{"id":585,"date":"2011-03-29T10:06:42","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T10:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress65\/?p=585"},"modified":"2011-03-29T10:06:42","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T10:06:42","slug":"codex-blog-tour-cassie-alexander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/codex-blog-tour-cassie-alexander\/","title":{"rendered":"Codex Blog Tour: CASSIE ALEXANDER"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest in our discontinuous series of “blog tour” posts featuring fellow members of the Codex Writers<\/a> online community. <\/em><\/p>\n

\nToday our guest is Cassie Alexander<\/a>, a registered nurse and the author of the Nightshifted<\/em> trilogy about Edie Spence, a nurse who works on a floor for vampire-exposed humans. Nightshifted<\/em> will be published by St. Martin’s Press<\/a> in January 2012.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n(Courtesy of Cassie Alexander.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\nHow did you start work on Nightshifted<\/em>, and how did the work progress? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I first conceived of Nightshifted<\/em> as a short story. Part of me always knew it’d be a novel, but I’d been so burned by the time-invested-but-no-love cycle of novel writing before that I couldn’t bear to think I was working on one. So I pretended it was a short story, and then when I reached the end of that short story, I pretended I was working on another short story in the cycle that just happpppened to be the next few scenes, and by the time I was done with that “short story” I could stop lying to myself and get on with it already. The book had bitten me, and wouldn’t let go.<\/p>\n

\nThat’s fascinating! So how long did it take to complete Nightshifted<\/em>, based on that short-story-after-short-story approach? And once you were finished, how did the rest of the process go? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It took me eleven months to write it and edit it. I was also doing short stories and working pretty much full time — it wasn’t the biggest priority for me continually at that time. <\/p>\n

Then, it took me another eleven months to find an agent. <\/p>\n

It took my agent about a month to get me notes, and then me about a month to send her my edits and ancillary material (proposals for books 2 and 3, a bio, etc.). Then, it took ten days to get its first offer, and about a week after that for the auction to settle out. <\/p>\n

I talked to my new editor the day Nightshifted<\/em> sold, and have been working on its sequel ever since. Moonshifted<\/em> is due in June, and Shapeshifted<\/em> is due in December. Just like Prince Humperdinck (“…and Guilder to frame for it”), I’m swamped … but in the best possible way.<\/p>\n

\nTell us a little about your search for a literary agent. How did you avoid getting discouraged during the search? <\/strong><\/p>\n

The agent search was interminable. I really wanted to start working on the second book, but every time I did, I’d get another, “You know this is really good, honest, but no,” rejection. I’d get requests for full manuscripts, get my hopes up, only to have them repeatedly dashed. <\/p>\n

It’s hard, too, because so much of what you’re doing when you’re trying to find an agent is like trying to set yourself up on blind dates. Hours of Google-stalking, crafting the perfect query letter to put your best foot forward — after so much effort, you can’t help but get your hopes up. <\/p>\n

I accidentally lucked out in two ways. First, I sent out my queries in batches of four or five. Because people were interested, once the ball started rolling, I almost always had a partial or a full out, to pin my hopes on, which helped as other rejections piled in. Secondly, any time anyone rejected me, I cut and pasted their line in my spreadsheet down to the bottom of my list. By putting all my rejections out of sight, I didn’t realize how many I had until quite late in the game. By then, I had the strength to keep going, out of sheer stubbornness. <\/p>\n

\nThat’s very encouraging for those of us who are still on the hunt for an agent (and a publisher). <\/p>\n

Looking back on the process, what was the biggest surprise you got out of working on Nightshifted<\/em>? Is there anything in particular you hope your readers get out of the novel, or the series? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I think the biggest surprise as the author was that … other people cared. <\/p>\n

When I finished Nightshifted<\/em>, I put out a call to my writer friends and about eight people offered to read it for me. Seven of them actually did. I was just thinking about this the other day, in that I’ve never had that high a read-through for a project of mine before. It was a good sign before I even knew I needed good signs — and the eighth person, who didn’t read it? I’d gotten their e-mail address wrong! <\/p>\n

(My first reader from this group, who turned notes around to me in under 48 hours, will always have my eternal love. I’d just about convinced myself it was crap and I was an utter fool — major post-novel burn out — and his e-mail saved me.)<\/p>\n

As far as readers getting anything out of it — I hope they do, but I’ll leave it up to them.<\/p>\n

\nWhat did you learn from Nightshifted<\/em> that you’re applying to your next project? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Outline, outline, outline. I’ve already completed two drafts of Nightshifted<\/em> ‘s sequel, Moonshifted<\/em>, and I’m soooooo glad I outlined first. It saved me a ton of time. When doing final drafts of Nightshifted<\/em>, I found myself at my wits’ end a lot, trying to decide what things would happen in what order for the most impact — I could feel all the scenes that I needed to have, but straightening them out was awful. Having an outline, even a very generic one<\/a>, was a lifeline. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Thanks, Cassie, for taking the time to answer a few questions and for showing us that perseverance pays off! Best of luck with Nightshifted<\/em> and its sequels.<\/p>\n

If you’d like more information about Cassie and her books, her website is www.cassiealexander.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest in our discontinuous series of “blog tour” posts featuring fellow members of the Codex Writers online community. Today our guest is Cassie Alexander, a registered nurse and the author of the Nightshifted trilogy about Edie Spence, a nurse who works on a floor for vampire-exposed humans. Nightshifted will \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-codex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}