Awesomesauce Authors: An interview with Laura M. Kolar, author of CANVAS BOUND

I'm super excited to be participating in the tour for CANVAS BOUND, the debut novel from my fellow @YAStands Contributor, Laura M. Kolar. Here's a little about Laura and her book!

About CANVAS BOUND

Sixteen-year-old Libby Tanner’s art comes to life. Her painted skies turn from day to night, leaves rustle on trees, and sometimes, a mystery boy appears.

While attending England’s Aldridge Art Academy, Libby meets charming Brent Henderson, a performing arts student who showers her with attention. But his rival, gorgeous Dean James, is the one who occupies her mind, even though he’s very much attached to his current girlfriend.

Libby soon learns there’s more to both Brent and Dean than she ever imagined. In order to save her future and the boy who’s captured her heart, she must unlock the secrets behind her art by entering the most dangerous place of all… the world within her paintings.

But once she steps into the canvas, she risks being trapped forever.

Tell us a little about your writer's journey so far.

It has been…

Scary, because I had no idea what I was doing when I first started this journey. I just knew I needed to write out the story that was in my head.

Amazing, because I discovered I really enjoy the process of writing and creating something.

Heartbreaking, because not everyone will love what you write.

Exhilarating, because there is no other way to describe what it’s like to hold your first novel in your hands. It’s a close second to holding your first child.

Okay, let's hear your Twitter Pitch! (140 characters or less.)

The 1^st in a trilogy, #CANVASBOUND is about a teenage girl whose paintings come to life and the boy who is trapped inside them.

What inspired you to write this book? How is it a book only you could write?

It was inspired by a combination of things, one part Harry Potter, another part a dream and a third part needing a break from another book I was querying.

Every writer and story is unique, sure there are lots of vampire/angel/dystopian books out there, but if you’d asked someone else to write Twilight or Hush Hush or Matched, none of those stories would have been what we know them to be. The same goes for Canvas Bound, someone else could write a story about art coming to life, Ink, for example. They are similar in theme, but have very different characters and plotlines.

What's your favorite thing about writing?

It relaxes me! My worst days writing are better than my best days at my day job.

What's your least favorite thing?

That I get my best ideas when I have no place to write them down, like in the shower, and then I forget it later when I can write it down.

Now it's time to brag a little--What do you love most about your book?

I have to say it, I love the romance! It’s not the central plot of the story and I love the characters and all the little clues I give that lead into the next two books. But two people falling in love for the first time…that takes the cake. I’m might the biggest romantic you will ever meet, which is probably why I wrote some pretty steamy scenes.

What has surprised you most about publishing post-agent (in other words, something unpublished writers may not know about how the process goes after you get an agent)?

How much the manuscript changed after I signed with my publisher. It’s still my idea and characters and basic plot, and it still has my name on the cover, but there are things about it that are very different from when I first wrote it, all of them different for the better.

Okay, now a little about you. (And yes, I stole these questions from In the Actor's Studio with James Lipton.)

What is your favorite word?

LOL! My editor would say it’s tingle. I used it something like 40 times and she made me cut out all but 3 of them.

What is your least favorite word?

Irregardless, because it’s not a word and people say it all the time.

What turns you on?

Slow dancing and good cologne.

What turns you off?

People who think they’re better than everyone else.

What sound or noise do you love?

My daughter’s laugh. Best sound in the whole world!

What sound or noise do you hate?

Wind chimes. They are annoying and distracting and I can’t stand them.

What profession, other than your own, would you most like to attempt?

If writing as a career doesn’t work out, don’t laugh, but it would be fun to be the person who gets to give those big Publisher’s Clearing House/Lottery checks to the winners. Think about it, you’d go to work knowing you were going to make someone very happy.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear G-d say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

That I was a good wife and mother, and that he’s proud of the life I lived.

Finally, what's the one question you've always wanted to answer in an interview? (And of course, you have to answer it!)

So, how does it feel to have your novel turned into a movie?

(Oh wait, that hasn’t happened…yet. Until then, here’s where you can find me, Twitter, Facebook and the web. Thank you so much for letting me drop by.)

 About Laura

Laura M. Kolar lives with her husband and daughter in a one-stop-light town in northern-lower Michigan. Though she didn’t discover her love of books until she turned thirty, as a self-declared hopeless romantic, she has spent the past few years reading and writing stories with mostly happy endings.

If she’s not at her day-job or with her family, you will find her sipping a cup of chai latte while sitting in her favorite rocking chair, hunched over her laptop writing or spending entirely too much time on Twitter.

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