2012 Author Wrap-Up with Elizabeth Fama

Today my friend Elizabeth Fama, author of the mermaid novel as far as MPB is concerned comes tardy to the party, but with some BRILLIANT answers to my 2012 wrap-up questions.

GC: What is best book you read in 2012?

EF: It might actually be the non-fiction book I'm reading right now, although it's such a dense tome I won't finish it before the new year. It's called Florence in the Forgotten Centuries 1527-1800, and the writing is beautiful--not a word out of place; every sentence tightly crafted and packed with information in a style of prose I can only describe as "pure."  

GC: What was your favorite thing you wrote in 2012? 

EF: In February I wrote an e-mail to my agent with my latest novel attached. I knew I would surprise her with how quickly I wrote it, so I was annoyingly gleeful about it.

GC: What was your biggest writing struggle in 2012, and how did you overcome it?

EF: That same manuscript (working title: Plus One) had a sex scene that was pretty graphic, but which I thought was necessary. I revised it several times for my agent, reluctantly following her patient advice with each draft to leave more to the imagination, but grumbling to myself the whole way. It wasn't until I had the final version in my hands--the version she gave the thumbs-up to--that I realized the scene in the first draft was like something from Fifty Shades of Grey, and she had saved me from a lifetime of embarrassment. 

GC: What can readers expect from you in the new year?

EF: In 2013, you can expect nothing but my cheerful and opinionated presence on Twitter and Tumblr. Plus One will probably have a January 2014 pub date, and my agent is currently submitting a middle-grade novel that includes some sample comic-style illustrations by my son. Behind the scenes, my most important job is to revise Plus One for my editor. But I'm also researching a difficult YA novel that will probably take a lifetime to complete (I'm ridiculously passionate about it), and I woke up on Christmas morning with the next "easy" novel idea in my head, which I'll try to work on a little at a time in the coming months.

GC: Write down your 'Writing Resolution of 2013!'

EF: Oh, gosh, I need to read more, plain and simple.