{"id":133739,"date":"2020-11-17T16:08:55","date_gmt":"2020-11-17T05:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=133739"},"modified":"2020-12-02T11:52:51","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T00:52:51","slug":"ten-terrifying-questions-with-shannon-messenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2020\/11\/17\/ten-terrifying-questions-with-shannon-messenger\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Terrifying Questions with Shannon Messenger!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Shannon<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Shannon Messenger graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts where she learned\u2014among other things\u2014that she liked watching movies much better than making them. She\u2019s studied art, screenwriting, and film production, but realised her real passion was writing stories for children. She\u2019s the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the award-winning middle grade series, Keeper of the Lost Cities, as well as the Sky Fall series for young adults. Her books have been featured on multiple state reading lists, published in numerous countries, and translated into many different languages. She lives in Southern California with an embarrassing number of cats.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, in honour of the release of her new book Unlocked <\/strong>(<\/a>a Keeper of the Lost Cities novella!), Shannon Messenger is on the blog to answer our Ten Terrifying Questions – read on!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n
\"Shannon<\/a>

Shannon Messenger<\/p><\/div>\n

1. To begin with why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself \u2013 where were you born? Raised? Schooled?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I\u2019ve always lived in Southern California (USA). I was born in city right in the heart of the desert\u2014but my mom hated the heat. So we moved to a suburb closer to San Diego when I was in elementary school. I grew up there, and then moved to LA to go to USC for college. But I missed being close to my family, so I moved back to my hometown about a year after I graduated, and I\u2019ve been there ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n

2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why? <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

