A Quickie with SHBB: Ginger Scott

We've wrangled some time with our favourite authors and put some questions we've often wondered to them. We've decided  to call it:

 

We're excited to be cozying up with: Ginger Scott

Ginger Scott is an Amazon-bestselling author of seven young and new adult romances, icluding Waiting on the Sidelines, Going Long, Blindness, How We Deal With Gravity, This is Falling, You and Everything After and Wild Reckless.

GS: I have to give two answers. First is getting to see the characters and scenes that are alive in my head come alive in print. I would imagine this is what Cinderella’s fairy godmother felt like every time she waved her wand (yes, I realize that statement makes it sound as if she’s real. In my mind, she is). 

Second is every note, message, email, visit I get from a reader. The scariest part of writing for me is the fear that I’ll put something out there and nobody will care. To have someone spend time on my words, then ke the time to write me about how they made them feel is the absolute greatest feeling in the world. 

GS: Take the hard way. When I was finishing my first book, I was afraid of writing something that wasn’t how I ultimately wanted it. My first book, Waiting on the Sidelines, tackles a very real world—girls are insecure, some are awful, and cute boys…they can be mean. The happy ending would be there, but I wanted the journey to be just as painful as those four years of high school really are. So someone (a few people actually) told me to just go for it, to write it like I want. I knew that would mean some people would think the hero was a real asshole. He was, at the start. Because teenaged boys—they can be real assholes. And sometimes us girls…we love them anyway. I went for it, and that book is something I am enormously proud of. I remember that with every book—to just go for it.

GS: This is a tough one, because I think there is something to learn from every bit of advice. This might sound cliché, but for so long, I’d been told that being an author is impossible—and going indie was risky. I let fear stand in my way for a long time, instead hiding my stories from the world and just existing through my journalism work and marketing. I think what that advice really meant was that being an author, one that reaches readers, takes hard work—a lot of hard work. And I’ve never been afraid of hard work. I was the 21-credit-hour, intern with two jobs kinda girl. Hard work is my thing. I promise to keep my foot to the pedal for you.

GS: I answer this question differently every time. Sometimes it’s a side character, sometimes it’s Nolan, my lead from Waiting on the Sidelines. I’ve learned I think it’s very much about my mood and how I’m feeling about myself at the time. Right now, I’m going to have to pick Owen Harper, my dark and mysterious hero in Wild Reckless. He’s one of the most complex and satisfying characters I’ve ever written, and I think he might also be the sexiest. He is in my head, anyhow.

GS: Just one, hmmmm? Backed into a corner, I’m going to have to go with Travis Maddox…however, it’s a close race with Kellan Kyle.

GS: I love Colleen Hoover, and Confess was wonderful. I’m almost done with my work in progress, though, and I plan on binge reading for a couple weeks.

GS: Are they true stories? I guess everyone reads into things, and people will ask which character I am. 

There’s probably a piece of me in every book, but that’s where it stops…pieces.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer our questions we hope you had as much fun as we did. One final one for the road: 

GS: I’m almost done with Book 3 in the Falling Series. This is Paige’s story, and I have LOVED writing her. Paige is strong, but she has weaknesses—she just keeps them hidden, very well. Would you like a little sneak peak?

Release Date: 23rd June, 2015

The email said that the group would be studying by reference desk, but no one is there yet. I suck at Spanish. I tried to petition the school to let me count html as my language credit. But that petition got about as far as the shredder. I only need a year of a language for my computer science degree. Two semesters. But I was about to fail the first one. Not a good start.

I let my backpack fall on the table and sink into one of the well-worn chairs, my body falling deep into the cushions. I run my hands along the wood arms, pencil grove marks of attempts to carve initials. I wonder how many people have touched this chair and tried to own it with their initials? What a stupid thing to claim as your kingdom.

There’s no way I’m early. I was running late when I dipped the spoon in my mom’s chili, so unless time stopped—and rewound—this tutoring session wasn’t gonna happen. And I need this tutoring session to happen.

Leaning forward, I pull my Spanish book from my bag and prop it on my lap, the pencil still wedged in the middle, where I got lost while studying last night. My brain isn’t made for conjugating verbs, knowing when to use feminine and masculine articles.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,” I breathe, pulling the pencil out and tossing it on top of my bag on the ground.

I spend about ten minutes reading through the various words, saying them in my head. Then I close my eyes and try to quiz myself. I even fail this way, when all I have to do is crack an eyelid open to cheat.

I’m tempted to quit, but I’ve blocked out two hours for studying. I need to study before I meet up with Casey. I’m pretty sure his hard drive is fried, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him over the phone. Either way, I have a feeling I’ll be at his house for the rest of the night trying to save a semester’s worth of my best friend’s economics assignments.

Shutting my eyes, I go in for one more try at the self-quiz, when I hear the sound of metal crashing onto the tile.

“Mother-fucking-piece-of-shit…” She thinks she’s talking quietly, gritting the swear words through her teeth while she kicks at the giant trash can that’s somehow snared in her purse strap and dragging around her in a circle around the library entrance. I should probably get up and help, but I’m so caught up in the scene she’s making by trying not to make a scene that I somehow forget to stand. When her gaze lands right on mine, I feel like a dick. But then she sneers at me and kicks the can one more time, tearing it from her purse and dropping her backpack and other things in a pile on the floor. It makes me chuckle.

I toss my book to the side, because let’s face it, I’m not learning anything from it anyhow, and jog over to her at the entrance.

“Good thing it’s a Saturday and the library’s empty,” I say, reaching to help her set the can back in its place. She swats at me at first.

“Stop it! Just go back…over there. You know, to watch me for a while and do nothing.” There’s a well-deserved bite to her tone. Yeah, I feel like a dick.

“I’m sorry. You sort of stunned me, what with all the kicking and clanging and sailor mouthing,” I say through a soft laugh. She’s different right now. It’s still the same girl that orders sandwiches and party trays from me at the deli, but there’s also something different. “I’m Houston, by the way,” I say, brushing my hand off along my pants and reaching it forward to her. She looks at it for a few seconds, like she’s making sure it isn’t dirty. I’m almost offended, but I’ve sort of learned that Paige is just offensive. It’s her thing. She shakes it finally, but doesn’t hide the fact that she wipes her palm along her jeans afterward, which makes me chuckle.

“I know your name,” she says. Bothered. Indignant. “You wear it on your shirt.”

I look down and realize she’s right; I do still have my nametag on.

“Oh, shit!” I say, pulling the pin off and stuffing it in my front pocket.

“Who’s the sailor now?” she asks, her lip twisting up, her eyes almost giving me a wink. She tugs her bag back over her shoulder and picks her keys up from the floor before waving goodbye with her fingers. I watch her for a few seconds, noting the way her ass sways in the opposite direction of her hair. She’s like this perfect blonde bombshell, but damn can she be mean.