1. Hi Mindy! You’ve participated in both previous OAAA events, what have you been up to in the last year?

Everything, everything! I quit my day job to become a full time writer, which I don’t regret, but it does make financial life tighter than previously. I’ve been branching out to find other avenues for my creativity to see if they can be valid for revenue.

2. I am a big fan of your podcast, can you tell us a little bit about it and why you wanted to do one?

Oh, thank you! The podcast is something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile. I listen to them while on the treadmill, and often the content is good, but heavily editing is needed. I also notice that hosts don’t know when to stop talking and give the floor to their guest. I figured I could probably do one as good as what’s out there, and with my own background in publishing, it could be a good resource for aspiring writers.

So I went for it, not fully understanding the amount of work I was giving myself over to. I edit heavily, taking out all the things I hate to hear as a podcast listener – filler words, pauses, digressions. Most of the work comes in with me finding “um, like, you know” cutting them, then stitching audio back together. I put in about half an hour of work for every minute of airtime.

Right now it’s getting decent downloads and I do have the occasional donation (it’s crowd funded). I decided I would do it for a year, regardless of my time input, and see if I’m at least covering expenses at the end of that year.

3. What’s it like hopping back and forth between genres, from fantasy to contemporary and back!

I love jumping genres! I read widely, so my mind wanders to a wide array of stories. I’ve had a fantasy in me for 15 years, at least, but I was intimidated by it and wasn’t sure if I could execute it. When I decided to try, I did indeed find that fantasy is the hardest genre to write (that I’ve attempted). 

But I love to write all different kinds of stories, and if my readers will follow me from genre to genre, that’s wonderful!

4. What is the one bit of advice you wish you’d had before you got into publishing?

Don’t expect anything. We have this idea of red carpets and big money and hordes of social media followers. The truth is you can have 3 NYT Bestselling authors at a signing and only five people show up. Usually two of them are related to one of the authors. 

5. If you could say one thing to the 2013 version of yourself just before the release of DRINK what would it be?

Pack less. Check nothing. Only carry-ons, always.

6. Your next release is GIVEN TO THE SEA, what made you want to write a book that was so different from everything else you’ve published?

That story had been in me for awhile. I grew up on fantasies – Narnia, LOTR, The Last Unicorn, Flight of Dragons. This is my jam, or at least, one of them. So naturally a story set in that genre took hold at one point in my life, and I’d been looking for a way to get it out ever since.

7. Can you tell us a little bit about GIVEN?

It’s set on a small island continent that all of the four reigning cultures believe is the only land that exists. Then they discover that the seas are rising – and will not stop. So of course they are all immediately like, well, crap, we need to make sure we survive the longest so whoever has the most land wins. Let’s go kill everyone who isn’t us.

8. You have another book releasing this year, THIS DARKNESS MINE, how  has having 2 releases this year been different?

It’s a constant work schedule. At one point I was working on four different projects that were at different levels of completion. FPP’s (first pass pages) for one, an edit letter for another, drafting a third book that was contracted, and putting together a proposal for a fourth that I hope I can sell. 

9. Can you tell us anything more about THIS DARKNESS MINE?

It’s a contemporary psychological thriller where my MC, Sasha, is a very Type A “good” girl. She’s always done the right thing, but suddenly is having exploratory inclinations towards things like sex and drugs, and doesn’t understand why. She finds an ultrasound that shows she was supposed to have been a twin, and convinces herself that her twin – Shanna – was the “bad” twin, and she absorbed Shanna’s heart, which is now trying to place some claim on her life. Shortly after this discovery she begins to get communications from Shanna. So the question is – is she right, or is she crazy?