30 Second Interview with….L.J. Smith
November 23, 2011 by Donna Newton
James Lipton and the Actors Studio did it for fun with the actors…..Now, I’m doing it for fun with the writers.
Mention the names Stefan and Damon Salvatore, and teenage girls (along with most middle-aged woman), will squeal in delight. But who’d have thought these two dreamy vampires were the creation of a kindergarten teacher.
Lisa Jane Smith, or L.J. Smith as she is known worldwide has had an amazing, if not strange route into writing.
While attending high school, L.J. wrote The Night of the Solstice, and in 1987, she passed the handwritten novel, which filled seven lined note books, to a first time agent who typed the scribbles into manuscript form and sold it to MacMillan.
Although it received good reviews, sales were poor. And in 1990, second book Heart of Valour was released.
The following year,
HarperPaperbacks released a novel, which would go on to become one of the 21st Century’s biggest paranormal hits. Four volumes of
The Vampire Diaries hit bookshelves in 1991
: The Awakening, The Struggle, The Fury, with
Dark Reunion released a year later in 1992. Immediately, the Salvatore brothers were instant hits
.
L.J. Smith followed this success with The Secret Circle triology, and Nine volumes of the ever popular NightWorld Series.
But in 2005, another vampire inspired novel hit bookshelves across the world, and within weeks of it’s release, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight was number #5 on the NYT Bestsellers list.
Over the years, the success of Twilight has been clouded by much controversy, and it’s uncanny resemblence to The Vampire Diaries has fans asking ‘Did Meyer steal the story?’ L.J. Smith declines to comment.
In 2009, following
Twilight’s 2008 box office success,
The CW network released
The Vampire Diaries onto the TV screen. The pilot attacted the largest audience of any series premiere since the network began in 2006.
The 2011 TV adaption of
The Secret Circle was an instant hit with fans, clearly making L.J. Smith a force to be reckoned with within the world of writing.
So, for a lady who refuses to even divulge her age, what would we find out about her in 30 Seconds?
1. What is your favorite word? Sisterhood
2. What is your least favorite word? Slut
3. What turns you on? Starlight
4. What turns you off? Clowns
5. What sound do you love? Zhay
6. What sound do you hate? Ach
7. What is your favorite curse word? Spit
8. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt? Physicist
9. What profession would you not like to do? Plumber
10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? “Welcome Wanderer.”
Contact Information
For information regarding L.J. Smiths books and publishing company please visit the website: http://www.ljanesmith.net/www/
Blog: http://www.ljanesmith.net/www/blog
You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin
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Donna Collins' Blog 
I’ve heard a lot about the Vampire Diaries but if you can imagine, I’ve never read them. I’ll definitely be placing an order soon. Sounds right up my alley. Fab post – love the quick look at the author.
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Natalie, the books are aimed more at the teenage market and are different to the TV show. I was really suprised to find Lisa had no involvement in the TV storyline. Let me know what you think of the books.
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Other books worth noting by Lisa are THe Forbidden Game and Dark Visions. The shows are very loosely based on the books; the books are much better.
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I’ve read the Vampire Diary series and they are very loosely based on the TV show. I’ll try the other two you suggest. I have a massive ‘to be read’ pile – I am a very slow reader 🙂
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No, the TV series is based on the first four novels. The novels after that Lisa wrote, I don’t know how much the TV series influenced, but the first four were published almost two decades before the TV show hit the air.
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Hi Donna/Lisa
Plumber! love it. I think I’d hate to be a plumber as well. Getting water down a pipe shouldn’t be so difficult, but it is (that wasn’t meant to be funny, even though I know you’re going to write a sarky comment!).
Lisa sounds very interesting. I haven’t read the Vampire Diaries, but I know I’m going to – I read book along with my daughter and I know they’re in my future just like the HP book were! Now I can drop in that Lisa’s favourite word 🙂
Cheers!
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Nigel, what makes you think I would use the opportunity to make fun of your pipes? 🙂
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Hi
I have been a lisa fan for 17 yrs, her books are the Stars of their field.
Yes Vampire Diaries & Secret Circle are great series but my favourite are NIGHTWORLD & FORBIDDEN GAME.
Read them and you will never forget them…
Hope you all enjoy and unlike other author’s, her works will not sound familiar.
One of the series’s has the most unusual ending for a trilogy and a love one at that but in the grand plan of thing’s, justified.
But I am happy their is going to be a sequel, so no more, what if’s for me…
lol xx
this is the biggest treat you can give yourself, The treat of pure, bliss.
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Hello Sofia,
Thanks for stopping by and letting us know your thoughts on Lisa. I, too, am going to read the Nightworld series. I’ll let you know what I think of them 🙂
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I’ve been a fan of Lisa’s novels since I was fifteen and read the first book in the Forbidden Game trilogy. I re-read FG, VD, and NW recently and was extremely pleased to discover the Suck Fairy (who visits books you read when you were younger and infuses them with suck, so that when you read them when you’re older, your reaction is, “This sucks! Why did I ever like it?”) had passed them over. I noticed more than a few similarities between VD and Twilight when I was rereading VD and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Smeyer had ripped off Lisa. If she did plagiarize, she based Bella on Katherine, not Elena. We need more YA fiction like Lisa’s, with strong female main characters who grow and develop and that treat unhealthy relationships and bad news boyfriends as exactly that: unhealthy and bad news.
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Hey Cheryl,
The Suck Fairy. Absolutely love it!
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hi Donna,
thanks for the interview! l.j smith is a great writer! i`ve read the tvd books,the night world ones,the forbidden game(if you love damon ,you`ll love julian) and i`m reading the secret circle now.
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I began watching The Secret Circle, for other ‘work related’ reasons. I didn’t like the show. I’d like to read the books to see how much the show ripped them apart 🙂
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The secret circle books are brilliant, I first read them when I was a teenager, and have re-read them a lot over the years. It’s a shame that a lot of the characters form the books didn’t make it into the series.
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I have no doubt the books are way better than the show. I find that unless the original writer is involved with the adapting, they loose their ‘sparkle’.
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[…] to think Stephenie Meyers Twilight saga, or L.J. Smith’s (you can see her 30 second interview here), Vampire Diaries. All involving teenagers doing way much more than I did when I was their age. I […]
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Hi donna
This is ur blog right?
Ur writing is amazing craftmanship.
Im sorry if 2 of my sentences dont make sense but i type fast when im excited!
Anyway the suprise, ground breaking series, i was talking about with a huge twist ending was Forbidden Games.
And i am a veteran fan, so my pc lingo aka short words spellinf is flawed.
When i wrote lol, i was saying lots of love – only found aout a while ago by l..smith forum members, it means laugh out loud.
I bet alot of people r LMFAO now!
Is that right?
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LOL, yes, this is my blog and hello again!
It took me ages to work out what LOL meant, too. I still don’t know what half of the abbreviations mean. I’m way too old to be ‘with it’, 🙂
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