Interview with Jessica Marting

 

Picture credit : Jessica Marting 🌻 (@_jessicamarting) / Twitter

Biography

Jessica Marting is a romance author, art enthusiast (not quite an artist, despite all that time in art school), an avid reader, and makeup collector. She lives in Toronto.

Questions

Why did you decided to write SFF romance?

I’ve been writing fiction and occasionally getting published since I was a kid, and hadn’t really found my groove yet. I signed up for a mystery writing course on a whim at a local community college in 2010. That class ended up being cancelled, so I took the romance one instead. I’d never really read romance before aside from some urban fantasy, so I went in not knowing what to expect. I ended up loving the class and the genre’s HEA convention. I bought a Kobo e-reader when the course ended and spent the next year reading only romance, all subgenres. Traditionally published, indie, historical, contemporary—I read it all. I kept a spreadsheet of titles and authors. I noticed that I gravitated towards time travel and SF&F books, and in 2012, I published Supernova, the first book in a time travel/space opera duology.

Do you prefer to write series or standalone?

Honestly, I don’t have a preference. Once upon a time, I would have said standalones, but I really enjoy revisiting characters in new situations in other books. Zone Cyborgs was the first longer series I wrote, with four novels and two novellas. I wrote almost all of those books one after another over a 10-month period. It was incredibly stressful to write that way and I’d do it again. The worldbuilding and characters were so much easier to keep track of when writing for rapid release.

I think I’ve struck a nice balance with my Magic & Mechanicals series, because those books are interconnected standalones that can be read in any order, at least for now. I’m currently working on the first direct sequel in that series and am trying to structure it so it can be read as a standalone. I’m not sure if it’s working yet.

What advices will you give to a new author?

Writing doesn’t have to be a solitary endeavour. I encourage new and aspiring authors to reach out to their writing communities online and in person. There are local and national organizations for most genres, and in my experience they’re very welcoming to new members. There is a community to be found at every stage in an author’s career.

What struggles did you met when you wrote your first novel?

First novel or first published novel (lol)? I wrote a couple of full-length books before I wrote Supernova, the first of which I finished when I was 19. No one but me has ever laid eyes on that cursed thing.

I wrote Supernova’s first draft almost entirely in longhand. I did it to keep myself free of computer distractions. I have never drafted that way again because the revisions were so difficult to complete. I ended up rewriting the entire book due to not being able to keep track of almost anything in longhand. There were also parts that were almost unreadable because it was obvious my hand had cramped while writing. It turns out I really need the Ctrl+F function if I don’t want to be repeating myself or forgetting side characters’ names.

What do you like the most about writing?

At this point, it’s almost a compulsion. I remember reading a piece from Ray Bradbury years ago where he mentioned that he got twitchy and irritable if he went longer than a day or two without writing, and I feel the same way. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t making up stories. I’ve kept a journal since I was 11 years old. I’ve been a lover of storytelling and creative writing since I was little and I have no intention of slowing down. I genuinely love everything about my writing process and everything that goes into it. I like the shot of Writer’s Tears I have after I finish drafting.

Now, the editing process, on the other hand… I love my editors themselves. That’s all I like about editing.

Which one of your books will you recommend to a new reader?

Dragon’s Keep (Magic & Mechanicals #4)! It’s my favourite book so far. It’s a dragon shifter/gaslamp fantasy romance that starts off with a disastrous trip to Antarctica. It’s also the first book I wrote where my editor’s notes included, “Great sex scene!” Did I mention I love my editors?

What are your future projects?

Oh, God, I have something like ten projects I on the go. I’m finishing up edits on my newest release, Spellbound (Magic & Mechanicals #5) which is coming out later this spring. I’m about a third of the way through the first draft of the sixth book in that series (I’m not releasing the title yet, because it’s a Spellbound spoiler). I’ve also been revising a standalone sci-fi romance novel whose rights were recently returned to me from its original publisher, and will have that back in the world within the next few weeks. I expect to have some more reverted material to tweak for rerelease soon, too. I recently finished drafting the first book in a new cyborg romance trilogy, although I don’t have any kind of release timeline yet, nor will I until I have the other two books drafted.

Okay, not quite ten projects. More like five or six J