Dragon Soul Press had an opportunity to sit down to interview Author Laura Q. Jimenez. She is featured in DSP’s Imperial Devices.

---

1. Have you always wanted to be a writer?

I’m not sure at what point I seriously started to think about being a writer. As a kid, my favorite thing in the world was to get lost in daydreams. I’d disappear into my own head, sometimes for days at a time, and only re-emerge when that particular adventure ran its course. At some point in my pre-teen years, I worried that I would forget the wild and wondrous tales I dreamt up, so I started writing them down and never stopped. It probably wasn’t until a few years later, in high school, that the idea of being someone who writes professionally occurred to me.

2. What comes first, the plot or characters?

Character. Always character. I start from a point of someone interesting. Either someone who is visually striking, or has a fascinating personality, or a memorable background. Then I explore. Who are they? What do they do? When faced with a nail-biting problem, how do they react? Figuring out how the problem actually plays out or is solved, i.e. the plot, comes much later in the process.

3. How many plot ideas are just waiting to be written? Can you tell us about one?

So, so many. Someone much smarter than me once said that ideas are like grains of sand at the beach. You can’t help stepping on them, and they get everywhere, in your hair, in your teeth. The challenge is figuring out which ones are good or interesting enough to be worth writing about.

The book I am currently working on is an urban fantasy that centers on a young woman who is slowly cracking like a porcelain doll but instead of blood, the split skin reveals solid gold underneath. All she knows is that she’s experiencing a sudden thirst for violence, that a smiling demon keeps crossing her path, and that she might be falling in love with the girl next door. Now she has to race against time to figure out what is happening to her and how to stop it before she crumbles into so many shiny shards.

4. Who is the author you most admire in your genre?

That is a tough choice. There are so many extremely talented authors writing in science fiction and fantasy. At the very top of the list stands Neil Gaiman, arm in arm with Terry Pratchett. Good Omens was the first title I ever read with either of their names on it. I now have a signed copy on a special place on my shelf, dog-eared and water-logged, but still my favorite.

Gaiman creates brilliant worlds that evoke a very particular time in life but are simultaneously timeless. Meanwhile, Pratchett saw the real world and painted over it with a satirical brush, creating hilarious social commentary that was scathing in its intensity.

Other amazing individuals who have shaped my reading and writing more recently, and that I absolutely can’t not mention, include V.E. Schwab, N.K. Jemisin, and Tamsyn Muir. Octavia Butler. Alix E. Harrow. I better stop before this turns into a five-thousand word manifesto. Chuck Wendig. Delilah Dawson. Okay, okay, I’ll stop.

5. What are you reading now?

I am one of those people who has at least three or four books in the works at a time, switching between them depending on my mood.

Thus, I am currently reading Once Upon a River, by Diane Setterfield, about a little inn by the Thames River, where a young girl drowned and was declared dead. Until she wasn’t.

I am getting ready to dive into The Harpy 2: Evolution, the second book in the Harpy series by Julie Hutchings, about Charity Blake, a young woman who turns into a vicious winged monster to wreak vengeance on those who would harm others as she was harmed in the past.

I have also just finished reading N.K. Jemison’s Broken Earth trilogy, a series about a planet angry with its human parasites, punishing them with cruel seasons and endless earthquakes; shakes that can only be stopped by those with special orogenic powers: people who are simultaneously revered for their usefulness, and reviled for the danger they pose.

6. What do you like to do when you are not writing?

When I am not busy with my day job, writing my books, or reading the work of others, I am probably playing video games with my son (we’ve played just about every Lego title out there), or Dungeons & Dragons with my friends. There are so many ways to play games with people virtually these days, and we’ve been taking full advantage!

7. What are the key challenges you face when writing a book?

In any project, the biggest challenge for me is probably The End. Beginnings are fun and easy, like a new relationship. Actually, it very much is a relationship. It most often feels like I’m trying to woo the story into existence. At the outset, everything is exciting, butterflies in our bellies, just getting to know one another. Even the middle isn’t too terrible. We’ve had some spats, we’re learning to navigate the other’s emotional baggage, making compromises. But the end is always a struggle. All the loose ends must be tied up, the emotional delivery has to resonate, the breakup has to be clean. In short, even if the reader isn’t happy, they have to feel closure.

It’s one thing I cannot say I’ve completely mastered, but as with all things, we keep working at it, and get better every time!

8. Share something your readers wouldn’t know about you.

Most people don’t know that I studied anatomy on cadavers as an undergrad. I’m an exercise physiologist by trade so I have to be intimately familiar with every bone, muscle, and joint in the human body. That meant spending a semester visiting the medical campus once a week, getting elbow-deep into one dead body or another, and frequently leaving past sundown, still covered in bits and juices, and smelling like your tenth grade Biology lab. Ah, the good old days.

9. If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?

Academic Forest Goblin.

I should probably explain what that means, but I think it’s more fun if I don’t. Whatever you’re imagining is probably close enough.

10. Where can readers learn more about you?

Website, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Amazon.