Thursday, July 11, 2013

Jasinda Wilder takes time out to talk to the Bad Girls....

After reviewing Falling Into You, we were very excited to have 
Jasinda Wilder spend some time with us.  

Keep reading to see the Bad Girls Blog It Better interview with Jasinda 
about Nell, Colton and her Falling Into You experience...


Bad Girls: Will you be giving us more Nell and Colton?  We desperately want more.  You have mentioned before that you wouldn't rule out the possibility.  Has that changed? (crossing fingers, toes, legs....please, pretty please!)

Jasinda:  I very, very highly doubt there will be another book starring Colton and Nell.  When I say I won't rule out the possibility, I just mean that nothing is truly impossible, however unlikely it might be.  Meaning, it's POSSIBLE you'll win the lottery, but you've got a better chance of being struck by lightning.  In regards to Colt and Nell, their story has been told.  Another book starring them would have to have the drama and angst and heartbreak that makes the Falling books so unique, and really, don't you think those two have been through enough?


Bad Girls: What did Colton think of Nell before he left home and vice versa?  They must've bumped into each other quite a bit with Nell and Kyle being so close.

Jasinda:  I tried to explain this in Falling Into Us a bit more, as well as in some of the deleted/bonus scenes that are out there.  Which, by the way, I've got a hardcover version of Falling Into You in the works, with all the deleted scenes/bonus scenes included.  But regarding Colt and Nell before Colt left Michigan.... they knew of each other, but they were in different places.  He was five years older.  Think about the difference between a 9 year old and a 4 year old.  Think about the difference between 16 and 11.  Kids are in two different worlds at those ages.  So they knew who each other were, but they didn't really know each other.  I've gotten some bad reviews because of this subject, but it's not so hard to understand, I should think.  

Colt was a troubled young man.  He was under enormous pressure in school, and he was struggling with a learning disability that was very poorly understood at that time.  I had a friend in high school who was dyslexic, and this was when dyslexia was getting more research and attention, and it was intensely hard for him to cope with school despite being a very capable and intelligent person. So if Colt was older, those few years make a difference in terms of the educational resources he'd receive and the understanding he'd get from various sources.  I say all this to explain that Colt spent the bulk of his childhood in his room, studying and doing homework.  Or he was at school being tutored.  Or, when he got older, he was buried in a car engine, which was his only real outlet.  His little brother's best friend wouldn't have been real high on his list of priorities.  He'd know who she was, he'd be familiar with her presence, but they wouldn't hang out.  He wouldn't know her or be her friend.  

For Nell, Colt would have been just her best friend's slightly reclusive, troubled older brother.  Again, she'd know who he was, she'd be familiar with seeing him come and go, but remember that Kyle and Nell spent most of their time hanging out at Nell's house, not Kyle's.


Bad Girls: What was your inspiration for such a deep and beautiful story? Did you draw any inspiration from your first love?  And where did all of this raw emotion come from?

Jasinda: The love story was there. It was the story that had to be told. This story isn’t drawn from my life, except, as I’ve said in other interviews, that I knew someone who died like Kyle did. The rest is fiction. The raw emotion? It comes from life. We all experience dark times, hard times, moments of raw horror and turbulent emotions. As a writer, I’ve learned to translate the emotions of my experience into what I write. If I’ve suffered heartbreak in any way, I can use those emotions to describe heartbreak, whether my personal experience is the same as the events I’m writing about or not. It’s like an actor who uses the emotions from his or her life and turns it into a performance on screen.


Bad Girls: What is your experience with learning disabilities being that Colton and Becca both lived with them?

Jasinda: I know a few people who are ADD/ADHD, and I knew someone in high school who was dyslexic. I’ve encountered people with all sorts of problems, and these find their way into my books.  Becca was a secondary character, initially. I gave her a stutter to sort of make her more real, to round her out, so she wasn’t just another stock character. Then, when demand for a second Falling book became overwhelming, the idea for Becca and Jason’s parallel story came to me.  So, I had to research stuttering and speech impediments. I did a LOT of research. I watched Youtube videos of people with stutters to get the dialect right, to learn about the difference between blocks and ticks, pre-syllabic stutters and mid-syllabic stutters, word-repetition, etc. I researched causes and solutions, watched more videos of pre-treatment/post-treatment stutter patients. I learned the difference between stutters that dissolve with treatment and age, and those that are incurable but treatable, and how emotional trauma can cause reversion/relapse, but that the trauma itself doesn’t trigger it, the emotional backlash makes it harder for the stutterer to stay fluent. For Becca, who has a lifelong stutter, she doesn’t “get over it”. She just learns to deal with it and learns to be fluent. When she experienced trauma, it caused a setback that she had to cope through all over again.


