Indie Author Week: Megg Jensen

Another amazing indie author is stopping by today to give us a little peek inside her head. Please welcome Megg Jensen, author of The Cloud Prophet Trilogy & The Swarm Trilogy!

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Why I Will Never Write About One of My True Loves

They say, “Write what you know,” but that’s one piece of advice I tend to ignore. Yes, my novels are traditional fantasy, or what I like to call medieval dystopian, and I do have a degree in medieval history. While my upcoming novel, Sleepers (Book One: The Swarm Trilogy) features a main character who is an expert in martial arts, and I have years of experience in taekwondo, I still don’t consider that writing about something I know. If you read my blog, you know I’m a teeny bit obsessed with shoes. But one thing I don’t talk about is dancing, even though it’s one of the biggest loves in my life.

Before kids, my husband, Tim, and I went dancing six nights a week. More often than not we were swing dancing, though ballroom came in a close second. It’s the only form of exercise I truly enjoy and ten years and two kids later, I miss it so much. Going out six nights a week just isn’t in the cards anymore.

Dancing was an integral part of my life during my 20s and I often wondered how I could translate that into my writing. Unfortunately every time I sat down at the laptop to write about dance, I never felt like I could capture the adrenaline rush I felt each time I spun in place, sometimes hitting seven or more rotations, or kicked my way across the dance floor with a partner leading my every step. How could I ever describe the way the wind combed through my hair during a lindy hop swing out or how my calves burned after a dizzying east coast swing routine?

If I couldn’t get the essence of swing dancing on paper, I didn’t want to write about it. To me, that would be like wrapping my heart in newspaper and dumping it at your feet. If my heart can’t be wrapped in a Tiffany box and set under a tree on Christmas morning, then I think I’ll keep it to myself. To me, dancing is too precious to be thrown on the page without giving it the proper treatment and I’m not sure I can put pure joy on paper.

All is not lost, though. A friend of mine, Eugene Ramos, is an award-winning screenwriter. He’s considering adapting Anathema into a screenplay. When I asked him what changes he was considering making (as we all know, novels change when they’re adapted into film), he told me he wanted to add a dance scene. My heart fluttered. No one danced in my novel, but maybe, just maybe, some of my characters might find their way to the dance floor in the screenplay. I simply cannot wait.

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The Book

An adoptee raised in a foreign land, sixteen-year-old Lianne was content with her life as handmaiden to the queen, until a spell cast on her at birth activated. Now she's filled with uncontrollable rage and access to magic she thought had been bled from her people years ago. Even her years of secret training in elite hand-to-hand combat and meditation can’t calm the fires raging inside her.

Her heart is torn between two boys, the one she’s always loved and the one who always ignored her. But when the kingdom threatens to tear itself apart due to rumors surrounding the queen’s alleged affair, who will Lianne protect and who will she destroy?

-- from Goodreads.com

The Author

Megg Jensen followed up her debut release of Anathema (Book One: Cloud Prophet Trilogy) with Oubliette (Book Two: Cloud Prophet Trilogy) in June of 2011. Severed, the final novel in the trilogy will release in the fall of 2011. Megg is also releasing the first novel of a new series, Sleepers (Book One: The Swarm Trilogy) this summer. You can hang out with her on Facebook, Twitter, her website, and on Goodreads. Since Megg’s books are for sale just about everywhere, she’s compiled a handy list of outlets on her website.