Authors Are Rockstars Tour: Cynthia Hand

In my book, pretty much all authors are rockstars.  They've done something I've only dreamed of doing, and many of them do it while maintaining relatively normal lives.

But Cynthia Hand?  That woman has truly attained ROCKSTAR status.  She writes about characters who are just finding themselves, who need guidance and friendship and love.  And these characters all feel so legitimately real, as if they could walk off the pages of Hand's books and onto the streets of our world.  Cynthia Hand has written one of my favorite series ever, such a convincing take on angel lore, one that is emotionally draining but also uplifting.  And she did it all while raising a family AND teaching classes at Pepperdine University.  This woman is amazing and inspiring, and she's an author that all aspiring authors can look up to.

And I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to be hosting her for my stop on the Authors Are Rockstars Tour!  Below, you'll find my interview with Cynthia Hand, as well as a fabulous author-donated (cause she's just that awesome) giveaway.  But first, a little about her novels and the author herself:




In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees . . . 

Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy.

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

Unearthly is a moving tale of love and fate, and the struggle between following the rules and following your heart.

For months part-angel Clara Gardner trained to face the raging forest fire from her visions and rescue the alluring and mysterious Christian Prescott from the blaze. But nothing could prepare her for the fateful decisions she would be forced to make that day, or the startling revelation that her purpose—the task she was put on earth to accomplish—is not as straightforward as she thought.

Now, torn between her increasingly complicated feelings for Christian and her love for her boyfriend, Tucker, Clara struggles to make sense of what she was supposed to do the day of the fire. And, as she is drawn further into the world of part angels and the growing conflict between White Wings and Black Wings, Clara learns of the terrifying new reality that she must face: Someone close to her will die in a matter of months. With her future uncertain, the only thing Clara knows for sure is that the fire was just the beginning.

As of this post, there's not a synopsis available for Boundless, but as this is the final book in the Unearthly series, you know it's going to go out with a bang.  :D

Cynthia Hand is a native of southeastern Idaho and currently lives with her husband and two small children in Southern California, where she teaches writing at Pepperdine University. She has graduate degrees in creative writing from Boise State University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Instead of a muse, Cynthia has a guardian angel named Buster. He wears a Stetson in place of a halo, prefers a beat-up pickup truck to flying, and loves to correct Cynthia's grammar.

Find out more about Cynthia and her books:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | HarperTeen

 

The Author

Since Unearthly was first published, how has life changed?

It might be easier to describe how life has not changed, frankly. I had a very quiet, organized life before I published Unearthly. Most of my time went into my kids and my house, and writing was something I did to escape and to get a little time for myself. Now I have to schedule specific time for my kids and my house/chores stuff, and my life is full of all kinds of writerly craziness. But I’m happy. I like my life, and I love the reality that writing is once again my career!

Describe a typical day in the life of Cynthia Hand.  And don't leave out the writerly craziness you alluded to above.

I get up very, very early, go for a quick walk, then slink back into the house and get in some writing time, then wake up and dress and feed the kids, get them started on their days. Usually around 10am my little one goes down for a nap and I put TV on for my five year old and sneak back into my office, where I spend way too much time checking Twitter and Facebook and answering emails before I get into writing again. Then it’s lunchtime and more play time with the kids, laundry, cleaning, chores, then around 3 my daughter sleeps again and I try to work, although usually by this time I’m pretty tired and don’t get much productive done. Then dinner and clean up and baths and stories and bedtime, and finally, at the end of the day, I settle down either with a notebook or in front of my computer, and get the bulk of my day’s writing done. And then I sleep. A little. Of course, this schedule will change in a few days when Pepperdine University starts up again, and my little boy will go to school and I will go to teach a few times a week. So right now we’re in the last quieter days of summer.

What’s the best advice you were ever given?

Write the next book. There are always so many things to worry about once you’ve written/published a novel, so many things to obsess over and get wrapped up in, and I’ve seen so many writers get totally distracted by all the marketing and social networking and reviews, which are all time sucks, and none of those things will help your career more than WRITING THE NEXT BOOK.  And make it as good as you possibly can, I’d like to add, but maybe that’s a given.

The Writing

Just in case there are some readers out there who haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing your Unearthly series yet, how would you describe your book to them?

Unearthly is about a teenage girl who is part-angel. Her mother has told her that all the part-angel people (Angel-bloods, is what they are called in my world) have a purpose on this earth, and when she is old enough, she’ll start to receive visions of that purpose. So the first book starts with Clara having a vision of a boy and a forest fire, and she starts to figure out the clues in the vision in order to figure out what her purpose is, which leads her to move with her family from California to Jackson, Wyoming. She meets the boy from her visions, but it’s still a big mystery as to who this boy is and why she is having visions about him. And in the meantime she’s just trying to fit in at a new school and figure out her place on this earth, which we all do.

