There’s a scene I sketched out for the end of Skyfallen. I have it in broad strokes. I am super excited to get into this and expand it beyond stage directions and dialogue fragments. It pulls a lot of strings together, has an interesting reveal (or I think it does anyway, and I guess at this stage that’s what counts), character development, all that kind of good stuff. I’ve got one pivotal character who I need to get to know and develop a bit more before I attempt it though. And get over the nagging feeling that I won’t do it well, /sigh.
Ice: What do you always get stuck on when writing?
Two things are guaranteed to derail my writing. One is a scene that needs to be sexual/sensual and imo needs to be more than a fade-to-black moment for that particular work. But I really hate writing that kind of scene. I feel all kinds of awkward and even more so if it’s part of a fic I’m going to post. Straight-up anticipating the need to write smutty stuff puts on the brakes. If I never get to the scene, I don’t have to write it! Problem solved! Not really, but *shrug emoji*
The second one is research. I’ve gotten much better about leaving a note to myself and moving on, but it’s still hard to resist the impulse to google just this one thing and four hours later I’m reading an article on the development of modern monetary policy. Hand in hand with that is needing to get a fact right. If I’m working in a world that’s not Earth, I need to be internally consistent, not consistent with our reality (to a point). *Handwavy bullshit* works for most everything I enjoy reading. I have permission to handwave my own bullshit.
Did I not already do the elemental? Air, spirit, winter!
I hadn’t posted the elemental meme at the time :)
speaking of: Elemental Ask Meme
Air: What’s the easiest part of writing for you?
Character voice? Can that be a thing? I hear my characters, or I do most of the time. It feels sometimes like they’re dictating. I’ve had walk-on extras become more significant (and give themselves names, for crying out loud) because they decide to expand their role and give me a clear voice to write. I realize this sounds psychotic, but I trust other writers get it.
I hate it when I lose that voice for a minor character. I don’t always have enough to read to get it back.
Those characters who show up so easy can be flat or repackaged from earlier work or lifted whole from someone else’s. I have to watch for stereotypes. But these things can be fixed in edit if I don’t catch them early and adjust accordingly.
“Voice” isn’t restricted to dialogue. It’s their word choice and emphasis, an accent if they have one (compared to whatever is standard in their world. No one has an accent in their hometown), and all that kind of dialogue related stuff. But it’s also (for me) the things they notice, the topics they discuss, the way they see other characters, their appearance and style, how they expect to be treated and how they are treated by others. All those things that bleed into descriptions and movements and set dressing and interaction.
Spirit: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received on your writing?
On one of my F!Agent fics, a person commented that “I write Chiss as though I am one” which I really liked. To me it felt like I showed someone a different perspective and communicated it well. On a review of The Death of all Things, (I know, I know, don’t read the reviews!) the reader wanted to know more about the couple in Raveling, which was my story in the anthology. It was only a snapshot of their world, but for that reader at least, the characters existed in a larger context and they wanted to see more of that context. Again, I felt I successfully transported a reader somewhere else, if only for a little while.
Since that’s something I value in the books I enjoy most myself, these comments are the ones I liked best. I gave others the kind of experience I want from reading.
Winter: Have you ever written a story based on a holiday? If yes, which holiday was it for and what was it like?
I wrote a crackfic for “Sithmas,” a made-up alternative (I think by @exvind ) to the Star Wars Thanksgiving/Christmas derivative “Life Day.” It was twelve posts made by Darth Infodump, a recent emigree from the Empire to the Republic under some kind of witness-protection and/or rehabilitation program, in which he recites and explains the verses of the traditional carol “The Twelve Days of Sithmas,” as well as detailing a rivalry with a linguist at the Coruscant Historical Museum and plans to remodel his apartment. It was complete and utter silliness and I had much fun with it.
Searching Sithmas on my blog (or clicking the link here) actually brings up all the posts. Shocking for tumblr, where it’s easier to search google for your own posts :/ .
Shadows: What’s the darkest theme you’ve ever written about?
