The Sea of Tranquility GIVEAWAY & INTERVIEW with Katja Millay

KATJA MILLAY

I grew up in Florida where I spent my time hiding from the sun. Then I moved to NYC where I attended film school at NYU and spent my time hiding from the rats. I was a high school film production/screenwriting teacher in a former life and now I sit at my kitchen table writing stories and ignoring the frightening mountain of laundry threatening to overtake my home. The Sea of Tranquility is my first novel.

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“My name is Nastya Kashnikov.
I was a piano-playing prodigy…
I was murdered two and a half years ago.
Discuss.” 

Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone learning about her past and to make the boy who took everything from her—her identity, her spirit, her will to live—pay.

Josh Bennett’s story is no secret: every person he loves has been taken from his life until, at seventeen years old, there is no one left. Now all he wants is be left alone and people allow it because when your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, the mysterious new girl at school who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. But the more he gets to know her, the more of an enigma she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding—or if he even wants to.

The Sea of Tranquility is a rich, intense, and brilliantly imagined story about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.

My spoiler-free review of THE SEA OF TRANQUILITY
(5 PLUS stars!)

The Sea of Tranquility is a beautifully written, deep, heart-wrenching drama about two damaged teens surviving unchangeable tragedies, and devastating grief, hurt, and pain, learning to cope with them, accept them, and somehow finding healing, safety and finally happiness and love in each other along the way.

Its quiet and slow building but it just felt SO real and believable. Without my even realizing it, this book had me worked up to the point where my heart was pounding and felt like it was being being ripped out. The emotional punch took a while to build, but when it hit, it was huge and powerful and took my breath away with its intensity.

Here are some of our readers’ questions answered by Katja.

Aestas  ~  Thank you so much for agreeing to do this Q&A. Your story was so beautiful and seamless! The kind that stays with you long after finishing it. What is your writing process? Do you write every day? Do you start with an outline? Do you start at the beginning and work your way through to the end or write in segments?

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Katja  ~   My process is to not have a process! I’m not sure how to even describe it. It’s pure madness. I don’t recommend it to anyone. lol The majority of the book was written out of order, by hand, in notebooks and on random scraps of paper whenever and wherever I could find them. In the beginning it was pictures in my head, random pieces of dialogue, half-scenes. Then I’d start developing the pieces and fleshing them out. At one point I did try to sit down and outline it but it was a joke and I finally just accepted that it was going to come out however it wanted to come out and it wouldn’t let me force it.

After a few months and a mountain of paper, I had to sit down at the computer and start putting it in sequence and smoothing over the transitions and making it flow. That was the most painful part, because nothing was in order. That was the point when I almost quit. The paper and the notes were daunting and to have to sort through it all was unfathomable but at that point I was invested in the characters and I really wanted to see it through. I couldn’t say that I wrote for any specific period of time each day. Some days I’d struggle to write for thirty minutes and I’d finally realize it just wasn’t going to happen. Other days I’d write literally 14 hours straight. There really wasn’t any method to any aspect of it at all.

The sad part is that after I survived TSoT, I swore I would never do it like this again – that if I ever wrote anything else, I would sit down at the computer and type it, in order, like a sane person. Unfortunately, I’m already finding myself drowning in a mass of paper, with nothing in any semblance of order and not one word in a computer. Apparently my brain won’t work without a pen in my hand. Or I just hate myself which is also a distinct possibility.

Trinity  ~  What was the first scene you wrote?

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Katja ~   The first scene I wrote was the flashback of Nastya’s attack.  Once I had the picture in my head of this girl and her hand and what had happened to her, I couldn’t let it go.  Even though that scene didn’t come in until much later in the story, I had to know what had happened to her and what was in her head from the beginning; the event that was the catalyst for everything else.  The scene itself evolved somewhat after I had initially written it but the essence of it was the same and the weight of what occurred there underscored so much of what happened throughout the book.

        Kami B  ~  What was the hardest part of writing your book?