With the plethora of angel-themed novels available to young adults, what do you think makes your novels stand apart from the rest?

There are indeed some great angel-related novels out there, and for me what is different about Unearthly is that it is ultimately a human story. It isn’t some epic struggle between the forces of good and evil (although Clara comes to be aware of those forces more and more as the novels progress) but about one girl’s struggle with herself and her idea of destiny. I really wanted the books to feel more like a contemporary novel, in that way, than a paranormal romance.

Mission accomplished.  They definitely have more of a contemporary feel to them, with just a hint of the paranormal.  Did you plot out the series, or did you just write as it came to you?

I plotted a few things out ahead of time but mostly I fly by the seat of my pants. That’s where a lot of the joy of writing comes for me, discovering what the characters are going to do and where they’re going to take me as I’m writing.

Was there anything you originally intended to include in the series that didn’t make the cut?

Oh gosh, a lot, especially in the final book. There were entire character arcs that didn’t make it to the last book, because I really had to buckle down and focus on Clara’s story and limit the stories of the other characters. That’s one of my flaws as a writer—that I pay so much attention in my head to the side-characters of my books, and not just the main character. But I guess that is also one of my strengths as a writer, too.

I love the side-characters, and I enjoy a novel more when those characters are fleshed out just as much as the main character.  So, you'll forgive me if I don't see that as a flaw AT ALL.  I also love Clara’s narrative voice and her commentary on some of the more popular tropes in YA these days – the infamous love triangle, for example.  Your novels are anything but the typical YA fare around these days:  Clara has a loving, involved family, a devoted, un-stalkery boyfriend, and she’s purpose-driven…literally.  It seemed to me that you were speaking through Clara, as if to say to your readers, “You are better.  You deserve better.”  As in, pick a guy who treats you right, don’t make him your whole world, and don’t alienate yourself from the world because of him.  Was that your intention all along?  Or were you just having fun picking on those other guys?

I definitely saw some of the things happening in other young adult fiction and wanted to make my own story a departure from that, but most of Clara’s commentary on the popular tropes is my way, as a writer, to deal with clichés. The love triangle, for example, is one of those things that make readers groan these days—it’s so overused and feels like such a device. And yet here I was about to march Clara into a love triangle. So I let Clara tell us what she thought about love triangles, as a way of combatting the cliché and getting a laugh at herself. If I think a reader is going to have a problem with something in my book, I try to get Clara talking about it, so even if she’s going through something problematic, at least she’s self-aware and can comment on it. And poke fun at herself.

In that same vein, what do you hope your readers ultimately take away from their reading experience with the Unearthly series?

At the end of the day, I hope they enjoy the journey. I hope they’ve had some laughs and shed some tears. And I hope they’ve wrestled with some of the good questions in life, in a way that has made them ponder those good questions in their own lives.

The Books

Who was your favorite character to write?

Toss up. Angela has always been one of my faves, because she’s a complicated person and often so unpredictable. And this time around, for Boundless, Samjeeza was a great one, too.

I can't wait to read more of Samjeeza!  Okay, so he was a fun character to write, but which character do you think is most like you?

Hmm, I’d have to say Clara, in that our sense of humor is similar, and I think we respond to things in similar ways. I wish I could say I was like Maggie, all loving and wise, or like Christian, who’s the quintessence of steadfastness for me, or like Wendy, who’s the best kind of friend, but I definitely see more of myself in Clara and her flaws. Too bad I don’t share her ability to fly and speak any language on earth.

Too bad, indeed.  I know plenty of us who wish we had her powers!  So, you've shared that you're most like Clara, but if you could dream cast your novels, who would you pick for the roles?

This is a hard question for me, and one I can answer in two ways: I can either tell you an actor that resembled the characters when I was originally drafting, or an actor who I think might have a shot at actually playing the character if they shot the movies today. For instance, when I was originally drafting Clara she had a definite Amanda Seyfried vibe for me, with a little Rachel McAdams tossed in, both of whom are definitely too old to play Clara now. If I was casting her now I’d go with Anna Sophia Robb or Dakota Fanning, I think. Christian had some Zac Ephron with some Adam Gregory tossed in there when I was writing the book, and while I didn’t have any particular actor in mind for Tucker, I think he has a bit of a Kellan Lutz thing going. For Angela I’d probably cast Frances Cobain, and for Maggie, Charlize Theron or Nicole Kidman. 

Would you ever write this story, or even any part of it, from a different character’s perspective?

I would and I have. And that’s about all I can say about that at this point, but sometime in the near future I might be able to make an announcement about a project that I’ve been working on that is told, in part, from a different Unearthly point of view.