I’ve written some pretty dark stuff. Cleaner One dealt with slavery, coercion, and dubious consent (of a variety of kinds, including sexual dubcon) in most every episode. Not to mention recurring themes of substance abuse and suicide. My Sith Warrior’s relationship with Jaesa was uglier than canon due to their power imbalance. Skyfallen includes alcoholism, murder, a dangerous religious cult, torture, malicious misgendering, and an episode of survival cannibalism. Oh, and some gore and cosmic horror. No GRRM-style rape, though. To my knowledge, outside of background material where the character was concerned about being raped (which didn’t happen, onscreen or off), I don’t think I’ve written that topic outside of the aforementioned dubcon scenarios.
Sand: What’s the softest scene you’ve ever written?
You know what, I’m going to post the two that come to mind rather than summarize. One romantic (romance often feels soft) and one not. The romantic one is a SWtOR fanfic (F!Agent x Vector) and the non-romantic scene is a piece of Phil’s background that I haven’t posted, when they’re very young. These are close a decade apart in terms of when I wrote them, 1500 words together.
under a cut because long
The Song of the Universe (F!Agent x Vector) (originally posted on the SWtOR forums)
“I want to share something with you, Vector,” Sha’ra’zaed said.
“Yes, Agent?” Vector answered.
She led him to her quarters. With the violet silk bed and the soft carpeting underfoot. “Sit,” she said, putting her hands on his shoulders and pushing him down gently. He did as she asked. Sha’ra’zaed circled around and knelt on the bed behind him. Embraced him. Facing the wrong way, he could not return her embrace. Instead, he relaxed into it. She kissed him behind his ear. Then slipped something inside it.
An earbud.
Then one in the other ear.
She kissed his cheek. “You asked me once what I was listening to. Here it is.” She turned the player on.
Music filled his ears. The sound of alien voices raised in song. Chords of an alien scale. “You’ve told me of the song of the universe, Vector. This is mine. The song of my universe,” Sha’ra’zaed whispered, “The song of a people I am no longer a part of.” Alien instruments, in harmony, in unison. Tears filled her eyes. Spilled over. Fell unheeded and darkened the fabric of Vector’s coat.
She watched him. Watched Vector listen to every piece of recorded music she owned. Every mood, every thought, every vagary and wish. The beautiful, the silly, the violent, the sublime. Sharing her soul in a way she couldn’t with words. She couldn't read auras and know his thoughts the way he did with her. But then again, it was Vector. She didn’t need to see his aura.
He listened as the chrono ticked off its unending count. The notes faded and he turned to her, “Thank you, Haraz. We have waited for a long time,” he said.
“For?”
He touched her hair, “To hear the song of your universe.”
“You knew,” she said, “you knew. Knew I was lying to you.”
“We know, Haraz. We've always known. Just as we know the truth in your words now. You are beautiful to us. So much more so when your words match your aura." He stroked her cheek, "I love you anyway."
"I cannot always be yours," she said. Of course he knew. She should have realized it sooner.
"You were never mine," Vector said, "you are you. Yours. You belong to no one but yourself. And I love you. With all your different faces and different voices. I love seeing you beneath all the disguises and knowing who you are. The beautiful woman you will always be."
"I, Vector?" she asked.
"I are we," he replied, "There is no difference. We know how you feel about us, regardless. That which you cannot quite understand about us is part of what you love." He stroked her cheek again. Pulled locks of indigo hair free and let it cascade over her shoulders. "Can you not imagine that we, that I, feel the same?" He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, “That we can love you, every you?” he whispered, “And we have from nearly the first.”
She took his hand in hers, “Vector, this, this us, it won’t ever work. Not the way you want. I’m not human,” she said.
“Does it matter so much?” he asked.
“My people are not Human,” she objected, “and the Empire are not my people.”
“The killiks aren't ours,” he said, regaining his hand, “We still hear their song.”
“You love the Empire in a way I cannot,” she said.
“We love you,” he said, “The beauty of the Killik song is in the individual voices. No two voices sing the same. Together they create something more. Let us be a part in your song, Haraz. The song of your universe. For as long as you wish it.”
“I--”
“Listen,” he said, “listen to our song for a little while. And consider. Please, consider.” He kissed her, and she heard the sound of his heart beating in the touch of his lips.
Earliest Thing for Phil:
They sent my sisters away for the afternoon so I’m sitting on the bed alone in our room. I hear their voices from the other side of the door. Arguing.
“That's your child. You wanted a son.” Mama.
“She's our child and you know I don't care.” Father.
“You never forgave me for having only daughters.” Mama again. Weeping.
“That's not true, Tess.” Father. Gentle.
“Then why do you pretend she's your son?” Mama. Pleading.
I don’t hear his sigh. It’s too quiet. “We’ll discuss it later.” Footsteps now, growing louder as he approaches my room.
Father opens the door. He fills the doorway, a tall shadow. Mama with crossed arms, frowning, behind him. "Hey, Filly," he says. I say nothing. I know he's angry. When I don't answer he continues, "Can we talk a spell?"
My gaze goes to the floor. I still don't answer. He closes the door softly and his bootheels thunk soft on the floorboards as he comes closer. The bed sags with his weight when he sits beside me. He rests strong hands on knees clothed in denim blue. He sighs. Finally he speaks. "Doc says the Washbourne boy’s like to lose an eye. Mind telling me what happened?"
I grind my teeth. "Lendy pulled my hair so I punched him."
"That why you cut your pigtails off?" he asks.
"No!" I answer immediately. Then, "Yes." Mama was so angry about my hair. After a pause I repeat, "No."
"All right, we'll come back to that. You punched Lendall Washbourne.” Father asks.
“He pulled my hair!” I say. I can’t keep the fury from my voice. I turn to see Father’s tired face. “I told him I would. It’s his fault for being stupid.”
He strokes my head the way he does with the horses when they get bitey. It’s soft and warm and gentle. “Filly, a punch in the eye is more than a yank on hair. You understand that?”
My hands ball up into fists like they did when I hit Lendy. Tears rise in my eyes and I blink them away. “I told him.”
Father’s other hand covers my little ones. “I believe you, Filly. And Lendall shouldn’t have pulled your hair. That was wrong.”
I look away, scowling. “No one else thinks so,” I mutter.
His hand slides from the top of my head down the side of my face to cup my chin, and he turns my head so I have to see him. “Well, it is, and you’re in the right to defend yourself.” I can’t stop the tears now. They run burning over my cheeks. Father’s face swims in water. I blink and that only makes it worse. “But the hurt you gave is worse than the hurt you got. You can see that, right, Filly?”
I don’t want to. I want to remember the shock on Lendy’s face when I hit him. The scare on all his friends. I meet Father’s eyes “Now they know better. They won’t pull my hair no more. Or do anything else.” I say.
Father takes his hand off my fists and rubs his own face. He sets his hand back down on his knee. “Filly,” he says, then waits for a minute, just staring at me. “That’s a red road. It don’t lead nowhere good and you’re awful young to start down it,” he says when he speaks again.
There are no more tears. Not right now. “He started it.”
“And you finished it.” Father sighed. There’s another pause while he just stares at me. “I can’t find fault, Filly. Neither one of you is clean. You’ll cry pardon--”
“It’s Lendy’s fault! Will he--”
Father holds up one hand, interrupting. “Let me finish. You’ll cry pardon for your part. You mayhap crippled the boy for life. That’s no small thing.”
I pull my chin out of Father’s rough fingers to stare at the floor again. It’s not right. I’m supposed to feel bad for hitting Lendy but I only feel bad for making Father angry. “Will Lendy cry pardon for pulling my hair all those times? What about shoving Bekka in the puddle, or tearing Roth’s books, or throwing rocks at the colts in the pasture and making them run?” I look back up at Father and the tears in my eyes this time are rage. “Why is it the little hurts go unpardoned and only the big ones matter?”
His face turns sad. He strokes my chopped-off hair. “They shouldn’t be. But they often are. Mostly because the people watching didn’t have their little hurts pardoned either and don’t know any better.”
“Well that’s just stupid,” I say.
He puts his arm around me and pulls me into a hug. “People grow up but they don’t always grow smart,” he says quietly. I snuggle against his side. My tears make his shirt wet but I can’t stop them. He lets me for a while. After a bit he leans down and whispers in my ear. “And Filly, next time you punch someone, go for someplace meaty. Still hurts and you won’t risk breaking your hand.”
3: Do you own any books on writing? If so, which is your favorite?
I have Strunk and White The Elements of Style rolling around somewhere. Writing with a Thesis: A Rhetoric and Reader (Skwire) was required for a college class and I never bothered selling it. I have a copy of Stephen King’s On Writing and borrowed Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew by Ursula LeGuin from my library. For writing references but not actually writing, I have Blood on the Page by Samantha Keel and The Storyteller’s Thesaurus by James M Ward and Anne Brown. I don’t know that I have a favorite, though I must say I really enjoyed Steering the Craft. I use the Thesaurus and Blood on the Page with fair regularity compared to the other books on writing, but then they're references, not guides.
10: If you had to write a novel about one of the side characters in your current WIP, which character would you choose?
Oh, toughie. There are several characters I could write about. Two characters that would be fun would be Maker Lewis, who starts on the side of the main antagonist and ends up an ally, and Marjorie Warren, who is a much younger incarnation of a close friend Phil left behind when they came to Mistlands, and who has no (conscious) memory of Phil’s world at all.
14: How long does it take you to write 500 words on a good day? On a bad one?
On a really good day I can churn out 500 words in 30 minutes or less. No interruptions, really flowing, got a great idea for a scene or hit the part I’ve been working toward, all the good stuff. On a bad day I won’t get 500 words at all. Not even close. I’ve gotten much better about reworking too much at the rough draft stage and just letting it go, but it still happens. Sometimes I get caught in researching stuff when I don’t need to or doomscrolling or any of the other myriad ways to avoid actually writing. Or opening up the doc and re-reading the last few sentences and just...nothing. Blergh.
Ugh, names are so hard. They have to sound right to my ear and look right on the page. Impostor syndrome dictates that everyone else’s names sound cool while mine sound derivative or bad. /sigh. So: starting with character names. I often start with either a real name I know, or hit up a random generator or baby name list until I find a name that intrigues me. Then I tweak it until it fits the criteria above. Change out vowels and consonants until it sounds and looks right. I get the sound first, then come up with a spelling that feels like it matches. Maybe there’s some synesthesia there, idk. Probably.
Settings are a little different. Usually they get named for a predominant feature. Mistlands comes from the mist surrounding everything. Now that I think about it, a number of recent settings drawing on the Deadlands ruleset got the suffix -lands. So not very original.
18: How many titles has your current WIP gone through? Which one of your WIPs has had the most titles?
Skyfallen as a novel has only ever had one title. It began life, however, as a character background and the filename was something of a joke: “Punxsutawney Phil, Harrowed Gunfighter and generally pissed-off can't-get-drunk drunk.”
Yes. for the groundhog. I replaced “Punxsutawney” at least 15 times with different variations and may have settled on “Philomath” (which is a real town but is less well known and at least doesn’t have a nationally-famous groundhog) but it’s still up in the air.
It sounded like a classic old west name. What can I say?
Skyfallen didn't have any other name for months, until I wrote a part and made up the term, and knew it was right. Most of my WIPs get their titles that way.
I think the one that had the most title changes was a piece for a contest (didn’t win) at somewhere around ten. I’m still not thrilled with the one I chose but oh well.
7: What was the first novel you ever tried to write? If you’ve never tried to write a novel, then what was the first story you ever wrote?
Oh wow. I think one of the earliest things was some kind of fantasy thing that involved tolkienesque wraiths and time travel. I remember a sci-fi thing with complicated biology and planetbuilding, heavily influenced by a book whose title I can’t even guess at now. There was a post-apocalyptic world where a certain group of people developed into what I can best describe as mechanically-assisted bats, living in the remains of tall buildings and/or mesas/cliff dwellings. There was a space colony world that played out as fantasy (a la The Dragonriders of Pern) with some strange customs and biology based on stuff the early colonists did and later generations forgot why; assassins were central for some reason.
17: How far along are you in your current WIP? How long have you been working on it?
I have a first draft of Skyfallen; I’ve been working on that for just over a year now. My drafts are usually pretty clean but this one isn’t so there are a lot of scenes I need to fill in and finish. It’s slightly under 150,000 words, not including character and setting notes. In the interim I finished two character backgrounds for TTRPG games and one for a new WoW character (curse you, WotLK classic).
I don’t think I could write a character without internal conflict. I don’t know if that counts as a trope. I do Found Family a lot. I like anything with undead (especially recently), shapeshifting, enemies to friends or allies, anti-heroes, and pretty much any version of creepy good or dark/ugly is not evil.
5: Which OC deserved better?
Mainly, all the ones whose stories I never completed. Which is a lot. Beyond that, I’m interpreting this question in the vein of “who got fridged,” in the sense of who deserved more than dying to prove the situation is serious, who exists solely to motivate the MC, or who could be replaced with a lamp and no one would notice. In that sense, I’m not super unhappy with the way I’ve written OCs and the stories I gave them. Hell, I have a character I was determined to fridge, and yet when I look at his actual arc, his death is an appropriate end to his story. I have plenty of characters who I would have liked to give a happy ending to, but that’s not how their stories went. Some of them got happy AUs.
9: Which OC is an absolute pain to write?
All of them at times. Most recently I have a character who had a clear voice when she first showed up but now that she re-entered the scene she’s screechy and weird and she feels inconsistent with earlier characterization. I have another character for whom I have a clear development arc, and I don't think I’m executing it at all well.
13: Do you prefer writing with small casts of characters or large ones?
I end up with large casts. I struggle writing dialogue with more than two at a time, though. In some works, I enjoy large casts for the ability to show the reader things from multiple perspectives. Other times, it’s giving the reader “backstage” information that the main character isn't aware of and has no way of knowing until it bites them. Then there are the extras who decided they have a larger role than I intended and write themselves into Main Cast Status.
It should come as no surprise that "dust" is the clear winner here in terms of occurrences, at 34. "Smooth" has 12 hits and "silk" only three.
As they appear in WIP, under a cut because long:
Smooth. 12 occurrences:
Don’t know why he needs to know, especially out of the blue. The hackles I barely smoothed down from yesterday go back up.
I drink the last of my coffee and set the cup on the table. I’m still mentally smoothing prickles.
Nice. Smooth. I wouldn't know good stuff from really good stuff but it’s definitely not the rock bottom cheap stuff.
The makeup smoothed her face and corsetry slimmed her waist and spangles distracted from the rest.
Their hands are smooth and warm.
Soft, like a black barn cat nuzzling my hand but under the smooth fur are porcupine spines.
I’ve seen some drivers don’t care much about their team; this one’s confident and smooth. They pull up to a stop and wait for hostelers to get hold of the horses before handing off the reins to one of the grooms and climbing down from the seat.
Marshal Doughan shakes himself and smooths down his vest. “I do, Phil,” he says, emphasizing my name.
“It’s true. You used to say it all the time.” I resist the urge to run a finger over the smooth wood shelving.
Shopmaster Ephriam stands and brushes his coat smooth. “I am so glad you asked, Bedeviled.”
He recovers a bit of composure and smooths his hair with one hand. “I will not have this creature sow dissension among my most trusted companions.”
Originally a tack-room or grain store, maybe. Nicer now—the floor is smooth, there’s a desk with a blotter, and a cut-glass inkwell and lamp.
Silk. Three occurrences. Only three? Huh. Interesting:
And Crumley would answer, “That would be a hundred dollars, sir, for a fine walnut coffin and silk lining, and to properly prepare the body for an interment.”