When I was twelve, I wanted to be a Disney animator. It combined everything I loved\u2014princesses, drawing, and magic! I even started college as an art major. But despite all of my training, I always felt like what I drew never came out as cool as what I\u2019d pictured in my head. Eventually I got frustrated, dropped my art classes, and signed up for a Broadcast Writing and Production class on a whim (mostly because it sounded like a class where I\u2019d get college credit for watching TV). That was where I fell in love with writing. By eighteen, I\u2019d switched to being a film major and my new dream was to become a screenwriter. But after working in Hollywood for a bit, I realised the industry is very collaborative\u2014and I prefer working solo. So I switched plans once again, working to become a published author. And that\u2019s been my dream (and now my job) ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you do not have now? <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Ha, I probably shouldn\u2019t admit this, but \u2026 when I was eighteen, I thought reading books was tedious and boring. (I know!) I hadn\u2019t grown up that way\u2014reading had been my life as a kid. But school had drained away the joy. Most of my middle school and high school teachers made me feel like I should be focusing all my energy on the college reading list\u2014and many of the \u201cclassics\u201d tend to be very slow and depressing. (Why does everyone die in those books???) So by the time I graduated high school, I only read something if it was assigned for a class. But once I finished college and no longer had professors running the show, I started choosing my own books again and slowly fell back in love with reading. That\u2019s actually why I decided to write for kids. I wanted to write to the part of myself that had seen books purely as journeys into imagination, and create a story that twelve-year-old me wouldn\u2019t have been able to put down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. What were three works of art \u2013 book or painting or piece of music, etc \u2013 you can now say, had a great effect on you and influenced your own development as a writer?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Eek, this is hard, because I tend to find glimmers of inspiration everywhere! But three huge influences were Ella Enchanted<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (the book\u2014not the movie), The Lord of the Rings<\/em> (the movies more so than the books\u2026) and X-Men<\/em> (the old TV cartoon). Ella Enchanted<\/em> was the first children\u2019s book I read as an adult, after I\u2019d decided I wanted to write for kids\u2014and it proved my theory that children\u2019s books don\u2019t have to be \u201cdumbed down\u201d or \u201csimplified\u201d to make them age appropriate. They just need to be a great story that focuses on young characters. The Lord of the Rings<\/em> movies made me fall in love with elves. (Particularly Legolas!) I hadn\u2019t read much fantasy before that, so I\u2019d mostly seen elves as Santa\u2019s helpers or tiny shoemakers. Watching them on screen as these beautiful, powerful creatures filled my head with stories. And the X-Men<\/em> cartoon made me want to write with a larger cast of characters, where each had a different power. Growing up, all the kids at my school were obsessed with that cartoon, and we\u2019d all argue over which mutant was the coolest. I wanted my books to have the same feel\u2014not just one hero, but many heroes, each valuable in their own way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Considering the innumerable artistic avenues open to you, why did you choose to write a book?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I actually did try quite a few other avenues. Art felt too limiting, because my creations were restricted by what I could make my hands draw or paint. Screenwriting had so many rules\u2014and so many people involved with every project\u2014that my stories never truly felt like they were mine. Other craft projects I tried seemed to simply create a whole lot of stuff I didn\u2019t know what to do with. It was only when I started writing my first book that I finally found the true freedom to create whatever I wanted. And I\u2019ve been hooked on telling my stories that way ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Please tell us about your latest novel!<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Unlocked<\/em> is book 8.5 in my Keeper of the Lost Cities series<\/a><\/strong>, and that \u201c.5\u201d should tell you it\u2019s something a little bit different\u2014and something extra special. It\u2019s definitely still the next part of Sophie\u2019s story, but it\u2019s told in a new way. The rest of the Keeper books are limited to Sophie\u2019s POV (meaning the only thoughts we hear are Sophie\u2019s, and the only scenes we see have Sophie in them). But when I sat down to write Book 9, I realised that was going to severely limit the next portion of the story. Something huge had happened to one of the other characters at the end of Legacy<\/em>, and to properly show all the changes that caused, I needed to be able to write in that character\u2019s POV for certain scenes\u2014but I also knew it wouldn\u2019t work to write the entire book that way. So my editor and I decided that the best solution was to break that piece off and move it to Unlocked <\/em>as a novella. (But don\u2019t let the word \u201cnovella\u201d fool you\u2014it\u2019s still hundreds of pages and full of huge revelations!) And since the plot for the series has been so intricate, and the world of the Lost Cities is so detailed, we figured it would also be smart to include a series guide to help readers stay caught up on everything\u2019s that happened\u2014and give them tons of new details. Plus gorgeous art, fun activities, and all kinds of other surprises. Unlocked <\/em>turned out so much cooler\u2014and more gorgeous\u2014than I\u2019d ever imagined, and I hope readers love it as much as I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I always say that I feel like I did my job as an author if I make my readers laugh, cry, and want to throw the book across the room at least once before they finish reading. (Though I hope they\u2019re careful with the book throwing, since my books are so thick!) But truly, what I\u2019m really hoping for is to reach them the same way my favorite books reached me when I was younger. The stories that meant the most to me as a kid were the ones I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about long after I\u2019d finished. The ones I\u2019d read over and over, either to look for clues to what might happen next or to simply spend more time with the characters. If I inspire that reaction in my readers, then I am a very happy author. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Who do you most admire in the realm of writing and why? <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Wow, this is hard because I\u2019ve gotten to meet so many incredible writers over the years. But since you\u2019re making me pick, I guess I\u2019ll go with Rick Riordan. I\u2019ve only met him briefly, so I can\u2019t really claim to \u201cknow\u201d him. But he\u2019s an incredible example of finding ways to keep his writing \u201cfresh\u201d (and his fans happy) despite writing numerous books with the same characters in the same worlds. Before I ever tried writing a sequel, I\u2019d naively thought that it would somehow be easier, because all the groundwork was already set and you just had to keep building on it. But I learned pretty quickly how challenging it is to fit in all of the things that readers enjoyed about the previous books while also adding in new elements to keep things exciting\u2014especially since you also have to keep all the plot and world details consistent and make the twists feel earned but also unpredictable. It\u2019s a daunting task\u2014but Rick Riordan makes it look easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The thing I strive for the most is to make sure that each new book I write feels a little bit better than my previous books\u2014particularly since I\u2019m writing a long series. Sure, certain scenes \/ plot twists will always end up becoming fan favorites\u2014but that doesn\u2019t give me an excuse to not push myself every time I sit down to write. I want to grow as an author, and my ultimate hope is to end the series on a high and have my readers love the ending\u2014which may not sound very ambitious. But think of how many series have felt like letdowns when we finally got to the end. Finding a way to live up to reader expectations and have enough surprises in the mix to keep them guessing until the end is seriously, seriously challenging. I\u2019m a little bit terrified about it, actually. \u263a <\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. What advice do you give aspiring writers? <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There are so many things I could say. But the advice I wish I\u2019d had when I was in the \u201caspiring\u201d stage was to truly appreciate how magical that stage actually is. It\u2019s the blissful stage when it\u2019s only you and your story\u2014just words and dreams and the beautiful chance to fall deeply in love with writing. It doesn\u2019t always feel that way, since that\u2019s also the stage when we\u2019re chasing the bigger dream of publication, and it\u2019s so easy to want to rush rush rush to the exciting book deal. But publishing is a business, and that means it comes with pressure and deadlines and marketing responsibilities\u2014plus reviews and reader feedback and all kinds of other things that crawl into your head and make writing feel like work. The best way to cope with all of that is to step back and remind yourself what you loved about writing in the beginning\u2014but if you rushed through that stage and focused too much on getting published (like I did) there won\u2019t be as much to draw on. So try to remember that publishing will be there whenever you\u2019re ready and enjoy this time to fall in love with words and embrace this rare moment when the story is only yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for playing!<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

—Unlocked<\/em><\/a> by Shannon Messenger (Simon & Schuster Australia) is out now.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This book is part of our 2020 Christmas Gift Guide<\/a>! You could win 1 Million Qantas Points when you order any product featured in our Christmas Gift Guide between 2 November and 14 December, 2020.*<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Christmas<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

*T&Cs apply<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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