What else do you want to know about Elana Johnson?

You can’t go anywhere online these days without reading an interview, a guest post or “hearing” people talk about THE ELANA JOHNSON! And with good reason! Not only did she recently sell her most fabulous book, CONTROL ISSUES, but she is the Queen of the blogosphere! If that wasn’t enough, she and a few other YA authors are seriously taking over with some epic blogs announcing more awesomeness. Don’t believe me…check out her blog.

No really, right now…I’ll wait….

Okay, now that you’re back, let’s talk about Elana some more.

Elana and I have been friends for a couple of years. It has been my pleasure watching her come into her own with writing, inspiring hundreds of others in the process. I’ve interviewed her before (when her e-book came out), but I just had to jump on the Elana bandwagon and ask her some new questions.

So, without commercial interruptions (maybe), here is ELANA:

CF: Now that you have a book deal, what’s different? Anything?

EJ: The pressure has intensified immensely. And I’m looking to streamline my life. Therefore, anything that isn’t top priority is getting dropped.

{*breathes sigh of relief that she still finds time for our chats*}

 CF: What was the hardest part of this process so far?

EJ: For me, finding that one industry believer (a literary agent) for my work.

 {Yeah, that is the hardest one for me too…}

CF: If you could only give ONE piece of writerly advice, what would it be?

 EJ: Don’t give up.

CF: I know you are the queen of blogging, but are there other networking venues you like? Why (or why not?)

 EJ: Blogging is my main platform-building avenue. My Facebook is a mish-mash of high school friends and publishing people and family. I use it, but not to my writing ends.

I have a love/hate relationship with twitter. I usually hate it. But I tweet, and it’s always about writing or reading and/or reality TV.

{You and reality TV…NO!}

 I participate in a few forums as well.

 CF: What inspired CONTROL ISSUES?

 EJ: I wondered what it would be like to live in a world where someone else got to make all your choices. Who you marry. What you eat, wear, think. So my brainwashing government was born from that thought. And of course, there has to be  rebel, so my main character was born. Oh, and hot boys. There has to be some of those too, right? Right.

 {Dude, Jag is seriously HOT.}

{Check out her awesome post about “thinking” and dystopian novels here}

CF: What can you share about your future projects?

 EJ: I’m working on something now that I’m hoping will be just as emotionally edgy as Control Issues. But you know, pantser, so who knows where it’s going? I certainly don’t—yet.

 {*raises hand and begs to read it*}

CF: Quick fire randomness –

• Dark Chocolate or Twizzlers?  Dark chocolate, no contest. {Girl after my own heart}
• Pool or Ocean? Ocean
• Lap top or Desk Top? Laptop
• Phone or text? Phone – I don’t even know how to text! {Dude…You really need to learn to text! It’s just like chatting. Really.}
• Lunch with writerly friends or time to write alone? LUNCH!
• Literary Character MOST like you? Why? Dude, no clue.
• Literary Character LEAST like you? Why? Uh…no idea. {Hmm…Note to self – figure these out}
• If you could meet anyone in real life, who would it be? John Adams

CF: Anything else you want to share about your writerly journey?

 EJ: It is possible to be pulled from the literary agent slush pile. And then the editor slush pile. You might need patience, but it’s possible.

{Yeah..keep reminding me about that patience thing okay}

There you have it…more info about Elana and the awesomeness that makes her who she is!

Any questions for her? I bet I could convince her to come by an answer them…

Want to stalk…I mean follow her around the Interwebz?

• Blogs – Personal, Books, Dystopian, QT Tracker
• Website
•  Twitter
• Facebook
• Find out about her E-Book, From the Query to the Call

Whew – no wonder she’s a household name!

Thanks again, Elana, for stopping by.