Hailey Hartley has just enrolled in the world's premier supernatural university. It's a school she's never heard of, located in a town called The Middle of Nowhere, and run by a creature that's not supposed to exist. But at least she got a scholarship...
Hailey's dreams have always been, well...vivid. As in monsters from her nightmares follow her into her waking life vivid. When her big sister goes missing, eighteen-year-old Hailey finds only one place offers her answers--a paranormal university in Alaska. There, she studies the science of the supernatural and must learn to live with a roommate from Hell, survive her otherworldly classes, and hope the only creature who can save her from an evil monster doesn't decide to kill her himself.
Author Bio:
CM McCoy is well aware nobody can say or spell her last name, hence the pen name. You can call her Colleen. She's is an award-winning author, Irish dancer, and former military officer living in the Great White North. Though she holds a B.S. in both chemical engineering and one in German from Penn State University, she’s far happier writing stories involving monsters and Alaska (with an awkward kiss in the mix.) While working 911 dispatch for Alaska State Troopers, she learned to speak in 10-codes, which she still does…but only to annoy her family. Her debut novel, Eerie (YA paranormal set in Alaska) was published by Omnific/Simon and Schuster on 15 Dec 2015.
In the writerly world, Colleen is the PR Manager at Inklings Literary Agency. She has one pointed ear (just one).
3. If you could tell your younger writing self-anything, what would it be?
Spend less time in the classroom and more time around the campfire.
Stop listening to your idiot college professors and start listening to the great story-tellers in your family. THAT's where you learn to spin a tale, because in order to write a great novel, you have to be two things: a great writer and a great story-teller. I've seen many great writers who can't tell a story to save their life.
0. What inspired you to write?
Everything inspires me to write. Seriously, I can't open my front door without being smacked in the face by a great story idea. Before I sit down and write, though, every great story idea has to distill into two parts which need to marry up to make a novel: a premise and a conflict.
The premise for EERIE came from two places. First, my childhood fear of the dark and the stories I used to tell myself at bedtime about the creatures that lived in the shadows—creatures that could be good or bad depending on whatever human they encountered. That gave me a starting point for the new breed of supernatural creatures (The Envoys) in EERIE.
Then, when I moved to Alaska from Florida in 2008, I was…. Well, let's call it shock-inspired. Culture shocked, really, and everything I saw and heard and experienced became sort of magical. From the white frozen forests to the moose arcing around the city of Anchorage like they owned the place to the Northern Lights and cold so harsh it snapped my fingernails and froze my nose hairs. My imagination took flight, and I knew I wanted to write about paranormal creatures in The Great White North. The only think I was missing was a conflict. Being the hopeless romantic I am, I imagined a love story between one of these shadow-creatures and a lonely girl he could never keep. I knew this ancient shadow-creature would have a home in Alaska with a mission to do something big with the universe. In a giant, Alaska-sized nutshell, that’s what inspired Eerie.
- What are common traps for aspiring writers?
The expectation of earning a living right off the bat is a common trap.
"Write because you love to write" has got to be the primary goal for a new author--not money.
"I made a ton of money as soon as I published a book," said no author ever. My best advice to writers who want to sell their book to a publisher or even self-publish their book is this: don't quit your job. Most debut authors don't see an advance. Even in the absolute best case scenario, if you get an AWESOME contract with a big publishing house (unlikely), you maaay see an advance of $60,000 for 3 years of work (one book per year). That's not enough to live on. And authors have to pay for the lion's share of their own book promotion. If a debut author is lucky enough to negotiate an advance with a smaller publisher, that advance would likely be $100 with royalties paid maybe monthly. Authors make maybe 4% of the retail price of a print copy of a book that sells. Maybe they make 30% of the retail price of an eBook if they're lucky. It's not very much.
2. Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
Eerie will definitely have a sequel or two or seven. But my second book, which is a YA Thriller (and not yet published), stands alone.
Spend less time in the classroom and more time around the campfire.
Stop listening to your idiot college professors and start listening to the great story-tellers in your family. THAT's where you learn to spin a tale, because in order to write a great novel, you have to be two things: a great writer and a great story-teller. I've seen many great writers who can't tell a story to save their life.
4. What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?
Falls the Shadow by Stefanie Gaither
5. As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
I'm definitely a carnivorous tree.
6. What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
I research everything before I write and as I write. It's not uncommon for me to text an Alaska State Trooper or local police officer with questions on how to hide a body and what sorts of questions they'd ask a witness while investigating an abduction. I get intimately familiar with any activity in my storylines. For example, in my forthcoming thriller, my main character finds herself on the back of a horse. It's been so many years since this bum has seen a saddle, I had to visit a stable and chat with some of my horse-smart friends before I could get the scene just right. When it comes to flying bush planes in Alaska, which happens in both EERIE and my new thriller, I pick my husband's brain and make him take me flying in our tiny Super Cub so that we can fly the profile I want to write and really "act out" the scene. I love research, it's probably my favorite part of writing :-)
7. Did you edit any major things out of your book?
Oh yes. I cut a major chunk of exposition/rising action out of EERIE prior to publishing, which eliminated a fairly major character and simplified the abduction sub-plot significantly. In all, I edited about 30,000 words out of the story prior to selling it to a publisher.
8. How did you decide on the characters names?
I named Hailey in honor of my best friend from the second grade, who was crushed to death by a stack of boxes at a supermarket when we were 8 years old. The great-uncles in EERIE are all named after my own great-uncles, and I admit I stole their personalities and grafted them onto the EERIE characters.
9. If your book is made into a movie who do you see playing your characters?
I can't think of any male actors who'd do either Fin or Asher justice, but I'd love it if Genevieve Knight "G" Hannelius played Hailey. (She plays Avery Jennings in Disney's Dog with a Blog).
10. Who is your favorite Author?
"Michael Crichton," she said without hesitation.
11. What is your favorite Movie?
*taps chin* Under the Tuscan Sun--no wait!
My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Final answer.
12. How can readers discover more about you and your work?
I've got a lot of great info on my website: http://www.cmmccoy.com/ There's also a crossword puzzle (with a t-shirt giveaway--and you know you want an Alaska Paranormal University T-shirt) as well as a discussion sheet on my blog. In addition, I'm fairly active on Twitter (@eerie_o) and Facebook with short bursts of photo-ness on Instagram (also @eerie_o)
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