Featured Interview With C.L. Lynch
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I live in Vancouver, Canada with my husband, two children, a variety of pets, and too many unwashed dishes.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I don’t even remember learning how to read. I have always loved books. I started writing on my mother’s big old typewriter. I would sit happily for long periods clanking out rambling stories about Orcas and Brownies. I went to Montessori school and my teachers complained that I spent too much of my free time on the computer writing stories (which were horribly derivative and entirely without merit, although they kindly never mentioned that to me). When I was ten we got our own PC at home and I immediately wrote a 50 page abomination of a book which I proudly dubbed “Follow the Animals Home”. It is excruciatingly funny to read, because it is so very, very bad. I’m tempted to publish it in the hopes that it would gain an ironic following, but then I would have a new author photo taken with a brown paper bag over my head.
Basically, I’ve been writing for a very long time, and I hope that if I keep at it, I will eventually get better.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I have far too many favourite authors. I love Jane Austen, and Terry Pratchett, James Herriot and Jerry Spinelli. I love Rainbow Rowell and J.K. Rowling. Roald Dahl, and E.B. White. Basically, I love any author who can tell a compelling story with a great message. Bonus points if they can make me laugh.
I’m inspired whenever I read a story that makes me want to be a better person, or makes me cry with laughter, or just makes me cry. I’m inspired whenever I read about a character who feels so real that I really believe that they exist. That’s what I want to do. I want to make people feel feelings. I want to make them laugh. I want to make them cry. Most of all, I want them to believe in my characters. No, scratch that. MOST most of all, I want to tell a story that needs to be told – not because it is deep or epic but simply because it hasn’t been told yet, and it should be.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Oh, boy. So. I participate in National Novel Writing Month every November, and in 2012, I didn’t have any good stories up my sleeve. But I had just finished writing a series of very popular articles on my personal blog comparing JK Rowling to Stephenie Meyer, and I’m sorry to say that JK Rowling won on every count, from feminism to parts of speech. The blog posts were getting huge numbers of hits, and I thought it would be fun to write a sort of satirical retelling of Twilight – the anti-Twilight, I guess you could say. I wanted to see what this classic love story would look like if you made the human female strong and domineering, and the love interest clumsy and submissive.
And that’s how I invented Stella Blunt, the big, loud, foul mouthed protagonist, and Howard Mullins, the gentle zombie who loves her for her brains.
It was just supposed to be a fun way to write 50,000 words of a story, but somehow the characters got away from me. Stella is a very strong-willed character and she took the story and made it her own. A lot of the minor characters took over the dialogue – like Stella’s parents: I don’t know where they came from but they are my absolute favourite characters to write.
The next thing I knew, I had a book that was unique in its own right, featuring its very own snarky, self-rescuing heroine who takes on first love and zombie outbreaks with strength, passion, and a chainsaw. I had a respectful, adoring zombie lover who surprised me with his sweetness. I had a story, in other words, that I enjoyed writing more than any other story I had ever written.
I got caught up in it and I talked about it a lot, so my friends and husband asked to see it. I handed them rough drafts and waited for them to laugh at me. They laughed… but not at me. They thought the story was hilarious and that I should polish it for publication.
And that’s what I did.
Since publication I have been touched and delighted by the number of people who say they adore my characters and that they laughed out loud at my book. They love that she’s big. They love that she’s strong. They love her relationship with Howie. And her parents steal the show – almost every reviewer mentions them.
My mother is NOT delighted by the foul language, but you can’t win ’em all.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles