Lilly M Love Talk Dreams and Writing

The Dream Girl, Lilly M. Love answers a few questions of mine about writing, dreams and target audiences. Check it!
 

I have now been, for the past eleven years, on a writing trip in a serious way. I started with scripts and later on with mystery thrillers. I was published by an editorial, which I learned doesn´t mean you are in good hands. There was a big communication issue – today, I think it was the main fault of my agent – and after the second published book I canceled the contract and took the hard road, publishing the third on my own. I wrote a new urban-fantasy romance script and while working on that another idea popped in: the series I am writing at right now. The Demon of Dreams Saga

 

I never sat over a blank page. Writing flows out of my hand. I have so many ideas that I would need a bunch of ghostwriters to write everything down. I love to invent people, create their past and their destiny. Sure, sometimes I lean on reality. When I write, I have scenes, a kind of movie in front of me. The faces of my protagonists are actors I would cast.

I don´t drink or smoke: I am boring. But my imagination is not.

 

I believe in a spirit world and in an afterlife. I believe we all have a special task on earth we have to fulfill. Sometimes it´s difficult to figure out what it could be. It´s foggy, but I think I know.

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1) First, sell readers your book (or series if you'd like) in two sentences.

 

Still unknown creatures, the demons of dreams, live by their own rules, also in our world therefore don´t venture too far into areas which you don´t understand, your dreams. Exactly that happens to Leia Walsh, a young woman from New York when she falls in love with a demon of dreams.

 

 

2) Dreams are a big part of your work; can you talk a little about the importance of dreams?

There are so many opinions about the meaning of dreams. It starts with Freud and ends today with some other scientists.  For example: control over emotions resulting from distressing experiences. Dreams may function like psychotherapy, by allowing the dreamer to integrate thoughts that may be dissociated during waking life. They regulate mood and lowers stress levels.

But actually it´s an unknown place where our soul goes at night and the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious, the source of all true art and science.

 

 

3) What were some struggles (or also some easier things) about switching to Independent from Traditional Publishing?

 

To be independent means a lot of work and it is not easy to reach the audience, I have to admit. I have experimented both, to be published and be independent.

 

As an independent author you have to learn everything about the whole process and that means a lot of research which takes a lot of time.

 

Remembering writing my very first book, I didn´t even know to make paragraphs, editing, setting the dialogue correctly, everything was corrected by the editorial. 

 

As an independent author you are also more connected to your readers, which is very beautiful. When everything is in hands of the editorial you are hiding more behind your desk. 

 

 

4) Between your first two books, you switched perspectives (and target gender audience); what were some big differences writing for Leia or Mo?

 

Writing for Leia was a lot of fun. It was the first time for me writing in first-person perspective and I really loved it. It flowed unbelievable. Sure, the style is automatically different, sometimes a little bit more cheeky than writing in the third person point of view Morris. You can say I wrote two different stories which sometimes meet in some scenes. And as many people said, it´s amazing, because it´s not boring at all.

 

Many times I thought to merge both books, but honestly it would destroy the mystery, which the first has.

 

 

5) Follow up: you said Prince of the Dark was more suited for men than Meet Me in the Dark; what makes you say that?

 

I got a nice review for the first book from a woman. She said. Awesome!!! Sex and the City meets fantasy…it´s all said with that, I think.

 

The first book has here and there some typical female problems in there, clothing, shoes, envy between women, falling in love quickly, being attracted by handsome men and weird dreams.

 

A lot of women deny not being attracted by physical beauty, they feel superficial. Sure, it´s not the most important thing, but … we should be honest, first of all one is attracted by the way a person looks like. Man or woman that doesn´t matter.

 

The second is written from the point of view of the demon of dreams Morris Eltringham and shows his problems with his addicted human wife, his job and his evil brother Payton. I think it clears up a lot of question from the first.

 

Okay, this is my personal opinion, but don´t forget an author often doesn´t see the forest for the trees. I know men thinking differently and some said…Noooo, I loved the first too.

 

 

6) Writing process: what are your habits, what's around you when you're writing? Are you an 'in the zone' type of writer or can you write anywhere anytime?

 

Around me? Minimum two of six cats sleeping half on my computer. A huge cup of milk with a shot of coffee, my room with my energy in it, my desk, which is higher than others and my computer with my fingerprints on it J. I never tried out other places…I don´t think it will work out. Some can write at the pool, or in a coffee-shop, that´s not for me. I am working almost 12 hours daily, so I get up every two, cleaning my thought in a way by doing laundry, making another coffee, petting cats, cleaning something and going back to work. It´s kind of boring J