Author Interview with JL Douglas
Today I’m hugely excited to have an interview with LUNASIDE author, JL Douglas.
JL Douglas is a former summer camp counselor, and current author of YA. She mostly ran Theatre Arts camp, but occasionally stuck her nose in other camps. Those experiences led her to writing about summer camp, all in the hopes of tiding her over until she one day conquers and/or buys a summer camp of her own.
Find out more about LUNASIDE here.
Welcome, JL!
– Tell us about your debut novel, LUNASIDE. What’s it about? And what inspired you to write it?
LUNASIDE is about Moira’s second summer at Lunaside Summer Camp. She’s the lone art counselor, who was expecting a quiet summer with her easy job until the owner of the camp decided she’d be a great fit for the camp’s new web series (NOTE: experience in TV will always come back to haunt you).
Romantically speaking, she was also expecting a nice, easy summer with Andrea, her girlfriend, who got hired to work at Lunaside’s film camp.
And then Millie, the new counselor, shows up in a car that almost runs Moira over and from the first nervous little “heh” out of her mouth, Moira’s wondering what it’d be like to have that ghost-eyed, curvy girl with her on her favorite sand dune. Worse, Millie feels the same.
But summer camp is NEVER easy, is it?
What inspired me to write it was my time as a summer camp counselor. I really enjoyed that environment, and was sad to have to move on for career reasons. So I created a world a little like my real-life summer camp, and played around with that to cheer myself up at first.
Then I wondered what would happen if I gave it a plot, and Moira happened.
– Is there a song that perfectly sums up LUNASIDE?
“Me & My Friends” by Tim Myers sums up Moira’s view of LUNASIDE
SECRET BONUS TRACK:
The one character who ended up with a theme song was Millie. Go listen to “This Light” by Grand & Noble, preferably AFTER reading (as it might contain mild spoilers, I don’t know)
– LUNASIDE has an awesome protagonist in Moira! Can you share with us how you create and develop your
characters?
I do a lot of character work. I write a lot of dialogue-heavy scenes that never make it into the actual book.
That means you’ll probably never get to read about Moira being in the same room with her very Catholic Irish grandmother and her equally Catholic Acadian grandmother. Or the time she got roped into a Little Women cosplay. Too bad.
– Given that LUNASIDE focuses on a love triangle, are love triangles something that you actively look out for when considering new novels to read?
They aren’t really. The one in LUNASIDE really just happened. I created Moira, and then gave her things to do at summer camp. Then I created Andrea, her girlfriend and other counselors. One of those counselors happened to be Millie, and the chemistry between them was too strong to avoid!
But, if I was going to recommend a good love triangle book right now I’d say go read NOBLE FALLING by Sara Gaines. Of all the triangles I’ve read this year, that one had the most honest, conflicting one.
– And I hear you’re working on your next book… can you tell us anything about that?
My next book is a sequel to LUNASIDE, but it’ll feature Millie as the main character, rather than Moira.
Millie is definitely a more troubled character, so the book will be a lot heavier in places. But it’ll also feature my first aroace secondary main character, and tons of soccer scenes?
And, I mean, it’s not like Millie has totally forgotten about Moira…
– So how long does it take you to draft a novel? Do you plan excessively or see where your writing takes you?
Plotting takes a while, but writing a first draft takes about a month from start to finish. The rest of the process really varies wildly. It depends on the availability of my betas and how close to my vision I came with the first draft!
LUNASIDE took me a little under a year from the draft I didn’t throw away to submissions. Counting the drafts I tossed, probably a LOT longer!
– What’s the funniest thing someone has said about you, as a writer?
I’m still stuck on the person who said, “It’s so funny! The romance, I expected. But not that.”
– Did you always want to be a writer?
Yes, according to (illustrated, poorly) journals I kept when I was preschool age. But I also wanted to run my own business.
– Have you got any advice for aspiring writers?
NO WRITING IS EVER WASTED
