MY INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR TANYA LISLE

 

 

What’s your name and what genre would you consider your books to be?

Hello! My name is Tanya Lisle and  I write urban fantasy with a good dash of horror.

 

How did you get interested in writing this particular genre?

 I have always really enjoyed fantasy as a genre, but I was much more interested in telling stories that center around people and more modern day problems. I tried the high fantasy, but my interest wasnèt in the world building so much as the characters and the systems, so I moved to more modern day and it worked!

As for the horror elements, those are an accident. I didn’t realize it was horror until other people pointed it out to me.

 

Can you tell me about your series?

The Looking Glass Saga is a public domain crossover about Alice going back to Wonderland and finding that things have changed for the worse. She struggles to try and balance a life in the real world where she has been cured of her delusions of Wonderland, and trying to figure out how to make the Queen of Hearts stop stealing the hearts from everyone in Wonderland before it’s too late.

 

 

Where did you get the inspiration/idea for your series?

This series came  about because I was mad about comic book fans. Back when Disney bought Marvel, a lot of the fans were very angry about the Disnification of the Marvel properties, so I wrote a whole series of articles about making Disney characters into Marvel style superheroes. I made Alice into a Dr. Strange version of it and that idea snowballed until it turned into this series.

 

What kind of research did you do for this series?

 Because this is a public domain crossover, a lot of the research has been around the source material (Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, King Arthur), both around what happened in the original series and what parts of it I want to keep.

More recently I’ve been doing a lot of looking up information on heart failure and what happens when your heart stops beating. For reasons.

 

Was it always meant to become a series?

It was! There’s a lot I want to do and explore in the story, so the only way to really do that without making the story feel overly condensed or unwieldy was  to make it take place over a long period of time.

 

What’s a typical working day like for you? When and where do you write? Do you set a daily writing goal?

I still have a day job, so my writing has to take place around that. I hop on the train and get almost an hour in the morning to work on the book before I get into the office, then another on the way out. In the evenings between dinner and tending to the needs of my very demanding cat, I split my time between trying to get other author-related things done and wrapping up my writing from the day. Usually I aim for a chapter a day, though this tends to change based on where I am in the process.

 

 

Do you have a new book in the making and if so, what’s the name of your upcoming book?

The next book in the series is Beauty Sleep! It’s book six and it will be out at some point in July.

 

What is the hardest part of writing for you?

The hardest part is always accepting that ideas that I really like don’t work. A lot of stuff I’ve written just doesn’t end up working out because the story doesn’t need it or it works against the themes or it’s not something that makes sense for the characters to do, no matter how much I like it. But, in the end, if it doesn’t work for the story, it has to go.  

 

Have you always liked to write?

I have! My first novel I tried to write was when I was five, and it was a story involving theft, murder, and blackmail. In school, I used to try and turn all of my assignments into narrative projects. Quite a few of my essays were turned in as short stories or news articles instead.

 

What writing advice do you have for aspiring authors?

Done is better than perfect. It’s been said before, but it’s a lot easier to take something you’ve written and make it good later than it is to try and create something perfect the first time through. Try everything, figure out what works, and get those words on the page. It’s okay to write poorly. Rewriting and editing are normal parts of the process.

 

 

What is your least favourite part of the publishing process?

Marketing! I’m not great at going around telling people about my books, but I’m slowly finding my footing. At least, I’m getting better at talking about the books.

 

Of all the characters you have created, which is your favourite and why?

Right now, Alice is my favourite. Part of it is because I’m currently working on her story, but she’s also got a very particular arc in her story that has been so invigorating to write. There’s a catharsis to writing her story for me, one that I haven’t quite gotten from other characters.

 

Does writing energize or exhaust you?

Writing is very energizing for me! It wakes me up a lot in the morning and keeps me going in the evening.

 

 

Where can your fans find you and follow??

I have a whole bunch of links, depending on what works best for you!

Books: https://books2read.com/ap/nlzBXx/Tanya-Lisle

Blog: http://tanyalisle.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ScrapPaperEntertainment

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tanyalisle

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tanyalisle/

Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/0ad86e6be6cf/get-simya-academy

 

 

Thanks so much for having me!