What's Fresh with Lucienne Diver's ReVamped!

The fanged fabulousity of Vamped, FLUX's fastest-selling new release, is back!

Gina's Rules for Surviving Super Spy Club Training:
1. First, the dirt and sweat are just too horrible to contemplate.
2. Unless you enjoy cold showers, be the first one to the bathroom in the morning.
3. Cargo pants make you look hip-py.
4. Making out on missions, unless it's part of your cover, is totally grounds for extra push-ups.
5. When going goth, you've totally got to strike words like totally, awesome, and phat from your vocabulary.
6. Who's actually running the Super Spy Club, you ask? I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

Hello, Lucienne, great to chat with you! Could you please tell us a little about your writing background and how you made your first sale?

Lucienne: My very first sale was a short story called “The Problem with Piskies.” It was published in the final issue of the webzine Quantum Barbarian, and I think posted for all of two weeks before the site came down. I’ve since made it available for free here. I wonder how it holds up…hmm, come to think of it, I should probably have read it over before offering up the link. Anyway, the boys in Piskies, Vic and Bob, have a sequel, “Imaginary Fiend” in the Strip-Mauled anthology edited by Esther Friesner, only there I use my own name. I started under a pseudonym, because I didn’t want the fact that I’m also a literary agent to influence anyone’s thinking about my work, either editors or readers. I also didn’t want any of my authors concerned that my focus was elsewhere. I truly love my authors, as they can probably attest! Don’t want to worry them.

Readers and writers often like to get a behind the scenes peek of an author's writing routine. It would be great if you could please share your typical writing day schedule.

Lucienne: I wake up at 6 a.m., grab coffee (usually iced), a pen and a notebook, kick my husband out of bed and write for an hour. Then, I may go back to sleep for a bit before I wake up again, shower and start my day. Generally I’ll type in what I wrote on my lunch “hour” (quotes because I hardly ever take it) or in the evening, editing as I go. This goes for weekends as well, though I let myself sleep in then. Once I approach those awe-inspiring words “The End” the writing’s going fast and furious, and I’m all but consumed. Then I might write in the evenings as well as the mornings, putting out four to six pages a day as opposed to my regular two. However, this rush often means way more revision required in this section.

Please tell us about your latest novel ReVamped and what we can expect from your characters.

Lucienne: Thanks for asking! The new novel is ReVamped and is out this month from Flux Books. I’m really excited about it, although it seems so odd to take credit for the book when my main character—diva that she is—already claims responsibility. She’s even started her own blog to keep attention focused right where it should be—on her: http://ginasgems.livejournal.com.

To sum up her series:

In Vamped, Gina and her minions defeated a vampire vixen, a psycho-psychic and the vampire council of Mozulla, Ohio. Gina was all ready to expose vampires to the world in all their fanged fabulosity…until the Feds arrived to sweep everything under the rug and make them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

In ReVamped, Gina and her boyfriend Bobby are sent undercover to infiltrate a New York high school where some seriously weird stuff is going down. Worse than that, Gina’s new super-secret identity is as goth-girl Geneva Belfry. No color palette to speak of. More chains than a bike rack. And don't even get her started on the shoes. At least she won’t be too worried about blood spatter when kicking the butt of her newest nemesis, who’s decided that the high school makes a perfect playground.

Flux has already contracted me for her next two adventures as well.

What's up next? Do you have another project in the works? If so, please tell us about it.

Lucienne: I do, but I don’t, which is to say that I haven’t decided which of the ideas calling to me I’m going to play around with before I have to get serious and work on the fourth *Vamped* book. (The third, *Fangtastic*, has already been turned in.) The choice is between a fun middle grade involving magic and myths in modern day or a dark, suspenseful young adult without a whiff of the paranormal. Decisions, decisions…. Anyone want to help me out here by chiming in?

Thanks for sharing with us, Lucienne, and best of luck with your series!! Would you like to close with a writing tip?

Lucienne: It all sounds very zen, but if you quiet your mind, you can hear your characters speaking through you and your own voice doesn’t get in the way. I think that’s why I write at 6 a.m. My inner editor is still asleep, my inner agent still needs at least another cup of coffee to be coherent, and the only folks truly stirring are my characters, always waiting in the wings
for their chance to be heard.

Lucienne Diver is a writer by night and a literary agent by day. Visit her website, www.luciennediver.com.