Writing Meme: Day 30

30. Final ques­tion! Tag some­one! And tell us what you like about that per­son as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!

I honestly don't have anyone to tag. And I know nothing about anyone's writing or characters. Unless some of my followers want to rock out and do a thirty-day meme. Here's a tip though: Do chunks of it so you finish in a few days. HA. Then just schedule the posts to pop up every day.

You don't actually think I sat down every day to do a post, did you? Yeah right. Like I have time for that. =P

Writing Meme: Day 29

29. How often do you think about writ­ing? Ever come across some­thing IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?

HOLY F YES. In the book that’s being shopped to publishers as we speak, I killed off a guy by having him inhale spores from an alien fungus. The fungus attached itself to places inside his lungs and happily started growing. He died from asphyxiation and when they autopsied him, found all this purple fungus partying in his lungs.

I thought to myself, “Man, stuff like that in real life would suck.”

Then I watched Planet Earth. I am so glad I’m not an insect.

In the jungle somewhere lives a fungus that likes to get into the heads of insects. Literally. The spores end up in their brains and, if it can, somehow gets them to climb up high. They showed an infected ant dragging itself up a twig with its mandibles. Eventually these insects die and the fungus grows and sprouts out of their heads and bodies to continue doing what it does. Ants will carry their ill comrades far, far away to keep the entire colony from getting infected.

Writing Meme: Day 28

28. Have you ever writ­ten a char­ac­ter with phys­i­cal or men­tal dis­abil­i­ties? Describe them, and if there’s noth­ing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.

No idea if this actually counts or not, but I guess in SF anything goes. Cutter Hayward was in, well, let’s say it was a little accident. Mangled as his body was, he had two options; go cyborg or integrate with the ship. He chose to go with the ship. So if you ever want to visit him, he’s behind Panel No. 5, hooked up more than someone in the Matrix.

Writing Meme: Day 27

27. Along sim­i­lar lines, do appear­ances play a big role in your sto­ries? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about design­ing your char­ac­ters.

I guess I'll go with yes because they're all so different. The dragon form of a Galatac will depend upon him/her, but also how many are involved during the transformation. Once you get past two, the color of the dragon will be constant. For example, Kaiton is red and gold when trouncing around as a dragon, but if he performs the transformatin with two others, then he - and they - will be white. Four and they'll be gold. Five...well I've actually forgotten what happens when they hit five since it's yet to happen, but I do remember it's something sort of bizarre. That happens when a lot of power bounces around.

Anywho, as for appearances with regular(ish) people, they are important, but when it comes to description, I only dish out enough so the reader has a general idea. They're allowed to fill in gaps. I don't detail clothing like some people do. It's boring and a waste of time. When clothing is detailed, it's for a reason.

Character design usually just pops in there like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Yeah. They'll just stroll into my brain and wave. True, they may need some tweaking, but usually they're in pretty good shape. Other times, though, I have developed characters from scratch, but that's usually when I take someone from real life and create a character for them. Some people, I've found, are more difficult than others.

Writing Meme: Day 26

26. Let’s talk art! Do you draw your char­ac­ters? Do oth­ers draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favorite pic­ture of him!

Nope. I’ve never drawn any of my characters. One person drew one of my characters once. I think I still have it…somewhere…

What I have found though, are a few pictures that work quite nicely with things I’ve written. How about I send you to some of those? The art is amazing anyway… I friggin' love Deviant Art.

This is so ridiculously close to the incident at the end of my most recent book. The girl is a remarkable resemblance to Caroline after she was cursed. Cuts included. Yeah. She was in a bad way. Though it was a different man who would have carried her, but this guy could easily be her brother, Alex, who was nearby at the time and yes, dressed in black as well. I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw this.

Yes, it's on it's side, so it's a little awkward, but that almost works considering the character. This could easily be Aether, one of my antagonists, who is truly insane. Most of my antagonists are evil and have greed and bloodlust on their minds. Aether is just way, way off the deep end.

Fihr and his mate Marianne. I use the term "mate" because Fihr (whose name is still up for debate) used to be a wolf.

At one point I have a god revive past warriors to fight an awakened evil. Jace never got a woman in his last life. This time he falls for an elf and she for him. Oh, and did I mention the god gave them wings?

Yes, Xerphin is this big. And Galatacs come pretty damn close.

Writing Meme: Day 25

25. Do any of your char­ac­ters have pets? Tell us about them.

Only one of them. Gabrielle has a dog named Piccolo. He’s a Siberian husky and based on the dog I hope to have someday. Yay!

