Bio: Chelsea Campbell
Name: Chelsea Campbell
'10 Book Title: The Rise of Renegade X
Publisher: Egmont USA
Favorite bit of writing advice: This isn't writing advice, but it's good any time advice that can be applied to many things. One time my dad was having me help him fix our gate. I was supposed to hold some nail or screw or peg thingy in place, but I didn't really know what I was doing. I panicked and told him, "I don't know what I'm doing!" and he said, "Act like you do and do it anyway."
Favorite part of writing: My favorite part of writing is getting totally and completely OBSESSED with my work. Like, putting in 16 hour days and only pausing to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom. Everything is awesome and the world goes by in a blur and the book just rushes out.
Least favorite part of writing: My least favorite part of writing is when books come out sloooow. When they're exhausting and drain all my energy, instead of increasing it, and I can only stand to work on them for chunks at a time, and then I have to take weeks, sometimes months long breaks before getting another chunk done.
Five things about me:
1. I have the movie ticket stubs for every movie I've seen in the theater for the past ten years. I just put them in a scrapbook--there were exactly 100 of them!
2. I have a B.A. in Latin and am very passionate about promoting the language.
3. I have a Bengal. His name is Teisel and he looks like an ocelot. I love him because he's super LOUD (no, louder than that) and ornery. :)
4. I've wanted to be a writer since before I could spell. I used to make my mom join my fake book clubs and make her spell each word for me as I wrote the books. I remember one about a unicorn who jumped off a cliff... or something.
5. I like buying blank journals, even though I have very little use for them.
Outline or let it fly? Outline. It varies how much I outline--sometimes I plan out each exact scene, and sometimes I just know all the important parts of the book--but if I don't outline at all, the story gets really stupid and falls apart.
The Rise of Renegade X Synopsis:
Sixteen-year-old Damien Locke has a plan: major in messing with people at the local supervillain university and become a professional evil genius, just like his supervillain mom. But when he discovers the shameful secret she's been hiding all these years, that the one night stand that spawned him was actually with a superhero, everything gets messed up. His father's too moral for his own good, so when he finds out Damien exists, he actually wants him to come live with him and his goody-goody superhero family. Damien gets shipped off to stay with them in their suburban hellhole, and he only has six weeks to prove he's not a hero in any way, or else he's stuck living with them for the rest of his life, or until he turns eighteen, whichever comes first.
To get out of this mess, Damien has to survive his dad's “flying lessons” that involve throwing him off the tallest building in the city-despite his nearly debilitating fear of heights-thwart the eccentric teen scientist who insists she's his sidekick, and keep his supervillain girlfriend from finding out the truth. But when Damien uncovers a dastardly plot to turn all the superheroes into mindless zombie slaves, a plan hatched by his own mom, he discovers he cares about his new family more than he thought. Now he has to choose: go back to his life of villainy and let his family become zombies, or stand up to his mom and become a real hero.
'10 Book Title: The Rise of Renegade X
Publisher: Egmont USA
Favorite bit of writing advice: This isn't writing advice, but it's good any time advice that can be applied to many things. One time my dad was having me help him fix our gate. I was supposed to hold some nail or screw or peg thingy in place, but I didn't really know what I was doing. I panicked and told him, "I don't know what I'm doing!" and he said, "Act like you do and do it anyway."
Favorite part of writing: My favorite part of writing is getting totally and completely OBSESSED with my work. Like, putting in 16 hour days and only pausing to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom. Everything is awesome and the world goes by in a blur and the book just rushes out.
Least favorite part of writing: My least favorite part of writing is when books come out sloooow. When they're exhausting and drain all my energy, instead of increasing it, and I can only stand to work on them for chunks at a time, and then I have to take weeks, sometimes months long breaks before getting another chunk done.
Five things about me:
1. I have the movie ticket stubs for every movie I've seen in the theater for the past ten years. I just put them in a scrapbook--there were exactly 100 of them!
2. I have a B.A. in Latin and am very passionate about promoting the language.
3. I have a Bengal. His name is Teisel and he looks like an ocelot. I love him because he's super LOUD (no, louder than that) and ornery. :)
4. I've wanted to be a writer since before I could spell. I used to make my mom join my fake book clubs and make her spell each word for me as I wrote the books. I remember one about a unicorn who jumped off a cliff... or something.
5. I like buying blank journals, even though I have very little use for them.
Outline or let it fly? Outline. It varies how much I outline--sometimes I plan out each exact scene, and sometimes I just know all the important parts of the book--but if I don't outline at all, the story gets really stupid and falls apart.
The Rise of Renegade X Synopsis:
Sixteen-year-old Damien Locke has a plan: major in messing with people at the local supervillain university and become a professional evil genius, just like his supervillain mom. But when he discovers the shameful secret she's been hiding all these years, that the one night stand that spawned him was actually with a superhero, everything gets messed up. His father's too moral for his own good, so when he finds out Damien exists, he actually wants him to come live with him and his goody-goody superhero family. Damien gets shipped off to stay with them in their suburban hellhole, and he only has six weeks to prove he's not a hero in any way, or else he's stuck living with them for the rest of his life, or until he turns eighteen, whichever comes first.
To get out of this mess, Damien has to survive his dad's “flying lessons” that involve throwing him off the tallest building in the city-despite his nearly debilitating fear of heights-thwart the eccentric teen scientist who insists she's his sidekick, and keep his supervillain girlfriend from finding out the truth. But when Damien uncovers a dastardly plot to turn all the superheroes into mindless zombie slaves, a plan hatched by his own mom, he discovers he cares about his new family more than he thought. Now he has to choose: go back to his life of villainy and let his family become zombies, or stand up to his mom and become a real hero.