…and I wrote a bio last year that I still like, so here it is.
Honestly, this is my favorite Twitter-based writing opportunity, and if you can, you should support its efforts. I am. Not just for the extra submission slots, although that’s a sweet perk. It’s just so danged nice. Positive. Helpful. Friendly.
Meanwhile, I’m hanging out & being reliable with the ladies. I’m the one on the right.
It’s been a long time since I was tagged for a writer Q&A. This one comes courtesy of my writing friend Jessica (@thatfatauthor on Twitter and tumblr) – go check out her blog. She also has a weekly podcast on the writing life on Soundcloud.
I’ll wait so you can check it out.
Good! Thanks, Jessica. Now, onto the questions and answers.
Do you have any strange writing habits (like writing in the shower or having to eat the same thing every time you write)?
I think of good ideas in the shower, but don’t really write there. My biggest writing quirk is having to make sure the kitchen is cleaned up and tidy before I start to write. Otherwise I’m back and forth doing that before I can focus on writing.
If you had a superpower, what would it be and why?
This is one of my favorite questions! Thanks to the magic of the internet, I know people all over the world. Right now I’d love to have the ability to teleport, so I could bop around the planet visiting my friends.
That’s the selfish answer. What I should really say is the ability to help create world peace.
If you could have any accent from anywhere in the world, what would you choose?
Welsh. Then my accent would match my name.
Where is one place you want to visit that you haven’t been before?
Just one? I want to go everywhere. I guess if I have to narrow it down, I’ll say Paris. At midnight. In the rain.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve Googled for a book?
The one most likely to get me on some sort of watch list is weapons schematics. My favorite is the detailed analysis of Jupiter’s moons.
If you could only choose one, would you go back to the past or go to the future in your lifetime?
My first reaction was oh, I’m never one to look back. I guess the real question is whether I’d choose to relive part of my past or just visit it. Yes, there are things I would do differently, but I don’t really have any regrets. If it was just a question of visiting, I’d visit the future. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to shift permanently to either but I guess if I had to pick, I’d go back. There are always ways to improve on what I did (or to make different and hopefully smarter choices).
What is the closest thing to you on the left side of your keyboard?
My phone.
What punctuation mark best describes your personality and why?
To find out, I took this quiz (sorry if that’s cheating). Apparently I’m a dash. It says: You are always full of new ideas and fun thoughts. Inventive and resourceful, you know how to keep yourself and those around you entertained.
I’ll go with that!
If you could be a character in any story you’ve ever written, who would you be and why?
This is a really tough question! Most of the characters I write are full of both flaws and secrets, so it’s hard to pick just one out of that wonderful bunch. I think, though, that I would either be Charlie, the shape-shifting dragon woman from The Case of the Bloodstone Dragon because she’s so damn enigmatic and surprising… or Jesse from my as-yet-unpublished rock & roll romance, because she gets to live the dream… although not in ways you might expect.
What is your best scar? Tell the story of how you got it.
I’m going with surgical-scars-don’t-count because their stories are rarely exciting. Instead, I’ll go with the nice thick crescent moon scar on my left leg, which I got from actually slamming a car door into my leg back when the corners of doors were sharp little affairs. I didn’t even notice at the time, until I looked down and saw my calf and shin bathed in blood. It’s one of those wounds I probably should have had stitched up but never did.
It either happened that way, or I got it from the blade of a katana that time I was being chased by samurai back in Edo-era Japan, and I brought it with me when I was reincarnated. Take your pick.
This concludes the Q&A portion of the night’s entertainment! Thank you, Jessica!
Tag, You’re It:
@ep_birdsall
@kadiebleu
@stormowl7
@Blondewritemore
@jennyleeSD
@sharischwarz
@EveMessenger
…and anyone else who’d like to play along.
The Rules:
1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and link to their blog and Twitter in your post.
2. Answer the questions that the blogger who nominated you has provided.
3. Nominate up to 10 other bloggers or Twitter followers
4. Create ten questions for your nominees and notify them of their nominations.
My questions for you:
1. It’s the old stranded on a desert island question! Which three books do you take with you?
2. Which author or authors would you cite as your inspiration?
3. What are some of your other creative pursuits beyond writing?
4. Tell me about the last TV show you binge-watched. What did you think?
5. How did you get your start in writing?
6. Do you remember the first story you wrote? Can you recap it?
7. Fast-forward 60 years into the future. What does society look like to you? (This is a big question, so feel free to narrow it down as you like.)
8. What’s your go-to guilty-pleasure genre to read?
9. Do you consider yourself to be an extrovert or an introvert?
10. What’s the one piece of advice you’d like to give to aspiring writers?
Thank you for reading and for playing along. Write well, write often, and have fun!
When my son was in third grade, one assignment was tell us about your mother. I didn’t know anything about it until I saw the school hallway decorated with a lot of lovely paeans to motherhood. I found mine — a mohawked stick figure dancing to music — with this caption:
my mom was a punk rocker
I was so proud! I still am.
Just as I claim on twitter, I’ve got an endless soundtrack in my brain. I’ve been around music my whole life, either as a musician or working with musicians or listening to music. I spent years as a crew member with all sorts of bands, doing everything from setup and tear-down to front of house and backstage security to running sound and light boards to managing the stage crew.
That it took me so long to write about a world I know well isn’t surprising. I’m a private person and never like to take credit for things I feel belong to other people. Road crews are invisible by design. They’re not supposed to take the spotlight away from the people on stage and for the most part, they don’t. That doesn’t mean crew members don’t have lives every bit as compelling as the people they support. That’s the side I’ve chosen to explore in my book.
Aside from road crew duties, I’ve worn a lot of hats. I’ve been an office drone, a QA engineer and manager, a technical writer, a technical & copy editor, an artist, a massage therapist, an author, and a pretty good critique partner. All of that pales in comparison to parenting my now 20-year-old, who proudly proclaimed in elementary school that his mom was a punk rocker.
I’m still all about the music. I’m hoping to work with someone who loves it as much as I do! I love concrit, feedback, revising, rewriting, and Oxford commas. I’m under no illusion that my work is the best it can be yet…which is why I’m looking for your help.
A few random notes:
A huge thank you to Chris Keelty for running the PitchWars Blog Hop (2015) and Lana Pattinson for the 2016 version!
I only watched part of the Grammy Awards last night, but it doesn’t matter! Today I got this lovely blog award from the kind and generous Anne Tedeton. Anne and I met on Twitter as cohorts in #AgentMatch, and I’m so glad we did. (Congratulations, Anne, I’ve been avoiding these things successfully for years, but I cave now!)
Here are the rules of the game:
Anne’s questions:
1. What band has influenced your writing most?
Just one? I’m an old rock & roll girl from way back, when I used to have ties to the industry. I wrote my first (not very good) novel to a soundtrack of R.E.M., but I’m not sure they’ve had the biggest influence on my writing. I spent most of my adult life (so far!) in the Pacific northwest, so I’m tempted to claim Nirvana because Kurt Cobain wrote most of his lyrics at the last minute. That’s not the right fit either. I guess I’m going to go with my first inclination, Bob Dylan. He’s not a band all by himself, but he’s the one who taught me that stories can be told well in any medium. All we need is the heart to tell them.
2. Do you use symbols in your work?
Symbols… not so much. Symbolism? A bit. I was an English Literature major and never met a James Joyce story I couldn’t read for the symbolism. Some of that stuck with me. I try to be a little less oblique about it, and only use that kind of thing if my protagonist is the type of person who’d be aware of them. I hope this answers your question, Anne.
3. Are you a plotter or a pantser?
I’m in love with flying by the seat of my pants. Any time I think I know where a story’s going to go, it takes a left turn anyway. That doesn’t mean I don’t have some sort of plot in mind, though. I usually either know where the story will end (or think I do), or something very important about my characters that I need to explore and let progress. It’s my strong preference that the characters lead the way. Organic writing is a lot more fun for me than forced, although the pieces I’ve sold have all been plotted. Maybe I ought to learn from that!
4. If you could meet your worst villain, what would you do?
Probably buy them a drink and make them talk to me. I like finding out what makes people tick.
