I'm thrilled to have Chelsea Fine here answering some questions!
About Chelsea
Where were you born and where do you call home?
I was born in Tucson, Arizona and lived there until I was fourteen. I moved to the Phoenix area my freshman year of high school (boy was that fun!) and have lived here ever since. I think “home” is an ever-evolving thing for me. Five years ago, I would have called my parents’ kitchen home. (It is, after all, where my mom feeds me.) But now I think “home” is my living room couch, curled up next to my hubby and our two kiddos. Wow. I sound sappy, haha. But I can’t help myself. It’s true. What writers inspire you?
I want to be Veronica Roth when I grow up. But I’m also a huge fan of Cassandra Clare, Jennifer Castle, and John Green.
Book for a long journey?
The Count of Monte Cristo. It lasts for days.
For your own reading, do you prefer ebooks or traditional paper/hard back books?
Paperback copies of books are the best! You can underline in red pen and dog-ear the corners and leave tearstains on the pages. That’s what reading is all about.
About Writing
How do you plan your books? I fly by the seat of my pants. It’s terrifying and unpredictable. I love it!
Do you know how a book will end as you start writing it?
Sometimes. Not usually, though. Sometimes I think it’s better not to know. Like…I go on the journey with my characters without knowing the outcome, and sometimes that makes me experience their emotions in the same raw way a reader might. I don’t know.
Do you plan an entire series, or take it book-by-book?The correct answer here is “I plan the entire series.” But that would be a big fat lie. *grins*
Where do your ideas come from?
About New Adult
What first drew you to New Adult?The age group! 18-25 is sort of like a Dark Age and I LOVE the concept of giving characters that fall into this lost time some roles in the literary world. Instead of only knowing what their first kiss/love/heartbreak was like in high school and then jumping right into their career lives in their thirties, we can actually let all the significant life changes of their “college years” play out. Forget high school, those are the years that truly shape us.
Why did you want to write a New Adult book?
Because I wanted to write characters who had to figure out their futures beyond prom dresses and graduation. Not that there’s anything wrong with those things, I just wanted to write something with more at stake.
What does “New Adult” mean to you?
Characters who are new at being adults and living in an adult world without the supervision/threat/safety of parents.
What would you love to see next in New Adult?
What's next
What are you working on at the minute?
I’m currently finishing up my first New Adult book, as well as working on my first MG series.
The New Adult book is about childhood friends who grow up together, experience a tragedy, and drift apart. But a year later, they end up living next door to one another for the summer and find it difficult to keep the past, well…in the past. It’s a story about hurt and healing, and true love of course.
And the MG series is about a young girl who stumbles upon some magic in Scotland and goes on a wild ride through a world steeped in fantasy, beauty, and danger in order to find her way back home.
Eeek! I’m so excited for both!
On Chelsea's Upcoming New Adult novel.
Tell us what your book is about in 140 characters or less.
What was I thinking, living under the same roof as Levi’s blue eyes? There’s no way I’ll survive the summer. I can barely survive breakfast.
Is this book part of a series?
No. At least that’s not my intention. However, there are some secondary characters that I would love to write about in the future.
What was your favourite chapter (or part) to write and why?
I loved writing the scene where my two main characters first kissed. It was sweet and intense…and it took place in a fort during an epic game of Capture the Flag, so yeah. Big fun.
Tell us about the cover/s and how it/they came about.
With the exception of Sophie & Carter, I’ve handled all my book covers personally. I have a great photographer (Ashley Bugg with Bugg Photographer) who shot the cover models for my Archers of Avalon series, and I have a love/love relationship with Photoshop where I design my own covers like a true control freak.
Leave us with a teaser/quote from your book?
'Levi is so distracting. His arms are all raised, and his shoulders are all broad, and he’s fixing crap, and it’s just...just...annoying.
I pry my eyes off his back and force my feet to the stove where I throw vegetables into a pan, grab a wooden spoon, and ignore his close proximity.
My body hums.
I ignore that too.
He’s unscrewing the cover of the fire alarm and his arm moves with the motion. Why does he have so many muscles in his forearm? That can’t be healthy. I drop my eyes to the pan and focus on bell peppers.
Because bell peppers are interesting and they don’t have forearm muscles or backs the size of Alaska.
The forearm muscles that I’m not thinking about lightly brush against my shoulder and the humming inside my body knots together and zips around like a bumblebee on crack.
I casually turn down the heat on the stove, like that’s the reason I’m suddenly a human vibrator, and go back to stirring. Levi goes back to screwing.
Bell peppers.
I’m thinking about bell peppers.
But those blasted muscles can’t seem to keep their distance and soon enough Levi brushes against me again.
Except this time his forearm grazes my breast and my body immediately goes wild like I’m some love-starved teenager and the humming dives low in my belly and the stove gets hotter and my breaths get shallow and suddenly bell peppers are the sexiest vegetable on earth.
From the corner of my eye, I catch Levi’s Adam’s apple bobbing with a nervous swallow, which can only mean one thing. The boob brush was an accident.
Well crap.
If he had been trying to cop a feel with his Hulkish forearm, I could have responded with some kind of snarky “you’re a pervert” comment. But it wasn’t on purpose and somehow that makes it sexier and now the cracked-out bumblebee is buzzing in my nether regions and my hands are starting to tingle and why the HELL is this stove so hot?
He lowers his arm for a moment, his eyes still on the alarm, and stretches his neck.
Ah, the neck stretch. Then universal sign of stress. Well at least I’m not alone in my frustration. My hot, distracting, pants-are-so-inconvenient frustration.
Wait, what? Who said anything about pants? I am NOT thinking about pants—or the lack thereof. Damn you, bell peppers!
I toss the wooden spoon to the side and move back to the counter where I pretend to be fascinated by a list of omelette ingredients.
I bite back a groan. What was I thinking, living under the same roof as Levi? There’s no way I’ll survive the summer.
Hell, I can barely survive breakfast.'
Thank you Chelsea Fine for asking the questions and to New Leaf Literacy for giving me the chance to do this interview as part of their Addicted to New Adult feature.
Much Love!
Lettie
Xxx
