Writer of the Week #17: Heidi Ayarbe (and a GIVEAWAY!!!!!!)

 

Heidi Ayarbe's novel, Compulsion, is offered in a giveaway at the end of the blog post!

Name: Heidi Ayarbe

Age: 39 (but I feel like 23 … except for the fact that I now look for face creams that have the words “miracle” or “hope” on them)

Website: www.heidiayarbe.com

Location: I live in Pereira, Colombia (South America!! The land of Juan Valdez, music, dance and plastic surgery. Nope. The boobs here don’t bounce!)

When did you realize you wanted to be a published author?
I never DREAMED that I could be a published author. I grew up reading books, consuming books, and imagining authors to be these mythical-like people who had muses or pet cemeteries or desires to walk into rivers with rocks in their pockets. I never wrote in a diary. I wasn’t a prodigy. I never had a teacher tell me, “Oh wow! You’ve GOT to be a writer.” I never did “writer things” (with the exception of read, read, read, read, read). I never thought authors were “real people.”

I’m from Carson City, Nevada, and one year, while working in a sporting goods shop to save up money to travel with my husband, the local arts center left us a flyer: Children’s Author Talk. I decided to go. The speaker was Ellen Hopkins (New York Times best -selling author of Crank, Burned, Impulse …). At the time, she was writing non-fiction books for the school market. She was a REAL person that, as far as I know, doesn’t have a pet cemetery or any of those legendary writer things going on. We started to talk; she invited me to join a local writers’ group, and I began. I was 27 when I decided I was going to be a published writer.

Five authors, five books:

MT Anderson, JD Salinger, Ellen Hopkins, Shel Silverstein,  Steinbeck

Going Bovine, Feed, Five Flavors of Dumb, The Road, The Book Thief, As I Lay Dying (Okay. That’s six, but I could go on and on and on)

Where do you get your inspiration from?

As disappointing as this may be, there’s no such thing as muses. (I hope I haven’t burst a Santa Claus-like bubble out there!) Okay, at least I don’t have any muses. (If other authors out there have one or two, keep it to yourselves because it might totally depress me.)

My inspiration comes from a spark of an idea – a scene, a character, a problem. The rest is BIC – butt in chair. Not so exciting. Just lots of discipline and the love of words.

The best quality a writer can have?

I kind of said it above: discipline and the love of words. Without those two, you’ll go mad. Anybody who writes has to be half mad, anyway. But it’s so so important to love the craft and take the time to get good at it. It doesn’t happen overnight.  I’m 39 and STILL learning English.

Last words:

Challenge yourselves in your daily lives. Get uncomfortable. Don’t miss out on wonderful because you’re not living your life. Then, take this discomfort and create amazing.

A one-sentence story: (ACK! My brain is going to hurt with this one. I’m going to make this as cheesy as possible!)

Their eyes locked from above their plastic glasses of cheap Chianti while looking across the room at the annual Christmas luncheon of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, and they were drawn to each other like two 45 Tesla-hybrid magnets working at full force – their passion palpable, explosive, so much so that their colleagues threw them into a lab hoping they could bottle up the magnetism and turn off the Tesla-hybrids to save the NHMFL $4,000.00 an hour.

Thank you, Heidi, for your candid answers, with your fun personality shining through! :D

This time, for this Writer of the Week feature, there will be a GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!!!! Yep! There is SWAG + a signed paperback of COMPULSION. Follow the rules, and I will tell Heidi Ayarbe herself who the winner is, and she will send you your prize!

Rules:

1) Follow @heidiayarbe on Twitter

2) Follow me @JoW6667 on Twitter 

3) Comment on this blog post and tell me what you look for when choosing a novel to read.

4) I will choose the most insightful comment.

5) Deadline is August 31, 2012, Friday

Some reviews for Compulsion:

• One of the most realistic works of fiction portraying OCD that I have yet to come across. I’d love to see Jake Martin’s story discussed not just among YA readers but in psych classes and reading groups. (www.reclusivebibliophile.com )

• When I finished, I closed the book and said, “Wow.” When an author can convey emotions and struggles of a character in a powerful way, you have a winning tale. Language, dialogue, and pacing is very realistic and stays true without falling back on clichés and stereotypes. A must read. (YABooksCentral.com )

• Ayarbe exercises both enormous skill and restraint getting to the root of just how debilitating OCD can become, juxtaposing descriptions of the ways the mind’s compulsions can trip a trap of mental and physical anguish against a complex, credibly casted portrayal of teen social dynamics. A gripping, claustrophobic read. (Booklist (starred review) ) 

I hope to see you guys enter the giveaway and read all of your comments!