Melissa Marr was nice enough todo this Q&A with us a few months ago. Your question not answered? Ask her your own or read her FAQ.
Your next novel, Ink Exchange is set to be published next year. Where did
the inspiration for Ink Exchange come from, and what can you tell us about
it?
Wow. Start with a hard one, eh? The novel is about the Dark Court. Power
shifts when WL ends; that has ripples in other courts. Leslie, Ash's
friend in WL, gets caught in the chaos. We get to learn why Niall has that
scar, who Irial is, why the Dark Court bound Keenan, & what it means to be
tangled up with the court of nightmares. It's darker than WL, but such is
inevitable with the Dark Court at the center.
Inspiration . . . INK is the result of knowing (& sometimes loving) far too
many people who got caught up in things beyond their control, who were
going along through life & tumbled into addiction, and finding it threaded
throughout a lot of life.
Or INK is a result of believing in the power of transformative choices,
including tattoos.
Or it's the result of knowing that right & wrong can look a little blurry,
be a little unstable, sometimes.
Or, well, all of that.
Is there anything in the works for a Sequel to Wicked Lovely?
Ok, the thing is that I didn't mean to but I ended up writing about 30K of
a sequel to WL while I was writing INK. Initially, it was a part of INK,
but it didn't belong there. Trying to force two books to be a single
entity was a bad idea, so I yanked it out. Since my word count for the
first 2 novels is abt 75-78K, I suspect I'm halfway to a third of the way
done. Donia was in need of more speaking so her story kept leaking into
Ink Exchange. I guess if the rest of the words arrive, I'll finish it.
You have a Three book deal with Harper Collins. Any idea what the third
book will be?
LOL. I do. . . but unfortunately, it's not something I feel ready to
discuss just yet. I've begun writing, and I'm enjoying the feel of it.
It's no dark like INK, so I'm really enjoying that part right now.
How long has Ms. Muse been in your head?
*looks for the doctors with their pills & theories* Umm, always, I think.
When I was a little girl, I used to have conversations with "ghosts" & with
myself & with a girl who walked with me sometimes . . . except she wasn't
there. Somewhere in the mix, I think my imagination gave birth to Ms Muse.
It was either that or meds. I like thinking I'm creative; it sounds so
much nicer than utterly mad, yanno?
Many, many people have compared Wicked Lovely to works by Holly Black.
What's it like?
Weird. I'm a fan of Holly's writing. I bought Valiant when it released &
completely got fangirly when talking to Holly about it. (She does the
Beauty & the Beast bit with great subversions in there—and B&B is one of my
fav tales.) I hadn't ever met or spoke to her before the book thing, but
since then our paths have crossed, and I've enjoyed talking to her. She &
I obviously have read a lot of the some lore texts, not entire overlap of
course, but there's certainly library similarities.
How long have you been interested in faeries?
My entire life … I grew up believing in them.
In Wicked Lovely, do you have a favorite character?
I don't do fav anything usually, but I will confess that I love Beira to
rather extreme degrees.
You taught lit for years before starting Wicked Lovely. Do you think those
years of being surrounded by literature influenced your writing in any way?
It certainly made me self-critical. When one teaches the masters of prose
& poetry, it's pretty obvious that anything will pale in comparison.
Writing, for me, involves admitting that what I aspire to & what I can do
right now are pretty far apart. I'll only make progress by doing it though,
so for now, that's the plan--write & see if I can get closer to my personal
goals.
One of the things I noticed while reading Wicked Lovely is that you almost
never use speech verbs, such as 'said', 'muttered', 'asked' etc. In my
(albeit limited) experience,
that's relatively rare. Was that intentional, or simply your writing style?
It was intentional in that they often seem unnecessary to me. If I have a
bit of action/movement/thought there that makes clear who said it, why add
the extra words? I tend to prefer that with physical description too. I
don't like the extraneous details. It makes the narrative structure feel
false. If I'm seeing from Ash's pov, frex, does she assess that Keenan
"muttered" it or is there a movement/gesture that establishes his
grumpiness better that using a dialogue tag? That's the function of those
words--id speaker & cue tone. Suppose I can do that with something less
over than "he muttered"? To me, that's more challenging, thus more fun.