Bad Girls:  Why did you choose to use cutting as a coping mechanism for both Nell and Colton?

Jasinda:  Because it’s real. It’s something I’ve dealt with. I’ve never cut, but I’ve known cutters. It was risky, because it’s such a sensitive issue and it has to be presented correctly, but it was how Nell dealt with things. I knew it was the issue for her from the first moment that she used physical pain to cope with the emotional. I didn’t put it in just to make it more dramatic or whatever. It was an issue I know something about, and that I knew I had to work through in this book. Hopefully in reading FIY, some of my readers find the impetus to seek help, to find healthy ways of coping.


Bad Girls: How did you come to the plot decision to have Colton’s wealthy, well-educated parents be so far removed from his life?

Jasinda: That’s based in reality, too. I’ve seen it. Money and education doesn’t solve everything. His parents struggled with his disability, and sometimes, rather than truly deal with it, some people will bury their heads in the sand and try to ignore the problem, even if that means ignoring the child that is the root of the “problem.”


Bad Girls:  It is obvious music played a big part in this book, and we have read that music plays a huge roll for you while writing.  You have previously mentioned that you are working on putting the three original songs to music.  How is that coming along?  We loved the playlist.

Jasinda: Music is a part of my writing process, like you said. I recorded the song Colton writes for Nell, the real “Falling Into You” song. I put it to music, and a friend of mine with a recording studio helped me mix and recorded it. It’s me singing, too. It’s an exclusive bonus at the end of the audiobook, available via Audible and iTunes. I’m not sure if I’ll do the other songs or not. It was a TON of work, and while fun and rewarding, I have other books to write and publish.


Bad Girls: We love your ballsy move to work with such controversial topics such as girl dates dead boyfriends brother and cutting and you just made it work!  Were you ever afraid this might be too much for some readers?  Did you suffer any backlash from that?  How did you handle it?

Jasinda: I knew it was risky, but I was pretty confident that it’d work out, and it did. Backlash? I’ve gotten bad reviews, but you can’t please everyone, and that’s how I deal with it. I just remind myself that some people aren’t going to like what I do, no matter what I do. I have to write the best book  I can, be honest and open, and that’s it.


Bad Girls: The sex scenes......SIGH… they were HOT HOT HOT!!!  Where does the inspiration come from and does this inspiration have a single brother?  ;) Do you have a go to person to help with these scenes?

Jasinda: The inspiration comes from life. I’m married, so that should answer your question. LOL.


Bad Girls: Are the characters based on anyone that you know?  Who would your ideal Colton and Nell be?

Jasinda: My characters are always composites. No one character is ever a direct portrait of someone I know. They’re amalgams of various traits of people I know mixed with fictional characteristics. I’m not a hundred percent sure who my pick for Colton would be, actor wise. In terms of looks, I can see Kellan Lutz being Colton, but the actor would need to be musical, and I’m not sure if Kellan is or not. Amanda Seyfried is my pick for Nell.


Bad Girls: Can you tell us a little about yourself and your awesomeness?   What current projects are you working on and can you share some details with us? (pretty please)

Jasinda:  Me? I’m married (if you attend a signing, you’ll probably meet my Mr. Wilder), and I have five amazing kids. I love reading, writing, traveling, meeting my fans and all the awesomesauce readers who make this job so incredible. My current project is called Stripped. It’s available for preorder on Amazon right now. It’s about a girl named Grey, an innocent pastor’s daughter from Georgia who goes to LA to pursue her dreams of being a Hollywood film producer, but runs out of money and ends up stripping to pay the bills. She meets an uber-sexy A-list actor named Dawson, and the story is about their relationship and their struggles. I’m posting a teaser on my blog and in my newsletter, so if you go to www.Jasindawilder.com you can find all that there.


We thank you so much for your time Jasinda!  You rock in our book. 





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Special Thanks as always to our creative team...  Lola D has outdone herself by capturing the essence of Falling Into You in her collages for this interview! 

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