Jenna Black Interview

Publication Date: May 12, 2008

Jenna Black

Jenna Black is author of the Guardians of the Night series.
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Latest Release

Hungers of the Heart
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Publisher: Tor

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The Questions

Give us an update on yourself. What’s your latest news?
My latest news is the release of the fourth book in my Guardians of the Night series, HUNGERS OF THE HEART. Drake, the Killer with a conscience, was first introduced in WATCHERS IN THE NIGHT, and fans have been asking for his book ever since then. HUNGERS is his book.

Independent and aloof, Drake is shaken to the core to find himself the temporary leader of the Baltimore Guardians when their leader, Gabriel, is kidnapped. He has to protect the fledgling Guardian organization from a delegation of ancient European Killers, while being forced to team up with those Killers to hunt down the born vampire who kidnapped Gabriel.

How did you come up with the title?
There’s been a pattern to all of my titles in this series, and I tried to stick with that pattern: X in the/on the/of the Y. It took a lot of juggling and rejects before I came up with one I liked and that still fit the story.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer, and what inspired you to start writing?
When I was in fifth grade, I wrote an illustrated autobiography of my like thus far. So I guess you could say I’ve wanted to be a writer pretty much all my life. Long enough ago that I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer.

When did you write your first book?
I wrote my first “novel” while I was in high school. (I put that in quotation marks, because what I wrote was really more the length of a novella.) I wrote it because I had found I really enjoyed writing short stories for my creative writing class in English, and I wanted to try writing something longer. I’ve always been more of a novel reader than a short story reader, so I decided to make a try at writing one.

I’m sure what I wrote was pretty decent, for a high school student. However, I would cringe if I read it today. I had to write a lot more books (18, to be exact), before I finally produced one, WATCHERS IN THE NIGHT, that I could sell.

As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
When I was in high school, I decided I wanted to by a physical anthropologist. I went to Duke and got my degree, with the idea in mind that I would go on to get my PhD and, eventually, become a field researcher. (I always say in my bio that I had dreams of being the next Jane Goodall.) But during my senior year at Duke, I did some actual field research, and discovered that I found it completely boring. Learning about primate behavior in class was fascinating to me, but I could never have become a researcher.

What projects are you working on now?
Right now, I’m working on the fourth book in my Morgan Kingsley, Exorcist series. This is an urban fantasy series about an exorcist who is possessed by the king of the demons.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
My first love, of course, is reading. But I also enjoy ballroom dancing, doing jigsaw puzzles, hanging out on the Internet, and working out. (Okay, I’m lying about the working out part, but I figure if I keep saying I enjoy it, maybe one day I’ll convince myself.)

How long does it take you to write a book?
It varies, obviously, depending on the book – and depending on how tight a deadline I’m on. When things are going well and the ideas are flowing and life isn’t getting in the way, I can write a book in two months pretty easily. Which is a good thing, because with my aggressive publication schedule, I rarely have more than about three months to get a book done.

What is your work schedule like when you’re writing?
I start out by trudging up to my computer while guzzling coffee as I try to shake the sleep clouds from my head. (I’m not the best morning person in the world.) I usually read emails and look at some of my favorite Internet sites (like MySpace and Romance Divas) while I wait for my brain to be fully functional. Then I drag myself to a computer that has no Internet access and no games – nothing installed on it other than word processing software. And I write.

I tend to write in multiple short (45 minutes to an hour) spurts throughout the morning and early afternoon. Between spurts, I check email or do chores or, unfortunately, goof off. I try to keep the goofing off to a minimum.

What was one of the most surprising things you’ve learned in creating your books?
Actually, I was very surprised to discover that I could write well in first person. This was a recent development for me, because in the past, when I’d tried to write in first person, everything came out sounding very formal and stilted. I had determined that I was no good at first person. Then I started reading lots of urban fantasy, and I fell in love with the genre. On something almost like a whim, I decided I would try to write an urban fantasy. After all, if I loved reading them, maybe I’d love writing them, too. I fully expected it not to work, thinking that my stilted, formal voice would naturally take over. But that’s not what happened, and now I’m working on my fourth first person urban fantasy book.

