Behind The Pen: with Carolyn Crane (+giveaway)

OK, I love interviews.  But I find the artists behind the stories equaling intriguing, and I think they deserve as much limelight as their characters. So here instead of a list of questions about the story, the plot, and the characters I ask authors the same 11 questions about themselves and hopefully get a glimpse behind the pen...

Today is a special day for a couple reasons.  To start, this is the first edition of 'Behind the Pen'. But more importantly, today is one of my favorite new authors Carolyn Crane's birthday! So, to celebrate she'll be leading off this new segment, and will be giving away a copy of Mind Games and a chocolate treat (since birthday cake is a tad hard to ship)


Giveaway Details: 

• Please make a comment, sing a birthday song, give away a wish, etc. below
• U.S. & Canada only
• You have until Friday, Sept 24th at 8pm (pst) to leave a comment for Carolyn
• Winner will be announced here Monday Sept. 27th

In case you don't know Carolyn, she's the author of The Disillusionists series. She has her highly anticipated second installment in the series, Double Cross, releasing Sept. 28th. Be sure to pick up a copy!  

And if Carolyn is a new author to you, then definitely leave a comment here and get a copy of Mind Games so you can see what all the fuss is about.  

Q 1: What is the last book you read?

CC: I just finished MY FORBIDDEN DESIRE by Carolyn Jewel. It was my first Carolyn Jewel paranormal (I love her historicals) and I read it out of order! I almost never do that, but it totally worked, and I loved it. Darkly sexy, and really inventive and trippy in terms of magical stuff, and also, really darn exciting!

Q 2: If you were stuck on a desert island, what book would you like to have with you?
CC: Well, I might reread Kushiel’s Dart. It’s nice and long, and I thought it was excellent. I always mean to reread Middlemarch, too. I love that book. I think I’d want to bring a book I already read, so that I’d know it’s good. Though, if Joanna Bourne’s next was out, I’d bring that.


Q 3: What is your favorite swear word?
CC: Fuck! I think it carries the most weight.

Q 4: What is your biggest pet-peeve?
CC: This is stupid, but when people put on their signal while they are turning, instead of beforehand. Or, when you get stuck behind them at a light, and THEN they turn on their signal. Why? Why even bother? Oh you late signal turner-oners!! Also, I don’t like when people over-explain things to me. Also, I hate when people don’t recycle when they just as easily could. Look, three answers. Hopefully your pet-peeve isn’t people who endlessly prattle on about their pet peeves. 

Q 5: What quality do you most like in a man?

CC: I was just thinking the other day how much I love how impractical my husband is. I’m really practical and he is so wonderfully impulsive and impractical.

Q 6: What quality do you most like in a woman?

CC: Intelligence. And I tend to like sarcastic and/or humorous women.

Q 7: What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?

CC: I would like to be a cop. I would arrest those late-signalers! No, that’s not why. I guess I just love cop shows. But I would have to have a complete personality transplant first. I’m way too much of a pushover to be a cop.

Q 8: If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

CC: These are very interesting questions! I’d really love to live in San Francisco. I always feel really happy there. And the cool weather makes me want to run around excitedly. And, as freelancers, my husband and I are somewhat mobile, and we do contemplate moves like that (my husband would love to go back to New York city, his childhood home). But the cost! Minneapolis is pretty inexpensive living, which is great for writers. You don’t have to work as much to survive, and it’s a nice place, too.

Q 9: What inspires you?

CC: This is a very  open-ended question! I would have to say portrayals of intensity and raw emotion inspire me, especially in songs or movies or really excellent TV shows. For example, there was this scene in The Shield, an ultra-violent cop show I like, where this minor character, Dutch’s, self image got totally penetrated and destroyed by a serial killer’s insight. I was shocked and moved by it. I guess anything that moves me, because I am a totally even-keeled person. Look how I go on and on! Do I get excused because it is my birthday?  (OF COURSE YOU DO!)

Q 10: If you could be one person (dead or alive) for a day who would you be?

CC: I can’t even think of an answer! Not a writer. I’d like to be somebody who works on projects with other people, and is really into it.

Q 11: Mac or PC?

CC: Mac, baby!

*I did ask Carolyn a couple questions I've always wanted to ask her*

The Spinecracker: I can only imagine what it must be like for you on a release day. How do you cope? Any unique quirks, rituals, places/sites you avoid or can't stay away from?

CC: All of release week can be kind of emotional. It’s like you’ve been living in this enclosed biosphere of stories and people that you created, tending lovingly to it all, and suddenly it’s not enclosed anymore and everybody sees into it and says stuff about it. I’ve only been through one release day, and I was kind of a mess! I mean, it’s fun and exciting, and it’s what a writer ultimately wants—a book release. But it’s scary. I find it’s hard to concentrate. In the best world, I’ll stay away from things like Amazon rankings and trolling Google for every mention.

The Spinecracker: I've always loved superheroes, and the Disillusionists are an original set.   How long were they playing around in your head, before you decided they had a story to tell?  And how long did it take you to write their first story, or did you write all three at once?

CC: I got the idea all at once, really (An anecdote I sometimes tell, that I had just read a hugely depressing semi-philosophical book that made me feel awful, and I thought, if I had an enemy, I would give them this book as a gift, so that they could feel as disillusioned as I did. Then I thought, what if there were people who disillusioned other people for money? Hey, that would make an interesting plot!) And from that idea I started playing with a possible team. From the start, I thought it would be cool if, with my squad, if their weaknesses were powers. It evolved and simplified as I worked with it, maybe over about four months until I had the setup where it is now. It started out overly complex.

Help me thank Carolyn for being so kind and taking the time to answer my Proust-esque questionnaire by leaving a comment/birthday wish!


Be sure to go out and purchase Double Cross when it releases Sept 28th!