INTERVIEW & GIVEAWAY: Angie Fox

Alright boils and ghouls, at long last, I've another interview to share with everyone, as promised, and this one's pretty dang awesome.

Ladies and gents, let's welcome the lovely Angie Fox, author of the Demon Slayer series featuring Lizzie Brown and her fantastically unbelievable Jack Russel Pirate. Once upon a time, Lizzie was just your average run-of-the-mill preschool teacher until one day she wakes up and BAM! Her dog can talk, her biker witch Grandma shows up and whisks her off to fight the good fight because, oh by the way, she's a demon slayer, and then a mysterious, yummilicious bad boy pops up complete with his very own hidden agenda and things just go downhill from there.

But why am I blathering on about this when Ms. Fox can tell you all about this herself!

So, now without further adieu, enjoy! (Oh, and y'all did notice the "giveaway" part of this post's title, yes? Stay tuned after the interview for the deets!)

(1) So, I guess I may as well start with the basics: how exactly did Angie Fox break into the publishing world?

Very slowly. I’d been writing for seven years. During first five, I produced two books. Then I decided to focus harder and wrote my third book in just under a year. I was writing mystery/suspense and having a tough time of it. I’d outline, I’d write pages and pages of character notes, I’d force myself to do those little note cards. And I hate note cards. In retrospect, I was fighting my voice. I’d write these serious, research heavy chapters and then sneak off to read the latest Katie MacAlister book, or giggle through a few chapters of MaryJanice Davidson. It took a while for it to click and for me to realize that hmm…maybe I should write the kind of books I love to read.

I had this spark of an idea about a preschool teacher who is forced to run off with a gang of geriatric biker witches and The Accidental Demon Slayer was born. Instead of a 20-page plot outline, I had a 5-page list of ideas, one of which included “but little did they know, all the Shoney’s are run by werewolves.” Instead of following the rules, I broke a few. Instead of painstakingly writing over the course of a year, I grinned my way through the book and had a complete manuscript in five months.

The opening chapters did well in contests and caught the eye of an editor, who asked to see the whole thing. That same editor bought the book less than a week after I finished it. And I didn’t write one single note card.

(2) Your current series, the Accidental Demon Slayer series, is about a pre-school teacher who one day has her terrier start talking, her biker-witch grandma show up and a mysterious hottie come out of the wood work. At this point, there are four books released. Do you have a definite idea of where this series is going? Tied to this and “it depends on my publisher/sales” aside, have you an idea how long the series will be?

I know exactly where the series is going. It used to drive my editor nuts because we’d be editing book 2 she’d say, “what about X” and I’d say, “Oh we can’t do that because Y happens in book 4.” And it would.

The books were very well plotted out because I wanted the main character to have a complete journey, to come into her own as a demon slayer, so I had to plan out how that would span the books. That said, I also made sure each book is a complete story on its own. It drives me crazy as a reader to pick up a book and then learn it’s a middle book of a series and I’m hopelessly lost, so I will not do that in my books.

Oh and to get back to your original question, there will be four books total in the Accidental Demon Slayer series. I’d originally planned for five (and I may still write book 5) but after my publisher started having problems releasing their books, I decided to give the series a satisfying ending after book 4.

(3) The aforementioned mysterious hottie turns out not to be a vampire or a werewolf or even a dragon but a griffin from Greece. Of all the critters bouncing about there, why a griffin? Why Greece?
Have you seen how many hot men there are in Greece? I was there in 2002 and was blown away. I knew I had to write about a hot Greek.

As for why Dimitri is a griffin, I wonder why more paranormal authors don’t write about griffins. They’re strong, sexy and griffins are one of the only creatures who mate for life. In fact, the griffin was a symbol of marriage and fidelity in the early Christian church because they are so loyal and focused on love and family. What better hero is there than a man who is dedicated to family and wants to find one woman to love?

(4) How about the story itself – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?
Out of my warped brain. Seriously, sometimes I’ll think of an idea or make a character do something and it seems pretty reasonable to me. Then someone will say, “How do you even think of that?” Whoops.

But I will tell you this – I’m a big believer in really thinking things through before starting a book. I can’t tell you how many decent ideas I rejected before saying, “What if you had this accidental demon slayer…” Because you have to be 100% invested and downright entertained by the book you’re writing. As a reader, I can always tell the authors that love what they’re writing. And those are the ones I buy.

When a writer is invested in a book, the story evolves from there. Like when I sat down to write The Accidental Demon Slayer, I had no notes about a sidekick for my heroine. But in the second chapter, when she’d learned she was a demon slayer and all hell was after her, she took comfort in her dog. As I was writing, I thought, ‘This is a sweet moment. Now how do I throw her off?’ Simple. I made the dog say something to her. Nothing big. After all, he’s only after the fettuccine from last week. And he knows exactly where my heroine can find it (back of the fridge, to the left of the lettuce crisper, behind the mustard).

It amused me, so I did it. Thanks to her unholy powers, my heroine can now understand her smart-mouthed Jack Russell Terrier. I think the most important thing when you sit down to the keyboard is to be willing to follow your story in new directions, because if you’re enjoying the surprise, chances are your readers will too.

(5) Tale of Two Demon Slayers takes place in Greece as oppose to the US; have you been to Greece yourself? How was it making such a drastic change in setting?

I’ve been all over Greece and I absolutely love it. It’s a gorgeous country where you are literally tripping over history everywhere you look. It was a perfect place for an ancient griffin clan to live.

The drastic change in setting – to Greece – in A Tale of Two Demon Slayers worked really well because it was different. It made the book unique and it drew in a lot of readers who wanted that inside look at life on a Grecian island (The majority of the book takes place on Santorini). Plus it was a hoot to take the biker witches out of their element (Southern US dive bars) and plop them down in an exotic locale.

I’ve spent a lot of time on Santorini, so the details – from the wine they drink to the way the sandy soil feels under their feet – are as real as you can get.

(6) Is there any research that goes into your writing? How does that go? What sources do you use most?

I’ve had a ball with research for the Accidental Demon Slayer series. The biker witches ride Harleys, and I’d never been on a motorcycle before. Plus, I had to figure out how to get Pirate the dog onto a bike.

I went online and learned about the Biker Dogs Motorcycle Club, made up exclusively of Harley riders and their dogs. I ended up meeting some of them, along with a few other bikers along the way. These bikers were so great to me. They hoisted me onto the back of their Harleys (with dogs in tow). They took me to biker rallies (note to self: don’t wear pink). And they laughed at me when I tried to put my helmet on backwards (I still say I was distracted by the Pomeranian wearing a tiny pair of motorcycle glasses).

After a few outings with my new biker friends, I was able to make my geriatric biker witch characters a lot more realistic. And I took home some great pictures, too.

(7) Is writing a full-time job for you? What’s a day-in-the-life-of-Angie-Fox like?

Yes, I’m lucky that this is my full-time job. My most productive time is in the mornings. That’s when I get 99% of my books written. I write in the same place – this green couch in our living room and I always have a Diet Coke on hand. In the afternoon, I head to my office to answer emails and do administrative work. Or sometimes I forget about that part and keep writing!

(8) On your site you’ve set a number of quizzes which tie into contests for your readers to be featured in some capacity in upcoming works. This seems like such an awesome idea, and yet not many authors would give such an opportunity. What made you?

My readers are just so cool – from the email “fuzzies” I get in my inbox every day, to the readers who send me chocolate and Australian Tim Tam cookies when I’m on deadline, to the readers who show up at booksignings every time I have a new release out. I can’t imagine not doing cool things for them. The quizzes and the contests are a way for me to have an extra bit of fun with my readers and to try and give back just a little of what they’ve given me.

(9) You’ve also recently had a short story released in the anthology My Zombie Valentine along with Katie MacAlister, Marianne Mancusi and Lisa Cach. Was it more difficult to write a short story compared to a novel?
Yes! Why didn’t anybody tell me that? When my editor first called me about writing a novella for My Zombie Valentine, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about: a lonely New Orleans voodoo mambo who is sick of dating the party guys she meets at her shop in the French Quarter. So she decides to voodoo herself the, “perfect man for her.” Only she forgets to specify that this hunk be alive. Turns out the perfect guy for her died 160 years ago and is buried in St. Louis Cemetery Number One. He shows up all hot and naked (clothes can’t be re-animated). He’s trying for one last chance at love, she’s trying to put him back in the ground. It was a fun novella to write, but it did take me longer than I thought to get it exactly right.

My brain is trained to think in terms of novel-length books, so it was a challenge to keep it short. I described it to my husband by saying that writing a novella is like cooking Thanksgiving dinner for one person. All of the elements are still there, just on a much smaller scale.

(10) Have you plans for any other works outside of the Demon Slayer world, or at least Lizzie’s POV? What’s coming next for you?

Yes. Actually, I just finished a novella for the So I Married a Demon Slayer anthology. This is the story of the one succubus who got away after the events in The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers. It was a fun story to write because I was able to explore the world of Shiloh, a sexy half-succubus and the demon slayer that she accidentally marries. That book is coming out in August of 2011.

I’ve also signed on to write a new series for St. Martin’s Press. It’s about a paranormal MASH unit. My heroine is a surgeon who has been drafted into the unit and the hero is a demi-god who is the commander of an elite military unit. He’s so sexy. I love it. The first book in that series is called The Monster Mash (for now, that title could change) and it will be out in 2012.

(11) What do you consider the most difficult aspect of writing? The easiest?

The hardest part is finding the exact right word or thought or character name. As Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

The easiest part is after it all comes together.

(12)Finally, some random questions about you:
a. What are your hobbies aside from writing?
I’m a huge reader. I love paranormals, mysteries, historicals, biographies and apocalyptic horror. My husband and I are also big theatre buffs.
b. Could you please describe your dream day?
What? You mean after the pool boys wake me up with breakfast in bed? Let’s see…after that, since I’d be in Greece, I’d head down to the beach with a good book. We’d be on Santorini, so I could look out over the caldera. Then it would be out with my husband for dinner and dancing, and maybe a late show.
c. If you found a genie, what would be your three wishes?
I’d like my own dog to be able to talk
I’d like chocolate to be a health food
Oh and did I mention those Greek pool boys?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And there you have it. Now, it's time for the giveaway! Angie has got to be one of the most generous authors out there. No. Seriously. Just swing by her blog, her website, her Facebook page and BAM! you're likely to win something! So, it's no big surprise that she's graciously offered to send one lucky commenter a signed first-edition copy of A Tale of Two Demon Slayers! So, what are you waiting for? Hit the comments and make with the discussing. Oh, and FYI, Angie herself will likely be dropping by sooner or later. CONTEST ENDS FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 2011. Winners will be posted on Saturday.

Be sure to also swing by Angie's website for all the latest 411 on her past and future releases, not to mention whatever else may be going on over there. And also be sure to pick up her latest release, Last of the Demon Slayers, no doubt available at bookseller near you.

Although, you should probably be aware that there was a bit of an...incident and consequently print editions are just a little bit...tricky. I know, I know, I'm not being clear, but the explanation can be found on Angie's blog, as well as exact details on where you can find your very own copy of this exciting series' thrilling conclusion! (...I went way too TV commercial with that last comment. Sorry. Heh. ^^")

Okay, enough of me, GO. COMMENT. WIN!