10Q Tuesday with Ryssa Edwards!

Who is your favorite author?

Stephen King is my favorite author of all time. I discovered him in high school. He made writing look so easy. By then I’d written enough papers to know exactly how much of a trick he was pulling off. For me, reading Stephen King was (and still is) like watching an acrobat in a flying trapeze act. It looks amazing, like they have wings, but really, you know they’ve spent hours and hours and hours of their life practicing so they can entertain you.

What was one of the most surprising things you learned while writing your books?

In a new series that I’m working on my main character uses jigsaw puzzles to think. It’s his version of Zen meditation. I wanted his brother to give him the biggest puzzle that could be found. Researching, I found out that the biggest jigsaw puzzle to date is 24,000 pieces!  Wow.

What do you think makes a good story?

For me this comes down to one simple question, and it crosses all genres. The question is: how much do I care? If a writer can make me care about their world, their character’s dilemma, their struggles, I’m in. And I’ll stick with you to the very end.

What book are you reading now?

I’m reading Robert E. Howard’s Hour of the Dragon. He’s the author who created the Conan the Cimmerian character. Hour of the Dragon is the only novel length work that features the Conan character. It rocks!

If you were to write a series of novels, what would it be about?

I’ve really thought about this one, and it’s so hard to come up with an answer. I would be very tempted to write about an empire founded by vampires. It would probably have to be fantasy though, and I don’t know how to world build well enough to write fantasy. But if anyone wants to put a bug in George R. R. Martin’s ear . . . that would be great!

What was the scariest moment of your life?

Seriously? This won’t sound scary but . . . here goes. The scariest moment of my life was when I pitched a four part series to a publisher and they said something like, sure. Here are the dates. You’re on the calendar. After I read the email and did a happy dance, I realized I had sold four novellas, but only written one so far. Really scary.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

You ever notice how in sci-fi movies there are all these cool gadgets, and the characters have to press buttons to make anything important happen? I grew up a total sci-fi girl. If it was otherworldly, outer space, aliens, other planets—whatever—I was so there. Watching those movies, I used to dream of growing up and having a job where I pressed lots of buttons all the time. Yeah. I know. Life’s got jokes, right?

What do you do to unwind and relax?

I listen to audio books and work a jigsaw puzzle. I have two programs on my computer that allow me to play music and listen to a book at the same time. Right now, I’m working my way through Robert E. Howard’s horror stories. It relaxes me completely to turn on Chopin’s nocturnes, light some candles, and fall into one of Howard’s worlds.

If you could spend the night anywhere, where would it be?

Hmmm. . . I guess that would depend on where I’d want to be when I woke up, wouldn’t it? If I could spend the night anywhere, I’d spend it going back in time so that maybe, I could make things right.

What about you, if you could go sleep in your own bed, and wake up anywhere, where would you want to be when your eyes opened?

You can find me here: Facebook: facebook.com/RyssaEdwards

My blog: http://www.ryssaedwards.net/blog/

Preview my upcoming release, Dreaming of a Kiss, here.

I’m Ryssa Edwards, and this has been 10Q Tuesday.