Hi All – and Happy Friday. As you saw earlier this week, I recently received a copy of Take Me Tomorrow – the intro to a new Dystopian series, and I’ve had the chance to chat with the author and wanted to share this with you:
Please Tell us something about yourself and how you became a writer.
My name is Shannon A. Thompson, and I’m a young adult author, poet, and blogger. Aside from that, I’m also an avid reader, coffee addict, and self-proclaimed cat lady. (But I love dogs, too!) I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, but I began taking it seriously after my mother died very suddenly. She had always encouraged me to write, and her death made me pursue my dreams immediately.
How did you get started in writing in this genre – what inspired you? Are there any authors in the genre that you gravitate towards or are inspired by?
I began writing for young adults because I was a young adult when I first pursued publication, and then, I simply fell in love with the genre, but I also have poetry, military fiction, and contemporary fiction published, so I definitely don’t lock myself into one genre. Just like life, there are too many aspects to reading to stay in only one part of it. That being said, Meg Cabot had a huge influence on my paranormal writing, and I love Billy Collins, Edgar Allan Poe, Cassandra Clare, Lynne Ewing, and more.
How did you come up with the inspiration for Tomo and the back story for this series?
Take Me Tomorrow is a young adult, dystopian novel that revolves around the existence of a clairvoyant drug. In other words, you take a pill, you see the future. This novel was inspired by a single conversation my father and I had about drug use and what drugs might be like in the future. That being said, I am very passionate about understanding drugs within society because my mother was a drug addict, and her addiction ultimately killed her. Take Me Tomorrow may be fiction, but many of the aspects found in the novel are real reflections on drug use in society. You can actually read more about this on my website: http://shannonathompson.com/2014/07/18/why-i-write-about-immigration-drugs-and-addiction/
What do you consider to be your biggest challenge and success in writing / publishing?
My biggest challenge is always myself, and I believe this to be true for most writers. Sure, we could say that bad reviews are hard, but – in reality – it comes down to whether or not we can brush off all of those difficult moments in order to continue to believe in ourselves and our words fully. My biggest success is coming back from a period of time that I quit publishing. Five years passed between publishing my first novel and my second novel, and I could’ve easily never published again, but I didn’t, and returning from that – with the help of others – feels like the biggest accomplishment I could ever do.
What advice would you give to budding authors?
My personal mantra is “write with passion; succeed with self-discipline.” This may not work for many, but for me, it reminds me of why I write in the first place: because I am passionate about writing and it is a part of my writing soul. But there’s also a lot of work that goes into this that goes beyond writing, like marketing, and there are difficult days we have to get through with a smile on our face.
What’s next on the list for you to write – what are the next works that you have coming out and where can my readers find them?
AEC Stellar Publishing, Inc. is planning to release Death Before Daylight, book 3 of The Timely Death Trilogy, in late 2014 or early 2015. I’m also hoping to re-release my first novel, November Snow, by November of 2015, and I have many more novels to come!
Lastly, anything more that you’d like to share?
I’m always available on my website: http://shannonathompson.com
If you’re a writer or a reader, wanting to speak with me, feel free to email me at shannonathompson@aol.com
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As a wrap on this – i want to thank Shannon again for letting me pick her brain a bit, and I look forward to what’s next. If you haven’t gotten a chance to pick up TMT – then click the image below and please take a chance on it.
Thank you for speaking with me! I had a great time!
~SAT
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