Suvudu Universe

TQ:  Welcome to The Qwillery! Congratulations on your successful Kickstarter campaign for Morganville: The Web TV Series and for the recent publication of Terminated, the 3rd novel in the Revivalist series.

Rachel:  Thank you! We're SO excited about the Kickstarter -- I'm swimming in fulfillment items for our backers right now, getting ready to start shipping!

It's really bittersweet ending the Revivalist series for me ... but I had always planned this for only three books, so I've got nobody but myself to blame for the series ending.



TQ:  You've written many, many novels. What is the most challenging thing for you about writing? Has your writing process changed from when you wrote Ill Wind (Weather Warden 1) to Terminated?

Rachel:  The most challenging thing about writing is that every time, it's always the first time. Each book has a new, tougher bar to clear, somehow ... and things that seemed easy in other books might seem difficult, suddenly. They're all special snowflakes of difficulty, somehow. (But that's part of what makes it fun and unexpected!)

I can't say that the mechanical writing process has changed for me, exactly -- except my schedule has accelerated, so it happens faster than when I had six months to refine things. I still do an outline, and I still (horrors!) get up early and write almost every day.



TQ:  Tell us something about Terminated, the final novel in the Revivalist series, that is not in the book description.

Rachel:  I think the most intriguing thing is that Bryn is growing into her (relative) invulnerability - and some of the ways she does this are pretty startling. I mean, when getting shot in the head is your first choice plan for escape ... and we get to take a tour of some interesting out of the way places. Like the Salt Museum. (No really, there is one, and it's pretty cool!)



TQ:  Which character in the series has surprised you the most?

Rachel:  I think in some ways it's Bryn. I thought I knew which way she'd develop, but at every turn, she surprised me again ... with her fearlessness, and her ingenuity, and her awareness of how utterly merciless her future would be. I thought she'd be tough, but she turned out to be about twice as tough as I anticipated!



TQ:  Why do you think readers find zombies so interesting, especially sentient zombies?

Rachel:  I think it's a metaphor for a lot of things in our lives -- the fear of loss of control being the most important. There's a complete loss of control on both sides of the story, if you think about it -- the zombies obviously have lost everything that makes them human, but those who've survived have lost friends, family, home, normal life as well. I think that the constant change in our lives makes us fear loss of control even more, and that relates to the popularity of creatures like zombies, who embody that.



TQ:  What's next?

Rachel:  TERMINATED ties up the Revivalist story, so the next thing for me (in November 2013) is DAYLIGHTERS, the last Morganville Vampires novel, and then in February 2014 the release of PRINCE OF SHADOWS, my Romeo and Juliet story set in Shakespeare's Verona but told from an alternate point of view. We have the Morganville Vampires web series gearing up for production later this year, too! So a lot. I also have the CARNIEPUNK anthology recently released, and an essay in SHADOWHUNTERS AND DOWNWORLDERS (a SmartPop anthology about Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series), and upcoming I have a co-written story with Charlaine Harris in DARK DUETS.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Rachel:  Thank you so much for having me over! Pass the chips. ;)

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound