Author Interview: Pippa Jay

What is your name and where do you live now?
My pen name is Pippa Jay, and my home town is historical Colchester in the UK.


First off, how has your week been? Manic! I've had my three little monsters home from school for the holidays, so keeping them fed and entertained doesn't leave much room for anything else.


Did you always want to be a writer? If not what did you want to be?
I never really thought about becoming a writer because I wrote all the time so I saw it as something I already was. But being a published writer only became an aspiration a couple of years ago.


Did you have any say in the title / cover of your book?
My contract for Keir gave my publisher the power to change the title, but they didn't do so. As for the cover - not really. I filled in the usual cover art questionnaire, but the final cover was nothing like I expected. That's been a good thing though - it's proven very popular.        


Is there a part of the story you really liked but had to remove, and if so, could you tell us why?
I had to remove an exchange between my two haemovores and their biomechanoid companion. I hated taking it out because it said so much about those three minor characters, but it wasn't moving the story forward, and myself and my editor had been charged with removing 5K from the total. So it was an obvious section to cut. But I'm planning to use it in another story, so all is not lost!


Are there certain characters you would like to go back to, or is there a theme or idea you’d love to work with?
I love all my characters and want to work with them again! There's a folder full of story ideas for Quin - the female MC from Keir - and I originally intended Keir to be book one of a five book series. I also have plans to write a collection of short stories for several of the subsidiary characters, because I think they all deserve a turn and have something to say.


What does your protagonist think about you? Would they want to hang out with you, their author and creator?
Lol, I'm not sure he'd want to hang around with me after everything I put him through, and what I still have planned for him, bwah-ha-haaaaaa!


What made you decide to write that genre of book?
I've always been a scifi fan, so it wasn't even a conscious thought or decision, just what spilled out of me. The romance snuck in when I wasn't looking.


How do you come up with characters names and place names in your books?
Character names usually come to me after I've decided their appearance, personality traits and their destiny in the story. I've used anything from baby naming books, random name generators, foreign languages and words collected from CAPTCHA for character and place names. Bet you never thought those annoying 'prove you aren't a robot' things could be useful. ;)

Can you describe the feeling you had when you saw your published book for the first time?
I cried - I'm such a sap. It's a bit different with an eBook because you don't have a physical copy, so I actually had an early copy on my Kindle before release. I think it was more when I could see it up on Amazon and other sites, and it hit me that people could really buy and download it that the reality sank in. I was petrified, excited - I remember feeling a bit sick. All the euphoria and equally paranoia got to me. Would people buy it? Would people like it? And I was officially an author, which was just awesome.

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Outcast. Cursed. Dying. Is Keir beyond redemption?
For Keirlan de Corizi--the legendary 'Blue Demon' of Adalucien--death seems the only escape from a world where his discolored skin marks him as an oddity and condemns him to life as a pariah. But salvation comes in an unexpected guise: Tarquin Secker, a young woman who can travel the stars with a wave of her hand.
But Quin has secrets of her own. She's spent eternity searching through space and time with a strange band of companions at her back. Defying her friends' counsel, Quin risks her apparent immortality to save Keir. She offers him sanctuary and a new life on her home world, Lyagnius.
When Keir mistakenly unleashes his dormant alien powers and earns instant exile from Quin's home world, will she risk everything to stand by him again?  

You can purchase Keir here and find out more about the book on Facebook. __________________________________________________________________
Mum to three little monsters, scifi author, devoted The Rasmus fan and Sith in training. Happily settled in historical Colchester with my husband of nineteen years, I continue to roam the rest of the Universe inside my head.