Nicole Sharp

There were a few obstacles for my June author for my Interview with Indies segment. As that’s been rescheduled, I thought instead, since there  are a lot of new faces here, why not get to know me better?

[If you are new to these interviews you can find more on my website where I have all the amazing authors’ interviews to date.]

I asked the person who knows me pretty damn good, my sister Kathleen, to do the interviewing this month. So get yoruself a cuppa and let’s get to it!

 

Kathleen: Okay, I have my questions.

Nicole: Great.

In her interviews, my sister likes to ‘get the important stuff out of the way first’, which means she asks This or That questions. I decided to make her do them in Italian. (Because she’s always complaining she needs to practice.)

Dolce o salato:

Dolce, sempre dolce. Unless it’s dinner time.

(Sweet or savory.)

Treno o aereo:

Oh, Treno! In viaggio in treno attraverso la campagna toscana…perfezione.

(Train or Plane: Train! To be on a train traveling through the Tuscan countryside…perfection.)

Cantare o suonare:

Cantare, perché ho cantato nei cori e sono stato nel teatro musicale per gran parte della mia vita.

(Singing or Playing (a musical instrument): Singing, because I sang in choirs and was in musical theater most of my life.)

Now we’ll get to the good stuff:

What’s the most unusual place you’ve ever written?

Two places come to mind. The first is a bar. One bar I used to frequent when they had Ladies Night (where women got in free along with one free drink). I was a starving writer and hung out with starving artists. We’d go and listen to The Rebecca Scott Decision and I was always so inspired, I would borrow a pen from the bartender and take a pile of napkins and sit at our darkened table and scribble the night away. (A short story I wrote that was inspired by one of those nights is called Out in Front. It’s free on my website.)

The second place that came to mind is in the back of a car driving through the countryside in the Philippines (the island of Cebu.) I was reading Persuasion by Jane Austen at the time and as that was the only paper I had (along with the idea of a book) I was writing on any blank page I could find, even the edges of the pages. 

 

If you could live in the world of any book for a month, which book would you choose and why?

Any book?!?! Kate, this is an awful question! 

There are so many; too many to choose from. What comes to mind first isn’t a book, but parameters. I don’t want to live in a historical fiction book. I think I need a book where good hygiene is available. Like running water and a toilet. As well as coffee. But it’d only be for a month. Hmmm. Okay, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy comes to mind. I like the idea of a fun, ridiculous adventure and space. I think I’d love that. Oh, you know what? A Moveable Feast, to be able to sit with Hemingway and the Fitzgeralds and Piccaso, Ezra Pound, James Joyce and to be in Paris during that time! (And there would be ample, proper coffee to be had.) I think that would be pretty amazing.

 

What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever researched for a book?

There is so much ridiculousness I’ve researched. But the top of the memory that comes to mind is how to drag a body. In a book I was trying to figure out how my character could drag this body into a house, and I even had my roommate at the time lie on the floor so I could figure out how the hell it would happen. When I couldn’t really move her myself, I ended up adding snow to the scene and a sled. Because fiction writers have the world at our disposal. 

 

What’s your go-to excuse for procrastinating on writing?

 The house needs to be cleaned.

 

For the characters who are sometimes based on people you know – do they ever figure it out?

I don’t know, have you figured it out Kate? Of course I pull from my family and their characteristics a lot and they see what I’ve done. I have a few friends who might know that I use one or two of their quirks. There are a few little dashes of people’s characteristics, but often they are slight and so intermingled with something else from my brain, it isn’t ever going to be obvious. And before folks think I’m being mean, what I use is language mostly. I have one friend from college that elongates the way he greets me, “Hey Honnnney.” I used that. Another is a girl I worked with who pushed her glasses on her head and then scrunch her nose. I liked it. 

 

What is your mascot?

Moose. Forever and always.

 

If your characters had Instagram accounts, whose posts would get the most likes and why?

First thought: Barbara Dodd. She has no filter, wouldn’t care about who she offends and people would think she’s entertaining as hell. 

 

If you were stranded on a desert island with one of your characters, who would you choose and why?

Ohhhh, this is a great question and I’m going to steal it and use it for every future interview. I think…Benji. From Simply Protocol. He’s even keel, he’d be a calming force in a stressful situation and he’d have a plan. (Wait, is this stranded a good thing or a bad thing? I’m thinking this is a problem that we’re stranded. So I want a take charge kind of guy.) Of course the fact that he’s sexy wouldn’t hurt those lonely island nights, am I right or am I right?

 

Would you rather have a typo in the first line of your book or the last line?

First of all, you know Ariane (my editor) is having a panic attack just because you are asking this question. But if I had to choose, I would say the last line. At that point, if my reader has been with me the entire book, I think they can forgive me at that point. I hope.

 

Would you rather have your book be required reading in schools or banned in all schools?

I’m iconoclastic, I don’t like to do what everyone else is doing, so I think I’d like my book to be banned. I’d wear it as a badge of honor. Besides, it’s (sadly) very good company in the banned book realm these days.

 

If Big Trouble in Little Italy had a theme song, what would it be?

This is really hard. I need something lovely and haunting and adventurous; with elements of ridiculous and funny. Can you plug those elements into spotify and get an answer? (Side note: You kinda can and there is a playlist on Spotify called Italian Mafia Music. So …) The song that keeps coming to mind is Mambo Italiano by Rosemary Clooney because if I made a montage of images of Big Trouble that song would fit the best.

Thank you to my sister for the interview questions! This was fun to do. A lot of interesting things to think about!