KAT ZHANG INTERVIEW AND WHAT’S LEFT OF ME GIVEAWAY

Happy Monday everyone! By the time most of you read this, I will have been to school to provide breakfast of bagels, juice, yogurt, milk, etc. for the swim team after their 6:00 am practice. They grab the food on their way to class. They so deserve it so we all take a turn providing breakfast. And then of course, there's a busy day of work. Hope you're having a great day!

So before I share my fabulous interview with you, I want to announce the winners of two contests.

The winner of SKYLARK is VERONIKA!

The winner of EMBRACE is MARTINA!

And the winner of THE MOON COIN is ANUBHA!

Congrats! E-mail me your addresses so your books can be sent to you.

I’m so very thrilled  to help celebrate Kat Zhang’s debut with her and to share her fantastic new book WHAT’S LEFT OF ME that releases tomorrow. I’m so excited to share this book with you because I love it. I got totally sucked into the idea of two souls in one body from page 1. I loved Eva’s voice and her struggle to survive. 

I had just started this before going to the airport in Dallas in July to come home. When we got there, we found we had a three hour delay before we left. Kat’s book kept me totally entertained through the 10 hours of sitting around and I almost finished the book. I still remember how much I enjoyed the whole experience because of her book.

Here’s a description from Goodreads: 

What's Left of Me tells the story of a fifteen-year-old girl fighting for her right to survive in a world where two souls are born into each body and one is doomed to disappear. Pitched as The Golden Compass meets Girl, Interrupted.

Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t…

For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable–hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet…for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything.

See what I meant about this being an amazing story?

Happy Debut Kat! Thanks so much for joining us.

1.  Tell us a bit about yourself and how you became a writer.

Hi! J Thanks for having me! I’m currently a senior at university, where I study English and Creative Writing. I read voraciously as a kid, started writing stories early, and decided to publish a book at age 12 (after which I quickly learned that in order to publish a book, one has to actually finish writing a book—something that didn’t happen until much later). I’ve always loved to tell stories; my best friend and I made up all sorts of stuff starring ourselves, and we wrote plays and drew comics. I guess it was only a matter of time until I started writing J

 

2.  That's so awesome you wanted to be published at 12. Can you share how you came up with the idea of two souls in one body and how the idea evolved as your story did?

Sadly, there isn’t any super cool story about how I came up with the idea for WHAT’S LEFT OF ME! I just started thinking about the idea of an internal monologue, and how in a lot of movies, it’s portrayed as this whole other voice loud and clear in the character’s mind, and what if that voice really belonged to someone else? And what if she couldn’t control your body at all, but could only speak to you in your head? What would that be like? That’s how the idea for Eva, the recessive soul, came about, and the rest of the book developed from that.

 3.  Maybe that doesn't sound like an awesome way to come up with the story since you've been working on it for so long, but I think it's brilliant. I love learning how writers come up their ideas.

I love Eva’s voice and experiencing the story as the soul who should have disappeared. You could have switched POV from her and Addie or told the story from Addie’s POV. What made you pick Eva as the only main character?

To be honest, I never considered telling the story from Addie’s POV. It was always Eva’s story for me, which isn’t to say that Addie isn’t important, or that I didn’t spend a lot of time figuring out her feelings and motivations! But like I said, the idea for WHAT’S LEFT OF ME came from the idea of that captive “inner voice,” that trapped character, and so when I wrote the book, it just naturally stayed in Eva’s POV. There’s a lot to explore from her perspective, and I think the book would be quite different overall if Addie had a POV, as well J

4.  And I really like how you explored from the trapped soul. Yet you can't help but sympathize for Addie too. You have the challenge of showing the internal conversations between Eva and Addie. You did it in an interest way. For example:

We swayed.

Addie cried.

And

I said.

Sorry everyone, but the marks don't show up in blogger here but you can see them in Kat's answer. The marks surround the dialogue above.

Tell us how you came up with this way of them communicating. Did you have any other challenges in developing them as characters?

I think one of my critique partners actually suggested the use of the < > marks. In the beginning, I just used italicized double quotes, but it did get a little confusing, because there isn’t that much difference between “Run!” and “Run!” (the former being someone shouting Run! aloud, but emphasized, and the later being Addie or Eva shouting it in their head!).

I also had to pay a lot more attention to pronoun use than ever before, and it was a bit of a unique challenge to show some of Eva’s emotional reactions because I couldn’t use normal physical cues (i.e. “I frowned” or “my stomach twisted” or “my legs weakened”).

