WATCH OUT: Mima Interview

SC: I want to welcome you all to another edition of Watch Out. This week I’m thrilled to bring you another special guest: Multi-published author and librarian Mima.

Welcome Mima, it is a pleasure to have you here today.

M:Thanks Savannah. It’s lovely to have you open your e-home to me.

SC: For those readers who are new to you and your work, please tell them a little about yourself.

M: I live in western NY with my husband and 3 cats. I’m a lifelong writer and relatively recent erotic fantasy-romance author. I am not a crafty or athletic person. Any attempt at those endeavors ends in disaster. Mostly I like to look at pretty things in museums around the world and collect random historical trivia that inspires new stories.

What, or who inspired you to write?

M: Stories burble inside me, and at some point I reached a critical mass of daring and took the risk of submitting a piece of writing. 

SC: How many books do you currently have published?

M: I have 15 stories currently released. In June I’ll be releasing a pet project out into the world all by myself. I’ve written three choose- your- own- adventure- style erotic romances. Each is in a different genre, including a brand new one for me, contemporary western. I have a blog for that project at http://mimawithin.blogspot.com. Making use of hyperlinks within an ebook text made the format feel very natural.

SC: Are there any authors who have inspired you, or ones you look up to?

M: Patricia Briggs. Nalini Singh. Ilona Andrews. Their characters are so vivid, their conflicts are intricate, and their world building is mesmerizing.

SC: You are also a librarian, how did you get into that profession?

M: I was in my Senior year of college as an English teacher and in the course of student teaching realized it was not the career I’d imagined. So I asked myself what I could do laterally to not throw away 4 years of education. School Librarianship has been so rewarding. It is definitely the right fit for me. I’ve been High School, Intermediate, and Primary. This career requires an intense commitment to being a curriculum generalist and a technology provocateur. Working with students, teachers, parents, administration, literature, nonfiction, creative projects, research… every single day is different, something new to be learned, to be found.

SC: Since you are surrounded by books on a daily basis I have to ask, is there any one single book you love that is in your library?

M: The big hit lately is Chicken Butt. The simplicity… genius.

SC: Biggest pet peeve as a librarian?

M: The maintenance department who can’t seem to fix a roof leak. We’ve lost 12 books so far. The latest advice to me is “Let’s not even bother to replace the ceiling tiles since they’ll just keep getting wet.” I thought it was a very common sense approach to admitting total failure.

SC: Where do you see yourself as an author in the next five years?

M: Hopefully I will have completed some of these series I’ve started over the last few years and even started some new ones. I don’t envision any others coming along with the depth of the Bonded fantasies. I think the others will just be paired sequels. But I’ve got a lot started and clear ideas for book 2… just no time. And no discipline to suppress new ideas and make them wait. I’m still kinda proud I had a 10 book series in me. I wonder if I’ll ever dream up another world as rich as Vladaya.

SC: Being a published author what is the one big misconception you think that people have about writers/authors?

M: That it in any way has a cost-benefit-to-time ratio. There is nothing about this activity that isn’t done as a labor of love, and sometimes sheer determination.

SC:If you could be a heroine from your books for a day, who would you pick and why?

M: Hmmm. Who should I choose? The one with the coolest powers? Most awesome lover(s)? In the niftiest location? The most beautiful? Someone crazily different from me? It’s just an impossible smorgasboard of opportunity!

SC: What are you currently working on now? Anything you can give the readers a sneak peak of?

M: I’m just finishing up edits on my interactive paranormal, Charlotte, Prowling for Enchantment, which hopefully will come out soon as an app. Charlotte is on a cruise, which triggers her dormant fairy blood. She meets 2 mysterious guys her first night out. One is a vampire and one a werewolf. Decisions, decisions.

SC: What was the best advice you ever got as a writer, and who gave it to you?

M: Make sure you fall in love with your hero, and make sure there’s something about the heroine you really admire. I’m not sure where I heard it, but it probably came from one of the many editors who have helped me.

SC: Have you ever based a character on yourself?

M: Oh dear, no. Fiction, strictly.

SC: What message would you like readers to walk away with after reading your books?

M:“That was fun!”

SC: Where can readers go to find more info about you and your books?

M: My website is http://mimawithin.com  but I have an author page at Goodreads and Amazon, too.