Author Crush Friday: A. Lynden Rolland
Glitter girls, you have pressing questions for your favorite authors and we have their answers. Welcome to our weekly segment, Author Crush Fridays.
We love asking questions and we love the answers from some of our favorite authors. Today we’re talking A. Lynden Rolland, author of Of Delicate Pieces (November 10, 2015; Month9 Books). Thank you for talking to us today, A.! We’re honored!
GLITTER: Tell us 5 random facts about yourself.
- I have three kids (one was born a few weeks ago!)
- I was a level 10 competitive gymnast.
- I can still hold a handstand for over a minute.
- I can do a back flip with a full twist.
- I’m a former high school English teacher.
GLITTER: Tell us about your journey to becoming a writer.
A: I’ve always been a writer even if I never intended to get paid for it. When I was a kid I’d carry around a journal and a notebook- the journal was my diary and the notebook was full of ideas about anything and everything.
I took a leave of absence from teaching after I had my first son. He was (and still is) a horrible sleeper. I spent so much time staring at the wall, and the only thing I had to keep me company was an overactive imagination. When I actually did get to sleep my dreams were wild, and I wrote down everything. Sometimes the dreams would be colors melting or morphing (this is probably where Chase’s ability came from- seeing the colors of people’s emotions) or fun impossibilities like ladders leading to the clouds or fog that could pick me up and carry me along.
I figured for these dreams to become fictional reality, the characters would have to be weightless. That’s when I decided all the characters needed to be dead. Alex and Chase came to me first – I’m a sucker for star-crossed love and tragic endings, so I wanted to extend their ending to turn the tragedy into something beautiful for them.
I started actually writing Of Breakable Things when my son was a few months old. I didn’t think I’d ever show it to anyone. I just wrote and wrote until the story was finished, and 800 pages later I was finished. I let someone read it, and I was encouraged to (edit a ton and then) publish.
GLITTER: Where did the idea for Of Delicate Pieces come from?
A: Of Delicate Pieces is the sequel to Of Breakable Things. There’s so much more that I wanted to do and explain in a mentally manipulated afterworld – As Alex’s mind opens and welcomes the odd and impossible, she sees new things every day: ladders leading into the sky, rowboats in the fog, clouds on strings, distorted buildings, mines made of memories. Spirits imagine themselves into their outfits. When they feel a certain way, their minds project them to look a certain way. They can see music and hear colors. The possibilities are endless.
I also wanted to expand on the interactions between the dead and the living, specifically the ‘gifted’ who have the same mental powers as the dead. (Gifted characters from book one: Liv, Professor Duvall, Sephi Anovark.) The gifted aren’t considered equals, and they see Alex as their chance to get back their rights because Alex is identical to their slain civil leader.
GLITTER: In Of Delicate Pieces, what was your favorite chapter/scene to write and why?
A: The scenes with the memory mine are probably my favorite. The miner, Yazzie, tells the kids that when people die and don’t become spirits, their memories fly away. The memories sometimes cling to random objects but usually they travel to the memory mine and latch on to it. He chisels them out and buries them one by and one, and they become the field of T-shaped gray flowers. The flowers whisper secrets though.
GLITTER: Who has been your favorite character to pen and why?
A: I enjoy writing about Alex and Chase together because I love their relationship and the idea that two people can love one another from the moment they were born and keep loving even after they die.
I like writing Jonas, too, because he’s such a jerk. He’s selfish and rude, but deep down he has a good heart. In Of Delicate Pieces Jonas is off doing his own thing, but because of that, he gets to discover things that the others are sheltered from in Eidolon.
GLITTER: This is your second book. Can you read Of Delicate Pieces as a stand-alone or do you really need to read Of Breakable Things first?
A: I’m sure it helps to read Of Breakable Things first. The characters and the afterworld are introduced in the first book, but I gave the sequel to beta readers who didn’t read the first book, and they still enjoyed Of Delicate Pieces. (All of them said they did go back and read Of Breakable Things afterward though because they were curious about what had happened prior.)
GLITTER: How much research went into writing both books?
A: Alex dies from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, so I spent plenty of time researching EDS: the different types, the symptoms, the developments etc. Even though it doesn’t play a huge role in the story (just mainly the flashbacks) I wanted to get it right. Psychology is something I’m always looking into especially because of Ellington’s character (he’s the psychologist to the dead), so that’s been ongoing as the series progresses. But a good deal of time is spent researching Latin and etymology—because almost every name in the series means something whether it’s a person, a place, a power, or a stone— and the properties of stones, flowers and herbs (because of Professor Duvall and Skye).
GLITTER: What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?
A: It’s funny- they’re actually the same. The toughest thing to hear is that my writing is too detailed. I feel like that’s my strength, so when I’m complimented for the details and the extent of the world building it means that much more.
GLITTER: Have you always known that you wanted to be a YA author?
A: No! I actually began college as a biology major! I wanted to be a doctor. I switched to English and secondary education during my freshmen year, but I didn’t know I wanted writing to be my profession until I’d already finished writing Of Breakable Things.
GLITTER: What one book do you wish you had growing up and why?
A: The Harry Potter series. I was in high school when the first book was released in the U.S. and I wish I’d been able to hold that magic in my hands when I was younger.
GLITTER: What are you working on now?
A: My edits for Of Breakable Things, book 3 should be arriving soon. I’m also on submission with a YA contemporary I wrote last year.
ABOUT A. LYNDEN ROLLAND:
A. Lynden Rolland was born and raised in a picturesque town obsessed with boats and blue crabs. She has always been intrigued by the dramatic and the broken, compiling her eccentric tales of tragic characters in a weathered notebook she began to carry in grade school. She is a sports fanatic, a coffee addict, and a lover of Sauvignon Blanc and thunderstorms. When she isn’t hunched behind a laptop at her local bookstore, she can be found chasing her two vivacious children. She resides in Maryland with her husband and young sons.
Where You Can Find Her:
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Editorial Director | Writer | Tweet me @heatherriccio