5.  I bet it was a challenge showing Eva's emotions. But you did a great job because it never seemed anything but natural to me. I’ve read that you wrote this while in high school. Seeing how busy my daughter is and she’s only finished 9^th grade, I have a hard time imagining how you found time to write this. Share how you juggled school and writing. How are you juggling it now that you’re in college?

Congrats for your daughter for finishing 9^th grade! Hope she enjoyed her freshman year J I started WHAT’S LEFT OF ME during the winter of my senior year of high school, and I finished my first draft the spring of my freshman year of college (I then revised until the end of summer), so I did take my time on it. It’s easier during the summer, of course. During the school year, there’s a lot of writing before class or writing late at night. I carry a notebook around everywhere and do a lot of typing up later. Other people pull all-nighters for schoolwork; I pull all-nighters for revisions ;) (well, I pull all-nighters for schoolwork, too!). It’s a balancing act, but it’s work that I enjoy very much.

6.  Juggling the writing and school must be such a challenge, but it will help you find the balance if you have another job as well as write after school. I know the writing and working is a challenge for me.

 Emmanuelle Morgen of Stonesong is your agent. I read about how Emmanuelle became your agent and how you sold your story to Harper Collins. It’s a pretty amazing story. Please share it with us.

Emmanuelle is wonderful! I signed with her about two months into querying, and we revised over the winter, going on submissions in spring. I think we got our first offer about a week into subs, and we sold in a pre-empt to HarperCollins Children’s about a month in. It was all a bit of whirlwind of the nicest kind J

7.  That's such an amazing story. We'd all wish to have our journeys to publication go that easily. How are you marketing your book and how is being in college affecting your marketing plan? Do you think it will be any easier for you to get the word out about your book to teens because you’re so close in age to the high school YA readers?

I guess I’m marketing my book the usual way—I’m having a launch party, and I’ll be doing a number of events like signings and panels, plus internet-y things J I don’t think being in college will have a huge effect on marketing efforts, though my creative writing professors and the entire creative writing department at my university have been incredibly kind and supportive. I’m not sure if high school readers will be more interested in my book because I’m closer in age to them! I do hope to do some school visits! (where I’ll probably be mistaken for a student, because I look ridiculously young). 

8.  That's so awesome your professors are so supportive. What are you working on now?

I’m currently working on revising Book 2 of The Hybrid Chronicles, and I’m on-and-off writing a YA fantasy and a contemporary, as well.

Thanks Kat for all your advice. I hope you have a wonderful debut. You can find Kat on Twitter @KatZhang, her website, and her blog.

Kat's publisher generously provided an ARC of WHAT'S LEFT OF ME for a giveaway.  To enter, all you need to do is be a follower (just click the follow button if you’re not a follower) and leave a comment by September 29nd. I’ll announce the winner on October 1st. If your e-mail is not on Blogger, please list it in your comment. International entries are welcome.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry. 

And don't forget all my other awesome contests at the top of the blog including for ENDLESSLY, the final book in Kiersten White's series ENTICE, the second book in Jessica Shirvington's EMBRACE series., and THE PECULIAR, a stempunk fantasy.

Here's what's coming up.

On Wednesday, I'm participating in Shelli Wells-Johannes' (also known as S.R. Johannes) blog tour for her new book UNCONTROLLABLE, a murder mystery set in the Smokey Mountains. UNTRACEABLE, the first book in the series, made the Kindle YA Semi-Finalist for Best Indie Books of 2012. Shelli will be sharing marketing advice and giving away a copy of her book.

Thursday I'll be doing a cover reveal for Elana Johnson's new book ABANDON.

Next Monday I'll be sharing THE CROWN OF EMBERS, by Rae Carson. It's the sequel to THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS. I can't believe I got it. I'm giving away my ARC. It's a fantastic fantasy series and I'm so excited to have an ARC to share with you.
 
Next Wednesday Lisa Nowak will be sharing a guest post on publishing options and sharing about her new book DRIVEN, a contemporary romance about a girl who loves to work on cars. And there will be a giveaway.

The following Monday I'm so excited to help debut author Shannon Messenger (she's the founder of the Marvelous Middle Grade Monday posts and one of the founders of WriteOnCon) celebrate the release of her book, KEEPER OF THE LOST CITIES. I'll be interviewing her and giving away a copy of her book.
And don't forget our Tuesday Tips and Casey's Thursday agent spotlights.

Hope to see you Wednesday!