The whole thing was spur of the moment but flawlessly executed. Alyson only had three days in Manila, but she managed to do a lot—she got to sign lots of books (trivia: she personalizes each and every book she signs, so the wait in line is worth it), met Samantha Sotto, read “Before Ever After” and tweeted photos of jeepneys that fascinated her.
Super sat down with Alyson the night before the signing to talk about shamans, the impact 9/11 left on her life and her own brush with the paranormal.
Xandra blogged about flying to Singapore to meet you. Were you surprised?
Yeah, you know it was amazing, I was on a book tour in Singapore and Australia, been on the road for five weeks, and she flew all the way to Singapore just to do a very short interview with me and I just couldn’t believe she did that. I was so impressed that she took the time to do that! She invited me to come to the Philippines and we were talking about maybe early next year or something. I had three weeks of vacation planned in Australia and Malaysia, in Langkawi and I thought about it after she left and thought, “Gosh, I’m already here, so if they could on such short notice pull it together in the three weeks that we had until my vacation ends, I’ll just cut my vacation short and finish it in Manila. They were able to pull this thing off so quickly, so I flew in. It’s a very quick visit but I’m thrilled to be here.
Do you get to interact with fans a lot?
Yeah. Mostly through Twitter. I found that’s the quickest way to communicate, but I’m also active on Facebook too. I think it’s so amazing how you can have this sort of instant interaction with fans. I can imagine what I would have been like if I were twelve and I could’ve been like, “Dear Judy Blume…” You know? (laughs). It’s fun, it’s just amazing.
On the flip side, some fans will go on Twitter to express their violent reactions particularly those who are invested in a particular relationship. How do you deal with that?
You’re never going to please all people all the time, that’s a complete given, so all you can do is stick to the vision you had for the characters. Sometimes there’s a difference between what readers want to see for the characters and what the characters need to happen to them in order to grow and complete their journey. I know that when you become very attached to a character, it’s hard to see the author continue to torture them through each book. They just want the two to live happily ever after and characters need to earn that happily ever after, you just have to get through those tough things because that’s where they’ll most grow. So you may not please every fan, but you have to stay true to your vision as a writer. If you set out to please everyone, you’re going to end up pleasing nobody.
What was the worst thing you’ve done to a character?
Oh my god, what haven’t I done to a character? Ever Bloom, I killed off her entire family and the dog before I even really began. I took the dog too just to make it really bad. And Daire Santos in Fated, I put her through this horrible, brutal physical initiation that I would never volunteer to do myself, so you put them in these situations and just kind of live vicariously through them from the safety of your laptop.
We heard you took a three day shamanism course for Fated. How was that like?
I was already signed on to write the Soul Seekers series and that was part of the research I did for it. It was taught by a female shaman. It was really fascinating. I was amazed by that experience, and a lot of the things that I experienced during the course of the three days found their way into the book—it really helped to shape Daire’s experiences in Fated.
So Daire is pronounced “dare.” There have been arguments online about the pronunciation.
Yeah! I’m getting a lot of questions on that, I thought people would have more difficulty with Xotichl (“So-chee”), her friend, but I think that’s been easier than Daire (laughs).
Few young adult novels have ventured into Native American lore and shamanism as its main plot. Where did you get the inspiration to go there?
It was the research I did for the Immortals series. I’m really big into research, so I did a lot of reading on metaphysical themes. I read a lot and took a three day psychic development course, went through a past-life hypnosis course. It was during the course of researching for the Immortals that themes of shamanism kept appearing, just little mentions here and there and I was instantly intrigued by this ancient, primal practice. But it didn’t fit into the world I was building for the Immortals, so I just shelved it and planned to use it for my next series. When it came time to write my next series, I was so very interested in it, so I started reading a lot about shamanism, Native American lore and took a class. I had private healing sessions with a shaman, I traveled to New Mexico and interviewed Native Americans and local teenagers about growing up there. I was really intrigued by their culture and ideas, but I also definitely tweaked it for my own storytelling purposes. I was inspired by the basis of this belief system, so Daire Santos is a Seeker, which is the modern-day version of a shaman. Her journey is a little different.
How many books are you planning to do for Soul Seekers?
There’ll be four. Fated, out now, Echo out in November, followed by Mystic and Horizon in 2013, so a book every six months.
Do you ever Google your
No. I learned not to do that anymore. I did it early on as every writer does and then you learn not to do that anymore (laughs). No good comes of that!
You had a lot of jobs before becoming a writer. How did this play a factor in how you write?
I sort of steal from my own life all the time, and I would save an experience and find a way to write about it. All of those jobs that I had along the way were out of financial necessity. I didn’t love all of them, but I’m grateful for them. Each step led to the next, and they’re all sort of things I could draw upon when creating stories or characters.
All your books have been optioned by film companies. Do you have any idea who you’d want to play Ever? Or Daire?
I have no idea who I’d want to play Ever because I can see my characters so clearly that it’s hard for me to choose real-life breathing people to play them. But I would love to sit in on the casting call for Dace and Cade and Jude and Roman and all the boy roles (laughs).
What’s a work day like for you?
Wake up around 7:30 or 8:00, go into my downstairs office, check e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, procrastinating, procrastinating, procrastinating, have breakfast, work out, take a shower. Go back to my computer, check the social stuff again, and then go to work. I always start with a cup of green tea, a scented candle. I wear a crystal necklace a reader gave to me, and I put on my headphones and listen to the playlist I made for the book, and I write pretty much throughout the whole day. I just sit on my desk writing. I take little breaks, obviously, but for the most part I’m writing. I try to get ten pages a day. I pretty much do that every day, seven days a week. But I love what I do. Those other jobs I had, I can’t say I loved any of them. But this one I feel really grateful to have.
Was there a turning point that made you decide to finally quit the other jobs and be a writer?
There was. It was 9/11. I was a flight attendant, I was based in New York City, and I knew my job would never be the same. It wasn’t a fear thing, I never get afraid of flying or anything like that, but we had to take pay cuts and our work rules changed, and it just felt like a now-or-never situation. I had nothing to lose and I had been talking about this dream for three decades. It felt like it was time to see whether I was going to make it work or stop talking about it and do something else, so 9/11 was it. It took a drastic event like that to get me going.
What was the most supernatural thing that’s happened to you?
A few years ago somebody entered my mind while I was trying to write my book “Fly Me To The Moon.” It was a person I hadn’t thought about in quite a while; it was an insistent thought that would not leave for eight hours. It would not go away, I could barely write, so I finally said aloud, “OK, I will Google you,” and I Googled his name and all this stuff came out about his recent death, and it was a person who I had no common friends with anymore. He lived in a remote place; I would never have known that he had died if that hadn’t happened. It was quite strange. And then not long after that, a book that I had lent him years ago found its way back to me in the mail. Someone who was going through his things felt compelled to pick up this particular book, look inside, read the inscription inside, tracked me down and sent it back to me.
“Fated” and other Alyson Noel titles are available at National Book Store and Powerbooks.