Interview with Misha Fitt

I'm excited to inform readers that I will be posting interviews with authors on my blog. This is a chance for readers to get to know up and coming writers.

Today I'm interviewing Misha.

Misha is a novelist and a blogger. Contact her on mishafitt.com, facebook, twitter, or pinterest.

She currently lives in the South East of England with her husband and ornery ginger cat, Lacey.  When she is not writing, she is attempting to visit as many countries around the world as possible.  She is the original ‘crazy cat lady’ and can be bribed with (good) Red Wine. Her work can be found on her blog mishafitt.com

And onto the interview...

So Misha, what have you written?
Creative writing has always been a part of my life. When I was in my early teens I would lock myself in my room and write short horror movie screenplays and other short stories. As I got older I focused more on poetry and short pieces of expressive works and that eventually developed into novels. I have one published work entitled (Heart) on (Amazon.com) at present and lots of tidbits on Wattpad. I am always working on something.
Do you have any advice for other authors on how to market their books?

Social Media. The internet is king!
Yes Misha, you seem to be doing an excellent job of marketing on your blog. I noticed one of your posts on your blog entitled perusing Portugal and Lisbon talks about your travels to Portugal. This post will definitely entice a variety of readers to your blog mishafitt.com

Which writers inspire you?

I love Robin Benway who is a YA writer from LA. Her stories and characters are always so likable and relatable. I also think Maggie Stiefvater is an inspiration as when I am reading her stories I forget the real world exists.

Robin Benway, huh? Her stories seem interesting. I'm partial to YA authors like Markus Zusak and Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of the Secret Garden.

Misha, what are your ambitions for your writing career? I just want to be able to share my stories with as many people as possible. I don’t have unrealistic expectations and assume I will be world-famous, but if I can share my worlds with even just a few people it will be a dream come true. I gotcha, become world-famous so you can travel more of the world I bet. Add a few more countries to your bucketlist, sounds like a dream worth making come true. Give us an insight into your main character. What does he/she do that is so special? Anna Cass is 17, a bit quirky, a bit naive and has just fallen in love with a demon named Heart Mavet. She decides it is up to her to help Heart become human but in doing so she puts her life in danger and uncovers some unsettling truths about the town she calls home. Hmm, the character of Heart Mavet sounds unsettling definitely someone I want to meet in your novel. What are you currently working on and what is it about? I am working on the sequel to Heart (it is a Duology) and a standalone novel about a romance between two twenty-somethings in Australia. Australia huh? Great setting. Maybe you'll find yourself in the same settings as Australian writer, Liane Moriarty. What drew you to write in this genre? I try to write in more than one genre, but mainly consider myself a Young Adult writer. I was drawn to this genre as I have always loved anything to do with teenagers. Even the screenplays I used to write as a teen myself were teen slasher films! Man, I wish I wrote screen plays as a teen, maybe my writing would be more on point. As a teen, I found myself writing slam books and posing questions to my classmates:Like where will you be in ten years? Some would joke and write things like Driving a dump truck or modeling. Some of those answers weren't as far fetched as my classmates thought they would be. How much research do you do? I tend to do a fair bit, especially when I am writing a story set in a country or place I have never been to. The research includes googling pictures of the area to researching what kinds of flora and fauna are present. I also tend to give a lot of thought to my character names, for example, each character name in Heart is significant to the story. When did you decide to become a writer? I started out thinking I wanted to make films, I was all set to pursue this as a career when I realized what I liked so much about the process was creating the story. I realized it was the writing part I enjoyed and that was that. How often do you write, and do you have a special time during the day to write? I try to write once a week at the moment, It really depends on how often I am working in any given week. I find evenings are more productive for me. Or anytime that I can shut away the real world for a period of time! Do you aim for a set amount of words/pages per day? When I am writing, I try to finish at least one chapter. Even if it just the first draft, I will then go over the chapter several more times before moving on. Where do the your ideas come from? The Heart Duology came from a dream I had several years ago now, where a young man had to steal people’s heartbeats to stay alive. The standalone novel I am working on was also inspired by a dream. I often have ‘movie’ dreams where I am not actually present as such, but a viewer to a story playing out in my mind. I love ideas that come from dreams, don't get in my head though. My dreams are scary, the massacre type. Stems from too much late night TV with me and my little baby. The love of my life right now. Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see where an idea takes you? I try to outline a rough plot and work to that. However, what generally happens as I’m writing is that I realise things I thought weren't important are very important and vice versa and the plot can change shape several times. What is the hardest thing about writing? For me it’s finding the time. Or when I have the time, being able to switch off my reality switch and banish all the distractions. I went to Paris alone for a week whilst writing Heart and managed to write ⅔ of the book in that one week because I was so focused. What is the easiest thing about writing? Creating people you love like family. I love when i’m writing and a new personality trait develops in one of the characters and it makes me fall in love with them a little bit more. How long on average does it take you to write a book? At present, a long time. I first started Heart many years ago and didn’t really push for it to be published until 2015. Do you ever get Writer’s Block, and do you have any tips for getting through it? Yes, I do. A lot of my Writer’s Block is self-doubt. Sometimes I will try to write and produce nothing or nothing worth keeping and it can get me down and I then don’t want to write at all. I find the only way of getting through the Writer’s Block is to just keep trying. Gosh, don't you hate self doubt? I'm working on mine with a book titled Tools of Titans. This book documents the routines of the most successful people. The author, Tim Ferriss, personally tries every routine in the book and lives to tell about it, lol. Do you read much and if so who are your favourite authors. I do try to read a lot, before bed. I don’t read as much as I used to but I still try to read 30-40 books a year. I enjoy many genres, mostly psychological thrillers or young adut fiction. My favourite authors include Robin Benway & Lucy Clarke Do you think that the cover plays an important part in the buying process? It does have a big impact. People can be drawn to books from the cover art. It may be a story they never would have considered but they have bought the book because of the cover and found a new favourite. For me personally I always read the blurb as some of my favorite novels have had pretty average covers. I read the book blurb too! But lately I've been taking my book recommendations from youtubers like vlogbrothers and in particular John Green, author of Paper Towns. How are you publishing this book and why? I’m with Dream Big Publishing. They are independent and all works are published on demand. They advertise on Amazon and many other internet retailers. I liked their approach to publishing and as it was my first attempt at getting a book out into the world thought they would be a good fit to help me with the entire process What would you say are the main advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing against being published or the other way around? I think being published through a traditional publisher gives you the advantage of having your book exist in actual stores and thus on display for the more traditional reader to potentially purchase. However in this day and age most shopping is done online so only having an internet presence should not impact too much on a book’s noticeability. I think if you are self-publishing, you really have to know the industry as you will be doing without help and could potentially make mistakes. What part of your writing time do you devote to marketing your book? I try to do a little bit of marketing every time I sit at my computer. Even if it is just a little tweet. Folks, that is all the time we have today. You can contact at Misha at https://www.facebook.com/Mishafitt/, Readers if you have any questions for Misha ask away in the comments below.