2/20/12

Interview: Eileen Wilks


NRR: Can you share with us how you were inspired to become a writer?

You might say it was the school bus and the long ride into town from where we lived when I was in high school. Or The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. Or the fact that where we lived I couldn't watch The Girl From UNC.L.E.  It was tragic--finally someone made a show with a kick-ass female lead, and I never got to see it!  So I began making up my own Girl from U.NC.L.E. stories while riding the bus.  I even wrote some of them down.

Alas, I don't have any of those early efforts, and my writing went on a long hiatus after I married and had kids.  But I never quit thinking I should write, that I could write.  Someday.  Somehow.

Finally I got tired of "someday" and just started writing.  Five books later, I sold my first book.  Thirty books and novellas later, and I still love writing about kick-ass women.


NRR: What do you enjoy most about being a author?

There's the part about going to work in my pj's.  That's pretty damn cool.  But the very best part has to be writing the last couple chapters.  I'm crazed, desperate to meet my deadline, not sure how I'm going to--writing nonstop, talking to myself, drinking way too much coffee and not sleeping much.  And the story is rolling through me, carrying me along like a bobbing log in a flooded river, knocking me into this and that--oh, yeah, it's a wild ride.  Wild and utterly wonderful.

NRR: Which character in the Lupi series do you relate to most?

They all carry part of me.  Cynna has my sense of humor; Lily, my sense of right and wrong; Rule has my rather casual approach to order; Cullen has my geekiness (he's a magic geek, which doesn't work well in this world, but we both all are about the books & research.)

But I want to grow up to be Grandmother.

NRR: Which actors do you see playing Lily and Rule?

I have no idea.  Sorry.  I'm just not good at that sort of thing.  But a reader who's become a friend suggested that // could play Benedict, and he might be right.

NRR: Rule has grabbed the readers hearts. How were you inspired to write his character?

I'm so glad!  I put a lot of time and planning into generating my world, the rules for magic, the way the clans work . . . but I never know where my characters come from.  I met Rule when Lily walked into Club Hell and saw him, and I've been getting to know him with every books since.



NRR: What is a guilty pleasure for you?

I have so many!  Chocolate, though, goes high on the list, though sometimes I'm deficient in the "gulty" part when it comes to chocolate.  Well, if I eat three brownies, maybe . . . if you meant books, I don't have "guilty pleasure" books.  If I like a book, I like it--no guilt involved, and why in the world should there be?

NRR: Can you share with us a little about BLOOD CHALLENGE?

Well, it's the longest book I've written since my first book (which no one will ever read, and rightfully so.)  446 pages. But you want to know what happens, right?

As the book opens, Lily Yu and Rule Turner’s engagement announcement is stirring up ugly passions in the Humans First camp. There’s hate mail. Death threats. Lily’s car is vandalized.  But professionally, things are going smoothly . . . until a lupus is Tennessee goes on a killing spree.
It may not be possible to deal with the rapidly escalating situation the way Lily always has:  through the law.  Especially when she’s pulled off the case due to an alleged conflict of interest. Lily’s loyalties will be stretched to the breaking point when she discovers that the deaths in Tennessee were only the opening skirmish in an all-out war. 
  

NRR: How long does it take you to put together a Lupi novel?

Eight months, roughly.

NRR:What can readers expect to see from you in the coming year?


I'll have a novella (still untitled) in an anthology (also untitled!) that's will come out in Nov. 2011.  And I'm hoping that DEATH MAGIC, the eighth book in the series, will be released in late 2011--but I don't know yet.  Stay tuned!

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