Susan, first, tell us a little bit about the manuscript you’re working on now.Susan: I just finished edits on How to Lose an Extraterrestrial in 10 Days. It comes out in August July 26th. It’s a stand alone final book in my Earthling trilogy. I love bringing back bad boys as heroes. I got to here. Reef was the villain from Your Planet or Mine? He’s a cyborg assassin whose hardware is ultimately disabled, requiring him to learn to live as a human. Since he’s being hunted by killers of his own, he’s forced into a witness protection program...in divorced mom Evie Holloway’s suburban home!
Debra: There is something about bad boys, isn't there?
Ray Bradbury said, “We are cups, constantly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” How do you keep your creative cup filled?
Susan: I try to do nice things FOR ME--like bubble baths, and pedicures, and long walks in pretty places, or a good book in my favorite chair, or a meal of my favorite foods, i.e. Treat Yourself. It’s easy to not make time for this, but you have to if you’re to keep your muse plumped up and content.
Debra: This is so true. We should schedule a little me time every day, even if it's only twenty minutes.
Is there a point when your characters begin to come alive and you can see and hear them?
Susan: Oh, yes! They seem so real to me that I tend to forget they’re not people I’ve actually met and interacted with!
Debra: So good to hear this. At a certain point they stop being characters and become people.
For some writers, dreams play a role in creating fiction. Has this been true for you? Have you ever dreamed a scene or an image that later wound up in one of your books?
Susan: Not dreamed, no but lived them, yes. I fly all over the world as a 747 airline pilot. I had the best adventures in foreign lands. Many of these experiences make their way into my books. For instance, at dawn on the street in Shanghai, there is a lady who will cook you breakfast for about 25 cents. She has a metal drum cover a coal fire. She’ll pour a cup-full of batter and a filling you choose, like cooked vegetables, and make you a crepe. The “pancake lady” as we call her, showed up in the book The Scarlet Empress, in a futuristic version of Korea, where my characters are starving and on the run form the bad guys, and buy street food!
Debra: Oh, I love these travel stories! (I'm probably going to corner you at RT, you know, pestering you to tell me more.) :)
If there were no categories for books, no reader expectations to meet, and you could create the wildest work of imagination that you could think of what kind of story would that be?
Susan: Why, the ones I am writing now!
Debra: Is there anything else you would like to add about the role of imagination, and dreams in creating fiction? Any other message for our readers?
Susan: I want to tell all the yet-to-be writers here not to give up hope, to hang tough and never take the first (or even the 2nd or 3rd “no” for an answer). I always want to let each and every reader of my books how deeply I appreciate them. I just sold my 12th book. It would not have been possible without you.
I have a website at http://www.susangrant.com/
A blog, too! http://www.susangrant.blogspot.com/
And Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/susangrant
Thank you for having me at Make-believe Monday!
Debra: It was my pleasure, Susan.
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