The Aggie, a student-run newspaper at UC Davis, where I went to school, wrote an article about me 😀 Check it out here!
Here are the full answers to the interview questions sent to me:
1) What is your book about?
Here’s a lazy answer. (Back of the book blurb, on Goodreads.)
Fifteen-year-old Michelle saves the world on a daily basis…with her trusty video game controller, of course! Naturally, she jumps at the chance to play an experimental virtual reality game.
The beautiful fantasy world of Starrs? Check. The power to mold matter? Check. No reset button? Wait, she didn’t sign up for this!
Turns out Starrs is really real, and to make matters worse, Michelle’s interference awakens the Cycle of the Six Moons, a series of devastating trials that will devour the universe.
Fighting the apocalypse was way easier when danger stayed on the other side of the screen, but Michelle finds a secret weapon in her new-found powers. She uses them to rescue the crown prince of a powerful magic kingdom from their sworn enemies, a technologically-advanced cult that strives to eradicate magical blood.
Michelle starts to fall for Prince Jayse, the only one who believes Michelle to be a savior rather than a curse. But not even video games could prepare her for what the cult has in store for them…
Basically, it’s a young adult portal fantasy, and the first book in the trilogy, The Cycle of the Six Moons. Michelle, a fifteen-year-old gamer, literally falls into the world of Starrs, and her appearance sets the Cycle of the Six Moons into motion. Each month, a different trial devastates the world, and at the end of six months, the universe is doomed…unless Michelle can stop the Cycle.
2) What was the process of writing your first book like?
I actually started writing The Cycle of the Six Moons when I was thirteen. I revamped it two years later and, after graduating from college, started rewriting the version that’s now published. The writing process was fairly quick since I knew the story I wanted to tell, I just wanted to flesh things out more. I wrote an outline first so I knew what would happen in each chapter. It took less than two months to write the first book, The Starriest Summer. Editing, of course, took a lot longer.
3) What does this book mean to you personally? What are some things that inspired you?
I’ve loved video games for a long time. I loved going on adventures with a cast of lovable characters, using magic to save the world. The first video game to inspire my desire to write was Chrono Trigger. Fabulous game! And I think it still holds up today. Several of the themes in the book are written from my own experience, and I hope will appeal to young adult audiences as well, especially when it comes to either finding your worth in a vast world, or trying to reach what everyone expects of you.
4) What sort of an impact do you hope to make with your writing?
I want to create a fun, magical world that readers will enjoy as an escape. I wrote the characters of CSM in such a way that they don’t all conform to what is expected of them, and I’d like readers to know that their lives are their own. They don’t have to live the life that society expects of them, or even what their parents want. Also, that romance should be fun and uplifting for both people involved. Both people should support each other, and both people should get the chance to save their loved ones from the clutches of evil.
5) What are your plans for the future?
I plan to release the rest of The Cycle of the Six Moons trilogy, write more books, and voice act in a few video games 😉
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