Interview with Jodi Meadows

Today I'm pleased to welcome the wonderful author who wrote the lovely novel, Incarnate to the blog, you might remember my little 'You are my Sunshine' piece on it from earlier this week. If not, read it and the rest of my 5 star review here. 
Before we begin, here's a little bit about Jodi and Incarnate!

NEWSOUL 
Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why. 

NOSOUL 
Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are suspicious and afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame? 

HEART 
Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all? 

And Jodi...

Jodi Meadows lives and writes in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, with her husband, a Kippy*, and an alarming number of ferrets. She is a confessed book addict, and has wanted to be a writer ever since she decided against becoming an astronaut.

And on to the interview, folks! 

    What part of INCARNATE was hardest for you to write? 

    No single scene or chapter of INCARNATE was more difficult than others, but in general, action scenes are a challenge for me. Occasionally, I'll get lost in an action scene I'm reading and start skimming. Even in big action movies, I've been known to snooze through the epic fights at the end because I either can't clearly tell what's going on, or I don't care.

It's not because I don't like action scenes. I do! I love when events are moving fast and characters need to act now. But being aware of how easily they can lose me, I find myself very critical of action scenes in my own stories, and working extra hard to make sure they're clear and compelling enough so that someone like me won't skim.

How long was the total writing process for INCARNATE?

A loooong time. I had the original idea for INCARNATE three years before I started working on it. I spent a month planning, worldbuilding, and character developing. Another two months writing the first draft. And then a month revising before I submitted it to agents.

From there, it gets more difficult to count, because I revised again for my agent, had some time of not working on INCARNATE, revised for my editor, had more time of not working on it, revised again for my editor, had more time of not working on it . . . 

Were any of the characters based on people in your life?

Nope! All my characters appear fully formed in my head, though I do often name secondary characters after friends.

INCARNATE is a totally fresh spin on the dystopia genre, how did you pull off being original and keep all the things everyone loves about this genre? 

When I started writing INCARNATE, I didn't have a genre in mind. I wanted to write a fun story with things that were interesting to me. Because of that, INCARNATE has elements of a lot of different genres: fantasy, science fiction, paranormal romance, and dystopian.  

I tend to think readers will see -- and classify it it by -- whatever elements are most important to them, and that's just fine by me.

Which do you prefer- Twitter or Facebook? 

Twitter!

Describe Incarnate in three words, GO!

Music. Kissing. WE'REALLGONNADIE!