Jessica’s Comments (group member since Dec 30, 2014)

Jessica’s comments from the Colleen Houck Book Club group.

I cosplay as Daenerys Targaryen and Merida from Brave. And you can totally pull of a klingon warrioress!! =)

Thanks so much for having me, Colleen! Happy new year!

Yes, this fall. It's exploded recently, and its usually the same weekend as the Decatur Book Fest, which is excellent. So there are always a lot of great YA authors around! Hope you can come!

Oooooh ComicCon!! I may do DragonCon again--I love going just to cosplay.

NoVa Teen in VA--that's it! =)

I don't think I'm scheduled for RT. I'll be at Tucson, something in Virginia, Ontario, as well as a few tours in March.

No release date yet for the Aladdin book; I'm finishing up the first draft now, so maybe soon we'll know more! I'll be doing a fair bit of traveling these next few months promoting my third book, KALAHARI, which is the last Corpus companion novel.

Colleen wrote: "So are you a Dr. Who fan? I tried the first season during Christmas break and not sure I get it."

I am an avid Whovian! You have to watch all the way to the end of the first season and then watch at least two or three episodes of the second season to "get it." At least that's what it took me! Once David Tennant came on I was sold. =) I even have a life-size TARDIS in my basement.

I love your Tiger's Curse boards! I think I got some pins from you. =)

Thanks so much for having me, Colleen! =)

Colleen wrote: "Regarding avatar, I've only seen the movie so I'm not sure what all the excitement is about but I've heard that the cartoon is better is that right?"

Oh dear lord, please please please don't judge the show by its movie! The movie is shameful. The show, though, is superior to most adult tv shows in its characterizations, world building, and plot. So much love for it! And it's all free on Netflix!

Joshua wrote: "I'm 13 and hope to publish the 630 page book I've written, but do you have any tips on the part after writing one books, like publishing, and promoting ones book etc."

Congrats on finishing your book! That's a great first step! Be sure your book is as polished as it can be; writing is rewriting, as they say. Once it's in really good shape, head to agentqueryconnect.com to learn about the querying process to find an agent or publisher.

Erica wrote: "Do you have any tips for new writers?"

Set daily goals that are easy to accomplish--200 or 500 words a day, maybe. Make a habit of writing. And read! Gosh, read everything you can get your hands on--that's the best way to learn.

Erica wrote: "Have you always enjoyed writing?"

I've always loved writing, even when it's hard! I love reading so, so much, and writing is like the next step after reading--it's an escape to a world you can completely control and manipulate to your liking.

Erica wrote: "Why did start writing?"

I started writing because when I was 4, I read Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff and the ending made me so sad I decided to write my own version of it. So I wrote "Danny and the Building Blocks" in my preschool notebook, and my teacher read it to the class. In that moment I felt a sort of fulfillment, and loved it so much that I never wanted to do anything else.

Colleen wrote: "Can you tell us more about imprinting?"

Imprinting is a natural phenomenon in nature in which a young animal instantly and wholly trusts the first living thing it sees (think of the geese in Fly Away Home with Anna Paquin). Humans do this to a much lesser extent, which explains why a baby is usually calmed by its mother's presence. In Vitro, the scientists have enhanced this instinct exponentially, so that the Vitros, upon awakening, psychologically adhere to the first person they see. This instinct overrides all others in their personalities, making them completely obedient and loyal.

Colleen wrote: "Do you think the kinds of things Corpus is doing is possible in today's world? Do you believe research like that is going on now?"

It's definitely possible! And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it was. It certainly has in the past.

Colleen wrote: "When did you get the idea for Vitro? Was it while you were writing Origin?"

I'd been wanting to write an island book for a while, and Jim and Sophie were both characters I'd been keeping in the back of my mind after I finished Origin, so I knew that somehow all of that would come together in a novel. I guess it was about four or five months after Origin was done that I began working on the idea for Vitro.

Colleen wrote: "The idea of controls is fascinating to me. Were you a science geek in school? I shudder to think of all the sciencey research you had to do."

I loved science in school (well, life sciences anyway--I'm rotten with math) and almost was a bio major in college, but my love of writing won out and I took English instead. The research for these books can be fascinating and terrifying! What the Corpus scientists do can be pretty awful, but our own history has examples of much worse experiments. There were scenes in Vitro inspired by my trip to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, where Nazi scientists ran horrible experiments on prisoners. It was one of the most chilling and sobering things I'd ever seen.

Colleen wrote: "What's next for Sophie?"

While Sophie will not be making another appearance in a novel, she will likely be showing up briefly in a short story I'll release on Wattpad in February that will answer this question!

Colleen wrote: "You said you got the idea of exogenesis from your grandmother. You've got to tell me more!"

My grandmother has been delivering babies for around 40 years, and knows pretty much everything there is to know about gestation and birth. So she was very helpful in giving me ideas about how to devise an artificial gestation system! It's fascinating to think that in a few years or decades, pregnancy could be completely different--we could raise embryos in tanks instead of in the womb! In writing Vitro, I wanted to explore what effect that might have on the children, in addition to the other "tinkering" the Corpus scientists have done.