GVR Corcillo

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
To quote visionary writer John Waters, “I’m big, blonde, and beautiful!” Seriously – I am blonde, and I do heft more weight than the average chick, especially more than the average Los Angeles chick. And I like the way I look when I am just being me – comfy clothes, cozy socks, messy hair, no make-up. I want all women everywhere to love themselves and the way they look, no matter what TV, or magazines, or family and friends try to tell us. I want us all to feel beautiful and confident about exactly who we are – then we can do amazing things…like publish a debut novel, which is what I have just done. Though I will admit, hitting the New York Times Bestsellers List with my first short story was an added confidence booster – that I was confident enough to achieve in the first place. See? It is an amazing, fulfilling cycle, this liking yourself stuff.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My book is the romantic comedy She Likes It Tough. It follows the adventures of an urban scaredy-cat who decides that diving into feats of derring-do with an adrenaline junkie is the only way she is ever going to get a backbone. What inspired this topsy-turvy tale? Well, they say write what you know, and I am afraid of everything! (Except public speaking, oddly enough.) So, I wrote a book of pure fantasy fulfillment on my part: a shrinking violet takes the bull by the horns and COMMITS to conquering her fears. But my hero Lisa, like all of us, is not perfect, so she doesn’t exactly soar through with flying colors. She stumbles, she trips, she makes mistakes – something else I am very familiar with! Lisa is trying to shake up her old life completely, so I wrote a book from the fun and liberating perspective a main character who does not feel “hemmed in” by rules of “proper” behavior – and that’s what generates most of the book’s comedy.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Not really, but then, I’m a writer, so many of my working habits look strange to a lot of people. Writing is such hard, never-ending work, but I think many people who aren’t writers don’t see writing as work because of the working habits of writers – I’ll admit it – a lot of us look weird as we write! For instance, we often write in our pajamas, sometimes not having showered for days because we are under deadline, working through maniacal inspiration, or feeling frustrated and obsessive as nothing seems to be working. We’ll jot things on pieces of mail and the backs of receipts or wherever we can when an idea hits us. We will find it difficult to focus on the most mundane tasks until we can work out the ending to chapter 7. We’ll call someone just to say hi at 4 am, having no idea of the time or even of the day, depending how the writing has been going. So, maybe saying “strange writing habits” is a bit like saying “wet rain.”

What authors, or books have influenced you?
A few years ago, I struggled to write in my own voice. Could I be this wacky, this over the edge, this sincere? Could I mix it all together successfully and would anyone like it? I was sharing my concerns with my good friend Bruce and knowing something of my angst and what I liked to read, he said, “You should check out my brother’s books.” I started reading Almost Like Being In Love by Steve Kluger that day. And…Hallelujah! I could hear the angels singing! I found an amazing author who writes novels filled with love and zany antics and improbable but believable situations. He delivers a hell of a satisfying, toe-curling, tummy-tingling, feel-good kind of read that makes you laugh out loud really hard, tear up, cringe, cheer the characters on, and pull out your hair as you yell, “Noooooo! He’s the one for you, you idiot!!!” His novel My Most Excellent Year is hands-down one of the best books I have ever read. Steve Kluger is my favorite and most inspirational author because every one of his books entertains me and touches my soul. And because when I was a fledgling writer, reading his work showed me beyond a reasonable or incredibly irrational doubt that writing to the beat of my own drummer, no matter how strange the rhythm, is the best thing I could ever do.

What are you working on now?
I am currently writing my next chick lit novel Queen of the Universe due out December 2014. When a control-freak TV writer gets the chance to run her own show and has to hire her handyman as her leading man to avoid getting cancelled, she discovers that real live people aren’t as easy to manipulate as the characters she creates. In this book, the hero Lola Scott has a trajectory opposite to Lisa Flyte’s from She Likes It Tough. Whereas Lisa has to find out who she is and learn to feel good in her own skin, Lola has to learn to loosen up and to deviate from her strict definition of who she is and what she thinks she wants.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
So far…Awesome Gang Newsletter! No joke – you guys are the bomb. Like so many indie authors out there, every day is a struggle to promote my work so that readers who might like it simply know it exists. My 100+ reader and editorial reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, so I know that readers who like romantic comedy, a fast-paced read, a satisfying ending, something a little off the wall, might well be interested in my work – the trick is finding the readers. And Awesome Gang is…well, awesome at that. Actually, now that I think about it, my book generated the most sales in the month after its five free days on KDP Select. But let’s see if the Awesome Gang can help me beat that record!

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Watch the movie Julie & Julia. Before I published, my friend Len sent me the movie Julie & Julia and he told me that as a writer, I HAD to see it. What an inspiration! This movie tells the story of two women with writing aspirations who DON’T GIVE UP. After DECADES of effort, Julia Child finally published the book that would become legendary, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And Julie Powell – well, she used to lead a life similar to mine- she had all these hopes and dreams about writing – and then she finally decided to do something about it! She stuck to her goals, didn’t quit, and eventually wrote the phenomenally successful Julie & Julia. These two women show us all what we can accomplish if we stick to our guns.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I’m not even a USC fan, but living in L.A., I see this written on billboards all the time, and it fills me with such joy, hope, and terror – “No matter what, fight on.”

Now I am going to offer some advice of my own if I may: Always credit the writer. Not just the actor who said the line, or the movie or song the line is from – but the writer. Always credit the writer.

What are you reading now?
After Wimbledon by Jennifer Gilby Roberts. My book She Likes It Tough has just been selected to be in an Amazon KDP box set of summer reading with After Wimbledon by Jennifer Gilby Roberts and Mr. Right and Other Mongrels by Monique McDonell. As soon as I found out, I started reading After Wimbledon. I am loving it – the writer’s quirky voice, the way the story trips along without ever letting up – I am thrilled to be in a box set with it!

What’s next for you as a writer?
More writing, more promoting, more readers, more books. More more more of what I love love love.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
First of all, who is planning to strand me and giving me a heads up? What a terrible super villain! Such a miscreant would never make it into the Evil League of Evil. So I will take advantage of this serious lack of knavery and pack the following books:

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Hits on all points. Everything pays off. Speare lets the story unfold, telling the reader nothing, but showing the reader everything. When I put this book down, the story keeps unspooling in my head as my imagination surges forth with the lives and stories of these vividly real characters – I don’t want to let them go.

Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stewart
Hands down, my favorite romance. Who the unexpected hero turns out to be, how he reveals himself and his love, and how the story progresses from there are so utterly delightful and spine-tingling that I need to indulge in this book every few years.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck
This is an excerpt from John Steinbeck’s dedication to Pat at the beginning of East of Eden: “Well, here’s your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts. And still the box is not full.” I think this means we are all infinite in our capacity for good and bad, sorrow and joy. And when I read East of Eden, I feel that infinity, all those unanswerable questions. And Steinbeck also makes me feel that all that uncertainty is okay.

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?(The Boomerang Clue, American Title) by Agatha Christie
It’s British mystery at its best, but what really makes me pick this one up again and again is the burgeoning relationship between Lady Frankie and Bobby. The world puts them on opposite sides of the tracks, but their pluck and incandescent affection assures that they’ll do their bloody best to keep one another alive.

Thanks, Awesome Gang! This interview has been the bees knees!

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