Hi everyone. Today as we restart our Author Showcase we are very please to have with us Rebecca Gober and Courtney Nuckels. The lovely Co-Authors of The Night Marchers series and Project ELE. We will post the interview here on the blog and will post quotes and other great things on our FB page today. Now on to the interview.
How hard is it to co write books? For us it's not super hard. We have been best friends for eighteen years though, so we can practically finish each other's sentences. One thing we love about writing together is that we keep one another motivated.
We would think the hardest thing about writing with another person would be agreeing on subject matter and where the plot should go. You have to be willing to compromise and you have to feel comfortable enough to tell the other when you don't like something. Since we have been through so much in our eighteen years of friendship, we have no problem being honest and frank with one another.
Where does the ideas for your books come from?
Wow, this is a tough question because they come from everywhere. Our ideas for stories change numerous times before we finish a book. Most of the time our ideas come from our imaginations. One of us will spit something out and the other will run with it. In the end we have changed and manipulated the original idea so much that we can't even tell who came up with what idea.
With our Night Marcher's series, our ideas came from the legend of the Night Marchers, which we stumbled across. This series took a lot of research and thought planning. Courtney actually wrote a pretty cool blog post about this. Y'all should check it out if you have a second.
Where do you get your characters names? Before we start writing a book we usually have a Skype date and talk it through. We run through a list of character names and decide yay, or nay for each. When we have a minor character, a lot of the times whoever writes the character name first will put a comment in the document asking the other if they would like to change it or keep it. If we are a bit brain fried, we will even write something totally goofy like: Tom, Dick and Harry or we will just use a ________ in the spot and ask the other to fill it in.
What type of research goes into writing your series? With Night Marchers a lot went into it, mostly because many Hawaiian's believe that Night Marchers are real. (I'm not going to speculate and say what I believe, but I can say that after the research we did, I was a tad creeped out.) If you want to read one that kind of creeped me out here is the blog post we did on it. The Legend of the Night Marchers
With the ELE Series we didn't have to do a whole lot. We did do extensive searching for ways the world could end. (My personal favorite was that a Coca-Cola truck would crash into a Mentos factory causing a mass eruption. LOL! It could happen!) We also had to research how hot it would have to get outside before it was unlivable. Other than that, this was pretty much all the research we did for it. The rest was all imagination.
What do you do for fun when you're not writing? We are avid readers. We read every type of YA. We both also have great husbands, kiddos and oversized dogs that we enjoy hanging out with. Courtney is big on sewing and gardening. Rebecca likes to paint, do crafts and shop.
Are your families very supportive of your writing? Oh yeah! I mean, at times they get a little upset if we are hogging the computer too much, but that's natural. Our husbands actually give us input on the books sometimes and both of our pre-teens have read them. (We will only write books that we would let our kids read. Don't worry though, our books are still very much enjoyable for all ages.) We are both so grateful to have families that are supportive of what we love to do.
Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? Courtney has wanted to write for a long time. In fact, she harassed me for quite a while before I finally relented and tried it out. (I honestly didn't think we would finish a book, never the less complete three that are selling well!) We have a page on our website about how it started. If you want to laugh at some early year pictures of us and read a little more of our story you can check it out here: Best Friend-A-Holics
Do you have any advice for other writers? For aspiring authors: if you've always wanted to write and haven't done it yet, why not? Now is the time! You will never know if your book can be successful until you try it.
For authors who are just starting out: Keep on keeping on. Getting your books out there is tough. Don't fret if you only have a few sales at first. We published our book in October 2011 and it wasn't until February 2012 that our books actually got more than 100 sales. What's most important in the mean time is connecting with your fans. Don't shove your book down their throats, connect with them.
Did you learn anything from writing your books and what was it? That hiring an editor is a great investment. You could have been an English major and still miss grammar mistakes and what not. Your mind plays tricks on you because your brain knows what you were thinking when you wrote what you wrote. In order to effectively edit your book you need to either step away from it for a few weeks or have a fresh pair of eyes look at it. Also, another thing we learned was to take negative reviews and learn from them. We were pretty hurt when we read our first one. Now though, when we read a bad review it makes us want to be better. (Sometimes the bad review isn't constructive and it's just hurtful, but that's another matter. We truly appreciate though the ones that were constructive even if they stung a little.)
Are any of your characters like anyone you know in real life? We will have to plead the fifth on this one, lol! Yes, some are loosely based on real life experiences. Especially some of the bullies in Project ELE. We aren't going to name names though. :)
Also, there are a lot of little situations in our books that actually happened to Courtney and I. Like being chased by a maid at a hotel because she thought we were stealing some of her little shampoo bottles. (We will neither confirm, nor deny those accusations, LMBO!)
What are your current projects? We are nearly half way through with Project ELE 2. We hope to have it released sometime in October 2012. We also have plans to write a third and final Night Marchers novel for NANOWRIMO. In addition, we are only a few weeks away from releasing a new edited version of our first book: Night Marchers. If you would like to see the new cover check it out here: Cover Reveal- Night Marchers (Special Edition)
Since I love Zombies I have to ask this question lol.
If zombies were to attack which of your characters would you want by your side? I love this question! <3 Willow of course! Well, you will see her become a little more kick butt in book 2 but she is the one to have next to you during the zombie apocalypse!
Now Favorites
Food- Chocolate (R.G.) Sushi (C.N.)
Color- Purple (R.G.) Blue (C.N.)
Pet- Dog- specifically my Sharpei-Boxer mix: NEO (R.G.) Dog- Mastiff and Pug (C.N.)
Vehicle- Jeep Wrangler with the top off (R.G.) McLaren F1 (C.N.)
Season- Winter, I love the Holidays. I'm thinking about putting my tree up in November to enjoy them longer. (R.G.) Spring (C.N.)
Holiday- Christmas, just so you know how much I love this holiday, I just bought a Christmas decoration last weekend in August! (R.G.) Christmas (C.N.)
Drink- Red Bull (R.G.) Coke (C.N.)
Movie- While You Were Sleeping, I've seen it over 50 times! (R.G.) Twilight (C.N.)
This or That- That (R.G.) This (C.N.)
Pet unicorn or pet pegasus- Tough one, I will go with Unicorn. (R.G.) Unicorn (C.N.)
vacation in Paris or Italy- Italy, I'm part Italian and would love to visit. (R.G.) Italy (C.N.)
Day or Night- Day (R.G.) Night (C.N.)
shopping or reading- Reading (R.G.) Reading (C.N.)
Rain or Snow- Rain, living in Seattle, WA was one of the best years of my life. (R.G.) Snow (C.N.)
We would think the hardest thing about writing with another person would be agreeing on subject matter and where the plot should go. You have to be willing to compromise and you have to feel comfortable enough to tell the other when you don't like something. Since we have been through so much in our eighteen years of friendship, we have no problem being honest and frank with one another.
Where does the ideas for your books come from?
Wow, this is a tough question because they come from everywhere. Our ideas for stories change numerous times before we finish a book. Most of the time our ideas come from our imaginations. One of us will spit something out and the other will run with it. In the end we have changed and manipulated the original idea so much that we can't even tell who came up with what idea.
With our Night Marcher's series, our ideas came from the legend of the Night Marchers, which we stumbled across. This series took a lot of research and thought planning. Courtney actually wrote a pretty cool blog post about this. Y'all should check it out if you have a second.
Where do you get your characters names? Before we start writing a book we usually have a Skype date and talk it through. We run through a list of character names and decide yay, or nay for each. When we have a minor character, a lot of the times whoever writes the character name first will put a comment in the document asking the other if they would like to change it or keep it. If we are a bit brain fried, we will even write something totally goofy like: Tom, Dick and Harry or we will just use a ________ in the spot and ask the other to fill it in.
What type of research goes into writing your series? With Night Marchers a lot went into it, mostly because many Hawaiian's believe that Night Marchers are real. (I'm not going to speculate and say what I believe, but I can say that after the research we did, I was a tad creeped out.) If you want to read one that kind of creeped me out here is the blog post we did on it. The Legend of the Night Marchers
With the ELE Series we didn't have to do a whole lot. We did do extensive searching for ways the world could end. (My personal favorite was that a Coca-Cola truck would crash into a Mentos factory causing a mass eruption. LOL! It could happen!) We also had to research how hot it would have to get outside before it was unlivable. Other than that, this was pretty much all the research we did for it. The rest was all imagination.
What do you do for fun when you're not writing? We are avid readers. We read every type of YA. We both also have great husbands, kiddos and oversized dogs that we enjoy hanging out with. Courtney is big on sewing and gardening. Rebecca likes to paint, do crafts and shop.
Are your families very supportive of your writing? Oh yeah! I mean, at times they get a little upset if we are hogging the computer too much, but that's natural. Our husbands actually give us input on the books sometimes and both of our pre-teens have read them. (We will only write books that we would let our kids read. Don't worry though, our books are still very much enjoyable for all ages.) We are both so grateful to have families that are supportive of what we love to do.
Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? Courtney has wanted to write for a long time. In fact, she harassed me for quite a while before I finally relented and tried it out. (I honestly didn't think we would finish a book, never the less complete three that are selling well!) We have a page on our website about how it started. If you want to laugh at some early year pictures of us and read a little more of our story you can check it out here: Best Friend-A-Holics
Do you have any advice for other writers? For aspiring authors: if you've always wanted to write and haven't done it yet, why not? Now is the time! You will never know if your book can be successful until you try it.
For authors who are just starting out: Keep on keeping on. Getting your books out there is tough. Don't fret if you only have a few sales at first. We published our book in October 2011 and it wasn't until February 2012 that our books actually got more than 100 sales. What's most important in the mean time is connecting with your fans. Don't shove your book down their throats, connect with them.
Did you learn anything from writing your books and what was it? That hiring an editor is a great investment. You could have been an English major and still miss grammar mistakes and what not. Your mind plays tricks on you because your brain knows what you were thinking when you wrote what you wrote. In order to effectively edit your book you need to either step away from it for a few weeks or have a fresh pair of eyes look at it. Also, another thing we learned was to take negative reviews and learn from them. We were pretty hurt when we read our first one. Now though, when we read a bad review it makes us want to be better. (Sometimes the bad review isn't constructive and it's just hurtful, but that's another matter. We truly appreciate though the ones that were constructive even if they stung a little.)
Are any of your characters like anyone you know in real life? We will have to plead the fifth on this one, lol! Yes, some are loosely based on real life experiences. Especially some of the bullies in Project ELE. We aren't going to name names though. :)
Also, there are a lot of little situations in our books that actually happened to Courtney and I. Like being chased by a maid at a hotel because she thought we were stealing some of her little shampoo bottles. (We will neither confirm, nor deny those accusations, LMBO!)
What are your current projects? We are nearly half way through with Project ELE 2. We hope to have it released sometime in October 2012. We also have plans to write a third and final Night Marchers novel for NANOWRIMO. In addition, we are only a few weeks away from releasing a new edited version of our first book: Night Marchers. If you would like to see the new cover check it out here: Cover Reveal- Night Marchers (Special Edition)
Since I love Zombies I have to ask this question lol.
If zombies were to attack which of your characters would you want by your side? I love this question! <3 Willow of course! Well, you will see her become a little more kick butt in book 2 but she is the one to have next to you during the zombie apocalypse!
Now Favorites
Food- Chocolate (R.G.) Sushi (C.N.)
Color- Purple (R.G.) Blue (C.N.)
Pet- Dog- specifically my Sharpei-Boxer mix: NEO (R.G.) Dog- Mastiff and Pug (C.N.)
Vehicle- Jeep Wrangler with the top off (R.G.) McLaren F1 (C.N.)
Season- Winter, I love the Holidays. I'm thinking about putting my tree up in November to enjoy them longer. (R.G.) Spring (C.N.)
Holiday- Christmas, just so you know how much I love this holiday, I just bought a Christmas decoration last weekend in August! (R.G.) Christmas (C.N.)
Drink- Red Bull (R.G.) Coke (C.N.)
Movie- While You Were Sleeping, I've seen it over 50 times! (R.G.) Twilight (C.N.)
This or That- That (R.G.) This (C.N.)
Pet unicorn or pet pegasus- Tough one, I will go with Unicorn. (R.G.) Unicorn (C.N.)
vacation in Paris or Italy- Italy, I'm part Italian and would love to visit. (R.G.) Italy (C.N.)
Day or Night- Day (R.G.) Night (C.N.)
shopping or reading- Reading (R.G.) Reading (C.N.)
Rain or Snow- Rain, living in Seattle, WA was one of the best years of my life. (R.G.) Snow (C.N.)
We would like to thank Rebecca and Courtney for taking the time to answer these questions. If you haven't read their books yet you need to they are amazing!
Here are the links to their pages.
Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/nightmarchers
Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/eleseries
Twitter: MidniteBeckie and NuckelsC
Night Marchers (A paranormal series following a Hawaiian legend.)
FREE
Website: http://www.nightmarchersbook.com
Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BveTIF08xE0
Redemption (The 2nd Night Marchers Book)
$2.99
Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXs8kxcy32s
Project ELE (A brand new series that just released on 7-30-12. It's apocalyptic with a paranormal twist!)
$2.99
Website: http://www.eleseries.com
Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpSSFWmJDNY
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