I'm thrilled to welcome Nicole Maggi to The Hiding Spot to chat a bit about her new book The Forgetting! I adored this book, which is part mystery and part romance and tackles serious issues of homelessness and prostitution.
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The Forgetting is
a mystery, but with a healthy dose of scifi and
realism thrown in for good measure. How did you decide where you would stick
with realism and science and where you would bend the rules and take some
artistic license?
I love the
paranormal genre (my other books, The Twin Willow Series, is paranormal) and I
just gravitate toward it more than straight realism. Years ago I attended a
panel of authors who wrote magical realism books and one of them said that he
tried to make his book just straight realism and it wasn’t working and he
realized he wanted to put monsters in it. So he tried to make the monsters
symbolic and internal and metaphorical, and then he realized, “No, I want REAL
MONSTERS.” It’s sort of the same for me. Something paranormal is always going
to sneak in.
In The Forgetting I decided to keep the paranormal element to the memories that
Georgie gets from her donor. I could go as far as I wanted with the actual
memories – like the emotions she feels for the boy that her donor loved – but
the actual mystery would remain very realistic. I did fudge some stuff – like,
a recent heart transplant recipient probably wouldn’t be running around Boston
as much as Georgie runs around Boston – but the force that drives her is
otherworldly so I feel like that’s a decent excuse. I definitely walked a fine line,
because I didn’t want to go so overboard with the paranormal element that
people dismissed the reality of the story. The world that Georgie descends
into, of trafficked children and illegal sex trade, is very very real and I
wanted to make sure people connected with that.
Tell me a little bit about your writing process: Do you
outline? Start at the beginning? The middle? The end?
You know,
it’s odd, because my process seems to change with each book. My first two books
(one of which is still unpublished, the other of which is my debut Winter Falls) were both completely written by the seat of my pants. And while that was
exhilarating, it also gave me a lot of work on the back end. The first drafts
of those two books were total messes, and I had to do a lot of revision to get
them submission-ready. The Forgetting I
approached totally differently. I plotted the whole thing out, turning point by
turning point, before I started writing. I allowed for changes as I wrote – I
have to do that for myself, or I get bored – but I had a solid road map to
guide me as I went along. As a result, I wrote the first draft in four months,
did one revision, sold the book, and did only one more draft with my editor. I
wrote the second book in my trilogy (In the Mouth of the Wolf, Medallion Press,
June 9th) the same way. However, I tried to do that with the third
book in the trilogy (which I’m working on right now) and it backfired. With
that book, I’m having to write all the big scenes first and then go back and
fill in everything else. So I’ve come to believe that it’s the book that
determines the process, no matter how hard we try to write it in a certain way.
What jobs did you have on your way to becoming a published
author? Is there a certain work experience that has shaped your writing or
provided inspiration?
Excuse me
while I laugh for a good long while….
Okay, I’m
back. I’ve had A LOT of jobs. A LOT. I went to school for acting, and I pursued
acting very seriously for many years, really until a few years ago, after my writing
really took off and I had a child. I think my acting experience deeply informs
my writing. I’m good at writing dialogue and I think that comes from working
with plays and really hearing how people speak to each other.
That’s the
serious part of my answer. Here’s a list of some of the other jobs I’ve had:
An
assistant on the trading floor of a huge investment bank. I wrote my first
novel there, blissfully typing away in Word while people screamed trades over
my head.
An
assistant for the handbag division of Federated Department Stores. There was a
closet full of discarded samples and once a month they cleaned it out and I was
allowed to take anything I wanted. This is where my deep love for handbags
comes from. Also, on my first day I made the mistake of calling them purses and
my coworker informed me that “A purse is something you do with your lips. These
are handbags.” So now you know.
A temp at
another big investment bank. I was filling in for someone who was out sick. On
the second day of the job I got a call informing me that the person I was
filling in for had died. It was then left to me to tell all her coworkers and
bosses that she had passed away. Not. Fun.
A personal
assistant for very rich, very crazy people. I can’t say too much about this job
as I signed a confidentiality agreement, but someday I’ll find a way around
that and write a book.
A manager
of the security guards for the Oscars. Sounds glamorous, right? The next time
you’re at the Hollywood & Highland complex in Hollywood, take a little
jaunt around the parking garage beneath the structure. That was my office.
However, I did get to walk the red carpet…on the night before the show, before
any of the stars did.
All of
these jobs provided financial assistance for me while I wrote and acted, and
for that I am always grateful…as well as for the endless anecdotes they
provided me.
If you had to pick a favorite
word, what would it be and why?
Okay, this
probably sounds super pretentious, but I love the word CERULEAN. I’ve loved it
ever since I first read it when I was a kid. I can’t quite pinpoint why. I
think it’s because it’s often used to describe water, and I love water,
especially the ocean. I used to really overuse it so now I’m very careful to
make sure I don’t, but you’ll see at least one use of it in almost every book
of mine.
My blog is dedicated to my
personal hiding spot, books. Who, what, or where can be credited as your
personal escape from reality?
Hawaii.
There are two types of time. Chronos, which is everyday time, time spent
waiting on line at the grocery store and getting all the work done that you
need to get done. And Kairos, which I think of as Golden Time, when time seems
to freeze into one perfect, beautiful, golden moment. Time on Hawaii is Kairos
time. Everything else disappears but that moment, that long sunlit,
wave-crashing moment on the islands. The last time we went I cried as the plane
landed because I was so happy to be there. I knew for the next week that
nothing else would exist except me, my husband and our daughter…and nothing
else did.
What can readers look forward to
next?
The first book
in my Twin Willows Trilogy, Winter Falls,
came out in December, and the second book, In the Mouth of the Wolf,
comes out June 9th. The third book will be out in early 2016. After
that, I’ll have a second thriller coming out from Sourcebooks. I’m developing
that book now; it’s a spy thriller. That should be out in the second half of
2016. So that should keep me busy writing – and my readers busy reading – for a
while!
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Nicole was born in the
suburban farm country of upstate New York, and began writing at a very
early age. Of course, her early works consisted mainly of poems about
rainbows and unicorns, although one of them was good enough to win
honorable mention in a national poetry contest! (Perhaps one of the
judges was a ten-year-old girl.) Throughout high school, her creative
writing was always nurtured and encouraged.
Nicole attended
Emerson College as an acting major, and graduated cum laude with a
Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Post-college, she worked as an actress in
New York City for over a decade, focusing mainly on Shakespeare and the
classics. Visit Nicole's website here.
