Lost in Wonderland – Lit World Interviews

A UK lady with a knack for helping young authors while creating her own series of books, Nicky Peacock.

Where do you hail from?

I come from a medium size town in the middle of England called Corby. It has a bit of a reputation as a place to live, but I love it. It’s close enough to beautiful wild countryside to appeal to my nature loving side and close enough to pretty decent shopping centers to appeal to my shopaholic side!

Who are the authors that most inspired you to become a writer, or that you think influence your writing style?

I think that most authors will influence your writing style – whether you want them to or not. Reading a broad range of genres and authors is a necessary part of writing. When I was younger, Poppy Z Brite was a big influence on my horror writing; somehow she made the grotesque beautiful. Anne Rice was definitely the writer that got me hooked on vampires and other monsters.

What’s your favorite word and why?

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious… as it’s really quite atrocious 😉

Things readers may want to know, hmm, are you married?

I’m currently single. I’m pretty happy with it, although I certainly wouldn’t turn down a gorgeous man with a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates at my door! It’s quite a hard life being an author. Most of us still have to work full time jobs, you know if you want those luxuries in life like food and shelter! So, once you try to squeeze in writing and have some semblance of a social life, well dating can kind of feel like an after-thought. Also, I’ve had some pretty dismal dates recently: One guy burst into tears over his ex, another talked all night about his dogs, but by far the worst was the guy, who after learning I was an author, decided he wanted something to eat…at home. He just left!

How does working with young aspiring authors help your own writing?

Growing up in Corby, I didn’t have a mentor, or someone to look to, for my writing, so I decided that I would try to be that person for the next generation. Writing is hard, getting published is harder and being an author is the hardest of all. You have to not just produce work but have reasonable editing skills, marketing knowledge and time to spend on social media plus all the literary specific sites such as Goodreads and LibraryThing. Having someone who has been there and done all that can help make those jobs easier and less time consuming so that a budding writer’s desire to tell a good story isn’t consumed in the fires of work.

Tell us about your two series with Evernight Teen, Battle of the Undead and The Twisted and The Brave.

Battle of the Undead is a vampires VS zombies YA urban fantasy set at the start of the zombie uprising. Vampires, fearing the loss of their food supply (us) start to make plans to protect uninfected humans.

The Twisted and the Brave is a YA series that twists the themes of classic children’s books into contemporary, violent thrillers with a supernatural edge.

Being two different animals, which do you enjoy writing more, the anthologies or novels?

LOL, I’m not above saying that I want to sell books and make some money, and that only really comes from novels. Anthologies are great for a quick fix. Short stories are, well short and there are plenty of publishers out there putting out call-outs that writers can answer, but they’re not going to help boost that bank balance! I do enjoy a good challenge for a short story, but right now I’m focusing on the longer fiction.

Tell us how you get included in so many anthologies. I know some don’t know how to go about getting involved.

The website Duotrope, although you need to pay for it now, is a great investment for writers. It’s a complete database of publisher call-outs for anthologies and magazines. The best advice I can give is to stick to genres that you feel you can write well and don’t take on too much. There are always deadlines for these and part of the trick is picking what you can realistically do, rather than what you wish you could do.

Where can we find your most recent work, and what is your next piece coming out?

You can find my books on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Nicky-Peacock/e/B007UH2ACW/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1467062178&sr=8-1

It’s a race at the moment because I’m currently working on both the last book of the Battle of the Undead series, Bad Karma and also the second in The Twisted and The Brave, The Assassin of Oz.

What’s your guilty pleasure movie that would surprise people, being that you are into the horror genre in writing?

Hmmmm, I do like a good superhero movie. I really enjoyed Deadpool and Antman, although they are quite acceptable within my genres. Although not a movie, at the moment I’m binge watching RuPaul’s Drag Race on Netflix – I love that show, it never fails to make me smile!

Thank you for having me on your site today, now I’ll sashay away…