1000 + Books to Read: Stained Series Blog Tour! Interview with Author Ella James!!!

I'm sooooooooooo excited to be a part of this super awesome Stained Series Blog Tour and I thought there would be no better way to share this than with an interview with the very own Ella James, Author OF the series! So Jenn and I put on our thinking caps and came up with some super cool (we hope) questions!

Make sure to check out all the awesome links towards the bottom with the Series info and Author info.

ENJOY!!

#1 - Stained, the first book in the Stained series, has gotten a lot of Internet buzz since it's release. Is it more than you expected? Tell me how it felt when you got your very first review in of Stained?

-Honestly, I think any amount of buzz was more than I expected! It's just not possible (for me) to imagine ANY number of people being intensely interested in something *I* wrote. This is heightened by the fact that I have written for years with basically no readers except my immediate family...so I guess I got used to not getting very much feedback on the books. It was so much fun to find that people liked Stained, especially since it was my very first book and was written years ago.

#2 - YA, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, YA Paranormal Romance. All of these genres are filled with Authors and books. What makes yours stand apart from the rest?

-I try to go the extra mile with my characters - to make their histories interesting, to make their feelings sympathetic. I try to make it clear WHY the guy and girl/man and woman like each other... because I feel like that's not always done well enough in romance. Like, what does one of them have that the other one NEEDS. There needs to be *something,* ya know? I also like to think the writing is quality, especially in the later books like HERE and Before You Go. I'm not saying it's THE.BEST.WRITING.YOU.HAVE.EVER.READ.EVER. but I think I usually do okay. ;) I've been a writer professionally longer than I've written fiction, so I guess what I'm saying is I would think that shows some.

#3 - Looking back on your books, are there any edits that you wish weren't made? Any scenes that you wish were in the finished product? If so, can you share?

-Hmmm... There are usually parts I wish had been written or edited *better* (so I sometimes revise things for a while after a book is out), but I rarely remove scenes. HOWEVER... Over The Moon has a few deleted scenes, and after that comes out I will be happy to share those! :)

#4 - As a reader we tend to want the next book in the series.. like.. NOW, can you give us a little insight into the life of an Author and why we have to wait forever (not really) for the next book? What's going on behind the scenes?

-Hmm, well, there are several steps in the writing process that seem to be fairly universal, and added all up, even flying through them at breakneck speed, they seem to take between two and six months, depending on the writer. For me... I can write a first draft in two weeks or so, depending on what's going on with my family. My husband is my editor, and he insists on reading everything TWICE, which constantly drives me insane but makes the books better. So that takes maybe three weeks, because he is not flying through the books - he's trying to be sure everything makes sense. Then I read it again, a cover has to be designed, PR has to be done... Usually, though my two weeks turn into three or four because I have a baby and am busier than I would like to be with other things in life (dishes, grocery trips, baby food making, etc.), and my husband's three weeks are more like a month because he works a 9-5 job... so you get the point. ;) My goal, though, is to get better and better, faster and faster. I once heard a rumor that Janet Dailey could write a book in a weekend, and I've always wanted to get there.

#5 - U-Plot-It.. totally unique and interesting project. Where'd it come from? What made you decide to make this interactive book?

-The idea came to me at random, but I think it was sparked by me having realized earlier, the same day, that writing has gotten waaaaay less difficult for me than it once was. Or, rather, plotting has. Writing has honestly never been hard - it's a matter of time, which is sometimes tedious - but my mind is, sadly, not very structured, so plotting used to be pretty difficult for me. Then one day, probably during one of the seventeen million drafts of my adult romance, the TBR Over The Moon (of which I wrote FOUR totally-different-from-start-to-finish drafts), I just "got it," and it wasn't hard anymore. That's not to say I always do it perfectly, but I understand it now. And honestly, writing books became slightly less exciting.

I'm someone who really, really, really loves a challenge...so I started thinking, how could I make it harder again? And I realized if other people were telling me what to write it would be more difficult to tie together loose ends, to make a plot where all the pieces conveniently fit, where the book was about a certain thing and had a particular vibe. I'm also really picky about my characters... I HAVE to love them, or the books just don't work, and I thought if I didn't come up with them or their histories, maybe it would be harder to love them and the book would be harder to write. And, yeah, I thought it might be fun for other people, too. ;) I definitely believe anyone can write a book if they want to - that plotting can be easy if you take it step-by-step... I'm constantly trying to talk my family and friends into writing books, I guess because I know how fun it is, so I thought if none of my friends would write their own book, I could let them play with one of mine!

#6 - Out of all of your babies, I mean books, which book:

is your favorite?

-I'd probably have to say Over The Moon. Like I said before, I think I taught myself how to plot using that book (not recently - two or three years ago when I originally started messing around with it), and it has tons of characters I love. Watch for a preview of Over The Moon soon, btw... Like maybe on the free list. ;) (P.S. It features Logan and Margo from Before You Go, my YA contemporary romance that's out right now - only they may not be named Logan and Margo; when BYG was Part I of Over The Moon {which it originally was, though with a slightly different ending}, they had different names, and I can't decide if OTM will be published with their BYG names or their original OTM names. Is that enough acronyms to boggle your brain?)

was the hardest to write?

-Gah! They all are. :) Stolen was pretty hard, for whatever reason. I had a really tough time getting to know Nick in HERE. Since his backstory is so radical, I just clammed up. Finally in the middle of the book I figured Nick out and realized he's not that different from...say, anybody. :) And it got better.

has your favorite character?

-Probably Over The Moon. I really do love all my characters, just like a mama loves all her children, but I spent almost three years working with Logan in Before You Go/Over The Moon (where his name was Ander), and I came to love him. :) There's another character in that same series named Vincent that I really love, too.

#7 - So tell us.. whats next? What are you working on and when will we know about it? Sharing is caring you know! :o)

-I'm almost finished with Chosen, which I hope will be released in early June. That's the third book in my YA paranormal romance Stained Series. Next up is book two in the HERE series, which I still haven't quite named. That one's going to be really fun; I mean, things get totally INSANE. If you've read HERE, you'll understand. And do read HERE! Over The Moon will probably be released this month. After HERE Book Two I'm either going to write the U-PLOT-IT shifter story, a YA sci-fi romance called Azalea & The Makers of Zen, or an adult christian romance that will probably be called Saved.

Thanks so much for interviewing me! It was so much fun. xx Ella

Make sure to stop by Ella's website: http://ellajamesbooks.blogspot.com and facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ellajamesbooks to say HI!