Leah Cypess Interview

I have no good news yet to report back on finding an agent for Desiderium. Although my brother helped me come up with an idea that I think will make the book a lot stronger, so I'm really excited about it! On to other things...Leah Cypess, author of Mistwood and Nightspell has agreed to do an interview for us. I met her once at work years ago, and then decided to give her books a try. They are both excellent, and I'm really excited that she was willing to do this. For anyone who likes YA books, check out her website. She also has a trailer for her first book on Youtube. Now, onto the interview!

First off, I would like to thank you for taking the time to do this interview. And congratulations on your new book deal!

Thank you! I'm hugely excited about it.

As a mother of three children, how do you find time to write? It’s hard enough when you don’t have any children!
True; I sometimes remember how hard it was to find time before I had kids and wondered what on earth I was doing with myself back then. But the simple truth is, I did plenty of stuff that I don't do anymore. I used to love finding new recipes and cooking new concoctions for dinner every night. Now, I do that perhaps once a month. I used to make all my baked goods from scratch - ha! I used to get 8 hours of sleep a night. I used to... okay, you know what, I never used to keep my home clean. But maybe it was a little less out-of-control messy than it is right now.

So basically, my answer is that I find the time by giving up a lot of other things that would eat up my time. I never sit and watch tv (I do watch tv, but only while I'm folding laundry or exercising or cooking), I don't shop for clothes, and when I get invited to a party, my first thought is what excuse I'll use to get out of it. Luckily, I love both being with my kids and writing, so giving up the other stuff doesn't seem like that big a sacrifice.

Both Mistwood and Nightspell feature strong female protagonists. Who do you identify with more—Isabel or Darri?

That's a hard question! The flip (although true) answer is that I identify most with the character I'm writing at the time. There are aspects to each of them that are very similar to me, and also aspects that are very different.

The worlds that you’ve painted in Mistwood and Nightspell are absolutely spectacular. How did you dream them up? Thank you! The larger world in Mistwood is mostly based on a combination of the standard high fantasy landscape and my knowledge of early modern castles -- the legend of the Shifter, however, I made up on my own. (Although in retrospect, I realize that its roots in my subconscious had a lot to do with The Last Unicorn by Peter S.Beagle.) Nightspell had a more original setting and that world was therefore more difficult to write. I did some research, mostly reading about Byzantine courts, but in the end it was mostly a lot of thinking about how that world would work, much of it spurred by hard questions from my fabulous editor.

My absolute favorite scene from Nightspell was when Darri threw the silver at Callie and realized she was a ghost. Did you picture revealing that information to the readers in that particular way when you first wrote Nightspell?
That just might be my favorite scene too. I don't remember when exactly I wrote it, but I do know that it was in the very first draft of Nightspell and changed very little over the five plus rewrites I went through. So it was imbedded into the book very early.

Nightspell ends with the uncertainty of whether or not Callie will make it home alive (for lack of a better word). Did you originally see it ending differently?

No, I wrote that ending in the first draft too (although the wording and situation of that scene actually changed quite a lot during revision, the essence remained the same).

In your mind, did Callie make it home “alive”?
No, I think she passed into true death when she rode over the border. (Normally I'd say I want to leave it to your imagination, but I actually tried to indicate it strongly in the book -- apparently not so well!)

What is the hardest part of the writing process for you? The planning, the drafting, the revising, or the publishing?
Without question, the publishing. All the rest of it is at least somewhat under my control, even if it sometimes doesn't feel that way. But as a writer, there is very little I can do to affect anything that happens to my book during the publishing process or afterward. Half the time, I don't even know what's happening.

Many of us are eagerly anticipating your new duology. Where are you in the process of writing Deathsworn?
The first draft of Deathsworn is done (by first draft, I mean pre-revisions with my editor - it's already gone through four or so drafts on my computer). I'm currently working on the first draft of the sequel while waiting to start revisions.

Will Deathsworn be anything like Mistwood and Nightspell?
In many ways, yes; it features a young girl in a dangerous situation, surrounded by people with secrets, who will be forced to uncover the truth and make a very difficult moral choice. But my protagonist is very different from either Isabel or Darri (in ways that make her much more difficult to write!), the setting and mystery are very different, and the choice she faces is of a different nature entirely.

Thank you again for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this. We wish you the best of luck with your two new books!

Thank YOU! You ask fantastic questions.