Author Interview: Scott Cramer (Plus Giveaway!)

I'm thoroughly excited to have Scott Cramer, author of Night of the Purple Moon, on Paperback Fantasies for an interview! I have already had the pleasure of reading his seriously awesome book and you can read my review this weekend! Keep reading to find out more about him and how you can have a chance to win your own eBook of Night of the Purple Moon.

Scott Cramer
Writer of YA and MG novels, mysteries, screenplays, picture books, magazine features, newspaper articles, and poetry. I've tackled just about everything except a stage play.

Find Scott Cramer:
Blog | Twitter | Facebook

Find Night of the Purple Moon:
Goodreads | Amazon | My Review 

What is the oddest thing that has inspired your writing?

Well, I’m going to approach this question from a slightly different angle. Inspirations can come from conversations, travel, watching the news, sports, riding my bike, taking a shower, folding laundry, surfing, waiting in the dentist office… They strike without warning at all times of the day. But inspirations are also fleeting. They come and go. Mostly they go and stay gone. The trick is how do you keep writing day after day when you have no inspirations, when you are in an inspiration vacuum. Writing during these moments can be quite arduous. It helps to have realistic expectations, to know that writing is a slow, incremental process. And if you keep chip chip chipping away, you’ll surprise yourself.

What made you want to write for the Young Adult/Middle Grade audience?

Honestly, I did not write for the YA or MG audience. I didn’t write for any particular audience. I had a story to tell, and I knew that if I told the story well then people of all ages would find it compelling. My characters happen to be young and my writing style is fairly simple and straight forward, similar to some YA/MG novels, but I just had a story to tell. That’s what I focused on.

Do you think your writing has been influenced by any other authors? Who?

Most definitely. In fact, I learn something about the craft of writing in almost every book I read. Sometimes I find myself too susceptible to a particular writer’s voice and style, which is why I usually only read non-fiction when I am writing fiction.

Who? I love the straight forward narrative of the Norwegian writer, Knut Hamsun, and the incredible humor of Roald Dahl and the action of Jules Verne and the mind-bending sentences of Cormac Mccarthy. I love the humanity of Lois Lowry and the jazz-like riffs of Ernest Hemingway. Stephen King is a brilliant writer, and I recently re-read for the third time, What is the What by Dave Eggers.

Do you have a writing ritual? (i.e. Do you listen to music or drink a load of coffee?)

I generally write first thing in the morning. I am a morning person. Correct that, I am an early morning person. Before-the-sun-rises-totally-alert person. We have a dog and a cat that like to eat before 5:30 a.m. There are many days when I am the one who wakes them up.

So it is quiet in the house before dawn and the animals are fed and I drink extra strong coffee. That is when I am most in the writing zone, most productive.

What drove you to write a dystopian novel?

I had written two character-driven YA novels. Small, quiet dramas, I’ll call them. When I was thinking about what eventually would become Night of the Purple Moon, I wanted to go big, write a high concept novel, create a world in which my characters would be thrust into darkness and face impossible challenges. To make things even more difficult, I gave my main characters less life experience--made them younger, 13 and 12 years old respectively. Rather than have their parents die, I had virtually all adults—everyone who has passed through puberty—die. That is the starting point in which my characters struggle and try their best to succeed.

Describe Night of the Purple Moon in three words!
Never. Give. Up.

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Check out Scott's post-apocalyptic/dystopian book that will have you thinking long after you finish. Enter the rafflecopter below for your chance to win one of 5 eBook copies of Night of the Purple Moon. 

Night of the Purple Moon
by Scott Cramer
Published March 25, 2012
Space germs wipe out virtually everyone who has passed through puberty.
Abby Leigh is looking forward to watching the moon turn purple. For months, astronomers have been predicting that Earth will pass through the tail of a comet. They say that people will see colorful sunsets and, best of all, a purple moon.
But nobody has predicted the lightning-fast epidemic that sweeps across the planet on the night of the purple moon. The comet brings space dust with it that contains germs that attack human hormones. Older teens and adults die within hours of exposure.
On a small island off the coast of Maine, Abby must help her brother and baby sister survive in this new world, but all the while she has a ticking time bomb inside of her -- adolescence.

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Ends Wednesday August 23, 2012 at 12:01am EST

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