Here are some of the questions I am most often asked:
How long have you been writing, and why did you start?
Even before I knew how to write, I was coming up with stories for my friends and I to play out. I would transform our woods into a fantasy land, full of all kinds of monsters and mysteries to solve. Once I learned that if I wrote out my stories, others could enjoy them with out me having to be there, I started writing short stories and leaving them everywhere I went. (How they could read it I'll never know. My handwriting was horrible when I was younger.) To this day I wonder if anyone has one of my stories just lying around.
Where do you get your ideas for your books?
Crazy as it sounds, I get a lot of them from my dreams. Once I write them down, they start expanding taking on a life of their own. When they don't come to me in dreams, then I could hear or see something that starts my mind spinning with all the 'what if's'. From there it's a whirlwind of adventures.
How many books are in the Rise of the legacies ?
The Rise of the Legacies series is going to have seven books in total. I originally planned for just five, but things changed when I wrote The Bellhammon Witches, which turned out to be over 800 pages! I realized I had to break it up, especially since the other four books were shaping up to be just as long. So, I decided to merge The Bellhammon Witches and Black Dahlia, with each book capturing one week from those stories. Once the entire series is published, I intend to release a special edition featuring the complete, unabridged versions of the original 800+ page books.
Do you have any other series in the works?
Actually, I do. There's a standalone prequel to The Bellhammon Witches that tells the parents story and how their actions set in motion the devastation that Leora and her coven members are dealing with. It will also answer all the why's and how's that might not have been fully answered in The Bellhammon Witches.
Then there's The Half-Blood Wars, but I cannot say anything about that series other than it is going to be magically brutal! You'll meet new supernatural's and some of the Legacies return.
The last series in the Bellhammon Universe does not have a name yet. It deals with the prophecy you'll learn all about soon.
Do you have any recommended authors and books?
I sure do. Naturally, I'm going to recommend all of the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. Every one of Cassandra Claire's Shadowhunter series. Melisa Marr, Sarah Maas, James Patterson, Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, Erin Morgenstern, Leigh Bardugo, and so many more. I'll make a blog about the specific books and why I like them and link it here once it is ready.
What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
The short answer is that I take as long as needed to research, and it's a good thing that I love researching, too, because there is a lot of real history in my books. I'm one of those writers who likes things to be as accurate as possible—so much so that if you take the name of a storm or day of the week in my books, it will be the actual storm/day/area in real life. For me, researching is a continual process.
Will the Rise of the Legacies series be made into a TV show/movie?
Wouldn't that be amazing, and a dream come true! As of yet, I haven't had time to shop it around, but once it is finished, I plan on getting right on that. It doesn't hurt that I am in the film industry either. If you know anyone who many be interested, please send them to contact@jessicamazzell.com
What are your steps when you write a book?
First, if it is a dream, I try to write everything down as soon as I wake up. You know how quickly you forget dreams after you wake. Then I sit outside with my cats, dog- Chara, and a huge cup of coffee, and let my mind wander around the story, meeting the characters, and learning the area. After I have gotten a good feel for them, I refill my coffee cup, and start writing a very loose outline. As more things come to me, I fill them in where they belong. Now comes the research. I'll do an in-depth blog on how I actually do my research, and you can read it there. Finally, I sit down and start my first draft