Endure (32 page)

Authors: Carrie Jones

BOOK: Endure

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If you could change into an animal like Nick and Devyn, what animal would you be, and why?

I’d be a shape shifter like Sam in
True Blood
and be able to change into all animals—I’m greedy like that. But if I had to pick just one, I think I’d like to be a panther because they’re so beautiful and sleek and powerful. If I
could
shift, I’d probably end up a goofy,
eager-to-please puppy—I like it when people pet my head and give me treats.

Zara is a totally kick-butt girl and her mother and grandmother are also super strong women. Did this organically evolve or did you intend to create strong female characters?

You know, I wanted Zara to be real. She comes across as kick-butt and she is, but she has her moments of humanity, of doubt. I like that she always overcomes that and does the tough, hardcore stuff anyway. Also, I was seeing a lot of kick-butt heroines in Adult Paranormal and not so many in Young Adult. That blew me away really because lots of the teens I know are like Zara. They’ll sacrifice for their friends. They’ll be heroes and make tough choices. I wanted to see if I could make a character like that in a romance where the guy is also a totally kick-butt kind of guy.

Do you see yourself, or anyone you know, in any of your characters?

Whenever any of my characters do something neurotic or annoying? That’s totally me.

Honestly, my characters always have aspects of people I know in them. As a writer I think every experience and every interaction I have in my own life informs my characters’ actions and choices. I don’t know how to get away from that.

Do your friends and family try to find themselves in your characters?

My daughter, Em, is always, “That is so me, isn’t it?” Or sometimes she’ll read something and say, “WE DID THAT!”

The funny thing is that whenever I steal anything outright from real life it’s usually romantic dialogue I’ve had with someone and my editor will cross it all out and say, “Unbelievable. Too schmarmy.” This, of course, makes me feel like my life is one big pit of schmarminess.

Do you have a writing ritual?

Not really. I just sort of sit at my laptop and hope that something will happen. I guess hope is my writing ritual.

What’s been your most embarrassing moment as a writer?

Oh gosh, there are so many.

Here are my top three:

1. Spelling my own last name wrong in a query letter to the editor who bought my first book. ‘Jones’ really shouldn’t be that hard for me to spell.

2. Jumping up and down in the aisles of a bookshop in Bangor, Maine because someone had picked up my first book and then carried it off to the cash register. Then turning around to see a clerk watching me do my happy dance by the
Harry Potter
s.

3. Reading the first chapter of
Need
aloud to everyone in Vermont College of Fine Arts’ Writing for Children and Young Adults program and realizing that I had no idea how to say the phobias in the first couple of pages.

Also by Carrie Jones

Need

Captivate

Entice

With Steven E. Wedel

After Obsession

Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin, New York and Sydney

First published in Great Britain in May 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP

First published in the USA in May 2012 by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers

175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

This electronic edition published in May 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc