Get to Know the Writer Tag
Rules (always post the rules): answer the questions given to you, write ten questions of your own, tag ten people.
@rosecorcoranwritessaid anyone who wants to do it can, and it looked interesting.
1.) Where did the title(s) of your latest project(s) come from?
The titles for The Accidental Turn Series were sort of decided by a committee of my agent, my editor, my publisher and me. I’m rubbish at naming books, so through a series of emails a list of about a hundred throw-them-out-there titles were whittled down (mostly by Googling them and seeing if any other book had that title already) to a few themes. From there we narrowed down and named the first book (The Untold Tale, where I had been calling it That Feminist Meta Thingy), and then the other two books dominoed into place after that (The Forgotten Tale, and The Silenced Tale.)
These titles are because in book #1, the fantasy is being told from a side character who in fantasy-novel tropes is often overlooked. In book #2, other fantasy stories start vanishing, forgotten by the readers, and in book #3,someone is trying to silence the writer of these fantasy books forever.
City By Night, one of my novellas, is also being reissued next month. Its original title was The Dark Side f the Glass, which was both an allusion to Alice Through The Looking Glass, as it’s about a woman who falls into a TV instead of through a mirror, and a tip of the head to the song of the same title from the soundtrack of one of the television shows the novella satirizes, Forever Knight. However, my agent thought the reference was too obscure, and after another big round of back-and-forth, it was decided to name the novella after the fake-TV show I made up for the story.
The titles of the to books in The Skylark’s Saga (#1 The Skylark’s Song, and #2, The Skylark’s Sacrifice) are because I do love alliteration when I can get away with it! These are the only titles of the recent projects that I decided on my own and the rest of my team liked! Score!
2.) Do you have any rhyme or reason behind your character names?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For the Accidental Turn Series fantasy books, I stole a lot of street names or snipped letters out of traditionally “European” names, like Kintyre, Forsyth, and Bevel to make them look suitably fantasy-esque on the page. But when the characters come to the “real world” I made a point of surrounding them with characters who had distinctly non-white, no-European names like Ahbni, Ichiro, and Juan just to really emphasize how much more diverse the “real world” is over traditional fantasy.
In Triptych, every friend who helped me with edits got a character named after them. And in The Skylark’s Saga I got a bit silly - the Sealies all have surnames inspired by pagan gods, the Saskwayins are colors, and the Klonn are plants.
3.) What is your writing routine, if any?
When possible, I like to write at night, in silence, and with only my desk lamp on. I try to keep my desk area very tidy, too, with only notes about the project I’m immediately working on written on my whiteboard wall. I need the only mess to be what’s in my head.
I’m more of a pantser who has, by virtue of writing series, been forced to learn how to plan. But even then, my planning is pretty rudimentary. I often do this in a notebook on transit (I tend to come up with ideas when I’m in liminal spaces), and run that by my editor. If she approves the vague outline, then I often write whatever scene is foremost in my mind - whichever has really grabbed my imagination, and allows me to figure out who my characters are, what the voice is, who the narrators are.
From there I often write chapter one, and then usually skip straight to the climax of the book and write that. This way I know where I’m aiming before I properly knock the arrow. Even if the target eventually shifts, I still have a sense of its shape and location.
From there I tend to skip all over the narrative and write whatever arrests me or I have in the front of my mind. Once that’s done, I go back to the start and begin the process of filling in the gaps. If I get another idea, I’m always happy to jump ahead and do that.
Using Scrivener has made this process a thousand times easier than when I had to scroll-scroll-scroll through Word.
When I don’t have to go to my dayjob, I try to write about 4000 words per day. When I do, I am for 500-1669, which keeps me limber for NaNoWriMo.
4.) Where is the weirdest place you’ve ever written?
I actually wracked my brains on this one, and I was going t say something like “a 400 year old house on the top of a mountain in Japan” or “in the shadow of the Great Pyramids in Giza”, but honestly, the real answer is on my BlackBerry while high off my face on morphine in the emergency room. Apparently I wrote a GREAT short story, which I emailed to all my friends, and emailed them. Without telling anyone that I was in hospital with Organ Death ™. And without remembering at all that I’d done it.
5.) Do you prefer to write by hand or type?
Typing, hands down. I type way faster than I handwrite, and I get frustrated that my pen can’t keep up with my brain. If I get an idea when I’m away from the computer, I usually only jot down enough to remember the scene/idea/mood/exchange without writing it out. I despise having to do the work twice, and that’s what transcribing from paper to computer feels like.
6.) Ideally, where would you like to see your writing take you in five years?
I’d like to break this barrier there seems between me and the Big 5. My agent and I have been working at it, but there seems to be some strange gap. Lots of editors at the Big 5 like my work, but no one seems to want to sign it. I get compliments on my voice, on my word crafting, but no contracts. It’s so frustrating to be so close to the possibility of working with a team with more resources than I have so far.
7.) Which character is most fun to write and why?
Now that Triptych is complete and being serialized on Wattpad, any opportunity to revisit Kalp is a delight. I love looking at the world through his eyes. Olly, from The Maddening Science was a lot of fun too, again because of the way I have to shove aside my own assumptions about how and why the world works and see it through the lens of his own intelligence and lived experience. And Bevel will never not be a hoot, because there’s something just so great about getting to be that crass, and to come up with dirty jokes that fit in a fantasy world.
8.) What advice would you give writers just starting out?
Read widely outside of the genre you want to write in. If you want to write fiction, read non-fic, pop sci, and academic papers. Read the news. Read blogs. Read things that are in your wheelhouse, but then randomly grab something from the library that looks cool. You never know where the next idea will come from. Let your imagination wander.
9.) Do you have any “writing heros”? (This could be published writers or non.)
Anyone giving it a go! It’ hard, and it’s disheartening when people don’t love something you’ve put so much work and heart into. It’’s easy to give up on. Don’t.
Otherwise, I love Dianne Wynne Jones’ blatant subversion of stereotypes and tropes, which has really informed my writing, an Jane Austen’s ability to create such diverse, thoughtful, and complex characters.
I also super appreciate fanfic writers, cause they do it out of sheer love, and work for years to hone their craft. Among my faves are @bendingsignpost @sheafrotherdon, and @madlori.
10.) Tell me about your work-in-progress.
Oh lord, is this a can of worms you really want to open?
The Silenced Tale & The Accidental Collection - books #3 and #4 of The Accidental Turn Series are done. They just need to be line-edited and then the editor can lock the manuscript and it’s out of my hands and into the typesetter/designer’s. (And then of course I need to ramp up to marketing machine.)
Book #3 is the conclusion of a trilogy of books about a secondary character in fantasy epic who becomes self-aware and slips the pages of his book.
The Skylark’s Saga - The two books are written, but one of the relationships is changing dramatically and I need to go in and shift that. I have no idea how much writing/rewriting this is going to entail. However, I do know that I want to get it done by the end of the year. As soon as the manuscript for The Silenced Tale is locked, I’ll be moving onto this.
This duology is a steampunk-adventure-romance book about a girl vigilante and her ornery rocketpack who gets trapped behind enemy lines after being shot down in a dogfight.
The Austen Hollywood AU - I’ve written the first book of the series, and my agent is shopping it now. It’s possible that it may only get signed as a one-book deal, but ideally I’ve developed it as a six-book series (one for each of Austen’s). At some point I’d like to write the first three chapters of the remaining five books, to demonstrate what the voice and tone of each is gong to be like. (Possibly for NaNoWriMo this year??)
These books are modern adaptations of Austen’s work, but they will all intertwine as characters from different aspects of the entertainment industry cross paths, work together, and as they do in the originals, find love and contentment.
The Maddening Science - at some point I’d like to develop my short story of the same name into a full-length novel, but it would take a lot of research on my part, and a lot of buy-in on a publisher’s. I’m not quite ready to tackle this one yet, though I have pitches and synopsizes and the like written.
Henrietta - This idea is relatively new idea, born from watching a documentary and then reading the non-fic biography that inspired it (see, reading outside your genre helps!), but I think I’d really like to take a swing a writing a historical romance based on the life of a certain historical mistress, something like The Other Boleyn Girl. It would take a massive amount of research as well, but I think would be really interesting and engaging. The woman’s life was fascinating.
The Neridis - I wrote this book about four years ago and it’s been trunked. I’d like to pull it back out and give it a spit-polish and a steam-up, then self publish it sometime next year under my erotica pseudonym. It’s a time-travel lesbian romance story that can easily be punched up into erotica.
And of course, there are three other books that are sort of hovering in the back of my mind, but I’m not ready to write them, or even really a pitch for them yet. The vampire one might be a screenplay instead, I’m not sure.
Oh, and I am looking to place a script, too - I wrote it under spec for a company that later decided not to shift from distribution into development any more, so I’m not sure what do with 228 pages of cute lesbian comic-book creators falling love over lattes and superheroes. I keep thinking that it would make a great webcomic/graphic novel, but I have no idea how to find an artist willing to commit to like a 500-page graphic novel, and more importantly, find the money to pay them.
I tag whomever wants to jump in. No pressure.