You obviously love tattoos.When did you first become interested in them, and do you remember why?
I suspect I was a teenager, but it could've been younger. My obsession to
get art become omnipresent in college, my first tattoo was after grad
school, & my last one was last Monday ;)
Why? I don't know why precisely—other than the obvious love of art &
narratives. Tattoos are pictorial narratives. One of my exes had his life
history on his back. I used to spend a lot of time "reading" those
pictures, asking questions, & pondering. I suspect he was the final
inspiration. I have a surgery scar I was fussing over a number of bar
patrons suggested I get a tattoo over it; my ex suggested I leave the scar
alone, but add a mark I wanted. That was probably the conversation that
led to my first tattoo a year later.
I guess I just have a love of the art. One of my characters has a tattoo
that another ex had. I don't remember his surname, but I remember his art.
I gave my own art to the Summer Girls (those writhing vines were my tattoo,
and they are my current art-in-progress as they are growing again).
In all your wanderings, do you have a favorite place?
It's not a place, but a feeling I seek. I tend to love the feeling I get in
places that are desolate or stark or riddled with surprising bursts of
beauty. The beach (off season), deserts, Sunday afternoon in city business
districts . . . If I had to pick just two spots, it would be the San Diego
area and the Mojave Desert.
Was there any place that ended up in Wicked Lovely?
Everywhere to some degree . . . San Diego has obvious presences (the
fountain with Donia) is Balboa Park in San Diego. There's an alley in DC, a
train yard in Altoona PA, a street in Pittsburgh, a club in Raleigh.
Places leave imprints. I like to pluck a few of the details from one spot
of another rather than simply representing one real city.
What message, if any, are you trying to give to teens with Wicked Lovely?
There are always choices. As long as we're still breathing, we can keep
making choices & keep striving for our objectives. The choices aren't
always ones we like, but I honestly believe that if we keep choosing, we
can often get to where we need to be.
How are you liking your new lip ring?
I LOVE it. I haven't had anything new pierced in years, so this was my
"publication gift" to myself. Much like tattoos though, there's the
unbelievable temptation to get moremoremore. Fortunately, I liked my
piercer & want to go back there (Andromeda's on St Mark's St, NYC). This
will force me to wait--or give time for the urge to lessen & pass.
What people/events influenced you most when you were writing Wicked Lovely?
I don't know that text influences are during. OTOH, if you mean influences
to have the courage to try writing it? My spouse, beasties, parents, a few
close friends--they kept telling me I could do this. They believed in the
text & my storytelling. I had no expectation or even hope of the way this
has gone. I spend a bit of time telling these people, "I was wrong. You
were right." It's good fun.
What do you think about the cover art so far? Do you have a favorite?
I adore my covers so far. The German cover was a total surprise, but I
couldn't be happier. The artist who did mine, did the covers for the
German Twilight & New Moon. When I spoke to my German editor, I told her
how much I loved those covers--and she gleefully said that the artist was
also doing mine.
I was fortunate to get a voice in both the US cover & UK covers--not
interfering with the artists' creative processes, but responding & offering
thoughts at the house's requests. Most of my input was gushing. (Although
I did get to pick my US cover model--Taylor. You can't see it on the
cover, but she has Ash's eyes. She's glorious in so many of the proofs
from the photo shoot.)
Seeing artistic representations that go with my words? It's one of the
coolest parts of the job. I love art.
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Yes. I was terrified to try though. I had a plan wherein I'd try to write
when I turned 40, but my spouse suggested I might try sooner. He's
amazingly supportive & has the mad notion that I can do anything. I keep
waiting for him to realize how many flaws & limitations I have, but he
keeps cheering me on. So, I gave writing a go.
