An Interview with
Vicki Pettersson
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This month we will be talking with Vicki Pettersson about her fantastic new urban fantasy Signs of the Zodiac series and what is to come in the future. I had the pleasure of reading both The Scent of Shadows and The Taste of Night and I was blown away! Mark my words, Vicki is going to be a star in the genre and her light won’t be fading anytime soon. Thanks Vicki for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us! 1. Congratulations on your newest release, The Taste of Night: Second Sign of the Zodiac, released April 2007. Can you tell us a little bit about the story? THE TASTE OF NIGHT continues Joanna Archer’s journey into Las Vegas’ supernatural underworld, where the fight between good and evil – or Light and Shadow – has taken a decidedly ominous turn. A virus has been unleashed upon the valley under the orders of her evil father, the overlord of the Shadow side, and Joanna finds herself standing alone as she faces off against both old foes and new. 2. The Taste of Night is your second book in the Signs of the Zodiac series and I just saw on your website, there are at least four more books to come in the series. The most obvious theory for readers to have is that there could ultimately be twelve books in the series, one for each Zodiac sign. But do you have a projected length to the series? I don’t have a projected length to the series, and twelve books – while certainly a possibility – isn’t a fixed destination. Each portent reveals itself as the one prior to it is fulfilled, so there may be as few as the six signs I’ve now planned for, or as many as twenty. Joanna will determine the length of the series, and once she’s had her say, once we know all there is to know about her and her world and her journey, it’ll end. 3. New initiates of the series would assume that the signs mentioned in the books’ subtitles would be in reference to the astrological chart of the Zodiac. But in fact, upon reading the books the signs are actually prophecies about the battle between Shadow and Light and who could ultimately win. Where did you get the idea to base the series on prophecies about your fictional world? The idea for the portents, or prophecies, wasn’t planned from the first. Like most of my favorite ideas, it mushroomed during the actually writing, surprising me, but quickly adding a thematic underpinning to Joanna’s journey. The signs are a story premise to me, and I now need to know what each book’s fulfilled prophecy is going to be (along with the beginning and end) before I start. 4. Joanna has had a pretty tough life that has molded her in to the strong but deeply scarred young woman she is. Then there is the added complication she discovers on her 25th birthday that not only that she’s a superhero but that she is the answer to a prophecy. I can see her becoming a standout character for me, one I’ll remember and think about for a long time. Did she come to you demanding her story be told or did you have to coax it out of her? How hard is it to walk that line between Light and Shadow in her personality? Actually Olivia came to me first, flirty and flighty and full of life, as is her way. She introduced me to Joanna, and because she loved this tough, scarred woman, I began to love her, too. From there it was just a matter of following the rabbit trail; why was Joanna this way? What had happened to her? And what was she doing about it? As for balancing the Light and Shadow in her personality, I know her so well now that I don’t have to question what she’d do in a given situation. Because of her past, her natural inclination is to be defensive right out of the gate. Under no circumstances is she going to allow herself to be victimized again. She’d rather die first. So her knee-jerk reaction to conflict of any kind is to kick ass first, and ask questions later. However, now she’s in a place where her actions affect both her troop and the mortals she’s obliged to serve. So she finds herself revisiting issues she though long resolved – how she feels about murder under any circumstances, vengeance at any cost, what true love really is – and she’s finding the answers aren’t always clear-cut. The fact is, she has the ability and power to blow craters into peoples’ lives, and the constant need to balance her responsibilities with her martial leanings will be a long-running theme in these books. 5. What was it that made you one day decide you were going to be a writer? Did you always know or was it a surprise to choose this career path? I’ve always written – journaling, poetry, ideas for screenplays and stories – but I thought everyone did that, and never really considered myself a ‘writer.’ Smart, upper-class, Ivy-league people made livings as writers. I was just a girl from the desert who loved to read. But I tell you, once I latched on to the idea that I was going to write a book, I became obsessed from that day on. I already knew how to work hard from college and athletics and dance, so I figured ‘all’ I needed to do was learn how to write. Sheer stubbornness got me through the rest. 6. One of the ideas that stands out for me in your series is the ultimate balance and dual nature of life (Light and Shadow, revenge and duty, straightforwardness and scheming, normal life versus superhero life) with Joanna/Olivia being the most obvious example. Every single character in the series juggles these contrasting principles everyday. (Well except the Tulpa anyhow.J) How hard is it to maintain that balance between both ideals? As hard as it is to maintain in your own life. {g} We all have opportunities to make good choices for ourselves and for the larger world every day. Good people sometimes make bad choices, and vice versa. I’m fascinated by that, and none of my characters would make the same choices in any given situation, or if they do, it’s for different reasons. 7. From beginning writing the story to seeing it in print in the store, how long would you say the process takes for you to complete the book? It depends on the book. SCENT took the longest, both because I didn’t have a specific deadline to meet, and because I had to create and define the parameters of Joanna’s world. TASTE came faster, and the third book has been the fastest yet. Either I’m crafting the books a little better each time or I’m simply dialed in to the world now … I’d like to think it’s a little of both. In any case, it is getting easier, which means I’ll probably throw something in to blow it all up here soon. {G} I already have some ideas that are scaring me with their sheer scope and what they’ll mean to the story, but if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that the payoff for following the scary ideas is always greater than if I’d just played it safe. 8. If you had to think back and pinpoint who it was that inspired you most to write, who would you say? Would you say this same person has been most influential on your writing style? If not, then who? That’s easy. My ninth grade English teacher, Gary Sassenberg. He was the best teacher I had at any level in any subject, and he demanded perfection and passion from his students. He had a reputation as the hardest teacher in school, but everyone still flocked to his classes. He would stand on his desk, pound on the blackboard, and get more excited about gerunds than they ever warranted. {g} He taught me how to write a check, a business letter, a resume, an essay. He showed me that writing was work, literally making me dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’, and showed me that the written word was applicable and necessary to daily life. He came to my recent signing here in Vegas, and it was a good thing I didn’t know he was in the audience because I think I would’ve thrown up. There’s still a fair amount of hero worship going on there. As far as who has been most influential on my writing style, props have to go out to Diana Gabaldon for being one of the most accessible, generous, and patient authors to ever guide and encourage aspiring writers. For years she’s been mentoring writers through an online writer’s forum using pointed examples from her own work to talk about crafting issues and style and the publishing business at large. However, in my opinion, her greatest service is in showing the world a writer at work. She gets it done, everyday, in her own way, while living a very full life. You lose your ability to make excuses after listening to her for too long. She also happens to be also a brilliant wordsmith. I wanted to be the next ‘her’ before becoming the first ‘me’ and though my voice is markedly different than hers, she was instrumental in helping me find it. 9. This is one of my favorite “signature” questions to ask in an interview. If you had to write a short paragraph about your writing to convince readers to give your books a shot, what would you tell them? THE SCENT OF SHADOWS conjures up a dark, sexy, magical world unlike any you’ve ever read before, and a heroine as unique as her setting. In a market increasingly cluttered with books about vamps and wolves, this series stands apart with a fresh take on the familiar battle of good versus evil. Er, if I do say so myself. {g} 10. I love the idea of having manuals for the Light and Shadow troops to study be comic books that any reader could happen across, and just think it is a really cool series. And I especially love the idea that the Light troop can’t touch the Shadow books and vice versa. Where did you come up with such an inventive way to tell the story within a story? I wanted to provide a link between the magical world of the Zodiac and the world that you and I live in, and the manuals were a great way to get the reader to reconsider what else might be real. After all, the reader’s imagination is what really turns words on the page into full-blown stories. The manuals also provided an entertaining way to explain the rules of this new universe without being didactic or reverting to info dumps, and the comic shop scenes are some of my favorites in the books. 