Meet the #Author Monday - Jody Wallace

Please tell us a bit about yourself:

Jody Wallace grew up in the South in a very rural area. She went to school a long time and ended up with a Master's Degree in Creative Writing. Her resume includes college English instructor, technical documents editor, market analyst, web designer, and general, all around pain in the butt. She resides in Tennessee with one husband, two children, two cats, and a lot of junk. In fact, she has always lived with cats, and they have always been mean.

Tell us about THE ADVENTURES OF MARI SHU:

Mari Shu is a series of novellas (and possibly novels) in a branching format style (aka choose your own adventure) that parodies various tropes in SF and SFR with riotous and oftentimes raunchy abandon. So far I’ve released 2 volumes (Earthbound Passion and Martian Conquest) with a 3^rd forthcoming in November 2014.

What inspired you to write this particular story?:

I’m kind of an a-hole, and I make fun of everything anyway.

Please share a favourite snippet from your book:

Sure. The following scene takes place as Mari Shu and her sisters contemplate the Relocation Commission in Martian Conquest (Volume 2) where they hope to book travel to Mars to start a new life...

Behind the RLC and emitting dull, booming echoes, Mari Shu could hear the engines of the vast space transports as they loaded passengers or supplies or whatever the RLC saw fit to send beyond the stars. All one-way tickets to...somewhere.
Everyone, and everything, exited from the RLC. Nothing returned to it.
Well, except for employees. And security guards. And widget installers. And inspectors. And spaceship pilots.
The dull black door of the RLC marked “Voluntary Departures” opened with the whine of unoiled widget hinges.
It was their turn.
“You can’t make me go in there,” Cassie declared, ignoring the fact that Mari had, indeed, made her leave their flat and then get in the pay-elevator and then get out of the pay-elevator and then eat her goo tube and then get in the taxicraft and then get out of the taxicraft and then walk up the sidewalk to the RLC’s front doors.
Trish turned to her with a frightened expression. “I’m scared, Mare-mare,” she said, her use of the baby name a blow to Mari’s stomach. “I know this is the right thing to do, but what if we’re sent to Venus?”
“We aren’t criminals,” Mari Shu said firmly. “Only criminals get sent to Venus.”
But in fact, Trish and Cassie—and that damn Gerald—were criminals.
If relocation qualifications included intact vag seals, her darling sisters could be torn from her. If only she’d been able to afford more than basic vidscreen service, she could have researched the qualifications for relocation beforehand.
But they were here now, and they were almost completely out of credits. And it had to smell better inside than it did in the open air. If you could call it air. Only people on Mars got to experience real air.
“We must,” Mari Shu insisted, herding her sisters through the door.
It shut behind them with a distinctly medieval and ominous thud, despite the advanced technology that marks almost every other aspect of this story.

Which comes first for you – a character's looks, personality or name?:

Personality. But really, the first thing that comes for me is a story premise.

Any tips for aspiring authors?:

Read a lot. Give yourself permission to be ridiculous. Try to write a teeny bit every day, or at least read what you wrote most recently to keep yourself in the story. Don’t feel incompetent if life gets in the way, but do pick your pen back up and write some more tomorrow.

Questions for fun:

If you had the power of time travel, is there anything you would go back and change? Why/why not?:

No. I’d be too worried about the butterfly effect!

What super-power would you choose?: 

Healing, definitely. Except the kind of healing with no consequences, because I don’t want to take on all those diseases myself or have to inflict someone else with them or what have you.

If you could have three wishes, what would they be?:

Dear genie, I wish for the power of consequence-free healing, the power of time travel to change bad things without the butterfly effect, and with the third wish, naturally I set you free unless, of course, you’ve somehow monkey-pawed me with the previous two wishes, in which case, I take back wishing you free and you’ll just have to wait there in that bottle until I pick my third wish. Which might be never, you sneaky jerk.

Coffee, tea or wine?: Coffee

What is your favourite book? (aside from one of your own!): Fave SFR might be Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair

Favourite genre and why?: Science fiction romance, of course! Because I get the great worldbuilding, the flights of fancy, the fascinating characters, and the sexy stuff without having to give up any of it.

Favourite colour?: Green

Upcoming news and plans for the future?: A couple more volumes of Mari Shu, perhaps a couple more volumes of the Maelstrom Chronicles, which I publish through Entangled, and I just set up an Etsy store for crocheted earrings that look like cat butts which I hope has a few sales soon.

To discover other books by Ms. Wallace, including less ridiculous ones, visit her website at http://www.jodywallace.com 

Ms. Wallace’s newsletter: http://mad.ly/signups/104974/join

You can also find her at Twitter: https://twitter.com/jodywallace

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JodyWallaceAuthor

To discover meankitties, visit the cat’s website at http://www.meankitty.com

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us!