5. What’s your favorite genre to write in?
Ugh, I always get sidelined by a tendency to write upmarket or literary fiction. I can’t write to a formula to save my life; they seem so stale and contrived. No wonder I had such a hard time describing my genre at first! Literary’s a hard sell, I know. This year for NaNoWriMo I sat down with the absolute intention of writing something marketable. I’m not sure I succeeded – I’m in revisions with it now trying to make it meet a few different sets of expectations.
6. Are you heavier on dialog or description?
That depends on the story, entirely! I have a YA soft sci-fi that’s absolutely filled with description and world-building. I have a contemporary romance that’s absolutely filled with dialog. Help me, Obi-Wan, I can’t answer. I strive for balance between the two.
7. Do filler words drive you nuts?
Ask my critique partners. YES.
8. Tell us about your most memorable character.
I had to ask for help on this one. My first reader says it’s January, a 17-year-old martial artist from the future. She’s pretty kick-ass, not just because she’s great at karate, but because she’s outspoken, can hold her own against both males and females, knows what she wants, has a ton of drive, doesn’t let setbacks stand in her way, and yet has an inner core of kindness that she reveals to those who deserve to see it. Look for her in the next query round, I’m revising her manuscript right now!
9. Do you have a writing ritual?
Yes! Wake up, clean the kitchen, and write. I’m not sure why, but I can’t write if my kitchen is a mess and with two young adults in the house, it’s always a mess.
10. Which is more important: style, or accessibility?
Yes. Both, but I have to go with accessibility. We can argue things like JK Rowling’s liberal use of adverbs all we want, but if her writing wasn’t beautiful and wide-open and easy to digest, no one would care about an Expelliarmus spell or whether or not Harry deserved to defeat the Hungarian Horntail. I can say similar things about my favorite YA writer, Diana Wynne Jones: her writing is so accessible that the style — which is also quite beautiful — disappears into the background.
11. What’s a genre you’d love to explore in the future?
All of them. As I mentioned earlier, I have trouble conforming to any genre’s formula. I’m intrigued by fantasy, but don’t have the patience to write it. Maybe I ought to work on that!
11 Random Facts about me:
With regards to that last random fact, I have to say I believe rules were made to be at least bent, if not outright ignored. I’m only tagging 3 people, but if you’re not @jules1278, @LianaMir1, or @lil_lobass and would like to spread the wealth around, here are 11 questions for you:
1. What motivates you, deep down in your heart?
2. What are your three favorite books, and why?
3. If money was no object and you could live anywhere in the world, where would you pick?
4. Tea or coffee?
5. What’s your go-to soundtrack when you write?
6. You’re finally on the shuttle to Mars, but only get to watch one movie over and over until you get there. Which one do you want as your travel companion?
7. How many languages do you speak? What are they?
8. Fill in the blank: In my perfect world, .
9. What’s your sun sign?
10. Do you have a favorite social media platform? What is it and why do you like it?
11. If you have siblings, where do you stand in the pecking order?
As you were. ♥
Since 2003, I’ve had a blog on LiveJournal, which is a fine place to blog. I’ve loved it over there, and will continue to use both that and Dreamwidth for personal blogging (feel free to join in at either location, the more the merrier). You’ll find posts about the things I love, about family, about pets and nature and vacations.
On this blog I intend to talk about writing fiction. I’m not a very process-oriented writer. I don’t get on well with outlines; I like it when things mature organically. I’m very much a method actor (one of my long-time loves) when it comes to writing in that i want to inhabit characters, know what makes them tick, know their backstories, their hopes, their dreams, their desires, their fears. In short, I want to know what kinds of things wake them up in the middle of the night, and which ones keep them awake.
I want to know where you get your ideas. I get mine at odd o’clock: staring at the shelves in bookstores, looking at the sunset, washing dishes. If someone asked me what my writing process was, I’d probably look at them like they had three heads. Then I’d go write about that visual.
I’ve been writing for a long time, but only recently became brave enough to start submitting my work for publication. I had a story accepted, stay tuned for more information on that as soon as it’s legit to talk about!
As far as writing goes, I like to stretch my imagination with my characters. They’ll probably demand their turns blogging here too. Hopefully, you’ll be able to tell who’s who but if not, just ask. I’ll be glad to tell.
Dreaming in Character 