Saturday's Scribe: A. S. King

Today's scribe: A.S. King
Author of: The Dust of 100 Dogs
Check out the interview!
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Was the character of Emer based off of yourself/anyone you know? How do you relate to her? Are you ever frustrated with her when she, as a character, gets out of the control of even the author?

Emer wasn’t based on anyone I know, no. But the idea of her character was helped along by this plaque (photo credit C. Perkins) that I saw in my local village while I was thinking up the idea for D100D.

I think history books often forget women warriors and so, finding this plaque in my local village was a real treat for me.
I do think I relate to Emer in a bunch of ways. She has a self-sufficiency about her, both emotionally and physically, which I also have. I’m a quilter and she’s an embroiderer. She has a sense of adventure, which I also share—or used to. (Now, I’m just as happy to sit on my porch and watch fireflies as I am to travel the world.)
As far as characters who go out of control, I think Emer frustrated me less than Fred Livingstone, who was, from the moment he swaggered into this book, a pain in my butt. What a jerk!

If you could travel back in time, when/where would you go? Would you have any interest in being a pirate?

I have no interest in being a pirate. I’m not a big fan of boats or sailing and I am a pacifist, so the whole killing people thing wouldn’t really be up my street.
On to your other question---oooo. Hmm. That’s tough. I think if I was just observing (and couldn’t change the outcome of the world as it stands now) I’d go wander with Walt Whitman for a year or two, talking about stuff. Or I'd go to the late 1960s and follow Jimi Hendrix around. Or I'd check out the Stone Age. (I'm no good at picking just one answer for these types of questions.) For what it’s worth, if I was ever really faced with a time machine, I would, no question, ride it into the future.

What was your path to publication?

It was a really long path, which means it’s a really long story. Here’s the short version. I wrote 7 novels over 12 years and opened about 250 rejection letters before I found an agent. By the time The Dust of 100 Dogs hit shelves, I was writing novels for 15 years and was on book #10. Along the way I published poems and short fiction, though, and I learned a lot about how to be patient…which really helps in this business.

Can you give us a sneak peek into any of your future works?

My next book, presently called IGNORE VERA DIETZ will come out in fall 2010 from Knopf Young Readers as 14+. It’s about a teenage girl, her dead (ex) best friend, and her attempt to clear his name. (But it could also be about binge drinking, vocabulary words and a sarcastic pagoda.)

What advice would you give to any aspiring young writers?

Write every day. Read a lot. Then write some more. Then read some more. And don’t forget that stories come from life experiences, so that crappy job at the fast food place will actually come in handy one day.
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Thank you so much, Ms. King, for the great interview!