I kind of think I've read something about that somewhere, but for the sake of not spoiling the news for anyone else who doesn't follow your work as closely as I do -- and in case I'm wrong! --  I'll refrain from making any guesses.  Instead, I'll ask what your favorite scene was from the series?  And what was your favorite to write, if different?

What comes to mind is a BIG scene at the end, which is very emotional. I had been avoiding writing it all that particular work day, working in the library at Pepperdine, which I sometimes do. I was on the way back to pick up my kids, and I was listening to a CD I’d made of songs I thought embodied the feeling of the last book, and it was like this scene just reared up and slapped me upside the head. I fumbled for my phone and dictated as much as I could get down of the dialogue as it came to me, and when I arrived at my daycare lady’s house, I asked her if I could sit for a minute and write so I didn’t lose any of the important stuff. So for about ten minutes I scribbled furiously, and it was so emotional and so powerful that I was almost crying when I finished. I love writing like that. It’s so intense and wonderful and why I wanted to be a writer to begin with.

Did you set out to break our hearts with this series?  Will we need a box of tissues while we read Boundless?  [There should have been a warning like that on the cover for Hallowed, just sayin’.  :0) ]

Aw. No, I don’t set out to break hearts, although mine gets broken, too, when I write sometimes (see above).  I just try to tell the story in as true a fashion as I can. I had a marketing idea for Hallowed where I would give out custom printed packages of tissues at events that read, “You’re going to need these,” but that turned out to be surprisingly expensive. As for Boundless, there are a couple of scenes where my beta readers welled up, which is about all I can say. If you cried during Hallowed, you’re likely to cry during Boundless.

Great.  Better stock up on tissues then.  :P  Did you know how it would all end when you set out to tell Clara’s story?  Meaning, did you know who she would end up with?  And I know that you’re not even going to give us a hint as to whom that might be, but does Clara end up with who you wanted her to be with, or did she make up her mind for you?

Tricky question. Almost all along I knew who I wanted Clara to end up with, but she took some turns along the way that made me less certain. She definitely has a mind of her own, which is scary, since she came from my mind! In the end, I think it all turns out the way it was meant to turn out. How’s that for cryptic?

Very.  But I wouldn't expect anything less.  Can you share a teaser from Boundless that hasn’t been shared anywhere else?  (That scene posted for the YA Scavenger Hunt earlier this year gave me tingles!)

Sigh. I wish I could. What’s ironic is that the teaser I gave out earlier was all but cut from the book this week, so that scene, for the most part, won’t end up in Boundless after all. Such is the revision process. I’m at the stage now where I’m cutting scenes again, but I don’t have permission to share any of these or any of the other scenes from the book.

Whaaaa?  I loved that scene!  Okay, I understand, though.  I read your recent blog post about revisions and deleted scenes and such, so I know that even though it's cut from the book, it's not gone forever.  *sigh*  So, you keep hinting at your next project but you’ve yet to share ANY details.  Are you at liberty to share anything about the secret project yet?  C’mon…just a hint?  ;0)

Well. Let’s see. One great thing for me at this point is that I have tons of ideas. Too many ideas. actually have three separate projects laid out for myself, all very different worlds from the Unearthly universe, and all very different from each other—one of them is very gritty and intense and real, one’s a swords and spells kind of fantasy/retelling of a famous incident in British history, and one’s a contemporary that’s very close to my heart and will probably near kill me to write. I haven’t sold any of these projects yet—I am waiting to wrap up Boundless before I start preparing to submit new stuff, but the project that I am burning to write next is the gritty one, with a character who is like the lunar opposite of Clara, stoic and silent—really silent. I wrote a bit of this over the summer in between edits for Boundless, and it was so fun to take on something so entirely new. That said, I must reiterate that none of these projects have sold yet, which means that none of them may get written. I may have an entirely new idea or be guided in a completely different direction, and I’m open to that, but I hope that I’ll get to write all three of these stories someday. . .

And I hope that I get to READ all three of those stories someday!  Thanks so much, Cynthia, for stopping by and letting me pick your brain.  I'm so glad to be able to share with everyone why you're such a rockstar author.  Though, I'm sure plenty have already figured that out on their own.

The lovely Cynthia Hand has graciously offered up the following prizes to you guys:

• A signed copy of Hallowed to one winner
• Bookmarks and bookplates to three other winners

So, that's four winners/prizes in all!  If that alone doesn't make her a rockstar, I don't know what does.  (Please note that this giveaway is for US residents only.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you didn't think Cynthia Hand was a Rockstar Author before, I hope I've convinced you otherwise.  And if you haven't read the Unearthly series yet...why not?

Good luck & happy reading!