Do you have a specific writing style?
I’m sure I do, but I wouldn’t know how to define it. I would say that I have a love of writing about morally ambiguous characters. I tend to see the world and people in shades of gray rather than in black and white, and that comes out in my writing. I like my heroes/heroines to be flawed, and I like my villains to have redeeming qualities, or at least understandable motivations.

How many books have you written? Do you have a favorite?
In total, counting all my non-published books, I’ve written 24. My favorites tend to change based on my mood. However, right now I think my favorite is SHADOWS ON THE SOUL, the third book in my Guardians of the Night series. Gabriel, the hero, is the darkest hero I’ve ever written, and I loved the challenge of redeeming a character who was a quasi-villain in the previous book. My publisher gave me the freedom to redeem him without completely defanging him. I couldn’t make him into a nice guy without making him into a completely different character than he was in SECRETS IN THE SHADOWS, but I could make him into a hero anyway. I was really happy with how he turned out, and I think my readers were, too.

Who or what has influenced your writing?
I’d have to credit THOSE WHO HUNT THE NIGHT, by Barbara Hambly, as being the book that piqued my interest in vampires. The main vampire character in that book, Don Simon Ysidro, is absolutely fascinating to me. There’s no question he’s a bad guy – all her vampires are killers, and none of them seem to feel any remorse for their actions. However, Don Simon also has redeeming qualities, such as a sense of honor, that make him at least somewhat sympathetic to both the reader and the novel’s hero. (And from that description, you can no doubt see how much I was influenced by that particular book!)

For my urban fantasies, I’d have to credit the Anita Blake series, by Laurell K. Hamilton as having had the most influence. That was the first urban fantasy series I read, and I ended up absolutely hooked. After reading her books, I went on to “discover” such authors as Kelley Armstrong, Keri Arthur, Rachel Caine, and Patricia Briggs. It was because I loved all those books so much that I set out to write an urban fantasy myself.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
I consider Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith my mentors, because it was their ultra-tough, boot-camp-like writer’s workshop that changed my entire approach to writing. Before their workshop, I’d never tried to write anything but straight fantasy and science fiction. I’d been under the impression that that was all I could write. They encouraged me to try other genres, to take risks, and to step outside my comfort zone. They also encouraged me to up my production. Before that workshop, I wrote an average of one novel every two years. Now, I write at a pace of three to four novels per year, and it has actually improved my writing quality a great deal. It’s no coincidence that I signed with my agent one year after that workshop and then made my first sale one year later.

Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
I love Rachel Vincent’s Werecat series (STRAY and ROGUE, so far), and I also really love Adrian Phoenix’s A RUSH OF WINGS, which I had the pleasure of reading for the purpose of giving a cover quote. Fans of dark, atmospheric vampire stories with a modern feel should run out and buy this one immediately.

Who designs the covers of your books?
My publishers design the covers, and I have little to no say in them, which is typical in New York publishing. (Until you get so big that they HAVE to listen to you, but I’m not close to that level yet.) I do get asked my opinion sometimes, but I’ve seen no evidence so far that my opinion has caused any changes to be made to my covers. (Which is fine, because I love almost all my covers.)

Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?
The best part about being a writer for me is hearing from readers. I love knowing that people have read and enjoyed my books. I was especially moved when I got an email from a reader who was seriously ill and told me my books helped make the bad times better for her. Books have always been my escape during the worst times in my life, and one of the thoughts that kept me going while I was struggling to sell that first novel was the desire to provide that same kind of escape for others. Learning that I’d done so for at least one reader brought tears to my eyes.

A lot of readers are under the impression that writers are constantly overwhelmed with fan mail. With the exception of some of the biggest names in the field, most of us don’t hear from readers all that often. A short note from a reader can absolutely make my day, and that’s true of most other writers I know as well. So if you’re a reader, and you’ve read a book you’ve loved, take a second to write to the author to let her know.

Do you have any advice for other writers?
Don’t give up! The process of trying to get published is grueling, frustrating, and often highly discouraging. But if being a published author is your dream, hold on to that dream and work as hard as you can to make it come true. No matter how good you are now, you can get better. The better you get, the better your chances of selling. For most, the path to publication is a marathon, not a sprint. So build up your endurance and be ready to stay with it for the long haul.