Here's how to enter this week's contest for a chance to win an autographed copy of Kelly Meding's debut novel Three Days to Dead:
1. Leave a comment after the interview answering this question: Meding says she has a favorite novel, which is not written by her favorite author (a concept that's oddly never occurred to me)—What is your favorite novel?
2. Follow the blog and let me know in the comments after the interview. If you're already a follower, just remind me in the comments.
3. Post about NON on your own blog and send me the link (in the comments).
4. Tweet about this interview and contest and send me the link (in the comments).
**Each method gains you one entry into the contest, for a total of four chances to win. With all comments, be sure to leave me an email address at which I can contact you. You can combine all ways you've entered into one comment and still be entered multiple times. The winner will be selected randomly and notified next Monday. This contest is open only in the continental United States and ends at midnight on Sunday, November 29.
Title: Three Days to Dead
Number One Novels: Congratulations on the publication of your first book! Tell me a little about it—what's your pitch?
Kelly Meding: Three Days to Dead is about a murdered paranormal bounty hunter who is resurrected into a new body, with only three days to solve her own murder and stop a potentially deadly alliance between the city's vampires and goblins. That's the elevator pitch.
NON: How did you get the idea for your novel?
KM: The idea came about two ways. The first was simply a desire to write something very paranormal. Before I wrote Three Days to Dead, I'd written other speculative novels (one about psychic powers, another about superheroes), but nothing that was straight paranormal—vampires and werewolves and ghouls and goblins, etc…I hadn't gone there yet.
The second part of it was a scene that never ended up in any written form (that I can find record of, although I feel like I did write something down at some point). I'd recently read Jackie Kessler's Hell's Belles and had concepts of heaven and hell on my mind. I had a flash of a scene in which a woman is stuck in Purgatory but is then summoned by someone (an archangel, maybe). This someone makes her an offer of sorts—go back to Earth and help do something, and you get a free pass to Heaven.
I started brainstorming this, trying to answer a few questions: Why her? What could she do that would prompt her getting this deal? What's happening back on Earth? As I worked on these questions, it occurred to me it wasn't what she could do, but rather something she knew. She wasn't being sent back, someone brought her back with magic. As the heroine and her circumstances began falling into place, that initial Purgatory scene became useless. The story begins when Evy, my heroine, wakes up in her brand-new body, with no clue as to what's going on or where she is.
NON: No two authors seem to take the same route to publication, but almost every author has an interesting story about their journey. How did you get published? Did you use an agent? How did you find out that your book had sold?
KM: I do have an agent, yes. Three Days to Dead was my jackpot book. It was the seventh novel I'd written, and the third I'd queried to agents. The first two I queried acquired a good number of rejections, and only a handful of material requests. They just weren't right. Three Days was right. I sent out nine queries in February of '08, and within two months had four requests for material. That Friday before Memorial Day, I received a very nice rejection on a full request, with an offer to pass it along to an agent friend she thought might like it. I said of course. I received an email from that agent on Tuesday, and immediately thought he was emailing to say he'd gotten the manuscript and would read it when he had the chance. It was actually, to my utter shock, an offer of representation. He'd gotten it Friday, read it over the weekend, and loved it, and was confident that, with a few changes, he could sell it.
Well, after I screamed for my roommate to come read the email and make sure I hadn't hallucinated the offer, I emailed him back. By Thursday, I'd officially accepted his offer. We did two rounds of edits, and then went out on submission to six editors the second week of July. By the third week in August, we had three offers, and I chose the offer from Dell. It was fast and surreal and an utterly amazing experience—from agent queries to publishing deal in about seven months.
The thing I remember most about the sale is that it was all happening while I was moving from one state to another. So in the midst of hearing about the first offer, I was still packing. I heard about the second a few days before the actual move. The deal was made less than a week after I settled into the new house. I was on the phone with my agent when I made the choice to go with Dell, and we hung up so he could call them and say so. I immediately called my parents, and my dad was home, so I told him first. Maybe ten minutes had passed when the call waiting beeped at me, telling me I had another call.
