Lydia Fitzpatrick's new novel is Lights All Night Long.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: You note that your protagonist Ilya was originally supposed to be a minor character in the novel. Why did you end up making him the focus of the book?Visit Lydia Fitzpatrick's website.
A: Sadie was the protagonist of the novel’s first few incarnations (there have been many!), and Ilya was a minor character meant to capture her attention briefly.
I’m generally resistant to the mystification of the writing process (maybe the muse was more apt to sing pre-Internet?), but the moment Ilya appeared on the page did feel charged.
I normally write exposition long and scenes short, but the scene when he and Sadie met went on and on, it became unwieldy and awkward, because, I realized, I didn’t want Ilya to leave the story. I wanted to know what had brought him from Russia to Louisiana, who he’d left behind, and in exploring his past, I found...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue