Dazzled by Books

Ali: Hello Laura and Melinda. Thank you for stopping on the blog today to hang out with us. I have some questions to ask you guys. You can answer separately or together if you want. To start thing off, where did you get your inspiration for "Sanctuary Bay"?

Laura and Melinda: So many places! We wanted to write a book that wouldn’t exactly fit into any one category. So Sanctuary Bay is a boarding school story, and a little bit of a ghost story, and a thriller, and maybe even a horror book.

A: Did the two of you always want to be writers?

L&M: Whether we realized it or not, we did both always want to be writers! Both of us ended up going into the book publishing field after college, and we met while we were working as editors at the same company. We did a lot of writing for our jobs—writing outlines, cover copy, and sometimes even scenes in books. So we knew that we could write. But it took us a while to be able to admit that we wanted to be writing the books ourselves, not just editing them.

A: What have you enjoyed most about debuting?

L&M: We’re not debuting, actually! We’ve written many, many books for kids and teens. We first teamed up on the YA series Roswell High, Melinda as writer, Laura as editor. We had many epic conversations about the plots. The series was the basis for the TV show Roswell, and we were both staff writers during the third season.

We’ve done a lot of movie and TV tie-in books, along with a mystery series for younger kids called The Wright & Wong Mysteries. Our most recent YA books were called Crave and Sacrifice. You can Google us to see what else we’ve done!

A: Ahh so you have written other titles. Movie tie-ins must be fun. What was the hardest part writing "Sanctuary Bay"?

L&M: Keeping track of what was going on! It’s a really complicated story, and a lot of scenes had to seem like they meant one thing when in reality they meant something completely different.

A: What is your favorite thing about writing "Sanctuary Bay"?

L&M: We had fun creating the world of the school.

A: Do you have any habits while writing? For example: a specific snack food you need to have or maybe music playing in the background.

M: Laura can’t write at all if there’s music playing! But there is constant snacking on whatever is available.

L: Melinda likes having some background noise and/or music (which she tunes out when she gets really into the writing), so she usually works at a coffee shop, drinking iced tea and eating some sort of cookie.

A: What is your favorite thing to do when you aren't writing?

L&M:Watch TV!

A: Disney Villain or Disney Princess/Prince?

L&M: Villain all the way! Some princesses are cool, though. We like Rapunzel and Elsa. (And Leia.) The princes are so boring it’s hard to even remember their names.

A: Do you know the Muffin Man?

L&M: You mean the one on Drury Lane? He’s such a poser.

A: Thank you so much for stopping  by and visiting us. It has been so much fun chatting with the two of you. I hope you have a wonderful day and hopefully we can have you again. 

 

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