11. In spite of her being a “bad guy,” I loved Regan’s character and she was a favorite of mine in The Taste of Night. The fact she looks so sweet and innocent yet anything but provides a great duality, emphasizing that aspect of the entire world you’ve created in the Zodiac series. I know it’s like asking a mother to name her favorite child, but if you had to pick one particular character in the books to date who stands out for you, who would you choose and why? Joaquin really stands out for me because he is so irredeemably evil. He’s influenced Joanna’s life and destiny more than anyone else, including both mother and father, and because Joanna has been fixated on finding him for so many years, I became fixated on him, too. He also frightens me because he knows Joanna and what pushes her buttons, and doesn’t have a merciful or remorseful bone in his body. Everyone else, even the Tulpa, has some characteristic I can identify with, but Joaquin is a blank. He’s a psychopath, a mass murderer, a terrorist. Frankly, I hate him. 12. How much advance plotting goes into your writing process? Do you plan everything out ahead of the time or do you just start writing and see where your characters lead you? The only thing I do upon the start of every book is pull out Robert McKee’s STORY. It’s a book primarily meant for screenwriters, but it helps me focus on the single most important aspect in any fiction writing: storytelling. Everything in the book – language, research, themes - must serve the story premise, and I think it’s especially helpful for writers who are afraid of making the wrong decision or who are uncertain about which direction their story should head. As for pre-plotting, I didn’t outline SCENT at all, I only partially outlined TASTE, and I outlined the third book in full, but then ended up rewriting that outline five times. {G} So the process is fluid, and changes depending on the needs of the book, and on outside influences – deadlines, family life, what I’m reading or watching or taking in – but the goal doesn’t. Tell a good story. I’m also not one of those writers who say, “_This_ is how I do it.” If something works, I do it. If it doesn’t, or if it stops working, I do something else. Whatever gets words on the page. 13. You sound like a busy woman with your family and other responsibilities in addition to your writing. How do you work out your schedule to balance your family life and your professional life as a writer? I don’t think I’m any busier than anyone else, but oddly, I’ve found that the fuller my life is, the more I accomplish. Having a baby actually forced me to be more focused and disciplined that before. I no longer ‘need’ to warm up to the writing (though writing every day helps with that, too) and I can hit the page as soon as the computer is turned on. I choose to work early in the morning before anyone else is awake, so right now I’m up at 4:30. I work until about 7:30, and then again on my baby’s nap. Sometimes I go back again at night, but I’m much happier and easier to live with if I spend those hours with my husband and a cocktail. Mind, I still struggle every day for balance, but I learned really quickly to give priority to the things that only I could do – being a mother, a wife, a writer – and leave the things that anybody else could do to … well, anybody else. Let’s just say that my appearance in the kitchen or laundry room is a surprise to everyone. {g} 14. I’ve picked up some of the behind the scenes world of Vegas casinos in your books. Your time working Tropicana’s Folies Bergere has to have provided some very amusing and unusual moments in your life. Does any single moment stand out in your memory? Why? How much of your experience as a Vegas Showgirl finds its way into the stories? How much of Vicki do we see in the characters? Working at the Folies was a great was to spend my 20’s. I made the best friends of my life there, whom I still talk to and see regularly, and I had the pleasure of working in a creative environment where laughed, literally, every day. Many of the scenes with Cher and Joanna are taken directly from backstage antics – the spa scene in the first book, the pencil test in the second – and I still can’t believe I got paid for a lot of the time I was there. As for how much of me is in the characters, I’m starting to believe they’re all different facets of me, even the characters I loathe (which is sobering). 15. I understand you have a novella coming out later this year in an anthology unnamed on your website. (I was looking for the title too. <g>) Do you have anything else in the works? Can you give us any teasers about the novella or future works? Shoot! I’ll have to rectify that immediately (thanks for pointing it out so publicly, too! {G}). It’s the HOLIDAYS ARE HELL anthology with Kim Harrison, Lynsay Sands, and Marjorie M. Liu. My story, THE HARVEST, is a prequel to THE SCENT OF SHADOWS and we get to see Zoe Archer, Joanna’s mother, in action. Meanwhile, I’m tying a bow on the third book in the Zodiac series, and gearing up to start the fourth. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to chat with me about your books, Vicki! Do you have anything you’d like to say in closing? I just want to thank you specifically for being such an enthusiastic reader and supporter of the Zodiac world from the start, and also send out thanks to anyone else who might have picked up SCENT or TASTE, not knowing who this newbie author was, and for giving me a shot. I never knew if these books would find their way into print, much less such a great audience, so it has been a wonderful journey for me so far. Thanks for coming along for the ride! Visit Vicki's website! Read reviews of Vicki's books: Kelley's
reviews: The Taste of Night: The Second Sign of the Zodiac Debbie's
reviews:
Interviewed by Kelley |