Lance is the author of young adult, science fiction, dystopian books.

SIX MINUTES WITH LANCE ERLICK:

Today we welcome Lance Erlick to LitPick for Six Minutes with an author! Lance is the author of The Rebel series (The Rebel Within, The Rebel Trap, Rebels Divided), Maiden Voyage, Watching You, and the first two just released books in the Regina Shen series, Regina Shen: Resilience and Regina Shen: Vigilance.

How did you get started writing?

I began writing when I was eleven. I’d just finished reading a couple adventure stories and thought I could do that. I found it wasn’t as easy as it looked. A few years after college, I read what looked to be an interesting book. The topic and storyline caught my interest, but I didn’t feel the author had developed either the characters or the plot, and the ending wasn’t satisfying. Believing I could do better, I made my first attempt at writing a novel. While the plot was well thought out, my story fell flat. It took me a while to figure out that the problem was the selection of the protagonist. The problem was my main character was a spy/adventurer who wasn’t fazed by anything. He was a cool character. Unfortunately, a character without passion and devils he or she would be fighting, leaves a story flat. I buried my story and picked more interesting and impassioned characters to write about.

Who influenced you?

The works of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and David Brin have played a big role in my interest in speculative writing. I have also enjoyed a number of young adult authors as well as thriller and mystery writers.

Do you have a favorite book/subject/character/setting?

One of my favorite books is a bit dated (1980s) and yet it’s as vital today as when it was written. David Brin’s The Postman is a story of hope in a time of desperation. I also like Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series for the sheer audacity of what few besides him could have successfully tackled.

What advice do you have for someone who wants to be an author?

Follow your passion. Write what you want to know, what you are passionate about, not necessarily what you know best or what’s popular. Writing is hard when done well. We pour our hearts into it and face criticism, some of which can be brutal and infuriating. If you can’t handle that, then writing may not suit you. If you feel the passion and can take your rewards from exploring interesting situations and characters, and sharing with others, then go for it. I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do.

Where is your favorite place to write?

I do my actual writing on my laptop at a desk every morning. However, the ideas, certainly the best ones, come to me when I’m not thinking about writing. I often wake in the middle of the night with character-action sequences, sometimes entire scenes. I get ideas while driving and have to be very careful not to get too distracted while jotting down a few key notes to help me recall later. If it’s an involved sequence, I’ll stop and do a mind-dump before continuing my drive. I also get ideas in the shower, though I haven’t taken the step of bringing waterproof writing tools.

What else would you like to tell us?

I write science fiction, young adult, action/thrillers. The Rebel series (released in 2013-14) is mostly about a young woman forced into the elite military by a repressive regime that years earlier had taken her parents. It is about her crisis of conscience. This year, we’re releasing several stories in the new Regina Shen series. Regina Shen: Into the Storm, the novelette that began this series, is now available on Amazon. It is part of the first novel, Regina Shen: Resilience, which is expected to be released May 15. The second novel, Regina Shen: Vigilance is following on the heels of the first in terms of release, though the story takes place two years later. This summer we anticipate releasing the third novel, Regina Shen: Defiance. Together, these are the stories of—ta dah—Regina Shen, who faces a world that at first treats her as a worthless outcast and then as a valuable commodity they want to control, on account of her DNA. She’ll have no part of being a slave or lab specimen.

I hope your readers will enjoy taking the journey with Regina Shen as much as I have. She is an entirely different character from Annabelle in the Rebel series. Aside from living three hundred years apart, I can’t help wondering how the two would react to each other. Annabelle is a kick-ass rebellious sort. Regina Shen is as book-smart, in a world that bans books, as she is swamp and life-smart at such a young age. She’s fifteen in the first book and seventeen in books two and three. Maybe one of these days they will meet.

Lance, thank you for spending six minutes with LitPick! Congratulations on the release of the first two Regina Shen books!