Melanie Surani will be awarding a $30 Starbuck Gift Certificate to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Don't forget to use the rafflecopter code below to leave a comment for a chance to win.
Awake
by Melanie Surani
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INTERVIEW:
1. What or who inspired you to start writing?
I started writing in the First Grade. My parents were always big on reading to my sister and me so books were a big part of my life from the very beginning. I guess I assumed everyone wrote books, so I experimented with writing from a young age. My first real story was called “The Bad Carwash” in which the protagonist closes her car door on her dress and goes through an automated car wash (like at the gas station), and her dress gets wet. My parents encouraged me to read that story aloud for other family members, and I got a great response that I needed more and more of.
2. How did you come up with your idea for your novel?
My inspiration oddly enough came in a dream. I don’t remember the whole, but it involved me getting a job in an out-of-the way area, and finding out the workers (including myself) weren’t allowed to leave the building once we started.
I wrote the story while I was still living with my parents, so I had to have been 19 or 20. It was going to be part historical fiction, part modern technology (if only I had known what Steampunk was back then, because that’s basically what it was), part fantasy. And they all had Celtic names, because … because.
Not to quote the whole story right here, but one of the main characters goes away on work and doesn’t return. Everyone gets worried and sets out to find him (through the magical woods, of course, where they get attacked by vampires with rules different than anything you’ve heard before, attacked by wild cats, and helped by a race of friendly faeries who change sizes and communicate through touch). The characters eventually find their way to the big city, where they stop to rest in a museum full of realistically carved sculptures. One of those sculptures is the friend they’d been looking for, but the questions they ask the curator makes her suspicious and angry, so she imprisons them with her other workers. The characters learn that the sculptures in the exhibits are the bodies of former workers (a’la the movie Anatomie starring Franka Potente), and they hatch a plan to escape.
I put the story away for a few years. The people who read it gave me mixed reviews (my mom and dad kept fixating on not knowing what year the story was set). But it kept nagging me until I got the manuscript back out. It was good, but it needed something. When I saw the show LOST, inspiration struck. I was starting the book in the wrong place, and the wrong time. So I turned the novel into a kind of “locked room” mystery and a million edits later, it became the AWAKE you know and love today.
3. What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be in your bio?
I’m very interested in big cats. I’ve done research on how to keep a cheetah as a pet, including permits needed, what and how much they eat (not humans), and how no matter how hard you try, you can never housebreak them (so your house will reek of … cheetah business). Be reassured, though! I’ve been hurt by my tiny housecat because she got too excited doing cat stuff, so I’m sure a tame, lovely large cat would do exactly the same and that’s how I would die.
In all seriousness, though, I can see myself working with big cat conservation somewhere in Africa or Asia. And while I’m napping with my adopted family of tigers, one of them will probably roll over and suffocate me with love.
4. As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?
I plan to write until I get lovingly cuddled to death by the aforementioned tiger.
I always have new story ideas bouncing around. Some of them don’t make it past the outline stage, while others (like AWAKE) I’ll work on far too many years before finally letting it go.
5. If you could be one of the characters from this book, who would it be and why?
I would have to be Blair. Sure, she’s evil, but she’s an artist. She isn’t really setting out to be evil, and I think those are the best villains. She’s doing what she loves, and she tries to fix her mistakes the best way she can before all hell breaks loose.
6. Can you give us a sneak peak into this book?
Costumed mannequins, wearing everything from Rococo dresses to the “50’s Housewife,” lined the room and clustered in the center. They had coverings over their heads: burlap sacs sewn to fit the face, or draped with gauze over antlers, or covered in feathers.
One of them might move.
To get to the rest of the exhibits now, she either had to go through or turn around and catch it from the opposite direction. As she turned, though, an Employees Only sign caught her eye.
The door opened with a creak. Sophia checked the costumes for any sign of life before ducking inside and slamming the door. She panted for a moment with her eyes shut. When she opened them a crack, the light hadn’t come on. After waving her arms over her head, she threw the door open again with a hammering heart.
Like so much topiary at the Overlook Hotel, she expected the mannequins to have clustered around the door. Of course, nothing had changed since she’d checked the gallery before. She eyed the figures again, before propping the door open and returning to the dim office.
Unused items crammed the floor. A computer and phone sat on the single desk, files stacked on the floor. An empty closet in the back stood open, yawning darkness. Multiple metal signs leaned against a wall, notices pointing toward restrooms, galleries, a café, and the lobby.
“Damn it,” she whispered. Who the hell took all the signs down?
Sophia picked up the phone, pressed the switch-hook, but no dial tone sounded.
“Why…” Why leave the electricity on and cut the phones?
