I did this on Twitter and decided to bring all the answers over here so they’re collected somewhere.
1.Who’s your favorite character you’ve ever written?
This is hard… a toss up between Rowena Lee and Skeleton. They both have a strong voice in my head and are really easy to write. (Adding – I have some unpublished characters I love a little more, but I’m leaving unpublished characters off the list)
2. What book had the biggest influence on my writing?
Probably McCaffery’s Dragonrider’s and Damia series followed by the Mageworlds books. That sense of adventure with a foundation of love and found family really resonates with me.
3. What character is most like you?
I’m going to say Zephyr Girl or Kaddy from POLAR TERROR. Both of them are working moms trying to do their best and struggling to find that balance. I want to be unstoppable Hermione Marshall, but I’m more like Kaddy.
4. What character is least like you?
Hollis Silar, the flirt. He’s ultra-confident and popular and pan and very much a Mirrorverse me. I love writing him but we have very little in common (except our rage).
5. My Big Author Dream
Getting the full FREE FALL series published and seeing people cosplay the Wreckers and crew at a con. I love this series so much and I want people to love the Ikari people. And the mercenaries.
I want to see Kila’s jacket-of-many-pockets.
The follow-up to that would be getting #DesertBook published and made into a big budget show like Witcher or GOT. Please give me all the beautiful, lethal, pansexual women destroying cities in the name of revenge.
6. What Are You Best At?
PLOTTING!!! Because that’s what I do the most. I plot out a lot of books that I wind up not writing. I play with the idea and sometimes it doesn’t hook me enough to make me want to write the book. I have a lot of good ideas that aren’t good for today.
7. What is the genre of your current WIP?
Sci-Fi Romance for the most of the list but I have a historical (iron age) novel on the back burner and a holiday UF/PNR simmering as well.
I have never in my life been able to focus on one WIP at a time. I usually have a whole petting zoo of manuscripts in various stages.
8. The Genre Of My First WIP
My very first book was written for the Illinois Young Author competition and it was an illustrated picture book about sea pollution from the point of a sea turtle and mostly written by my very helpful mother (that was kindy).
In 3rd grade, for the same competition, I wrote a fantasy short story about twin dwarves, a magic carpet, and wargs that stole a baby rattle from the Lonely Mountain. It was Tolkien fanfic and I was 8, already scrubbing off serial numbers.
The first story I wrote for fun rather than competition was BARROW QUEEN, which starts in the iron age and time slips to a far future world where the cursed queen is resurrected so her enemies can kill her goddess form once and for all… except she escapes and Adventure Happens.
I wrote BARROW QUEEN by hand in my sophomore year of high school in my geometry notebook (which explains my understanding of geometry) and I’d pass it around my English and Latin classes for friends to read daily updates. I have it still… it will never be published.
If you try to publish that book posthumously 1) I have no intention of dying and 2) I WILL COME BACK FROM THE DEAD TO STOP YOU.
9) What Do You Do When You Get Stuck?
Switch to another WIP. This is why I write a lot of the at the same time. If one isn’t working I can go elsewhere to edit or write until I figure out the problem.
Usually if I’m stuck it’s either a sign I need to go rest and refresh, or it means I’m writing the book wrong. So I step back first, take the night off, chill out, read.
If I come back and it’s still not clicking, I try to figure out why it’s broken.
Sometimes a scene is good but it doesn’t fit the theme of the book or the tone of the series, or it sets up the wrong ending. Sometimes I’m playing it safe, and that never works.
Don’t save your good scenes for a later book.
Writers sometimes worry about doing their best writing in Book 1 of a series, but it’s only your best writing now. It’s going to get better. So write that amazing scene and then find something bigger for the next book. It works every time.
10. Ideal Writing Environment
I need a keyboard and a screen. I’ve written the rough draft of all but one published novel on a folding keyboard with my phone as my screen. My life is way too busy to get fussy over the “perfect” writing set up. I work wherever I am.
11. What Author’s Style Do You Admire The Most
Oh, there are so many good ones… for effortless worldbuilding I’m going to pick @suyidavies, for battles Ilona Andrews, and for comedy/commentary Terry Pratchett.
We are really in a Golden age of amazing literature. We have Murderbot, JADE WARS, NOPHEK GLOSS…. I could go on and on. There are so many good books coming out in genres I love that you would need to work to find a poorly written book. There’s so much talent alive right now.
12. Can You Read And Write At The Same Time
Yes! But I do prefer to read outside the genre I’m currently working in. And this year I did a lot of re-reading because I wanted low-stakes comfort reads.
13. Do You Write Every Day
Nope!
I’m a firm believer in keeping work at work, which means that I take a weekend away from my major publishing work. The brain needs down time if you want to stay creative.
14) What Is Your Average Word Count Per Day?
2021 – 1095
2020 – 1140
2019 – 855
2018 – 1104
2017 – 756
2016 – 997
15) What Time Of Day Do You Like To Write?
Ideally I wake up and write a chapter or two before getting out of bed. I have a folding keyboard right next to me, and I type it all up in an email to myself. Since I have kids and school schedules I often wind up writing later in the day, either in the pick-up line for carpool, at practice (when we still did sports), or after the kids go to bed.
My schedule requires adaptability.
16) What Is The Hardest Part Of Starting A New Project?
Getting past chapter/scene 3. I can write the opening on pure inspiration and optimism, but by the third chapter I need enough traction to keep the story going. If I can’t see most the plot in my head, I drop the WIP. That doesn’t mean I won’t come back to the project. I might figure out the missing piece later, but I’m just as likely to chop the story up for spare parts and use what worked in another project.
17) How Do You Get Inspired When The Well Is Dry?
I am one of those people who constantly has story ideas. If I don’t, and the well is dry, it means I haven’t been taking care of my health. I need to stop, hydrate, rest, get away from the computer for a bit.
It took me awhile to accept this was part of my process because I was trained on the idea that Worth = Work. If I wasn’t constantly working on something I felt like I was failing as a human being. And if that work wasn’t perfect I felt like it was a moral failing. My tendency since childhood has been to just push through. Work through pain, fatigue, depression, whatever… but that’s a really unhealthy way to live and in my 20’s I realized I was fast-tracking my death by sacrificing everything to make a deadline.
Fiction writing isn’t journalism, it isn’t college, there’s no midnight deadline for what I’m writing. That means I can take time to rest, play, recover, enjoy other books, and value myself outside of writing.
I am a human being worthy of love & respect no matter my word count.
I still struggle with this some days, but I really do try to notice the symptoms of burn out and exhaustion so I can slow down, steady the course, and make sure I’m honoring my future self by making healthy choices today.