Please welcome Cari Z. to The Blogger Girls!!

What made you want to become an author and why choose the genres that you write in?

I don’t know that becoming an author is a choice for most of us, so to speak. When you’ve got stories to tell, they will be told, period. And while I started with m/m historical fiction, most of what I write is speculative because I like not being bound by pesky things like reality.

What was the first scene you wrote that made you cry?

Oh, jeez, when I killed someone. Not a major character, but a minor one I loved. The plot demanded death and I fed the beast, but it definitely brought a tear to my eye.

Does writing energize or exhaust you?

Both. Either. When I’m already full of energy, writing lifts me up. When I’m tired, it wreaks havoc on me. Being a new mom, you can guess which state I’m in more often these days. *sigh*

What is your writing Kryptonite?

Social media. I use Cold Turkey for a reason—when I’m on deadline, Google is good, Twitter is bad.

For readers who haven’t read you, do you want each book to stand on its own, or do you try to build a body of work with connections between each book?

I haven’t written a lot of series, so generally I think most of my books stand on their own. I don’t have an overarching universe that people need to acquaint themselves with to find their feet with my writing. Except in my free stuff, but hey—free!

How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

Publishing gave me a sense of urgency that only increases. It’s not a bad thing, either—it’s beneficial to be able to hit a deadline in more ways than just writing life.

What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?

Oh boy, of mine or someone else’s? I guess my favorite under-appreciated novel that I wrote is Tempest, which I’m going to be re-releasing in the new year now that I’ve got rights back to it. It’s a fairytale gone dark (ha, like most of them need any help) and I love almost everything about it. And for someone else’s novel? Huh, I don’t know if it’s underappreciated or not, but at this time of year I like to re-read Christopher Moore’s The Stupidest Angel. It puts me in that zombie-tastic holiday spirit.

And a silly question…. What would you choose to be your spirit animal?

Right now I’m staring at my daughter’s closest stuffed animal, which is part monkey, part tiger and part crocodile, and—that. I think that’s a pretty good representation these days 😉 Continue reading →