Author Interview with Alyssa Auch

Author Interviews

September 30, 2013

Author Interview with Alyssa Auch

I’m interviewing author Alyssa Auch on my blog today. Alyssa is the author of YA fantasy novel “Lunula”. Thank you for answering my questions, Alyssa!

Author Interview

1) When did you know you wanted to become an author?

I’m pretty sure I have wanted to write since the board books of my infancy. I don’t remember a time I didn’t want to write, anyway. I do remember when I was 8 or 9 there was this time a teacher encouraged me to write a creative story. So I wrote about an evil villain giving an apple to a teacher which–SURPRISE- was a bomb! I don’t remember how it ended, but it was probably pretty fantastic.

2) Where did you get the inspiration from for Lunula?

It was a High School project that expanded…dramatically. I created an exercise where my best friends and I would write to one another like we were fictional characters. As we wrote the letters, the story would form. In its early conception, I wrote as Wynn, and my friend wrote as Queen Alexandria, requesting my character’s help. The story evolved a lot, of course…as did my writing, thankfully. But that idea stuck in my head for years until I finally felt I had a modicum of skill to do it justice.

3) How long did it take you to write Lunula from start to finish?

About seven weeks. See, I have been in school since 2011, and I do three full-time semesters a year. In the middle of all that, we get a seven week summer break. Day one of summer break I sat down and just started writing. By the time Fall semester began, I had finished and moved on to editing. I only had two kids then, so it was easier to focus, if you can believe it.

4) What is your editing process like?

Long. Arduous. I’m guessing you aren’t just looking for adjectives, so I guess I will say that I do my best to be as meticulous as possible. I read through the manuscript twice on my own. Then I get peer reviews (I’ve got lots of writers and editors in my family. I’m pretty lucky that way!) Then, after lots of hot chocolate (no coffee for me!), and revisions, I feel confident enough to send it off to the publisher, who will inevitably assign me a professional editor! Thankfully, my experience with the professional editor was much smoother thanks to competent friend and family revisions.

5) What was the most challenging part about writing Lunula?

Oh yeah, that’s gotta be the whole “I’m in school full-time and I can’t seem to stop having babies” thing. I write when the littles are napping. Or at night when I should be sleeping. It’s hard to focus when my two-year-old son has just stripped his clothes off and is standing in front of the living room window, waving at people, while my baby has managed to crawl under the bed and get stuck, and the four-year-old has the cat in a laundry hamper. And yes, those things happened like an hour ago.

6) What are your writing goals for 2013?

I do have a few! First, get Inito published by November. Second, finish The Taylor Chronicles book I am currently writing. Second, begin editing said Taylor Chronicles book. Third, market the crud out of my work.

7) Are you working on something right now? If so, can you tell us more about it?

I am working on two books right now. The first, Inito, is the sequel to Lunula. It is in the editing stage, but I feel quite confident it will be out by November. The Taylor Chronicles (book one…still unnamed) is a collaborative effort with my mother and author, Eileen Sharp. It is a paranormal YA book about a brother and sister, both marked by the spirit world and in for a terrifying new reality of specters with gruesome intentions. Also it has hot twin brothers. Just throwing that out there.

Lunula

Title: Lunula

Author: Alyssa Auch

Genre: YA Fantasy

The witch knows he will hunt her.

If history repeats itself, as it always does, Wynn will have no choice but to cross paths with her feared counterpart, the warlock. If given the chance, he would kill Wynn, absorbing her aura and obtaining ultimate power. In a desperate attempt to outrun destiny, Wynn moves from place to place, hoping to stray from the map laid out by the Fates. But by chance, on an urgent errand for Queen Alexandria herself, Wynn finds she has fallen into the hands of the one man she so hopelessly fled from. Now his captive, Wynn must guard her secret and that of her kingdom, or risk bringing forth a dark age not seen in hundreds of years.

Author Bio

Alyssa Auch was born and raised in Pennsylvania with loving parents and three hilarious younger siblings. Her imagination was sparked by the lush, green forests and bright colors of her home that often spoke of other worlds only found in the magic of writing. She brought that inspiration into the fantasy novels she so loves to create.

Currently, Alyssa is a senior at Brigham Young University-Idaho studying Marriage and Family Relations with a minor in English. She is married to her High School sweetheart, and they have three beautiful children who keep them both very occupied. Although her novels are often written in the late hours of the night and during cherished naptime blocks, she devotes a very special part of herself to the power of words and love of storytelling.