Dude. Where do you get all your ideas?
Voices in my head tell me what to write. Luckily, they’re benign and don’t tell me to do anything else. Wait, that’s a lie. Sometimes they tell me to take long naps and watch Supernatural DVDs, but I don’t listen, or I wouldn’t get any work done.
How do you pronounce your last name? It looks Irish. Is it Irish?
Ah-GEAR-ay works fine, but if you can roll your “R”s in there a bit, then you’ve got it. It’s not Irish. You’re thinking of Maguire, I believe.
Is that your real name or did you pick it so your books go at the front of the bookshelf?
Right near Catherine Asaro, you mean? That is a lovely slice of serendipity, but it’s my married name, so yes, it’s mine legally. Interesting bit of trivia:
Aguirre is the Spanish form of the Basque Agirre, a topographic name (ager / agir) for ‘open space’ or ‘pasture’.
–from Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
So my last name means “pasture”, more or less.
Will you buy me a helper monkey? I’m not disabled, just lazy.
Probably not.
Holy crap! You sold seven books in one year. Did you sell your soul to the devil?
Absolutely not. My agent is a rockstar. Don’t you wish she was your agent? If she is, go you!
So what kind of deadlines do you have? Are you insane yet?
My schedule looks like this:
HELL FIRE (Corine 2), due July 15th
DOUBLEBLIND (Jax 3), due September 15th
SHADY LADY (Corine 3), due January 15th, 2009
KILLBOX (Jax 4), due March 15th, 2009
Not yet. Ask me this time next year.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
I think so, but where are we going to get galoshes, two yards of nylon mesh, and four ferrets at this hour?
So will you read my book?
If the manuscript is not contracted, then no, I’m afraid I can’t look at it for legal reasons. Moreover, I don’t have time to offer free critique services to people I don’t already work with in that capacity. If your book is being published and you’re interested in an author blurb or a review on my blog, email me about it. I don’t make any promises, however.
How did you get get picked up by Ace?!
I wish I had a cool story, like I was eating a marshmallow chocolate sundae at Friendly’s, and maybe an editor would come up to me, overcome by psychic impulses. “I bet you write fiction!”
“Gosh, yes,” I’d gush. Of course if she’d asked twenty others in the restaurant, I bet they’d say the same thing. I would then whip out a partial of my manuscript, because, of course I carry pages on me at all times, in case I was discovered over ice cream sundaes. She would squeal in girlish glee, while being enraptured from my first sentence and in her excitement, she would eat my dessert by mistake. I’d forgive her when she offered me a ridiculous amount of money and a twelve book deal.
Sadly, this never happened. I got picked up by Ace the usual way: writing, querying, and writing some more, until I found a wonderful agent, who believes in me. She then sold my books to Ace, where I now have a wonderful editor who believes in me.
Can I call your agent?
Yes, I would theorize that you are capable of doing so. I recommend you don’t, however, because that would probably make her cranky.
Will you refer me to your agent?
Probably not. See the “will you read my book” answer regarding unpublished material.
You posted here that you don’t eat raw cookie dough anymore? Why not?!
Heh, you’d be surprised how often I get asked about this. The answer is kind of gross, but hey, you did ask. I got food poisoning from some improperly cooked chicken. Once you’ve spent a night hurling up your guts and wishing for death, you get more careful about what you eat. Raw eggs can have the same effect, so I stopped eating anything that contains them, which includes cake batter and cookie dough. Never riding the salmonella express again.
What’s it like, living in Mexico?
Like anywhere else, it has its ups and downs. I love the climate because it’s so temperate. And I love rainy season because you can set your watch by it. You know you need to have your errands done by afternoon and be holed up to watch it storm. There’s a raw loveliness to it that I’ve never seen anywhere else.
People here are charming as well. The pace is quite different from the US. People aren’t in a hurry. The work will still be there tomorrow. Life is festive. Parties spill out into the streets. People dance at the drop of a hat. Folks tend to be exuberant, lively, and animated. (That’s not to say that nobody here is ever surly.)
On my block, there are often itinerant musicians, peddlers selling homemade crafts like pottery, baskets and rugs, and there’s a man who peddles a bicycle cart, while calling out, “Tamales! Burritos! Tortillas! Good Oaxaca cheese!” and if you come out to meet him, you can buy your supper off the back of his bike. He keeps the food warm in insulated pots.
The worst thing about living here is trying to navigate. Streets are not clearly marked and I suck at reading maps, even when streets are clearly marked. But I’m making progress. Every day I learn something new. It makes life an adventure, which is fine by me.
Describe a typical day for you, and how it affects your writing.
I get up, take a shower, see the kids off to school and the husband off to work. I make sure all the animals have been fed. This is the children’s job, but I follow up, not wanting the pets to starve due to youthful negligence. (At this time, that includes two cats, one dog, and a turtle.) I eat something for breakfast and then get to work.
I write from 9-2:30, when it’s time for me to go pick the kids up from school. Hopefully, I will have met my 3K a day word count by that point, as the afternoon turns into a flurry of activities, errands, helping with homework, Spanish lessons, and then dinner. Typically we’ll do something as a family afterward for an hour or two: talk, play a game, or watch some TV.
If I fell shy, then I get back to work in the early evening and make up the difference. When I’m working on a project, I live by 3K a day. That’s how I do a draft in 30 days. Then I let it sit for two weeks before going back to see what I need to fix. If I need a second opinion before turning it in, I have my husband or one of my crit partners look at it. If I’m confident of the book, it goes straight to Laura Bradford, my agent.
This page will be updated regularly. If you want your question posted, make sure it’s interesting and/or funny to increase the chances I’ll choose it. (But just plain weird will do in a pinch.) Then email me (you can find my mail on the Touch page, if you don’t know it already). If I do pick your question, you might win a prize. No, I’m not telling you what. I might mail you a random piece of junk off my desk, just for asking! Thanks for your interest in me and my writing.
