Interview with Tracy Auerbach
Red compound makes them angry. Yellow exhausts them. Blue drives them into a state of ravenous addiction. This is the reality of the chemically controlled soldiers in Tracy Auerbach’s brand new book The Sin Soldiers released through Parliament House Press. I am super excited to interview her today because she’s my roommate at the upcoming Decatur Book Festival in Georgia this Labor Day Weekend. Make sure you come out to see us August 31st and September 1st.
Synopsis: Red compound makes them angry. Yellow exhausts them. Blue drives them into a state of ravenous addiction. The thief Kai knows about the chemically controlled soldiers of the Eastern forces and their savage, deadly nature. When a robbery attempt at Club Seven goes wrong, Kai is captured by a handler and his bestial soldier-boy. She wakes up inside the military base with no idea what happened to her twin brother, Dex.
Things go from bad to worse when Kai is started on a drug and training regimen, and forced to take injections of blue compound. The scientists in charge plan to make her into a working soldier who will mine the mysterious power crystals beneath the desert. Kai becomes a victim of the bully Finn, a handsome but nasty soldier whose years on red compound seem to have erased his humanity. Still, she begins to pity the Seven Soldiers, including the monstrous boy who tried to rip her to shreds at the club. They appear to be nothing more than genetically enhanced, drug-controlled teenagers.
On the outside, Dex and his tech-savvy boyfriend try to crack the soldiers’ chemical code to find a weakness that will break the system. But Kai has already been drawn deep into her new world. Strong feelings for the soldiers she’s come to know have started to cloud her judgment. Can she escape and find Dex without becoming a monster herself?
What inspired you to write The Sin Soldiers? What is special about it?
The Sin Soldiers
is special because it incorporates a lot of STEM, but in a really dark, twisted
way.
I love thinking
about human nature, and the crazy psychological things that go on with our
weird species every day. I started to think about using these qualities
(addiction, passion, rage) as weapons. What would happen if super soldiers were
created – if a war was fought by players who pressed buttons on people to push
vice and virtue to their limits?
In the beginning, I had this image in my head of a thief running through the sand, being chased by a monster, and then I thought to myself: well, what if the monster caught her, and that’s the beginning instead of the end?
That sounds amazing! What character from your book are you most like? Least like?
I’m for sure the most like Charlie He’s such a hot mess of an
id-monster, and so driven by his flaws, that it’s hard to not relate to him.
I’m always a ‘more, more, more’ person, and never a moderate. Charlie is sort
of the embodiment of that, but he means well. He’s perfectly imperfect – very
human in a world that is often cruel. I relate to a lot of that.
I guess I’m the least like Aric, because he’s the embodiment of logic, and he keeps his agenda separate from emotions. He’s also guilt-free, because he doesn’t take the feelings of others into consideration. That’s just not what drives him.
Tell us about your writing process. What is the journey from draft to published piece?
I have a trilogy (Fragments) and a
standalone novel (Sons of Fire) coming out in the next two years.
The Sin Soldiers, which is the first book
in the Fragments trilogy, and Sons of Fire both existed in previous drafts
before I had a true handle on what the finished products should look like.
Before that, it was the characters and the world just drifting around in my
head.
That’s usually how it goes with me. I’m a ‘pantser’ who becomes a ‘planner’ in the editing rounds. I dream up what’s going to happen next while I’m driving, trying to fall asleep, etc., and then I write it all down the next night when I have some time.
Tell us more about being a pantser.
My stories are
very much character driven. I tend to think up great characters in my head
while I’m daydreaming, and then I put them into a story and figure out how to
use them. I suppose that’s counterintuitive, like picking the cast before the
play, but it’s always how I’ve worked. The funny thing is, once I have my
characters, the story begins to flow very naturally, and they seem very ‘real’
within it. Like magic!
I might steal that strategy. Where do you write?
My writing space is the laundry room in my house, where I’ve set up a desktop computer and chair. There’s also a small bathroom and a filing cabinet. I am frequently interrupted by my dog stealing socks, my family yelling for me, or my kids walking in to use the bathroom.
That’s hilarious! Maybe you can upgrade to an office some day. How often do you write? Do you have another job besides writing?
I write when I can! That’s often between the hours of 10 PM and 11:30 PM. I’m a full-time teacher and mom, with two sons and a dog to take care of. The summers are the best writing time for me because I’m off from work and I get much bigger chunks of time.
We have more in common than I knew – I am also a teacher! I can’t believe you stay up until 11:30. What are you working on now?
Right now I’m working on several different things at once, which gets confusing. I’m promoting The Sin Soldiers as its release day draws close, while trying to complete content edits for the second book in the Fragments trilogy. I’m also beta reading a novel for another author and drafting a new fantasy novel that’s been jumping around in my head. Sometimes it’s difficult to compartmentalize.
Do you have a favorite review of your book? Can you tell us why you like it?
My favorite review of my book wasn’t even one that gave it the most stars! It was just this really cute ramble from someone who felt like reading The Sin Soldiers was like watching a movie, eating a huge bag of popcorn.
Where can fans connect with you?
https://www.facebook.com/tracyauerbach
https://www.instagram.com/auerbach.tracy/?hl=en
https://www.twitter.com/tracyauerbach...
Tracy Auerbach studied
English and film in college, and education in graduate school. Some of her college
poetry was published in the “Penn Review” (The University of Pennsylvania’s
premiere literary magazine). She went on to teach and write S.T.E.M. (science,
technology, engineering and mathematics) curriculum for the New York Department
of Education. This helped to polish her writing skills and ignite her passion
for fantasy science fiction. Her first scholarly article, published in
“Language Magazine,” was about the value of kinesthetic learning for children.
On the fiction side,
Tracy’s work is featured in the online literary journal “Micro-horror,” and
“The Writing Disorder” fiction anthology. Her first novel, “The Human Cure,”
was published in paperback in 2014. “The Sin Soldiers,” the first book in her
YA Sci-fi “Fragments” trilogy, is coming this summer from Parliament House
Press. When she is not teaching or writing, Tracy is usually reading or playing
with her own children. She lives in New York with her husband and two sons.
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