Authors ARE Rockstars Tour with… Melissa West

Hey Guys,
I am so beyond excited to be a stop on the 2nd Annual Authors are Rock Stars blog tour! I religiously followed the first Authors are Rockstars tour last year and loved every single post so when I saw sign-ups for it this year I knew I just had to take part. Let me telling you choosing my list of authors was the hardest thing I have ever… EVER had to do. Why? Because the majority of authors I read I adore all of them!

Introducing my official Rockstar….

 

About Melissa:

Hey Melissa,
First of all let me just say how excited I am to be interviewing you right now. I just completely and utterly love you. You are seriously one of my literary heroes.
Aw, thanks, Kayleigh! You know I adore you. 🙂

So you are completely and utterly my Rockstar Author. What authors do you see as rockstars?
I’m a huge Jane Austen fan. But in recent times, I love Libba Bray, John Green, Stephanie Perkins, and Richelle Mead, among others.

Did any of those influence you in your journey to becoming a writer.
Oddly enough, I decided I wanted to write after reading A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY and SHIVER. I had just started reading YA and I loved it. I loved how real it felt compared to adult fiction. So, I dove in, and GRAVITY was the result. ☺

I completely adore you’re The Taking series. It is without a doubt one of the most addictive and unique series I’ve ever read. Where did you come up with the idea?
I have always adored science and the countless possibilities of our world—and beyond. And I am weirdly interested in social issues, so it was almost a birth child of those two things. I wanted to create accessible sci-fi, but then give it a more traditional sci-fi spin by incorporating deeper political and social issues. Who knows if I succeeded!

Are there any particular characters in the series you enjoy writing more than others *cough* Jackson *cough*
Ha! It’s so funny because my favorite characters to write are often not the main characters of my stories. I love Ari. I’m proud of her. I like that girls can read about her and feel motivated to be strong. But for HOVER, my recent release and book 2 of the series, my favorite characters are Emmy and Zeus.

So the second installment Hover comes out in August, what can fans expect to see in this second installment?
Well, I can tell you that HOVER is not the resolution of this story. That book is COLLIDE. HOVER, for me, was meant to escalate things. I wanted my story to arc, beginning with GRAVITY and ending with COLLIDE. So, HOVER is the top of that arc. Everything builds to a head in HOVER. It’s an emotional story, and at its root, it’s a story about Ari’s ability to see who she truly is and what she can become. Beyond Ari’s emotional growth, HOVER is very much about learning who Jackson is and what he’s about. I like to say that GRAVITY is Ari’s story and HOVER is Jackson’s.

The series is alien dominated and very sci-fi, do you have any plans to write in different genres in the future?
I do. 🙂 I currently have two projects with my agent. One is a new adult that I absolutely love. It’s very character driven and deep. I don’t think it fits the typical NA formula, though I have no idea if that is good or bad. 🙂 The other is a YA Southern Gothic and it is by far the best thing I have ever written. It is dark and spooky and full of juiciness. Hopefully, we’ll see both on the bookstores shelves one day. ☺

And finally what can we expect from you in the near future… more books I hope!
Definitely writing! I am currently working on COLLIDE, which should release next summer/fall. And we may add an additional book set years before the events of GRAVITY.

Getting To Know You – Quick Fire Round

Contemporary or Paranormal? Contemporary
Sci-Fi or Dystopia? Sci-fi
Hardcopy or E-Book? Sadly, E-book now.
Bookmark or Dog-Ear? Bookmark
Book or Movie? It depends, but I read more often than not.
Chocolate or Vanilla? Mix the two!
Summer or Winter? Winter. I hate summer!
Ice-Cream or Cake? Ice-cream cake
Coffee or Tea? Coffee x 100
Nice Guy or Bad Boy? A mix. I do not like bad boys, in life or in fiction. But I like the guy to have a little mystery about him.

Thank you so much for joining us today. You are awesome and truly are a rockstar. I love you and can’t wait for more books from you. I will religiously be reading them no matter what they are about.