I looked at the Caller ID and nearly flipped out. Said to my dad, "Dad, I have to call you back. Random House is on the phone." Click. Yes, I hung up on my father. He, of course, forgave me.
NON: I think that names say a lot about a person, especially a fictional person. How did you decide on your protagonist’s full name? Did you have any other names that were in the running?
KM: I knew I wanted a strong, distinguishable name. I rarely use common names for my characters, male or female, so there was never a chance of her being Sarah, or Anne, or Lisa. I'd watched one of the Mummy movies recently (the Brendan Fraser ones), and liked the heroine's nickname, Evy (or Evie, not sure how they spelled it). But I didn't want to use the name Evelyn. So I used Evangeline. As soon as that was in my head, I knew Evangeline was her name. It fit.
I have no idea where Stone came from. It was probably rattling around in my brain, because it's the surname of a character from my favorite comic book series ever, The Teen Titans—Victor "Cyborg" Stone. But once I had Evangeline Stone, there was never any other name for her.
NON: Do you have another book in the works?
KM: The second book in the series, As Lie the Dead, is in production, and is scheduled for June 2010. I have a new project with my agent, as well, so we'll see where that goes.
NON: What's your writing routine? Do you write in the mornings, nights, daily, or when the mood strikes you?
KM: I write whenever I can. I don't think I'm more productive at any particular time of day, although I rarely ever write any earlier than 10 am. I like to give my brain time to wake up and absorb coffee before I make it get creative. I do the majority of my writing at my computer, but I'll scratch out scenes on notepads almost anywhere—lunch break, in long lines, in the car (when I'm not driving, obviously).
I'm a big proponent of discipline, and not so much the idea of being "struck by the muse." Writers write. We don't talk about writing, we don't talk about not being able to write, we just do it. Discipline is very, very important if you want to make a career of writing and selling novels. There's this little thing called a Deadline that will require discipline. Waiting for Inspiration won't help you meet a Deadline. Train Inspiration to be waiting at your computer for you when you sit down.
NON: Finally, if you had to pick one author as your favorite, who would it be?
KM: That's a hard one. I'm always ready with my favorite novel (Watership Down, by Richard Adams, in case you were curious), but it's so hard to pin down my favorite author. I mean, for sheer depth of creativity and breadth of work, I could say Stephen King. For her ability to make me weep and truly have an emotional experience, I could say Megan Hart. For amazingly creative worlds, hot and sexy heroes, and genuine humor, I could say Gena Showalter.
Kelly Meding: Three Days to Dead is about a murdered paranormal bounty hunter who is resurrected into a new body, with only three days to solve her own murder and stop a potentially deadly alliance between the city's vampires and goblins. That's the elevator pitch.
NON: How did you get the idea for your novel?
KM: The idea came about two ways. The first was simply a desire to write something very paranormal. Before I wrote Three Days to Dead, I'd written other speculative novels (one about psychic powers, another about superheroes), but nothing that was straight paranormal—vampires and werewolves and ghouls and goblins, etc…I hadn't gone there yet.The second part of it was a scene that never ended up in any written form (that I can find record of, although I feel like I did write something down at some point). I'd recently read Jackie Kessler's Hell's Belles and had concepts of heaven and hell on my mind. I had a flash of a scene in which a woman is stuck in Purgatory but is then summoned by someone (an archangel, maybe). This someone makes her an offer of sorts—go back to Earth and help do something, and you get a free pass to Heaven.
I started brainstorming this, trying to answer a few questions: Why her? What could she do that would prompt her getting this deal? What's happening back on Earth? As I worked on these questions, it occurred to me it wasn't what she could do, but rather something she knew. She wasn't being sent back, someone brought her back with magic. As the heroine and her circumstances began falling into place, that initial Purgatory scene became useless. The story begins when Evy, my heroine, wakes up in her brand-new body, with no clue as to what's going on or where she is.
NON: No two authors seem to take the same route to publication, but almost every author has an interesting story about their journey. How did you get published? Did you use an agent? How did you find out that your book had sold?