7. What is the best and worst advice you ever received? (regarding writing or publishing)
The best advice I’ve ever heard about writing is the quote from Toni Morrison: “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/321-if-there-s-a-book-that-you-want-to-read-but)
The worse advice was from a colleague who said that the young adult genre was popular and that if I wanted to make any money, I should write something geared toward them (and if it included a vampire, so much the better). I’ve never thought writing should have anything to do with money – and the fact that I keep going to my day job kind of enforces that. I believe a person should write about what they’re passionate about. Write about something that makes you happy and keeps you entertained because if your heart is in it, people are going to see that. If you write it for money, people see that too. Or even if they don’t, I can’t see myself working as hard on a project I don’t care about. It becomes a job then, and I can make more money doing something else for way less hassle.
8. Do you outline your books or just start writing?
I used to just start at chapter one and work my way through. The problem with that was that I would forget elements of the story as I went, or I would not fully understand were I was trying to go with the story. Consequently, that lead to me abandoning so many novels. When I’d get stuck, I would simply go back to the beginning and edit through, never getting past that great, empty plotpoint.
When I learned about National Novel Writing Month, I was intrigued, but I thought it was an impossible task. 50,000 words in a month? None of my novels had ever reached that length before. So I looked into the organization. How does anyone complete this thing?
The general rule of NaNoWriMo was that you could only start writing your novel on November 1st, but you could write from an outline that you’d written previously. So that’s what I did. For the entire month of October, I wrote the most detailed outline I could, including beginning, middle and end, and I got to 50,000 words so easily when I started writing the actual novel. That’s the way I do it today and how I’ll probably always write.
9. How do you maintain your creativity?
I read a lot of books, first of all. My favorites recently have been Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes, and everything by Gillian Flynn. I’m also a big fan of Stephen King, who says if a person doesn’t have time to read, they don’t have the skills to write (I’m paraphrasing), and I agree.
But beyond feeding the muse in the standard fashion, I also get inspired by TV (it’s true). Shows like LOST with a strong plot and strong characters are amazing to watch. I also put myself in situations where I have to think about what I would do if I were being followed. How would I lose my follower? What would I do if I had to live completely alone? What would I do if everyone in the city disappeared? Answering those questions keeps me from getting bored on my daily commute, but some of them turn into novels. For AWAKE, that question was “What if I got locked in this museum overnight?”
10. Are your plotting bunnies angels or demons?
Since my plots usually have to do with something dark, I’d say the plot bunnies are demons! They’re constantly making me examine what I believe and what I would do if things weren’t as good as they are supposed to be. Ideally, the world is supposed to be a perfect place. If we didn’t believe that, we wouldn’t get so upset when things go wrong (not to get too heavy or anything).
For example, in AWAKE, I follow the character Blair in her perspective for a few chapters, and in doing so, I had to think about why kidnapping someone would be a good thing (it’s on the first page of the novel – the first sentence, actually – so no spoiler intended). Why would I, after finding out where someone was going to be that evening, rush from my home and put my plan into action while still maintaining that I’m a good person? That’s definitely not the work of an angel.
11. Anything else you might want to add?
Thanks the Angels
BLURB:
In author Melanie
Surani’s edgy thriller novel, opera singer Joshua Gray wakes in an eerie art
museum exhibit. He comes to believe he’s been kidnapped and abandoned. And he
isn’t the only one…
As Josh and four others struggle to piece together their new reality, they discover the museum’s main building has been razed and the place is boarded with no obvious exit. Who left them in the museum and why? How can they escape? The only link that binds them together is a mysterious woman named Blair, who they each encountered before blacking out. Josh unexpectedly finds himself drawn to one of the other captives, a long-time fan named Sophia. Their attraction plunges the group into a dark pool of suspicion. When allegiances shift and pieces connect, the strangers are forced to reassess their situation. Is the real danger inside or outside of the museum?
Suspenseful, romantic and filled with drama, Awake will keep you up all night.
As Josh and four others struggle to piece together their new reality, they discover the museum’s main building has been razed and the place is boarded with no obvious exit. Who left them in the museum and why? How can they escape? The only link that binds them together is a mysterious woman named Blair, who they each encountered before blacking out. Josh unexpectedly finds himself drawn to one of the other captives, a long-time fan named Sophia. Their attraction plunges the group into a dark pool of suspicion. When allegiances shift and pieces connect, the strangers are forced to reassess their situation. Is the real danger inside or outside of the museum?
Suspenseful, romantic and filled with drama, Awake will keep you up all night.
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EXCERPT:
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Melanie Surani is a
blogger, hair stylist, and author with a heart for international travel. When
she isn't cutting hair, Melanie is thinking about ways to kill people (for
mystery novels). She lives with her husband and cat in New York City, where she
is hard at work on her next book with Booktrope Publishing. Melanie is a member
of the International Thriller Writers society. Follow her adventures at: http://melsurani.tumblr.com/
Connect With Melanie
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE
Melanie
Surani will be awarding a $30 Starbuck Gift Certificate to a randomly drawn
winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
