So excited to have the fun and talented Tara Sim on The Ball today! Like us, Tara is a debut, so let’s give her a warm welcome. It won’t be hard after you read the description of her book: In an alternate Victorian world controlled by clock towers, a damaged clock can fracture time—and a destroyed one can stop it completely. The first book in a dazzling new steampunk-fantasy trilogy, TIMEKEEPER introduces a magical world of mythology and innovation that readers will never want to leave.
Sounds amazing right? So let’s keep learning more about Tara Sim and TIMEKEEPER below!
Talk about one book that made an impact on you.
Although several books have left their marks on me, the one that stands out the most is THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I was 12 when I picked up the first book before going on a family vacation, which was right around the time the first movie came out. As a result, I don’t have very many memories of the vacation, but I do have memories of keeping my nose in that book and being unwilling to put it down.
When I got back home I took the sequels out of the library and did nothing else but read for the next few days. After finishing THE RETURN OF THE KING, I proceeded to experience the worst book hangover of my life. No, seriously—even worse than my book hangover after THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. This one lasted a solid month, and I couldn’t read anything else for a long time.
Something about it made me obsessed. The world, the mythology, the cast of characters. Being able to watch the movies as they came out was just the icing on the cake. I’d always loved fantasy—I grew up on Harry Potter and Tamora Pierce—but this was taking it to a whole new level. It made me wonder if I could create things like this, stories with wide, sweeping worlds and compassionate characters you’d want to swear fealty to.
Shortly after, I started writing fantasy novels.
Share something that’s always guaranteed to make you laugh.
This story gets me every single time:
I have a friend who believes her family is cursed with bad luck. Like, really bad luck. One day during fall, she and her sisters realized they had never been to a corn maze before. They got really excited about it and decided to hop in the car to drive an hour to the nearest one.
They found the maze and got out of the car. Just as they were about to cross the street, a tractor came by and ran straight into the corn maze to demolish it. My friend and her sisters stood there and watched the destruction of the maze, got back in the car, and drove back home.
And now I’m laughing all over again.
Have you ever tried writing in a different genre? How did that turn out?
Funnily enough, my debut,TIMEKEEPER, is me writing in a different genre.TIMEKEEPER is my 10th novel; all 9 novels that came before it were high fantasy. I’d never written historical fantasy or steampunk before, so I was a little scared to try. It required a lot (a lot) of research, fact checking, and knowing when or when not to take liberties with accuracy. I guess it turned out all right, since it’s being published soon! High fantasy will always be my first love, though.
Have you ever met someone you idolized? What was it like?
I’m definitely an introvert, so I have no clue how to conduct myself around people I admire. I met Tamora Pierce once, and as she signed my books I just kept blabbing about…something. I can’t remember; I think my mind mercifully deleted it from my cache of memories. Recently I got to meet Victoria Schwab at a signing, and the same thing happened: blabbing about something or other interspersed with awkward periods of silence, then seeing the Rhy character cards she was handing out during her AGOS tour and blurting “my son!” Yeah, I’m really smooth.
Do you have a regular first reader? If so, who is it and why that person?
My first reader tends to be Emily Skrutskie, the author of The Abyss Surrounds Us (which is awesome by the way). Even though we write different genres—she’s a little bit scifi, I’m a little bit rock and ro-I mean, fantasy—I feel like we can be both subjective and fangirly about each other’s works. And it’s fun to speculate what our characters would do if they were thrown together in weird crossovers.
Thanks so much for joining us, Tara!! Both you and your book are fabulous 🙂
Tara Sim is the author of TIMEKEEPER (Sky Pony Press, Nov. 1, 2016) and can typically be found wandering the wilds of the Bay Area, California. When she’s not chasing cats or lurking in bookstores, she writes books about magic, clocks, and explosives.
For more information about Tara and her books, she’s just a click away on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and at www.tarasim.com.
