I'm stoked to have Juliana Haygert on the blog today answering my questions! Juliana is the lovely New Adult author of Destiny Gift and the upcoming Breaking the Reins. If you want to check out my review of Destiny Gift you can check it out HERE.
In the Best Worlds: What
are three things about yourself that not many people know?
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Julianna Haygert: Wow, what a start!
Okay, let’s see.
1) I have a moon shaped scar on my right knee (just
like Victor does).
2) I’m obsessed with my weight – I exercise like
crazy, and I cry whenever I gain a pound.
3) I hate it when my husband travels for work (which
thankfully doesn’t happen much anymore) because I don’t feel like I’m “safe”
when he’s gone. I’m dead serious.
ITBW: New
Adult consists largely of contemporary fiction, so what made you decide to write
a paranormal NA novel?
JH: Though I’ve been on a contemporary phase lately, Paranormal and UF are my favorite genres, and most of my ideas always come to me with something supernatural about them. When I first started writing with publication purposes (around 2009), I wrote three UF manuscripts before attempting contemporary, simply because that was the order the ideas came to me.
ITBW: Destiny
Gift is set 30 years in the future. What
made you decide to write during that time? Did you have any challenges in picturing
our world in the near future?
JH: I wanted a different world, and, after a lot of thought, I figured it would be easier to change the future than to change the past. Though, I had to delete several pop culture references on the book, like at one point I mentioned Lady Gaga and her fame, and then I thought, hm, Lady Gaga would be almost 60 years old during DG’s period so I had to take those out.
ITBW: There’s
a unique mythological story line in Destiny Gift. What inspired you to write outside of traditional Greek and Roman
mythology?
JH: I LOVE mythologies. Always have, always will love.
At first, I thought about using Egyptian mythology
(my favorite – I will write a book involving it someday!) or Greek and Roman,
which are the most common – but, in the end, I wanted something different. There
are so many books out there that deal with Greek and Roman mythology, I didn’t
want DG to be compared to them. Besides, it was fun creating my own gods and
creatures and legends.
ITBW: What
is your favorite thing about writing in the NA field?
JH: The freedom to write the heck I want. Seriously. I mean, if you write YA and there are sex scenes in your books, people are gonna talk (bad) about it. If you write adult but the tone of your protagonist is a little immature or if that’s not enough sex (gasp!), people are gonna talk (bad) about it. With NA, you have the immature + mature, the new + old, the sex or no sex at all, the responsibility + the stupidity that comes with thinking you’re responsible.
Well, people still talk a lot about NA, band AND good
stuff LOL
ITBW: Are
there any NA books you’d recommend?
JH: There are sooooo many. Easy by Tammara Webber, Broken at Love by Lyla Payne, The Wild Ones by M. Leighton. I have a “new adult” and a “favorites” list on
goodreads – there you’ll find all the books I recommend ;)
ITBW: What are you working on now?
JH: I’m finishing revisions on Breaking the Reins, my upcoming NA Contemp,
and soon I’ll be drafting the sequel of Destiny
Gift! And then I think I’m gonna pick up a forgotten NA contemp and
rework it ;)
ITBW: Finish
these sentences…
::We could be best friends if...you were Jennifer Lawrence lol Seriously, the girl is so awkward and so crazy. Love her.
::We could be best friends if...you were Jennifer Lawrence lol Seriously, the girl is so awkward and so crazy. Love her.
::When I was 20 (or a new adult) I…got married.
::You should read my book because…it’s a crazy, unexpected
ride!
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More about Juliana: While Juliana Haygert dreams of being Wonder Woman, Buffy, or a blood elf shadow priest, she settles for the less exciting - but equally gratifying - life of a wife, mother, and author. Thousands of miles away from her former home in Brazil, she now resides in Connecticut and spends her days writing about kick-ass heroines and the heroes who drive them crazy.
