The minute I picked up Cassandra Clare’s first book in The Mortal Instruments series I was hooked! They’re fast paced, have interesting twists and mange to be a YA novel that doesn’t preclude adults from enjoying the ride. I’m eagerly awaiting her newest release – Clockwork Angel - which kicks off a prequel series entitled The Infernal Devices. I’m so excited that Cassandra’s agreed to join us on the Playground this month!
Instigator: Welcome to the Playground, Cassandra. I like to start out most of our interviews with a little background information. How did you come to writing? Was it a lifelong passion or something you found by accident?
Cassandra: I think, like most people, I began with a passion for reading. I was never without a book when I was a kid. Over time, love of reading morphed into love of writing and creating my own stories.
Insti: The book that just came out begins a prequel series to your popular Moral Instruments series. How difficult was it for you to go back in time to write this? Did you find yourself jumping continuity or plot line hurdles that you hadn’t expected? Was there something specific in the Mortal Instruments that drew you to write the Infernal Devices?
CC: Well, I won't lie, the research I had to do for Clockwork Angel was intense and often difficult. For six months I read only books written during, or set in, the Victorian period in England, London specifically. I did a lot of reading of first-hand sources: journals kept at the time period, the travel accounts of tourists visiting England from America (since Tessa is American, in London for the first time, I wanted to have a sense of what her impressions would have been) and newspapers of the period. I also employed a research assistant — Lisa Gold — to track down hard to find photographs of locations in the time period, and went to London several times myself to map out routes and select locations.
I suppose the specific thing in the MI series that made me want to go back in time was the decision I made that modern Shadowhunters should use technology - cell phones, computers, cars, they even have their own machines called Sensors and Trackers. I thought, what would it be like to write a story in which I go back and take all that away from them? How do they cope without their own modern inventions, much less ours?
Insti: Many of our readers juggle not only a love for writing but also family and full-time jobs. How do you find that balance between your writing and life?
CC: Well, I've got no kids and no full-time job, but I'm getting married in October and let me tell you, I had no idea a wedding was so time-consuming. It's like planning the invasion of Normandy. Meanwhile there's also a wedding in the upcoming City of Fallen Angels, my next book after Clockwork Angel, so I always joke that I'm planning two weddings.
Inst: I’ve heard that there’s a very interesting story about how you came up with the idea for your first Mortal Instruments book…something about a tattoo parlor? Could you share it with our readers?
CC: I got the idea years ago - I was in a tattoo shop in Manhattan's East
Village when the idea came to me that it would be fun to write about
characters who used magical tattoos to fight monsters. The characters
came just after that. It took about two or three years to develop that
into a consistent magic system and a book.
Insti: Is there one piece of advice that you wish you’d followed before you were published? Any words of wisdom you think every aspiring writer should know?
CC: Remember, ideally, you're not selling your book to just one publisher. You are also going to go out and seek foreign publication — you'll have publishers around the world, in France, Italy, Germany, wherever. Cultivate your relationships with each of them the way you would cultivate your relationship with your publisher at home.
For Fun
Insti: At the end of every interview we like to ask some questions just for fun. The Playground has a long love affair with shoes so we always want to know are you a blinged out high heel girl or more comfortable in your tennies?
CC: I wear Fluevogs. Nothing but Fluevogs.
Insti: If you could disappear to anywhere in the world where would you go?
CC: A small Carribbean island.
Insti: If you weren’t writing what would you be doing?
CC: Teaching or editing.
Thanks for visiting with us, Cassandra! Be sure to pick up Cassandra’s latest release Clockwork Angel available right now. Also be on the lookout for book four in the Mortal Instruments series City of Fallen Angels coming in April 2011. And don’t forget to visit her at http://cassandraclare.com.
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