Carly Reads for TBF!: Super Post #3: Elizabeth Scott and the end of Would You Rather

Hey Readers!

Super post number three and TBF is only # days away! Woo hoo! Let’s start off with an author interview … my interview with Elizabeth Scott.

CR: You are most certainly a prolific YA author, tell me a little bit more about your books.

ES: It's so funny because when people say I'm prolific, I'm really not. What happened is that I wrote three young adult novels before I thought I'd give finding an agent a try (and that was, quite honestly, so my friends would stop bugging me about it!).

So, I signed with my first agent in 2005, and she sold my first three young adult novels. The first one, “Bloom,” came out in 2007, the second, “Stealing Heaven,” in 2008, and the third, “Love You Hate You Miss You,” in 2009 – so with gaps of two, three, and four (!) years between purchase and publication, I had plenty of time to write. So me being "prolific" is just the result of how my first three novels were scheduled for publication!

CR: You have two new books coming out in the next few months (“Between Here and Forever,” due out May 24 and “As I Wake” due out September 15). What can you tell us about those novels?

ES: I'm super excited about “Between Here and Forever” – for those of you who've read my first novel, “Bloom,” some characters from that book show up – but in a very unusual way!

“Between Here and Forever” is about Abby, who long ago accepted that she can't measure up to her beautiful, magnetic sister Tess, and knows exactly what she is: Second best. Invisible.

Until the accident.

Now Tess is in a coma, and Abby's life is on hold. It may have been hard living with Tess, but it's nothing compared to living without her.

She's got a plan to bring Tess back though, involving the gorgeous and mysterious Eli, but then Abby learns something about Tess, something that was always there, but that she'd never seen.

Abby is about to find out that truth isn't always what you think it is, and that life holds more than she ever thought it could...

As for “As I Wake,” I have to say I never thought a story that was inspired by my love of modal realism, my fascination with the Stasi and East Germany in the late 1980s, plus – of course! – true love, would ever get published, but it is, and I'm thrilled. Here's a little more:

Ava is welcomed home from the hospital by a doting mother, lively friends, and a crush finally beginning to show interest. There's only one problem: Ava can't remember any of them – and can't shake the eerie feeling that she's not who they say she is.

Ava struggles to break through her amnesiac haze as she goes through the motions of high-school life, but the memories that surface take place in a very different world, where Ava and familiar-faced friends are under constant scrutiny and no one can be trusted. Ava doesn't know what to make of these visions, or of the boy who is at the center of them all, until he reappears in her life and offers answers … but only in exchange for her trust.

CR: Did you always want to be an author? What was your journey to published author like?

ES: I did not! I didn't like the creative writing assignments I was given in school, and when I went to college I went out of my way to avoid any classes that had a fiction-writing component to them. I loved writing papers and actually thought I'd end up teaching. Instead, I wound up with a series of interesting jobs (except for that dot.com stint!) and was working at a university when one afternoon, during a meeting, I ended up writing a story instead of taking notes. I was 27 and I still remember looking at what I'd written and thinking, "But I thought writing wasn't fun – and it IS!"

After that, I was off and running – I wrote short stories for about five years for fun and then, after a great group of my closest friends kept nagging – er, I mean asking super nicely! – me to try and get published, I wrote a query letter for my first novel, “Bloom” and saw an agent's blog post about email queries. I sent it off, though, "Perfect! I'll get rejected, and can tell my friends I tried, and that'll be that."

But then the agent wrote back and wanted to see the first three chapters, and then, about an hour later, the whole book – and I signed with that agent the next day. It was so unbelievable. And then selling books I'd written? I was in shock for most of 2005, let me tell you!

I also realize how amazingly lucky I am, and I wake up every day grateful that I get to do something I love so much.

CR: What was your favorite book when you were a teenager?

ES: I read constantly, but I never had a favorite book. (I still don't – there's too many amazing ones out there for me to only pick one!)

CR: What author are you most looking forward to meeting and/or seeing at the Sixth Annual TBF?

ES: I can't wait to see Melissa de la Cruz again. I met her at BEA when it was in Los Angeles, and she was so funny and sweet and down-to-earth – I adore her. (And her books? LOVE!!!)

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer these interview questions for us, Elizabeth. We can’t wait to meet you in person in only a few days!

Hmmm so I hope you’re not getting bored with them yet, readers, but there are more Would You Rather survey results to reveal!

Would you rather eat an ice cream cone or a cupcake?