BLOG TOUR # 42 - TEAM HUMAN - 6 BOOK GIVEAWAY - INTERVIEW WITH JUSTINE LARBALESTIER & SARAH REES BRENNAN - ALLEN & UNWIN

Today I have for you an awesome interview with the lovely ladies Justine Larbalestier & Sarah Rees Brennan and 6 Paperbacks to giveaway. 5 for Aussie addresses, big thankyou to Allen & Unwin and 1 for International, big thankyou to me for buying this for the lucky winner, hehe:D 

Thank you ladies for taking the time to answer my Q's. So without further ado, here is my interview:D

Enjoy!

INTERVIEW

Michelle:   I am very intrigued with the whole duo writing team thing. Could you please let us in on how you decided to come together and write Team Human and how does an Australian and an Irish writer make it work? Do you each tackle a chapter, do you just write into the dead of the night and then pick each others work until a happy medium?

Sarah

Sarah Rees Brennan: We'd each write two chapters and then turn them over to the other, alternating, and both of us would go over and over and over each chapter until we were happy. Justine loves cutting... which is lucky because I love adding. Very symbiotic! Or like I kept kicking sand into the hole Justine was digging on the beach. Not sure which. ;)

I did always think it was fun to write at top speed so Justine would wake in the morning and find new chapters lurking for her there. Time differences are cool.

Justine Larbalestier: It wasn't just in the morning! Sometimes I'd finish a chapter for her to read and comment on and she'd get back to me to talk about within about twenty seconds and would then go off and write the next chapter before I had time to get up from my desk. Truly, Sarah, is not human.

Michelle:   I really loved Francis’ character. Who thought him up and that sun proof suit?

SRB:  Aw, thank you! Well, we both thought of him, really, though I think I like him better than Justine does. (She's the hardcore Team Human girl!) He was a mixture of a lot of different fictional vampires (and non-vampires, the way he writes his Great Work is based on a character called Casaubon from George Eliot's Middlemarch) and yet we wanted to make him our own as well: he's funny (not on purpose) but he's also a loyal and loving person. We wanted our vampire to seem real.

Justine was very firm that our vampires be allergic to the sun--I totally agreed with her--and we felt the sunproof suit was the next logical and hilarious step.

Justine

JL:  Francis, like all the characters in the book, was made up by both of us. The book is truly collaborative from start to finish. We named him Francis about Lymond from the Dorothy Dunnett books. Don't tell any Dunnett fans--they take Lymond very seriously--but we did that as a joke.

Michelle:  Would you ladies consider or have considered a novella about Francis?

SRB: Mayyyybe. I am much pleased by this Francis devotion!

Michelle: Sarah, what 10 words would you use to describe Justine?

SRB:  I only need one word. She's indescribable. ;) 

Michelle: Justine , what 10 words would you use to describe Sarah ? 

JL:  I'm going to cheat and use the same word as Sarah. 

Michelle:  Sarah , I am really loving, The Demon’s Lexicon Trilogy, Team Nick. The Lynburn Legacy book # 1 Unspoken , is due for release September 11th 2012, I must read this. How many books will be in this series and do you have any other paranormal series you are looking at writing? I find Nick and the crew very addictive reading.

Oh, thank you very much! Team Nick is a fine team to be on. A little demon-y but still good. ;)

The Lynburn Legacy is going to be three books. I love a trilogy, because I have a rule for trilogies--book 1, set up, book 2, make out, book 3, defeat evil!--and my Gothic tale of a girl who finds out her imaginary friend is a real boy lends itself very well to those rules, and that's all I'm saying.

But Team Human was my very first stand alone (Justine had to guide me through it) so it'll always be special!

Michelle:  Do you ladies have any works you would like to plug that are in...the works, no pun intended...well maybe:D 

SRB: Well, I'm playing with the idea of writing a retelling of a classic tale, and I'm also working on something I call the Ice Queen of Boston series. I've never written a bad-girl heroine before and I'm loving it!

JL: The book I'm working on right now is still too delicate for me to talk about it.

Michelle:  What character in any of your books was the hardest emotionally for you to write and why?

SRB: Oh lord, I couldn't pick one. They were all hard to write emotionally from time to time! If you're not crying, it's not working, I think. Same if you're not laughing. (Writing books for me: like having a mini nervous breakdown...)

JL: Probably Micah from 'Liar'. It's very draining to write about some who has such a tenuous grip on reality.

Michelle:   If you could write your co-writer into a paranormal story, have fun, what character would you write her as, and what would you name her?

SRB:  I think I'd prefer to write her as a superheroine? She's very strong (sports, all those mystifying sports!) and very into justice. Just-Justine? Justicine? I like Justicine! (There may be a reason Hollywood did not break down my door begging me to write the latest Spiderman movie.)

JL:  Definitely as a vampire. In fact, sometimes I suspect Sarah already is a vampire. She sure does spend a lot of time awake. And she hasn't aged a day since I first met her . . .

Michelle:  What are both of you ladies philosophy on life?

SRB:  'I may not agree with a word you say, but would defend to the death your right to say it.' OK, I stole that from Voltaire, but it's good, right?

JL:  I'll go with Sarah and Voltaire.

Michelle:  If both of you went on a night time date, with Francis, where do you think he would take you?

SRB:  Like both of us at once? ... I guess it'd end up just being me, since I think Justine might run away. ;) Oh Francis knows how to show a lady a good time. We might go to the opera, or for a promenade around the park. And he would look at me with his beautiful blue eyes and draw in close and whisper 'I feel deeply uncomfortable doing this without a chaperone.'

Classic Francis.

JL: Sarah is right I wouldn't go on a date with Francis. But if he and Sarah were on a date I would, in fact, stick around to chaperone. Poor Francis who knows what Sarah would do to him? :-)

Thanks ladies for this fun interview, all the best with your next projects.

Michelle

This is a cool little vid. The person making it was unwell so some parts are unfinished, but you get the idea of how long it would take them to draw these great images of the characters.

GIVEAWAY TIME

 AUSSIE ADDRESSES ONLY

ALLEN & UNWIN HAVE KINDLY DONATED 

5 PAPERBACKS OF TEAM HUMAN 

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BUT!!!

INTERNATIONAL ENTRIES ONLY

I SHALL VIA BOOK DEPOSITORY DONATE 

1 X PAPERBACK TEAM HUMAN

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