The bestselling author Elizabeth Chandler returns to the Kissed by an Angel series with Everafter, which settles the score for Ivy, Tristan and the rest. Here the committed and hardworking author discusses her process, as well as her disarming love of teaching.
It seems the odds are forever against Ivy and her fallen angel. Tristan is still trapped in the body of an accused murderer, and as the two star-crossed lovers try to clear his name, they must battle the dark forces that would keep them apart and destroy them both. The danger is especially great for Tristan since, as a fallen angel, death would mean losing his soul. It’s up to Ivy to save the one she loves and, hopefully, find a way for the two of the them to be together…for all eternity.
Young Adult: What made you decide to start writing?
Elizabeth Chandler: From the time I was a little kid I wrote in my head, carrying around with me a cast of characters, imagining them talking to one another whenever school or the backseat of the car got boring. I guess all kids do that; I just never gave it up. Then, in tenth grade, I had a fabulous English teacher, fresh out of the sixties—fishnet stockings, love beads, and wild hair—who encouraged all her students to write. By that time I was carrying poems as well as stories in my head. Once I started putting them down on paper, and somehow got attention and praise for “daydreaming,” I was hooked!
YA: Tell us a little bit about your latest work. What is different about Everafter, and what does it bring to the Kissed By An Angel series?
EC: One of the things I really like about this final book is the way it takes parallel plots, threats coming from opposite directions in the previous books, and ties them together. I also enjoyed having the chance to let my characters truly grow—just as we do in our own lives as we grow up, they grew so much they began to take over the plotlines. The conclusion wasn’t what we envisioned when we started this series, or even what the editors and I were thinking about at the outlining stage three books ago. The characters had truly grown up and when the final crisis came, they knew exactly what to do.
YA: How did the idea for this book/series arise? What are your major inspirations (TV, film, other literature/stories)?
EC: The original idea was proposed by the editors: Girl meets boy. Girl believes in angels, boy does not. Boy dies, so girl loses her faith in angels. Boy becomes an angel sent back to warn her that he was murdered and she’s next. Problem: she can’t see or hear him because she no longer believes.
The inspiration for the proposal may have come from the old movie Ghost. I was asked to create the characters, setting, motivation for murder, plot events, etc. I set it in Connecticut because I like to work with a place where I’ve spent time and have a good sense of its smells, sounds, and textures. The identity of the murderer—his relationship to the heroine—was suggested by the editors. I added what turned out to be my favorite character, Lacey, because angel Tristan was always talking to himself and getting way too maudlin over Ivy.
YA: Take us through a typical writing day for you.
EC: My best writing time is in the morning, so I start as soon as my husband has gone to work. I get “recess”—playing with our cats, watering the garden, etc., but continue to write up to an early lunch. After lunch, I sometimes take a nap—especially when I am working long days and nights, as I did on this series. Then I start writing again. If I’m not on the fast track, my writing day ends at 3. But for these books, I usually took a break at 3 for errands or the gym, then if there was time left before dinner, I’d do more work, undemanding stuff such as research or easy revisions. For this series, I also worked another hour or two at night. I wrote six, often seven days a week. I do not recommend trying to write this many hours month after month—it’s easy to burn out; it just had to be done that way for this set of books.
YA: Besides the classic ‘never give up’, what advice would you give to aspiring young writers today?
EC: First, I’ll slip in the other classic bit: read, read, read.
My advice is to learn how to be quiet and within yourself, disconnected from the electronics, and ready to write, whether that means sitting patiently waiting for ideas, writing a lot of bad stuff to get to the good stuff, or madly typing wonderful scenes in a white heat. A writer needs to create a time and space away from others, and go there often.
YA: If you hadn’t become an author, what path would your career have perhaps taken?
EC: On and off throughout my career I have taught high school and college. I loved it. The problem is that teaching is so much like writing: intellectually demanding, creative, and emotional. When you teach literature and writing, you are given a window into your students’ hearts, and I have found it nearly impossible to say, “Okay, that’s done, forget them, now write.” I feel that I can’t do both well at the same time, but teaching is most definitely what I’d be doing if I weren’t writing.