Interview with Ivy Marie

 

Thank you Ivy Marie  for sending me this picture

Biography

Currently living in Ottawa, Ontario, she grew up as an only child with a father in the army. She moved around every two to three years until they landed in Ottawa, and they stayed.

The move to Ottawa is what started her writing career. It started with fanfiction and then migrated to supernatural romance. Her love of these two genres comes from the books she had read.

She is just a normal girl trying to have fun with writing. She just hopes her stories bring a smile to your face like they did mine when she wrote them.

Credit: About Me - Ivy Marie (ivymarieauthor.com)

Questions

Why did you decide to write romance?

It’s not that I decided to write romance. I stumbled into it. In high school, I wrote fanfiction involving the friends I had left behind due to the move to Ottawa for my dad’s job. I did that so I’d feel close to them again. The fanfiction evolved a little, using characters from an anime I loved to watch, and I even posted those stories on fanfiction.net. Actually, I think it was around that time when romance began to seep into my writing. I was reading vampire [romance] books — Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton and Dark Ones Series by Katie MacAlister. The romance was absorbed through osmosis. I didn’t even register it. So when I began to write non-fanfiction the romance just flowed. So yeah, it wasn’t a conscious decision to write romance, it just happened. The more I read, the more I fell in love with the genre and the more I emphasized it in my writing.

What do you like the most about writing?

The creativity of it. The events, the situations, and the couples are all things that probably never — or rarely — happen. All the tropes, to me, are like a dream/wish for it to come true. I’ve always had an artsy side: fashion design, baking, and painting. Writing is just another way for me to express myself. Every female lead character I write has a little bit of me in them, literally. Whether it’s their speech pattern, their attitude, their likes or dislikes, something about them is a reflection of me. In a way, I use my writing to express my dreams/wants.

What struggles did you meet when you wrote your first book?

Shh. My official first book is still being edited. It’s been written for ten years and has gone through many rewrites because I had an issue with the flow of the story. I’m hoping books two and three of the planned trilogy don’t take me as long now that I have my footing and writing style/voice. For my first published book, Stolen Heart, my biggest struggle was the flow. I was really good with dialogue, but not so much on the in-between parts, so the story felt choppy. My editor at the time gave me lots of notes to help me clearly write the path from beginning to end flow better. Stolen Heart was initially published in 2018 in the third person but has been republished in 2023 in the first person — and with more words. I’m much more proud of it.

Which advice will you give to a new author?

Don’t give up, have fun, and make small goals. Writing a novel can be difficult. If you need to put it down and move on to a different project/idea, go right ahead. You’ll come back eventually, refreshed and ready to go. Writing should be fun. I get excited every time my pen hits the paper, and I can physically see the story my brain has dreamt up. As for small goals, I say that because making a large significant goal, such as selling 100 copies of your first book in the first year, is [in my opinion] unrealistic and depressing when not met. A smaller goal, in my case, my goal when I first started was to get something out into the world. It’s realistic, and I felt an accomplishment when I succeeded. I’m constantly making new small goals. Right now, my goal is to have two or maybe three books ready for publishing in 2024/2025.

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

It’s tough to choose only one book because I love the next book I write more than the previous book. So, I’m going to pick two of my currently published works for two different reasons. Thief in Paris is a contemporary romance where love sneaks up on the female lead, Darcie Manners when she’s not looking for it. I had a lot of fun writing the scenes where she interacts with the male lead and thief. But if you want a quick read in the supernatural universe, then I suggest Stolen Heart. It’s a short and sweet read, and the lead — Eve — is blind. Writing her was a fun challenge because I had to rely on her other senses when writing.

What are your future projects?

In the near future, I have three projects. Book two of a duet, the first book, is out in February 2024. It’s a contemporary romance. I have a reaper story. This will be a supernatural romance with a grim reaper as my male lead. The only thing I haven’t figured out is if I’ll make it into a series or leave it as a stand-alone. The answer will come to me as I write. I have another contemporary romance that’s last on the list to write. It’s tentatively titled Auctioned Off. The way I have it plotted is nothing like the auctioned tropes that I’ve read descriptors for before. I don’t want to say much, just in case the path changes while I write. In the long run, I have a series called Like Hell. It’ll follow the female lead, Kyrie Albert, as she discovers a world of vampires, werewolves, and witches. With her werewolf partner at her side, she’ll learn where she fits and how important she has become after an attack. This will have three books in the main series, a prequel from the partner’s point of view, and maybe a few novellas following other characters. It’s a massive project, and I want to have book two written before I publish book one.