spilling it all out on the pages. I give it all to my readers – love it or hate it.
The path I’m on is very often my own, veering off the beaten path at the sight of something more interesting or captivating, getting caught in the vines and thorns in order to experience the beauty and intrigue others often pass by. And I always meet the most interesting people along the way…
I haven’t had the chance to meet any authors! 🙁
I want to meet Ginger Voight and Madeline Sheehan sooooo bad!!