Stained and varnished wood or raw? Silk, satin, canvas or cotton lining?
“Oh, I see how it is. You need someone to lever this beast out of the mire. Someone who’s not wearing a silk coat and complaining they didn’t pay fare to push.”
Dust. 34 hits on dust, including variations such as dusty (adjective) and dusts (verb) but excluding duster as an article of clothing or as part of knuckle duster:
Dust motes drift in the light until the closing door renders them invisible again.
Gray, all gray. Gray hair, gray skin, gray eyes, gray lips. Gray clothes. Gray like the dust of the world settling into corners and imagining it’s alive.
Dry as dust and hot as hell and it’s barely out of spring. Too early for berries and quine-apples, too late for maypop.
A tiny breeze kicks up, sending billowing dust across the road. The birdwarden’s ribbons flutter.
The air is dry and oily. Hot. Dusty. I taste salt on my lips. Salt and pitch.
She swaps it for a fresh one. “Ought to be good if the dust hasn’t gotten to it.”
I ream the bore harder than I should and it screams as the brush scrapes against the metal. Black dust and other gunk drifts downward out of the end of the coach gun’s left barrel.
The surface odors are the same as in any of ours: old makeup and greasepaint, mouldering costume components, sweat, powder, and perfume, and of course the ever-present dust. Underneath, though, is something more rank.
“Gotcha, Bren,” replies the girl holding the middle pair, a chestnut mare and a dusty black gelding.
Clean-shaven, wild wavy hair squashed beneath a floppy hat, ruddy freckled complexion clear under the line where they’d been wearing a bandana to cut the dust.
Frown lines furrow the dust in their forehead for a second before they speak. “I’m grabbing chow. You got ‘till I’m done to convince me.”
Given I don’t breathe unless I want to, I don’t choke on the damn dust kicked up by a six-horse team.
Unfortunately, it also makes it hard to see past the immediate vicinity and our dust cloud is a dead giveaway of our approach.
I point out a bit of dust kicked up on our left to Bren. They acknowledge with a nod.
The riderless horse is still running in our dust but falling behind.
Dusty as fuck. Hot as fuck too. Fortunately the flies have plenty of targets to choose from so no one notices I’m attracting more than my fair share
Before I know it all I see is the sky and dust. The shops and stalls stream by, framing the view until they vanish.
Just like in the song, he’s all in black, from head to toe, graveyard dust powdered his hair the color of bone.
Cree himself, hand on the coal-dusted shoulder of the poor slob he coerced into his drinking contest, pushes his hat up with one thumb. “Oh ho! New player?” he asks
Mr Buchwald dusts off his gloved hands. “Mercury does not employ known killers,” he says, partly to me and partly to the Deputy.
I drop my hands back down to the cot, sending up a puff of dust and insect parts.
Bare feet shuffle in the dust. Their hair is scraggly and unkempt and some vague shade of filth and desperation.
The constant wind whips the dust away and into town, which is something of a blessing.
Off in the distance is a dark, dusty, pile.
It’s a cloud of gray dust or billowing smoke.
Spinning scribble circles filled with smoke and dust push close to my face.
I stick a leg out to block its path and it spins to a halt, its forward motion going sideways like a child’s top made of dust and smoke.
I hold a hand out to the cloud of smoke and dust that’s Bad Phil’s shape in this place, wherever it is.
I blink a few times to wipe the dust from my eyes and take stock of what remains of me.
An older woman—Eva, her name is Eva—in a dusty dress performs close tricks with cards and coins.
A vivid taste memory crosses my tongue, of picking one from the tree and taking a big bite, the soft sweet-tangy fruit almost bursting in my mouth. Then it’s gone, like so many other pleasant memories. Reduced to ash and dust.
Maker Lewis opened the windows and the constant breeze from the pass brings in fresh air and the dust.
Maker Lewis is most of the way down. His horse leaves a trail of dust.
Not like I’d enjoy the taste, all dry and dusty. I eat the whole package, crumbs and all, despite it being a poor substitute for meat fresh and warm.
