Pushing the Limits
What can you tell our readers about your new novel Pushing The Limits?
Pushing the Limits tells the story of two high school seniors, Echo and Noah. Echo has no memory of the night that transformed her from popular girl to loner freak with scars on her arms, and she desperately craves answers. Noah is a foster kid who is fighting to reunite his family. Since they see the same court ordered therapist, the lives of the “good” girl and the “bad” boy collide. The two work together towards their goals, but neither foresaw the shattering consequences of learning the truth regarding their families or of falling in love.
Your debut novel was inspired by an incident when you were young, can you expand upon this for us?
When I was in second grade, I was bitten by a dog and repressed the memory. It was strange to have wounds and eventually scars on my body and have no recollection of how I received them. I understood that I had been bitten, but where a memory should have existed in my brain was instead inhabited by a black hole.
I took that experience and gave the fear and confusion of a repressed memory to my character Echo.
You decided to write as your youngest child was sleeping through the night but at what point in life did you know you wanted to write?
I enjoyed writing as a child and as a teenager, but my goal for my life was to become a family court judge. During my junior year of college, my plans changed. I graduated, married the most wonderful man in the universe, and became a “buyer”. First for energy, then for a chain of fast food restaurants, then I returned to energy.
I eventually became a stay at home mom and my love of storytelling returned. It was after I finished my first manuscript that I knew that writing was what I was born to do.
Every writer says that it is essentail to read if you want to write, so who are your favourite reads?
Stephen King and S.E. Hinton are long time favorites of mine. I recently read an ARC of Gena Showalter’sAlicein Zombieland and loved it!
You novel has been compared to the school dramas of the OC, is this what you intended to capture?
I have to admit, I’ve never seen the OC. I’ll definitely have to check it out!
What is your writing background that has led you to becoming a novelist?
Actually, I have a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science with an emphasis in studies in philosophy and history. Other than writing a few short stories, essays, and speeches for class assignments in high school and college, I don’t have much of a writing background.
To hone my skills, I read books on craft and have taken on-line classes through various writing groups. I consider myself a storyteller and I enjoy writing those stories down onto the page.
How did you capture the voices of teenagers so effectively?
Through family and friends, I know several teenagers and I listen to them as they talk. I watch movies and television, but mostly, I think about how I spoke and how my friends talked when we were younger.
Did you have to invest any time with your target audience to establish what they wanted to from a book?
Honestly, no. I read S.E. Hinton’s THE OUTSIDERS when I was a teenager and that book completely transformed my reading life. It was the first book I ever stayed up all night to finish. I completely connected with the characters because I understood that feeling of friends becoming your family.
When I wrote PUSHING THE LIMITS, I set out to write the type of book I would have wanted to read when I was a teenager.
What is next in store for you?
I’m currently working on revisions for DARE YOU TO, a companion novel to PUSHING THE LIMITS. DARE YOU TO follows the story of Beth, a secondary character from PTL. DARE YOU TO is scheduled to be released in 2013.
Why was it so important to you to write about such a life changing time in a person's history?
Because I want people to know that no matter what situation they find themselves in, there is always hope.
Female First Lucy Walton