Ana Franco was born on a small town on the interior of São Paulo, Brazil, and still lives there with her family. She is known as a blogger under the name of Ana the Bookworm and her Young Adult novel, The Wormhole(formerly Down The Wormhole), is her first take on writing in English. Ana attends to college of Literature and Teaching in her country as well as she has taken courses in areas of Children’s Literature, Literature in schools, influences of the world wars at the world’s cultures and in writing for a global market.
If you are curious, Ana is also a cat person and dedicated at least one of her books to each cat that lives with her. The allergy is just something that takes some getting used to.
1.What is your favorite motivational phrase?It’s actually the epigraph of the last book of the Wormhole series! I only came across this phrase when I was exactly looking for epigraphs, but ever since I found it I like to think about it.
“Head up, heart open. To better days!” ― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"
2.Where did the inspiration for Down The Wormhole come from?
Well, we can say it’s mostly my mother’s fault. I’ve always loved fantasy books and mythology itself since I was a child (then again, it is my mother’s fault as well) but the specific series of books I’m working now started on a very sad period of my life. I used to have panic attacks all the time when I was sixteen or so and could barely leave my bedroom; in fact, sometime during this period I even refused to read or write. I refused to watch my favorite TV shows, I refused to see my friends (bless them for putting up with me at the time) and would barely do anything other than crying and wallowing in self pity. I needed medications that would make me sleep for hours (I still need some of them, to be quite honest) and whenever I was awake and not crying, my mother would spend time with me. She would take me to walk around a nearby college and we would have lunch with a friend a two that wouldn’t mind me; one of these days, we started talking about my lack of writing and mom started trying to create a story with me.
Finally, when I decided to play along, I remember saying something along the lines of “Okay, so now we’ll have teenager Anubis and Loki living together, but who will be the villain for their stories and why?”. And it happened. I wrote down every single idea we had and shortly after drafting my project. It was hideous. I have no idea how many times I altered the time line or how many times I changed the beginning of the first book – but finally, it was there. And I couldn’t be more grateful for all these mythologies, for they (along with my beautiful, wonderful and loving tabby cat) helped me come out of my pit.
3.What is the hardest thing about writing your latest book?What is the easiest thing about writing?
Well, the easiest is that, considering the last book I’ve written was for this very same series, I was already used to the characters and plot and such. I already knew how each character behaves and their backstory and, well, what would happen to them in the future. The hardest… it would be regarding writing a series, too, because I’ve written most of it in somewhat “secret”, only now I started making the books available; I guess I would say the hardest part was to write something so long without even knowing if anyone would ever be interested in it.
4.Mermaid or Unicorn Why ?
Mermaid! Blame it completely on Disney. And on my parents for allowing me to have several birthday themed parties with The Little Mermaid when I was a child. And oh dear, how I loved this movie! (Movies?)
5.There's a lot controversy about self-publishing versus traditional publishing, though self-publishing is becoming more widely accepted. What are your thoughts on that matter?
I think publishing a story is publishing a story, be it following the traditional path or the self-publishing one. I’ve read so many nasty things about how “indie writers suck” or how “they don’t use editors and then their work is rubbish” that it hardly makes me cringe anymore. Maybe I am an indie author that sucks for I didn’t exactly have an editor, maybe what I do is rubbish. What I do know, however, is that indie authors hardly “suck” when we remember that we have starts on our side such as Amanda Hocking, Hugh Howley and Andy Weir.
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Jane “Kitty” Doe isn’t sure when her life started being so weird for the simple fact that she can’t recall much of her early life. She knows she’s an orphan and that her former tutor was obsessed with cats – hence her name – but can’t honestly fathom when having a Greek sorceress wanting her to be pregnant became part of that life.
Oh, and did she mention that the man said sorceress wanted to be the father of her child was one who, within months of his life, usurped Loki’s place as a Prince? She must have forgotten to mention that he also has fabulous legs. And a stupidly charming face. And that he actually wants to have a child with her?
Oh, right – that’s because he was under the effects of a love potion, courtesy of the witch that now stalks Kitty.
FORMERLY "DOWN THE WORMHOLE"
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