An Interview with Fanfiction Addiction

Fanfiction Addiction, the Spanish Twific group, interviewed me for their first issue of Virtual Magazine. It's absolutely beautiful. Even if you don't speak Spanish, you should check it out because it's prettier than many print magazines.

The interview in the magazine is in Spanish, but I have permission to post the English version here. Enjoy!

· If you were...

A month
April. When the spring has begun and the world is filled with new possibilities.

A day of week
Friday, when everyone is anticipating the fun of the weekend.

A moment of the day
Right as you fall asleep and slip into the dream world, where anything and everything is possible. 

A planet 

Pluto. I don’t care what astronomers say! It’s a planet to me, and always will be!

A drink
Iced tea. Fresh and crisp, with a hint of sugar. 

A musical instrument

A violin. It’s a difficult instrument to learn, but creates beautiful music. 

A fruit:

A grape. Tasty and good for you, and if squeezed and allowed to age, turns into a drink which gives joy to those who share it. Good for the heart, too! 

A meal:

Chicken soup. Warm and soothing, something that nourishes and brings memories of home and comfort. 

A body part:

The brain, the seat of imagination, the part of us that creates our dreams. 

A subject:

Sociology. I’m fascinated with what makes people the way they are. 

A number:

Seven. There are four sevens in my birthdate, and seven letters in my full first name, Melissa, and a few other instances where it appears. 

A color:

Blue, the color of the sky. 

A scent:

Sandalwood. My favorite. 

A city:

London. It’s a vibrant city, full of history, with a diverse population.

A language:

English; it’s the only language I know. But it’s a rich language filled with colorful words, nuances and subtle inflections. Turning a graceful phrase is like a dance, beautiful when it turns out right, embarrassing when it falls flat. 

A song:

O, Fortuna - Carmina Burana. I think it’s one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

A movie:
Lord of the Rings 

A name:
Calliope, Greek muse of epic poetry


A picture:

 

A book:
The Velveteen Rabbit.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

A flower:

Stargazer lily, my favorite flower. 

A station:
King’s Cross because I love Harry Potter. 

A garment: 

A hat. A big, floppy hat in a color that doesn’t match anything, with a large plastic flower on the side. (One of my favorite poems is “When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple.”) 

A country:
Ireland. Land of mists and legends. 

A place:
Kauai, a place of flowers and waterfalls. 

An animal:
A dog 

One sense:
Sight 

A cartoon:
Futurama 

A gift:
A bookstore gift card. 

A hobby:
Sculpting 

A feeling:
Curiosity 

1. - If you could choose see your work as a TV series or a movie, which would you choose? And why?

This is a difficult question because I’m not sure I would like to see any of my works made into movies. I’m usually disappointed with movies made from books. Very rarely do they capture the spirit of the original and they often have a lot of changes to the story or characters. The movies they make are rarely as good as the “movie” I see in my head when I’m reading or writing. I think I would prefer that everyone see their own “movie” rather than watch it on the TV or cinema screen. 

2. - You mentioned that a Volturi male suffers when your couple dies. It's physical pain typical for his race or is just the pain of losing her?

A Volturi who loses a beloved mate can literally die of grief. They lose the will to live and begin to waste away. 

 3. - Was it difficult to create such a different world? What inspired you to create it?

I have read romances and seen movies where people go to live on other planets, and it always seemed to me that they made the aliens too human. Some of them would throw in a couple of differences and a few strange-sounding words, but make the rest of the alien culture basically the same as humans. As I see it, aliens would be much different than earthlings. They wouldn’t have evolved exactly the same as humans, or have the same culture.

I started with their physical traits. Twilight uses wolves, and so I decided to make my aliens feline-based. I had to think of everything from their physiology to their diet, to their reproductive process. As an example, since they’re strictly meat-eaters, their teeth would be different from our own.

But, at the same time, I wanted all of their traits to be realistic, so I based them off of various animals and some rituals of human cultures. The idea for drones came from bees. The idea for the babies to be born in an “egg” actually came from an old TV show called “Mork and Mindy.” (Helen of Troy from Greek mythology was also born from an egg.) The idea for the males incubating the babies came from penguins/seahorses.

4. - Bella will introduce some human traditions?

Yes, she will. In the first outtake, “Nessie’s Mating”, Nessie thinks about how her mother introduced shoe-wearing to upper class women. Alpha women didn’t wear shoes; their mates were supposed to carry them in places where the ground was rough. And while that seems sweet and caring, it also keeps a woman dependent on a man for transportation. Bella saw shoes as a sign of liberation.

She also introduced the idea of having pets. The Volturi thought it was strange to keep their “food” in the house, but after the Empress did it, people started keeping animals as pets. Eventually, this would lead to better treatment of animals as people start caring about them. 

 5. - Do you believe there was life in other worlds?

I’d say it’s likely, given the number of planets that are out there. But as to whether there is intelligent life, I cannot guess. I’d say it’s unlikely we will ever know, unless we manage to invent something like the “jumpers” that can fold space and time and move people over the vast distances of space. We’re not likely to get a radio signal from aliens; their technology would probably be so different from ours that we could be “hearing” them right now and not even know it because we don’t have the right kind of machine to listen. 

6. - What do you feel to see your histories are translated in different languages? Can you imagining that they were going to reach to so many persons?

I’m thrilled and amazed that the translators are willing to put so work into bringing my stories to people who speak other languages. Truly, it is an incredible gift. I love reading the reviews.

It’s very exciting that people around the world can read my stories. I never imagined having such a large audience. The first story I wrote got a grand total of 45 reviews and I was delighted that I had any readers at all. I certainly never expected this level of interest. It’s amazing, and a little scary sometimes, too, because I’m afraid I’ll disappoint so many people. 

 7. - Why you histories [stories] have schemes inspired in supernatural things?

I like exploring how people would react in bizarre circumstances. Many of my stories start out in my mind with the question “What if this happened …?” 

8. - How do you let to flow your stories in the context of unconventional situations?

I try to make unrealistic situations as realistic as possible. In Written in the Stars, I tried to think about what it would really be like to be a queen, having so many decisions to make – and having to live with the consequences of those decisions- the responsibility, and being watched at all times. In The Selkie Wife, I took an old fairy tale and used it to tell the story of Queen Mary I and tried to stay as close as I could to the real history of the time period. In Better Angels of Our Nature, I wanted to explore the concept of great power coming with great responsibility.

9. - Where the idea comes of the ritual of courtship of the Volturi? Did you inspired in some African tribe or in an animal?

Their mating ritual of bringing dead animals came from both human and animal mating rituals. Many species bring a “gift” to a female they’re courting, including human males who try to buy the biggest diamond they can afford for the woman to whom they’re proposing. Money isn’t as valued in Volturi culture as a status symbol; their status is based on strength, and so it would make sense for a man to “prove his worth” by bringing the female animals that are hard to kill. 

10. - On what did you base to create the religion Dynali?

From archaeological finds, it appears that the first gods of humans were female, a mother-figure, so I chose a female deity for them. Because the Dynali world is mostly covered with water and they’re an amphibious species, it made sense to make her the “Mistress of the Waters.”

In the scene where Tanya tells Bella the parable of the rippling water, I knew what I wanted her to say: that all of our actions have far-reaching consequences of which we may not be aware. A smile given to a stranger may alleviate their sadness and give them hope. A teacher’s enthusiasm may inspire a love of learning in a student. And so on. Even tiny actions may have huge consequences. I saw the metaphor of the ripples spreading in the pond, and then how the stone the young man threw would have had effects unseen, below the water.