Amanda Hocking

Today I have a guest post from Julie Cross, the author of Tempest. On Friday, she and I will both be signing at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Illinois at 7:00 PM. She’s also going to be at LeakyCon during the day in Chicago (as will I) on Friday, so you should definitely stop out and see us.  For more info about the event, click: here.

And now to Julie’s post:

 The year is 2009. Nineteen-year-old Jackson Meyer is a normal guy… he’s in college, has a girlfriend… and he can travel back through time. But it’s not like the movies – nothing changes in the present after his jumps, there’s no space-time continuum issues or broken flux capacitors – it’s just harmless fun.

That is… until the day strangers burst in on Jackson and his girlfriend, Holly, and during a struggle with Jackson, Holly is fatally shot. In his panic, Jackson jumps back two years to 2007, but this is not like his previous time jumps. Now he’s stuck in 2007 and can’t get back to the future.

Desperate to somehow return to 2009 to save Holly but unable to return to his rightful year, Jackson settles into 2007 and learns what he can about his abilities.

But it’s not long before the people who shot Holly in 2009 come looking for Jackson in the past, and these “Enemies of Time” will stop at nothing to recruit this powerful young time-traveler. Recruit… or kill him.

Piecing together the clues about his father, the Enemies of Time, and himself, Jackson must decide how far he’s willing to go to save Holly… and possibly the entire world.

Coming January, 2013, VORTEX (Tempest #2)

About Julie Cross:
Julie Cross is the internationally bestselling author of Tempest, the first novel in a thrilling time travel trilogy. Tempest received starred reviews, is nominated for the 2012 YALSA Teens Top Ten list, is available in seventeen territories, and has been optioned by Summit Entertainment. The forthcoming sequel, Vortex releases in January, 2013. Julie lives in Central Illinois with her husband and three children. She never began writing until May of 2009 and hasn’t gone a day without it since.

What inspired TEMPEST?
For me, it started with the love story…two people from very different backgrounds who have this amazing summer fling and get to the end thinking it was just for fun and then have to decide what it really means and accept the fact that you are always susceptible to falling in love whether you want to or not.

Most of this happens before TEMPEST begins and it’s trickled in little bits throughout the book. But the love story alone wasn’t big enough. I needed something epic and more original to add to this plot. That’s where time travel came in. And then, just for fun, I tossed in the mysterious division of the CIA and some pretty crazy spies.

For those not in the know, give us the 411 on ‘Tempest’ and the series it kicks off.
I like to describe Tempest as The Time Traveler’s Wife meets Bourne Identity…but with teenagers. Oh…and everyone seems to get excited that my main character is a guy. So, that’s probably worth mentioning, too.

How long did it take to write Tempest? How many drafts did you have by the time it was ready for publication?
It took about three and a half weeks to write the first draft of Tempest, but it took about a year to get a final version. Probably over a dozen drafts…I lost count after five or six.

The time travel aspect of Tempest is quite complex at times. What was your process in formulating this aspect of the book? Was it difficult to keep track of everything and to make sure that you never broke your own time travel rules?
I’ve honestly surprised myself with how much I can remember. But the complexity came in layers through many, many drafts. What happens after all those hours spent in a character’s head is you suddenly feel as if you’ve lived their life and we all remember our own lives just fine, but try and explain what you’ve been up to for the last fifteen years to a stranger…it will sound crazy and bizarre to them and totally normal to you. That’s kind of how it is for me. I have broken some of the rules in earlier drafts but once they were established, most of the issues came from me having to explain to a new reader or someone doing line edits why I’m right and how to easily get that across to the reader.

Tempest is told from the POV of 19 year old Jackson Meyer. What was it like writing from the male POV and how did it differ from telling a story through the eyes of a female protagonist?
At first, I used to spend lots of time writing diaries for my main female character, Holly Flynn because all the time writing Jackson was exhausting and I needed some time in the girl’s head as a nice mental break. Now I’m just writing Jackson…yes he’s a guy, but he’s Jackson and I know him well enough to know what he’ll do or say in about any situation. Now it’s easy.

—
 Julie Cross Tempest (St. Martin’s Press)

“Julie Cross’s thrilling debut is brimming with excitement, romance, and intrigue. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough!” —Beth Revis, New York Times-bestselling author of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

“Equal parts adventure, romance, science fiction … readers will turn the last page and find themselves wishing they could “jump” to the future and read the sequel.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS, starred review

“Debut author Cross launches a trilogy with an exciting and complex page-turner … a story packed with moments both tender and electric—Cross’s zippy writing and fresh plot are an exhilarating combination.” —Publishers Weekly