Michael P. Spradlin's blog

This week FIVE ON FRIDAY features Vicki Pettersson (yes that’s right, two t’s and two s’s) the superstar author of the Urban Fantasy Zodiac novels. Her newest book City of Souls is on sale this week and in it her heroine Joanna Archer, who has barely survived her latest encounter with the forces of the Dark Zodiac, must venture into a strange new shadow world. Where every friend could be an enemy and every breath could be her last. And best of all, the action takes place in Las Vegas. What could be better than that?

(An important note for readers: I write children’s books. Some of the authors who are interviewed in my FIVE ON FRIDAY feature write books for adults. Please remember that the idea behind FIVE ON FRIDAY is to give readers an insight into writing and the creative process. So if you are a parent, teacher or librarian please make note that not all of the books mentioned or featured here may be age appropriate for all of your children, students or patrons. And once again, thanks for visiting!)

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1. When did you know that you first wanted to be a writer?

I’d always scribbled, but it was mostly journaling or magpie-ing (Look! It’s a verb!) thoughts and ideas, situations, or descriptions of people I thought were unique or funny (and, believe me, there’s no dearth of those in Vegas!). It wasn’t until New Year’s Day of my twenty-sixth year that I thought, ‘I’m going to write a book.’ And that was it. I started it that day and have been obsessed every day since. I’m very all or nothing about my obsessions.

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2. What book or writer/artist do you feel influenced you the most?

Undoubtedly, Diana Gabaldon. I started out writing historical fiction, and about a year into it I found Outlander, and discovered Diana had made a virtual home for herself on the web (In Compuserve’s Writer’s Forum). That essentially became my writing school. A former professor, she was extremely accessible to unpublished writers, openly answering questions about her series and her writing process. She has a gift for being able to break down the writing process, in particular what she does and why, and explain it to the neophyte so that one feels it’s actually possible, with work, to attain that skill level, too. Perhaps most importantly she also showed, day in and day out, what it was to be a working writer. I saw what she was doing, work-wise, and began to emulate it. Between her complex words and plots, her love for the work and skillful prose, and her belief in herself, she unwittingly taught me how to work. My gratitude and admiration for that woman is endless.

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3. What book or books are you currently reading or have recently read that you’d recommend to others?

The books that have most recently blown me away were Janet Fitch’s Paint it Black, Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box, Theresa Schweigel’s Officer Down, and Dennis Lehane’s The Given Day. I’m currently finishing up Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love (a book I initially resisted precisely because it was so popular; boy, am I glad I got over that!).

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4. If you could offer one piece of advice to aspiring writers, what would it be?

Read, read, read.
Write, write, write.
Don’t stop.
If it’s hard, that means you’re doing it right.
And did I mention, don’t stop? Don’t ever stop.

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5. Can you share with us your next project or any information about the next book you’re working on?

I’m finishing up the fifth book in the Signs of the Zodiac series, to be released summer 2010. I’ve also just completed a short story for an urban fantasy anthology called Dark and Stormy Knights, edited by PN Elrod, also out next year. There are some amazing authors in that project, and I’m excited to be working alongside them.

Claudia Mills is our FIVE ON FRIDAY guest this week. Claudia is the delightful author of several hilarious and touching chapter books including the Gus and Grandpa and West Creek Middle School Series and also knows that everything is up to date in Kansas City.

Visit Claudia at www.claudiamillsauthor.com

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When did you know that you first wanted to be a writer?

I think I always knew. Writing was what I loved, and what I was good at (not math! Not P.E.!). I wrote poetry, stories, and plays all through elementary school, and in eighth grade, I wrote my first book, an autobiographical account of my life, called T Is for Tarzan (my nickname in those days was Tarzan). It was the sensation of the junior high (partly because everybody was in it, with none of the names changed). That was my first real taste of success as a writer.

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What book or writer/artist do you feel influenced you the most?

Definitely Maud Hart Lovelace, who wrote the marvelous Betsy-Tacy series, written in the 1940s and 1950s about the author’s own childhood growing up in Minnesota at the turn of the last century. I consider Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown to be the finest novel in the English language. It was the proudest moment of my writing life when I had a book signing at Tacy’s house in Mankato, Minnesota, now maintained as a museum by the Betsy-Tacy Society.

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What book or books are you currently reading or have recently read that you’re recommend to others?

Carol Lynch Williams’s The Chosen One, out this spring from St. Martin’s Press, is a stunning and amazing young adult novel about a girl growing up in a polygamous community. I also loved Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson, a beautiful story of a 16-year-old homesteading by herself on the Montana plains.

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If you could offer one piece of advice to aspiring writers, what would it be?

Luxuriate in your love of it. The more you let yourself love writing, and make room in your life for your love of it, the better a writer you will become.

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Can you share with us your next project or any information about the next book you’re working on?

My brand-new chapter book, How Oliver Olson Changed the World, just came out this spring from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Oliver has very controlling, “helicopter” parents who hover over him, help him excessively with homework, and refuse to let him attend the long-awaited third grade space sleepover. But things start to change for Oliver when he and his classmate Crystal team up to make a protest diorama on behalf of Pluto, upset that poor Pluto has been kicked out of the solar system. If Oliver can advocate so effectively for Pluto, maybe, just maybe, he can start standing up for himself. I love writing third-grade chapter books! I love everything about them: the peppy pacing, adorable format, humor and sweetness. They are the best!

Richard Jennings has been called ‘the master of middle American whimsy’ by Kirkus Reviews. His newest book Ghost Town is on sale this week. Richard can be visited on the web at www.richardwjennings.com.

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When did you know that you first wanted to be a writer?

At age ten I received a used Smith Corona typewriter from my parents as a birthday present. I had no desk, so I sat on the floor to begin writing my first story.

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What book or writer do you feel influenced you the most?

Kenneth Grahame’s wonderful story for young readers The Wind In The Willows.

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What book or books are you currently reading or have recently read that you’d recommend to others?

The Times Atlas of The World, Ninth Edition (Times Books).

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If you could offer one piece of advice to aspiring writers, what would it be?

Never seek critical advice of your writing from other people no matter how celebrated they may be.

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Can you share with us your next project or any information about the next book you’re working on?

The Octopus that Ruled the World in which a 75-pound giant Pacific octopus named Armoire, now believed to be approximately 63 years old, has developed a brain that is bigger — and smarter — than that of any other living creature.