KM: I do have an agent, yes. Three Days to Dead was my jackpot book. It was the seventh novel I'd written, and the third I'd queried to agents. The first two I queried acquired a good number of rejections, and only a handful of material requests. They just weren't right. Three Days was right. I sent out nine queries in February of '08, and within two months had four requests for material. That Friday before Memorial Day, I received a very nice rejection on a full request, with an offer to pass it along to an agent friend she thought might like it. I said of course. I received an email from that agent on Tuesday, and immediately thought he was emailing to say he'd gotten the manuscript and would read it when he had the chance. It was actually, to my utter shock, an offer of representation. He'd gotten it Friday, read it over the weekend, and loved it, and was confident that, with a few changes, he could sell it.
Well, after I screamed for my roommate to come read the email and make sure I hadn't hallucinated the offer, I emailed him back. By Thursday, I'd officially accepted his offer. We did two rounds of edits, and then went out on submission to six editors the second week of July. By the third week in August, we had three offers, and I chose the offer from Dell. It was fast and surreal and an utterly amazing experience—from agent queries to publishing deal in about seven months.
The thing I remember most about the sale is that it was all happening while I was moving from one state to another. So in the midst of hearing about the first offer, I was still packing. I heard about the second a few days before the actual move. The deal was made less than a week after I settled into the new house. I was on the phone with my agent when I made the choice to go with Dell, and we hung up so he could call them and say so. I immediately called my parents, and my dad was home, so I told him first. Maybe ten minutes had passed when the call waiting beeped at me, telling me I had another call.
I looked at the Caller ID and nearly flipped out. Said to my dad, "Dad, I have to call you back. Random House is on the phone." Click. Yes, I hung up on my father. He, of course, forgave me.
NON: I think that names say a lot about a person, especially a fictional person. How did you decide on your protagonist’s full name? Did you have any other names that were in the running?
KM: I knew I wanted a strong, distinguishable name. I rarely use common names for my characters, male or female, so there was never a chance of her being Sarah, or Anne, or Lisa. I'd watched one of the Mummy movies recently (the Brendan Fraser ones), and liked the heroine's nickname, Evy (or Evie, not sure how they spelled it). But I didn't want to use the name Evelyn. So I used Evangeline. As soon as that was in my head, I knew Evangeline was her name. It fit.
I have no idea where Stone came from. It was probably rattling around in my brain, because it's the surname of a character from my favorite comic book series ever, The Teen Titans—Victor "Cyborg" Stone. But once I had Evangeline Stone, there was never any other name for her.
NON: Do you have another book in the works?
KM: The second book in the series, As Lie the Dead, is in production, and is scheduled for June 2010. I have a new project with my agent, as well, so we'll see where that goes.
NON: What's your writing routine? Do you write in the mornings, nights, daily, or when the mood strikes you?
KM: I write whenever I can. I don't think I'm more productive at any particular time of day, although I rarely ever write any earlier than 10 am. I like to give my brain time to wake up and absorb coffee before I make it get creative. I do the majority of my writing at my computer, but I'll scratch out scenes on notepads almost anywhere—lunch break, in long lines, in the car (when I'm not driving, obviously).
I'm a big proponent of discipline, and not so much the idea of being "struck by the muse." Writers write. We don't talk about writing, we don't talk about not being able to write, we just do it. Discipline is very, very important if you want to make a career of writing and selling novels. There's this little thing called a Deadline that will require discipline. Waiting for Inspiration won't help you meet a Deadline. Train Inspiration to be waiting at your computer for you when you sit down.
NON: Finally, if you had to pick one author as your favorite, who would it be?
KM: That's a hard one. I'm always ready with my favorite novel (Watership Down, by Richard Adams, in case you were curious), but it's so hard to pin down my favorite author. I mean, for sheer depth of creativity and breadth of work, I could say Stephen King. For her ability to make me weep and truly have an emotional experience, I could say Megan Hart. For amazingly creative worlds, hot and sexy heroes, and genuine humor, I could say Gena Showalter.
Um, can I pick a scriptwriter? Because for true depth of genius and his ability to write things that speak universally to people, I'll pick Joss Whedon. I'd give my left pinkie to be a quarter good as he is.
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