Featured Interview With Aida Jacobs
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in Southern California to a Cuban mother and a Scottish father, and I spent the first thirty years of my life there.
I’ve always been a shy dreamer with a highly active imagination (obviously, that hasn’t changed). Even as a child, I knew that I was different from other children my age because I always preferred books to television (both of my parents loved to read, so it was inevitable). I was the type of student to get in trouble for reading books during class when I was supposed to be working on other assignments simply because I couldn’t wait until recess or lunch to find out what would happen next to the story’s protagonist. I was also the kind of student who would always read ahead in reading assignments…which would also earn me a lecture from my teacher. I simply couldn’t help myself. I would get completely drawn into the story, and I could envision it all perfectly in my mind as I became ever attached to the characters.
Simply put, I was (and still am) a giant geek, and I couldn’t be more proud of that.
Almost three years ago, my husband and I decided to pull up stakes and move to Minnesota where we now make our home with our inquisitive, almost two year-old daughter, and our two very spoiled cats. When I’m not writing or spending time with my husband and daughter, I enjoy gaming (of both the video and table-top variety), reading, collecting comic books, and cooking.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My love for books (especially books of the fantasy genre) was kindled by my father when I was a little girl. An avid reader himself, he strove to share that love of the written word with me by reading aloud to me every night before I went to sleep. Among the many books he would read to me a chapter at a time before I went to bed as a child, ‘The Hobbit’ was one of them. After that I was hooked.
I had honestly never made the conscious decision to pursue writing as a career until my Senior year of high school during the creative writing class I took as an elective. Up until then, I had always preferred to simply read and live vicariously through the characters on the pages. When I wasn’t writing essays or doing other homework assignments, I would occasionally dabble in fanfiction for my favorite books and anime. One fanfic in particular that springs to mind was a sequel I wrote to ‘Phantom of the Opera’ (my obsession for that classic, tragic tale still continues to this day) when I was in junior high. It was so the very first story I ever wrote (and that has long-since been lost since it was originally written on an 8 inch floppy disk), but it was not until that first creative writing class I took in school that the idea of becoming a published author really pushed itself to the front of my mind. From the first moment I started scratching out my heroine’s character description in my notebook, I knew in my gut that this was a dream I wouldn’t be able to walk away from.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Fantasy has always been my favorite genre. From the first moment my father read ‘The Hobbit’ aloud to me as a child, I was completely hooked on the genre. Every book I’ve read since then, every video game I’ve played, and every film I’ve watched has only increased my love and fascination for the world of dragons, elves and other mystical beings.
My favorite authors within this genre are Tolkien and Salvatore, but lately, I’ve developed quite the fondness for David Gaider (the head writer for the Dragon Age series over at Bioware) because he has expanded upon the characters and world I’ve grown attached to through all the times I’ve played the Dragon Age games.
For me, Tolkien will always be the master when it comes to the fantasy genre, and I can only hope to be one tenth as good as he was. Perhaps it’s because of my early exposure to him, but I will always have a special place in my heart for his writing.
I love the humor that Gaider and Salvatore weave into their stories, and I try to use them as a general example for how to add humor into a scene. Make no mistake, I love drama and angst as much as the next person (after all, how can a character truly grow if they’ve never been put through the paces?), but I truly believe that a well-placed quip is sometimes all you need to keep a scene from getting too dark and heavy.
My guilty pleasures though are paranormal romance novels, and my two favorite authors of that genre are Lynsay Sands and Christine Feehan.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The Dragon Guardian series (the very first draft of Dragon Guardian: Fire in any case) originally started off as my creative writing project during my Senior year of high school. The students in the class were required to submit a new written piece every week (or in the event of the student choosing to write poetry, three new pieces). We had free rein. Occasionally, Ms. Skacan, our teacher, would give us a prompt for an assignment to be done and turned in by the end of class, but for the most part, she allowed us to work on our weekly projects.
It was at that moment I came up with the idea of writing a novel during the course of the year. The chapters would of course be my weekly submissions for the class, and when I approached Ms. Skacan with the idea, she very enthusiastically told me to run with it. After that, the idea for Marin, the sassy redhead that would become my protagonist, popped into my head and I spent the entire weekend getting to know her in my mind. Thus began the first of what would be the many pages of notes that I reference back to on a continual basis.
That was fourteen years ago.
‘Dragon Guardian: Fire’ introduces the world of Primordya that suffers under the tyrannical rule of Nahga–queen of the dark elves. It falls to the deposed Princess Marin Draconya, the intrepid, half-elven heroine, and last remaining heir to the throne, to restore peace to the war-torn, tumultuous land that was once ruled by her father.
‘Dragon Guardian: Fire’ marks the beginning of my Dragon Guardian series, in which over the course of four books I will bring to life a world and characters that have been growing within my imagination for fourteen years. This series truly is my life’s work, and I am very excited to share it with the world.
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