Liza interviews Caitlyn Nicholas about her book The Danger Game

Be careful Peeps. Today we interview Caitlyn Nicholas about her book The Danger Game.

Peep Rep: Are we in danger?

Liza: Not sure. Let's interview Caitlyn and find out.

Peep Rep: First, is there a gift we should know about?

 Caitlyn will be awarding three prizes: 

a $25 Amazon GC 

and 

Caitlyn Nicholas gift bag to one randomly drawn commenter, 

and there's more!

a Caitlyn Nicholas gift bag to two randomly drawn commenters during the tour.(International)

Peep Rep: Wow! What do we have to do to be in the running? 

Liza: Later on I'll provide a raftercopter for you to enter. Right now let's bring in Caitlyn.

Peep Rep: Caitlyn, come on down!

Liza: Jeez, Peep Rep, this isn't a game show. Let's maintain a bit of decorum.

Peep Rep: Are you kidding? You can say that with a straight face.

Liza: Look, here's Caitlyn. Welcome!

Caitlyn: Hello Liza and Peep Rep. Thanks for inviting me to your blog.

Liza: You most welcome, but I have one rule. Don't talk to Peep Rep. 

Caitlyn: Sorry.

Liza: How does your family feel about your writing and you being an author?

Caitlyn: At my daughter’s school they often have local children’s authors visit.  I’m told that, rather than being awestruck, both my girls will try to sell them my books!  They also try to sell them to the staff and parents! They’re aged 7 and 8.

I’m now hatching an evil plan to get them jobs at the local bookshop, I just have to find a way to get around those restrictive and frankly unreasonable child labor laws…

Liza: Yeah, their your kids. You went to the pain of having them. Just because you don't live on a farm doesn't mean they shouldn't earn their keep.  And at that age they're so cute. They'll sell a ton of books.

Won't you please buy me mum's book?

Caitlyn: Excuse me...who said that?


Liza: Ignore those. I banned FoxLike News from posting Breaking News alerts. They never fact check and frankly they were getting out of control. 
Evidently, they've taken to Tweeting now. 

You can't control tweets. So what's the best piece of advice anyone has ever offered you about writing?

Caitlyn: Write. If you want to be a writer, write.

Or maybe the Chekov quote about showing what is happening rather than telling it… “Don’t tell me the moon was shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

Liza: What part of your book was the hardest to write?

Caitlyn: It’s towards the end. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it’s when Flick’s father gives her permission to go and live her own life. Couldn’t see the screen for the tears, even when I went back and edited it. It’s such an emotional scene. Their home life is haunted by tragedy and she doesn’t want to leave, but he can see she’s desperate to spread her wings and he tells her to go.

Out! You're an adult. Go get a job!

Liza: I know exactly what you mean. My emotional scene sometimes are in gibberish because I've jumped keys and couldn't see through my tears to notice. 

Has a secondary character ever threatened to take over your book? 

Caitlyn: Liam!  He’s Ben, the hero’s, side-kick.  Irreverent, funny, Irish, and extremely capable. 

Liza: What happened?

Caitlyn: He tries to take over the scene every time he appears.  He fancies Flick as well.  I kept having to ease him out of scenes when he threatened to steal the show.

Out! Out damn character! Out I say.

Liza: How'd you/your muse come up with this story?

Caitlyn: I was doing some research for my next novel The Bunker (out July 2013) and came across an article about cyber-war on Wired.  An hour later I had a plan sketched out and three weeks later the first draft was done. . Oh that all my novels arrived so easily!

Taunting normal authors is fun

Liza: Describe the hero in five words.

Caitlyn: Compassionate. Brave. Defensive. Dark. Resilient.

Liza: And your heroine?

Caitlyn: Introvert. Geek. Brave. MacGyver-ess. Undefeated.

Liza: Who's your favorite character in the book & why?

Caitlyn: In The Danger Game, I really like the heroine, Flick. But I have to say my absolute favorite is her father. He is very much a secondary character but is a man who has made the most of the few breaks life has given him, and despite living in a heartbreaking situation is filled with kindness and compassion.

Liza: What's your favorite line in the story?

Caitlyn: My favourite line is the first exchange between Ben and Flick, when she is locked out in the middle of the night and he appears to rescue her.  Its so Flick.  Put her in a scary situation and she comes back with ‘I know Tai-Kwon-Do.’

“I know Tai-Kwon-Do.” 

She scowled at him, and tried to remember some moves from the Tai-Kwon-Do computer game the Engineering Boys were obsessed with. She gave up quickly, and decided to go with a run and scream plan.

“Really?” Amusement danced in his eyes. “I bet I know it better.”

“I bet you do, actually.” He had a flexible athletic look about him, and she could easily imagine him kicking someone in the head.

Liza: I like mini-excerpts. How would you describe your relationship with your muse?  

Caitlyn: I don’t have a muse.*

Someone's in denial

* This may not be true, but ever since I possibly mentioned an alleged muse to the other mothers at playgroup they think I’ve got a multiple personality disorder and won’t come over for play dates.

This is why authors bond with each other, 
not normal people

Liza: Have you ever needed intervention between you and your unrecognized muse?

Caitlyn: If I did have a muse she’d fight all the time with my internal editor.  Which is probably just as well, as she is completely outrageous and a chronic over-sharer.  Someone needs to rein her in…. um… oops

Caitlyn Nicholas keeps her muse in a closet.

Liza: Tell us a good joke.

Liza: Funny. 

Caitlyn: You're not really a cat person are you?

Liza: My dog, Jess thinks they're dinner, and that picture isn't going to change her mind. So I can have no cats while I have Jess. But I actually like cats. But I'm strongly against inbread cats. Now, tell us the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.

Caitlyn: A senior Harlequin editor asked me about my book at a conference cocktail thingy.  It was my first writing event and I was a total total newbie. I had no idea this was the golden question, that I could now pitch my masterpiece. I just waved my hand dismissively and told her she wouldn’t be interested in it.

Then why is she here? It's not like these gatherings are fun.

Caitlyn: Yes. I still want to beat my head on the table at the memory.

Liza: Ah yes... Many things have come out of my mouth that I would like to take back. I understand entirely.  Thank you for being such a great guest.  Sorry about the tweets...but you can't really control those.

Caitlyn: Thanks for the great questions, they’ve been so fun to answer! 

Liza: So let's check out this fabulous book that your small daughters are expected to sell to strangers on the street...I mean the bookstore.

THE DANGER GAME

BY

CAITLYN NICHOLAS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BLURB:

Flick likes computers. She’s good with them, and they do what she tells them, mostly. People, however, are more of a challenge.

But when a terrifyingly dangerous program is stolen, and her mentor killed, Flick finds herself on the run. The police are convinced she’s committed murder, and a sinister weapons developer will stop at nothing to force her to work for him.

In Ben’s line of work being suspicious keeps you alive. So when Flick turns to him, he quickly realises that she’s up to her neck in trouble and hasn’t fully grasped the danger she is in. 

First he has to keep her safe, and then, together, they have to figure out how to save the world from an epic meltdown.

EXCERPT

“It’s your last chance with the Vice Chancellor.”

“I said I’d be there.” Flick didn’t bother to hide her irritation. “I just won the man a million dollar grant, what more does he want?”

“Your bubbly and fun personality?” There was amusement beneath Andy’s sarcasm.

Flick snorted. “All right. Okay. I’m leaving now.” She growled the words, and hit the off-button on her phone.

They both knew she lied.

She dropped the phone onto the desk. Then, scowling, she clicked on the icon that’d run the Bellona program.  It crashed instantly, and took the computer with it.

“Awesome.”  She threw herself back into her chair and stared at the ceiling panels, running the changes she’d made to the code through her mind.  Realizing it’d be a waste of time to unpick what she’d done, Flick rebooted her computer and went in search of a clean copy of the program on the backup server. 

There were two versions. Usually they only kept one, but she thought nothing of it, and after saving a copy to her hard drive, she opened it up.

She scanned quickly through the code, looking for the section she’d been working on, so preoccupied with figuring out how to manipulate it into doing what she wanted, she nearly missed the strange command, her eye travelled straight past it. But then she hesitated, and went back to the unusual group of letters.  They hadn’t been there before.

A logic bomb? Some little joke Andy was playing?

She ran the command and it brought up a whole section of Bellona that she’d never seen before.

“Bloody hell -” For a moment she simply stared at the screen. 

It was no joke.

Liza: Book sounds great. Let's get some buy links:

 Buy links

Amazon   Amazon UK   Nook 

Ibookstore  Or on Goodreads 

Liza: Want to know more about Caitlyn?

Peep Rep: Yes, please.

AUTHOR Bio: 

I began writing in 2005. Exhausted, pregnant (sure I was going to expire from morning-sickness) and coping with a demanding toddler, I decided the time was right to embark on a writing career. (In hindsight I may have been suffering from a scorching case of sleep-deprivation).

Still, it kinda worked out. My debut novel - and the first manuscript I'd ever written - Running Scared, was published in January 2007.  My next book, Secret Intentions followed.  Then I had a short story published in the Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance (MBSOR) in 2010 - my story is called The Grey Man.

In 2012 my novel Drive Me To Distraction was published, and my novella The Danger Game came out just before Christmas.  My next book, The Bunker, will be published in July 2013.

Liza: And if you want to legally stalk Caitlyn, here's her stalking links:

You can find me online at: http://www.caitlynnicholas.com

My blog: http://www.caitlynnicholas.blogspot.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/CaitlynNicholas

Fb: https://www.facebook.com/CaitlynNicholasAuthor

Google plus: https://plus.google.com/u/0/105412279044420141735/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/783424.Caitlyn_Nicholas

Liza: And now for the rafflecopter so you can win chances for the great prizes Catlain is offering.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

CLICK HERE TO VISIT CAITLYN'S OTHER SITES

Once you reach Goddess Fish blog site, page down twice to find the tour schedule.

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