INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR OF "GOD'S EYE", A.J. SCUDIERE

Hello A.J., thank you so much for allowing us to interview you! My first question is, how did you come up with the ideas for some of your novels, what were your inspirations?

So far, all four have come from different places. RESONANCE came to me when my Dad handed me a paper on magnetic pole reversal theories – I suddenly knew I had a story. VENGEANCE was born from seeing/reading more than one movie/book about people getting revenge, and how I always thought they did it wrong (they befriended the wrong people, or the revenge was too flashy to be real.) GOD’S EYE started from a dream I had where I chased a cat that kept disappearing. For PHOENIX (my fourth novel, currently in the editing stages) I have no idea where it came from. I don’t remember the origins of it at all, only that I wanted everything in the story to have a reason, no ‘deus ex machina’.

Tell us about "God's Eye" and if you had to choose your favorite character from that book who would it be and why?

My favorite is definitely Katharine! She grows and takes control of her life even though she doesn’t want to. I think the world would be a better place if more people paid attention to what goes on around them the way Katharine learns to.

Now I know Utukku has become quite popular already. He has his own twitter account which I love to visit daily. He is also getting ready to travel from what I hear. How did it come about that you decided to bring him to plush life and when can we expect to be able to grab him up for our very own?

Utukku is the brain child of Eli Jackson. We were looking for a collector’s item to go with the Special Edition versions of the book. (Resonance has a compass that points South, Vengeance has ninja throwing star push-pins!) Eli pointed at the cover of the book and said, ‘We need to make him the collector’s item, but he’s too scary.’ From there Griffyn Ink just ran with the idea. We even let the fans name him (‘Melvin’ was the runner up!)

(Utukku came to NC! Here are some pictures of him in some of NC's most awesome places and finally a pic of him as he ended up at my home!)



What other novels do you have planned for the future and when is your newest going to be out?

I’ve already finished the first draft of my fourth novel. It’s called PHOENIX and is about a fire fighter who discovers his adoptive family lied to him and his past isn’t at all what he thought it was. His life is a mess and he’s just trying to sort everything out but he keeps finding out that what he thought was the truth wasn’t true at all. PHOENIX will be on pre-sale at Comic Con and at the book festivals and cons after that and will release officially in early fall.


Who are some of your literary inspirations, authors that you have read over the years that you enjoy most?

I like Michael Crichton – I particularly love that he wasn’t afraid to go strange places with ‘Sphere’ and that he liked a good, scientifically plausible ending. He knew the mundane could be dramatic (“Andromeda Strain”). I love Orson Scott Card, particularly some of the lesser known of his books. “Enchantment” shows the importance of pre-building plausible reasons for everything to come together. And I love Nabokov for his writing style. I also love that he made us identify with a despicable character in “Lolita” – that’s my inspiration for ‘no one character is all good or all bad’.

You have plans to go to Comic Con this year, what are you looking forward to the most?

I don’t even know what to look forward to the most! ComicCon is so big and there are so many great things to do. When I’m not in a panel or in my own booth, I plan to take breaks and visit other panels and maybe do some geeky shopping!

When you have down time, what are some of your favorite things to do?

I read. I read like all the books will disappear tomorrow! But I have two kids and I like being out with them.

You have degrees in science which I know have to be an inspiration in your writing. What are some of the most interesting things you learned while studying?

I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is not to take things at face value. The more science I study, the more I learn how things are interconnected – i.e. your immune system functions differently if you are the alpha male in your house than if you are the beta. If an atom was the size of a football field, you’d have (maybe) a backpack’s worth of stuff and the rest is space. Science opens up so many possibilities. I love that anyone from the past who time-traveled forward would try to kill us all for being witches and I try to think up where science might go in the next hundred years.

If you could use your scientific knowledge to come up with a cure for something, anything, what would it be and why?

If I could cure ANYTHING, it would be the education system. If we could educate everyone – and do it well – we could fix everything else. People can be energy sources or energy sinks. An uneducated person can rarely contribute to a society the way an educated one can. And if everyone were educated, we could cure cancers and HIV and all manner of things.


Do you have any advice for aspiring authors you'd like to share? Also please leave us your links so we can read more about you and keep up with your developments in the literary world!

Haha!! I learned a lot of things the hard way. Mostly, I learned that writing and getting published is usually a HUGE job, and it helps to have more than one person alone. Getting advice and trying different things helped me a lot.

My first piece of advice is this – decide who you are writing for. If it’s just for you, that’s great, but if you want to get published, you are writing for the public. You have to think about that while you are writing and you have to draw the line-you-won’t-cross way back from where you might want it if you are writing for others, you have to give them what they want!

I posted a lot of advice on the blog of my fourth book “PHOENIX” (www.PhoenixTheBook.com).


Main website
www.AJScudiere.com

Snarky Blog/weekly podcast: Smart Chickens
www.SmartChickens.com
Smart Chickens is also available on iTunes

Facebook
/AJ Scudiere

Twitter
/AJScudiere


Writer’s Blog
www.PHOENIXtheBook.com

Utukku:
facebook.com/AJsUtukku
twitter.com/AJsUtukku
order your own: GodsEyeTheBook.com

Read more:http://www.greatmindsthinkaloud.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=interviews&thread=1249#ixzz1qL2wQrnj 



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