Author Interview With Emily Mah Tippetts
What exactly do you write? (Fiction? Genre? Novel? Short story? Series? Technical or nonfiction? Articles? Reviews?)
I write science fiction and fantasy as Emily Mah, and in that genre I’ve only sold short stories to magazines, both in print and online. I write romance as E.M. Tippetts and have three novels out so far, with a fourth one due in August, a fifth one early next year, and a sixth one already outlined.
How would you describe yourself in a short third person bio?
Usually I say: Emily Mah Tippetts is originally from New Mexico but now lives in London with her family. A former attorney, she specialized in real estate, estate planning, and literary estate planning. These days, when she’s not chasing her two children, she writes and designs jewelry.
Do you have a day-job (other than writing)?
These days it’s motherhood. My two boys are both toddlers, My jewelry design was a self sustaining hobby for a couple of years, but now that my books have started to take off, I don’t have much time for it anymore. I’m finishing out the designs of some book tie-in jewelry for The Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson, a series by Stephanie Burgis. I once planned to try to make tie in jewelry more of a business, but that was before my writing career caught traction.
What made you initially want to write? Has your motivation changed since then?
I’m one of those people who’s always written, and no, my motivation hasn’t changed. It’s an obsession for me. My day feels all wrong if I don’t write. But having said that, my motivation for working on my writing and trying to make it sellable is because I enjoy it. It’s the only job I’ve ever wanted.
What’s your favourite part of writing?
Hitting that final draft phase when everything starts to hang together and I can hold the whole project in my head. From that point, the project is fun because the hardest work is out of the way and all that’s left is to tweak and polish here and there.
Tell us an interesting fact about you.
I attended the United World College of the Atlantic for sixth form, which is an international school in a medieval castle on the south coast of Wales. There were some ninety odd countries represented there, and I was one of six Americans in my year. It was a fantastic experience I’d recommend to anyone. This was back before the Harry Potter books came out, so when they did, my schoolmates and I were all contacting each other with the news of this great new series with a school in a castle. Our castle didn’t have as many ghosts, and we might not have actually saved the world, but it wasn’t for lack of trying with our long meetings and debates about global affairs and our activism.
Do you prefer a physical book or an ebook? Why?
I’ve been reading off my computer screen for years because I was a member of a writer’s group and that’s how I read other people’s submissions, so I don’t have the same attachment to physical books that a lot of people do. I love my Kindle Fire and I know I favor it over physical books because on the Kindle, once I finish one book, the next one is right there. The physical books don’t have that feature. These days what I like most about physical books is that they’re provided by the library, and thus save me a lot of money.
Are you a self-published author/indie author or did you go down the ‘traditional’ publication route? Why?
My career, or careers, are an experiment. Emily Mah is traditional. She’s doing the usual thing in science fiction and fantasy, selling short stories to ever more competitive markets in the hopes of finding an agent and/or publisher. E.M. Tippetts is indie,for a lot of reasons. The most important is that I wanted to join the fun of the indie scene. It’s such an exciting time in publishing history. Another reason is that I completely understand why a publisher wouldn’t want to take those books on. Chick lit is not selling well these days. Not well enough to support a whole publishing team, at least, but well enough to give me a nice little extra income. Right now E.M. Tippetts makes more money, but Emily Mah makes a lot more money per word. One short story pays as much as a month of earnings for E.M. Tippetts.
How many books have you written?
That I’m willing to own up to? Four. The three E.M. Tippetts book and one Emily Mah book that I hope to find a publisher for. If you count everything that I’ve ever written of a book-like length, I have no idea what the tally is up to now. A lot.
Tell us a little about your book, Someone Else’s Fairytale.
The concept of this book is a having someone else’s dream come true in your life. In this case, it’s a Hollywood mega-star falling head over heels in love with a woman who isn’t even a fan of his. She thinks he’s a nice enough guy, but while hordes of screaming fans follow his every move, she hasn’t even seen most of his recent films. The idea struck me as very funny. Can you imagine if that sort of thing happened to you? Who could you complain to? Your friends probably wouldn’t be all that sympathetic. I set the story in Albuquerque, in my home state of New Mexico, because that city is the perfect size: small enough that no two people from there are complete strangers, but large enough to still be a city, where a person can feel anonymous much of the time.
Which projects are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on a YA chick lit called Castles on the Sand. Madison, my main character, is sixteen and comfortable with her life in a small resort town on the coast of northern California, until one day a Mormon missionary shows up and starts acting very, very strange. He follows her around, interrogates her friends, and finally admits that he’s her brother. The thing is, she didn’t know she had a brother, much less a Mormon one. And the story kicks off from there.
How has writing changed your life?
It’s been a part of my life so long that I can’t say. I know my life would be drastically different without it, but I’ve never gone without it.
Have you ever written under a pseudonym?
Not really. Both Emily Mah and E.M. Tippetts are versions of my real name. I think it’s important to use different names if you’ve got two notably different styles. I’m not sure most of my readers of one name would care for the stuff I write with the other.
Where do you get inspiration for writing from? Do you listen to music whilst writing or have a ‘writing cave’?
Practice, I guess. If I know I have to write every day, I need to extract enough ideas to have something to write about, so it’s hard to name one way I do that. From conversations I overhear, headlines I read, jokes I like. I can’t listen to music while writing. If it’s playing, I just ignore it, along with all the other noise of my children are yelling and screaming. I can’t afford a writing cave, and even if I could, I believe that if I want to be able to keep writing, I need to figure out how to write anywhere anytime, because otherwise I might not ever find a way to write at all.
Is there a particular form, style or genre that you’d like to have a go at writing? Why?
I want to keep working on novels and get better at them. I love a well written novel, so I aspire to produce them.
Do you think it’s necessary to have a degree (in English or another subject) in order to be a writer?
I think it’s necessary to have a life. Whether or not you do higher education, it’s important that you do something to pass the time and build up life experiences. “Writers” who just live in their parents’ basement and write are less likely to have anything to write about. And while you don’t need an English degree, you do need to study the English language. I think it’s absurd how many people argue that they shouldn’t have to know grammar. That’s like saying you want to be a composer but shouldn’t have to learn how to read music or understand things like key and meter. A LOT of people want to be writers, and if you can’t even put together a grammatically correct sentence, you can’t compete. The grammatically incorrect sentences you read in published fiction are done by people who know how and when to do that on purpose.
Favourite book and/or author(s)?
Far too many to name. I’m reading Insurgent by Veronica Roth right now. I loved her debut book, Divergent. Disgusting that she’s only 23 years old and can write as well as she can. I’m jealous, in a good way.
What would you say to those who want to become a writer?
Examine what you think that means. Other writers recognized me as one of their kind even before I was published because to me writing is about writing, and scrounging for publishing deals and dealing with bad cover art and being paid tiny amounts of money, and yet that’s all worth it to me because it involves writing. Understand that it takes a decade, on average, from selling that first novel to making a living, and said living is a very meagre one. Most people don’t even stick with it for that decade. I wouldn’t trade my job for anything. I know this because I have MANY other options, all of them more lucrative.
Thanks so much for interviewing me. Here are links:
twitter/com/emtippetts
And the latest book is here.
