Author Answers with Cara Black

Bonjour à l'auteure de cette semaine. Elle s'appelle Cara Black et elle a écrit les mystèries d'Aimee Leduc. (Translation: Hello to this week's author. Her name is Cara Black and she has written the Aimee Leduc mysteries.)

Black is the author of books 6 books about Parisienne detective Aimee Leduc -- Murder in the Marais, Murder in Belleville, Murder in the Sentier, Murder in the Bastille, Murder in Clichy and the newest, Murder in Montmartre.

Black has a website which included excerpts from her books, links to other blogs about Paris and photos that Black took herself in Paris.

1. Place you do most of your writing:
At home on our old Mac with photos I've taken of Paris and post-it notes about plot all over the walls.
2. While you write, do you do anything else (munch on carrots or drink tea or listen to heavy metal, for example?)
I drink way too much coffee, chew Nicorette gum and play a French mix of lounge-like ambient music that I bought on the street in Paris.
3. Why did you decide to be a writer?
I don't know that I decided to be a writer. But I wanted to tell the story of my friends mother who was a hidden Jewish child during the German Occupation of Paris in WW2 and not comfortable attempting to write historical fiction, I came up with a contemporary half-Parisienne computer security detective who would be pulled into discovering an old crime and how it related to the present day government in France. I never intended to write a series of now 6 books set in different arrondissements of Paris.
4. What author(s) inspire you?
There are so many; Marguerite Duras, Romain Gary, Baroness PD James,Georges Simenon and Dr. Seuss to name a few.
5. How long did you have to work on writing before your first book was accepted for publication?
Three and a half years of writing and re-writing. I'm still in a writer's critique group too.
6. From your list of appearances posted on your website, it looks like you keep a full schedule, including bouncing back and forth from New York to Paris. How do organize your life so you have time for writing?
Good question and since I'm on my last day of booktour, I only know that I have to get back to work and WRITE! I do get fired up and inspired when I research in Paris and find invaluable info and a corner I never knew existed so hitting the cobblestones is research really.
But usually I get up at 5 a.m. and write everyday.
7. How much research do you have to do for one of the Aimee Leduc mysteries?
Quite a bit and that's the best part. It means I get to research on the street, in cafes, and in libraries in Paris as well as interview flics/cops, detectives and even sewer workers.
Of course, at home I use my public library and haunt used bookstores.
8. If you had to actually live the life of one of the characters in your book(s) who would you want to be and why?
I'd like to be Aimee because she's taller and thinner than I am and I covet her apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis.