[Day Twenty Eight of 31 Days] Author Interview: Shauna Granger, author of Earth and Air

The Fairytale Nerd is the next stop for the Earth Blog Tour!

Shauna Granger, author of Earth is here visiting The Fairytale Nerd for an author interview. Please note that the commenters at each stop will be entered into the Grand Prize Giveaway!

• Grand Prize - a signed print copy of soon to be released Air and bookmark
• Second Grand Prize - a signed print copy of Earth and a bookmark

Shauna Granger lives in a sleepy little beach town in Southern California with her husband, John, and their goofy dog, Brody. Always fascinated by Magic, Shauna spent most of her teen years buried in books about fairies, elves, gnomes, spells, witchcraft, wizards and sorcery. When she's not busy working on the next installment of the Elemental Series she enjoys cooking, entertaining, MMA fight nights, watching way too much TV and coffee. Lots of coffee.

Stalk Shauna here: Twitter Facebook Blog


Welcome to The Fairytale Nerd Shauna! how are you today?
Peachy keen, jelly bean! Ha! Sorry, just couldn’t help myself.

First of all, what is the message (from your books) that you want to convey to your readers?
I never sat down to teach a lesson when I started writing; I just wanted to write a fun escape from reality story. That being said, I have learned lessons from my characters. One lesson is do the right thing when you can, it’s not always going to be the easy thing to do, and sometimes you may still have to lie to do it, but you should try all the same. The other lesson I’ve learned is to remember that we all have magic inside of us; we only have to look for it.

Where did you get your ideas for Earth and Air?
When I was in junior high my friends and I all wanted to be witches after watching “The Craft.” Cheesy, I know, but there you have it. We dove into books to learn all we could about the various types of magic out there. Then, years later, after I graduated college and was trying to think of a story to write, I remembered that time when I was twelve and thirteen and like a bolt of lightning Earth blossomed in my mind. But I didn’t want to write about the traditional idea of witches, I wanted to write a story about people who could control and manipulate the elements of the world.

What music were you listening to when you were writing Earth and Air?
Music is a huge part of my writing process. I wrote a whole blog post about what music I wrote Earth to here: Shauna’s Spot. But I have yet to write the post about the music I wrote Air to so here is the list:

• Let the Drummer Kick by Citizen Cope 
• Blue Veins by The Raconteurs 
• Crawl by Kings of Leon 
• Sideways by Citizen Cope 
• All Around Me by Flyleaf 
• Closer by Kings of Leon 
• 24 by Jem 
• Stripped by Shiny Toy Guns 
• Witchcraft by Wolfmother 

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
Noise. I need noise. A lot of writers will tell you they need quiet or just some music, but I need a lot of noise. Now that I write during the day and my husband works from home, I have people here all the time and the neighbors are nearby and people are walking their dogs outside my windows and kids are playing in the street. I don’t have the luxury to wait for the rest of the world to go away so I have to make them go away. So I turn on the TV and I turn on the music on my computer and drown them out. With this much noise I’m able to tune it out, like white noise, and focus on the computer screen in front of me.

Is there a character or an event (or something) in your book that you want to change?
Jensen, Shayna’s love interest, is a much more stubborn person than I ever realized. He makes stupid decisions and has a hard time accepting Shayna’s world even though he wants to be a part of it. I want to take him by the shoulders and shake him sometimes. But I guess it’s like that with any guy at some point, isn’t it?

What is your most treasured possession?
Oh, that’s a tough one. I’d like to give you some really cool answer like a first edition Jane Austin or some magical crystal that tells me the winning lotto numbers, but I don’t have those things. Be cool if I did though, right? I’d say my husband, but you’re not supposed to own people so it would probably be my dog. He’s huge, understands a fair bit of English, gives high fives and yet hates to have his front paws touched.

What was a time in your life when you felt really afraid?
When I was about six years old I was with my mother at her job, late at night. She worked in a machine shop and they had to get this large order done so they were working long, strange hours and at the time she was a single parent so she took me to work with her. Her boss said I could watch TV in his office so I wasn’t in the cold, boring (and slightly dangerous) shop. Now, that was all fine and good, but my mom just waved me in the direction of the door that would lead to the offices and told me it was the last office at the end of the hall. No big deal, I had been here many times on my days off school, I knew my way around. So I went with my pillow and blanket clutched in my little hands. The shop door fell closed behind me with a metallic bang. There was only one dim lamp lit on the receptionist’s desk and the hall was pitch black. I peered down the hallway but for the life of me I couldn’t see where it ended let alone see the door to the office I was supposed to go to. I took one brave step into the hallway and felt the darkness eat away the light from the desk behind me, swallowing me whole. I knew the door was probably only a few yards away but each step just took me farther and farther into the deep and even though my fingers were reaching as far as I could stretch them, that door wasn’t getting any closer. I could feel all the creepy crawlies that hide in the dark watching me. I felt their crooking claws reaching for my back, catching my hair, sneaking up on me. I screamed and spun, bursting through the shop door and rushing to my mom. I begged her to walk me to the office, which she did, after she showed me where the light switches were. I have hated long dark hallways ever since.

Who is your hero in real life? What about in books?
The hero in real life actually seems like a pretty hard question. So I’m just gonna skip right on over it to the hero in books questions. The first character that came to mind was Harry Potter. I’m not sure if it is him or all the characters in the books, or the books themselves, but there is something about that series that keeps me coming back over and over again. Harry himself is so flawed and human you just can’t help but love him. He also has this strong, almost naive, sense of justice and even though he makes some bad decisions, he always wants to do what’s right, even when most of us would be too scared to try.

The one who loves you or the one you love? 

The one you love.

Batman or Superman? 

Batman

Apartment or dorm? 

Apartment.

Viral epidemic or nuclear explosion? 

Viral epidemic – there’s a chance you can avoid it and survive.

Fantasy or reality? 

Fantasy on Mondays, reality the rest of the week.

Blind or deaf? 

Deaf

Summer or winter? 

Winter

Christmas or Halloween? 

Oh, how do you choose? Gun to my head? Christmas.

Boxers or Briefs? 

Briefs

What's your next project? 

My editor has the third installment of the Elemental Series, Water and I am currently writing the first draft of the fourth installment, Fire. But after that I think I may try my hand at adult urban fantasy.

Thank you for your time Shauna!

BUY

Earth

by Shauna Granger

Shayna and her two best friends have the abilities to manipulate and control the four elements, earth, air, water and fire. While learning to hone their growing powers, they discover a new and malicious presence in their sleepy beach town. Someone is performing blood magic and threatens to expose their small magical community. So far only small animals have been slaughtered, but then the nightmares start.
Shayna suffers nightmares of being chased and sacrificed only to wake up bloodied and bruised. She thinks her magical blood is the ultimate target for the final blood rite. When an innocent girl, Tracy, is kidnapped Shayna knows it's only a ploy to draw her out; she can't let someone die because of her.