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Katja  ~   The hardest part was deciding how much information to give readers and when to give it to them.  Since the details of what had happened in the past are trickled out slowly, I had to balance how much to reveal as the story unfolded and that was the trickiest thing.  It was also difficult knowing that I had to make Nastya’s character abrasive and borderline unlikable and unrelatable throughout the entire beginning of the book even when I knew what was under that façade.  It was necessary though because she didn’t like herself and she didn’t want to be liked so I had to be true to her character and let her slowly evolve and reveal herself over the course of the book.

       Julie N  ~  Will Drew ever get his own story?

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Katja  ~  I’ve been asked this one a lot, which makes me really happy because I love that readers want more Drew.  I haven’t ruled out the possibility of Drew getting a book.  However, it’s very important to me that his character and the story itself be strong enough to carry an entire book, so I won’t make that decision until I know all of the pieces are there.  That said, I have an affinity for Drew and I do love the idea of revisiting him at some point.

Tracy D  ~  What are you working on right now? 

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Katja  ~  I haven’t made any announcements as to the story I’m working on yet.  I need to make sure that I am handling the material appropriately and that I can give it the respect and treatment it deserves before I reveal it.  That said, knowing me, I probably won’t say anything until it’s done because I won’t believe I have it until the whole thing is down on paper.

Angie L  ~  Did you know how the story was going to end from the beginning?

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Katja  ~     The ending that’s there was in my head throughout writing the book, which was absolutely necessary because it was very important to me that the foreshadowing be there along the way and that it didn’t just come out of nowhere.  However I didn’t know the entire time that I was going to specifically end it at that particular moment.  I made that decision when I was about halfway there.

Abby M  ~  This novel is so flawless, how long did it take you to write it?

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Katja  ~  Thank you so much Abby.  That is a HUGE compliment.  It took me about seven months from conception to publishing.

Jessica – I heard this is your first novel! What inspired you to start writing? 

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Katja  ~  As a teenager I wanted to write for film and television and that’s what I went to school to do.  I detoured for a while as a television producer and film studies & screenwriting teacher but writing was always in the back of my mind waiting for me to come back to it while I made a lot of excuses not to.  Finally, I was going through a particularly difficult time in my personal life and needed to get out of my own head for a while so I jumped into someone else’s.  My father was dying and he had been telling me for years that I should write and I had been telling him for years that I couldn’t.  But when your father is dying and tells you to write, you write.  He passed away in the spring before I even told him I was doing it, but I like to think he knows. 

Danielle  ~  Do you have any particular actors in mind who you could see playing Josh and Nastya in a movie of TSoT?

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Katja  ~    I am absolutely terrible at casting.  TERRIBLE, I say!  I don’t think I’ll ever find a perfect Josh.   I lived with such a specific picture of him in my head for several months that no one seems to fit just right for me.  There’s a Pinterest board that one of the readers (Trinity!) started for the book so if you have anyone in mind, please post the pictures.  We may find him yet!  As for Nastya, several readers have suggested Lucy Hale and I think she’s an amazing choice.  It has to be someone who can pull off the don’t eff with me attitude and retain a very distinct vulnerability at the same time.

Clista S ~ By far, one of the best stories out there!

Paula ~ I clearly love you, Katja! Of all of the authors that I have connected with through the social media, you have been the most warm, fan friendly of them all. Your story has changed me. I am a different person for reading your book. I’ve asked you numerous questions about TSoT and you have answered them all. Thank you so much!

Francine R ~ No question. Just a thank you. This story was simply beautiful.

Stephanie L ~ Absolutely breathtaking book!! Definitely my favorite book of the year! Can’t wait to read anything you write in the future 🙂

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Katja  ~  Thank you for all of your questions and comments and for reading TSoT.  I can’t tell you how much it means to me to hear from you all!

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** Note from Aestas: Readers, you have Katja to thank in large part for this 22-22-22 event. She was the first author I originally talked to about this when I was still considering whether or not I should run it and she was so encouraging about it that it gave me the motivation to put together the rest of the event. Thank you, Katja <3

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TOMORROW’S *SIGNED* GIVEAWAY
11:00 AM EST
featuring
A L    J A C K S O N
(author of When We Collide, Take This Regret & Pulled)