Writing Meme: Day 24

24. How will­ing are you to kill your char­ac­ters if the plot so demands it? What’s the most inter­est­ing way you’ve killed some­one?

I will kill someone if the plot requires it to move forward, though I admit to not killing people when it would likely make the story more interesting. For example, in one story, my guys Cole and Jace ended up in a bad sitaution. For a long, long time, my plan was to kill Cole in a cave in. If it were to ever end up in an editor's hands and they said, "Kill him," I probably would (yes, I'm sorry Cole, but you're expendable. Your woman will be very sad). However, as I continued to write and flesh things out, I enjoyed him (yes, I know, kill your darlings or your babies or whatever, but he's a fun guy and it felt kind of empty to give him a girl and then wipe him out of the pages), and it works just as well with him not dying.

But that doesn't mean I'm afraid to kill main characters or anything. I kill a lot of people. Kings. Queens. Mothers. Brothers. In a few stories, I kill the main character (with good reason). So yeah, I'll kill people if I have to.

As for interesting ways I've killed people, that one's up in the air. How interesting is interesting? I mean, I have a mug here that says, "Inventing ways to kill characters is my specialty." I've suffocated a guy with alien fungus growing in his lungs (just wait till we get to day 29). I killed one poor guy with a bit of dragon inspiration (the dragon was toying with him and then had an "AHHA!" moment and did that thing where you slap your hand on the surface of something when you get that bit of inspiration. Guy = pancaked). I sort of killed a group of people using demons. I say "sort of" because the entity in charge didn't want their souls to go back to their creator (and potentially lead to more problems), so it encased their souls within their dead bodies.

Oh yeah. It's always a party in my stories. Haha.


See? Told ya.

Writing Meme: Day 23

23. How long does it usu­ally take you to com­plete an entire story—from plan­ning to writing to post­ing (if you post your work)?

I average about a year.

Writing Meme: Day 22

22. Tell us about one scene between your char­ac­ters that you’ve never writ­ten or told any­one about before! Seri­ous or not.

There’s an alternate universe where Kaiton’s people never joined with Xerphin but often took women captive after a fight with another realm (or whomever – they’re often hired out by others). They often take these women as wives. The details change from time to time on who gets Alliah (Kaiton’s wife) first, but eventually Kaiton takes her in. He’s the strong silent type to the nth degree. Never pushes, never makes her do anything she doesn’t want to. In fact, if she were to escape, he’d let her. One night he returns to home after a particularly nasty battle and she helps dress his wounds. Eventually they begin to understand one another and get together.

It’s actually much longer than one scene I guess, like a little story that plays in my mind, but it’s never gone down on paper or anything else so it counts. It would be a fun one to write though…

Writing Meme: Day 21

21. Do any of your char­ac­ters have chil­dren? How well do you write them?

Several of them have children. I write them just like any other character (so to speak). None of them are very young though so it’s not like I’m writing toddlers or something. I mean to say I don’t have any more trouble writing them than I would when dealing with another character. Each one is his or her own person so that’s how I deal with them. *shrug*

Writing Meme: Day 20

20. What are your favorite char­ac­ter inter­ac­tions to write?

Kaiton and Akira! Father and daughter, they’re too much alike so they clash a lot. The best part (and maybe this is messed up) is that Akira’s just as strong as her father and they’ve beaten the crap out of one another before. They’ve had a very odd relationship…. I enjoy writing them because as much as they fight, and as weird as this is going to sound, they really do love each other. Kaiton ultimately feels that he’s failed her mother (this whole thing is a long story…) and Akira’s never really belonged anywhere.

Let’s just say that it’s a party whenever these two show up on the page together.

Dang. I just noticed. A lot of these questions are about characters. Is there going to be something else soon?

Writing Meme: Day 19

19. Favorite minor that decided to shove him­self into the spot­light and why!

Meyers. Private Jacob Meyers. Grade A smartass with a lot of great lines. He’s the guy you’d want to hang out with at the bar once he got home from his tour overseas (or in this case, on another planet). I hated killing him, but it had to be done. Honestly, I almost didn’t do it, but knew that mattered. R.I.P. Meyers.

Writing Meme: Day 18

18. Favorite antag­o­nist and why!

Yeah Xerphin! He’s my black dragon and no, I do not give a crap how cliché that sounds. Being black actually has nothing to do with the fact that he’s evil. He just happened to be born that way. Anytime I picture him, he’s sitting at my side looking like that really dangerous Doberman you never want to mess with. That’s how I picture Xerphin and his right hand man Kaarn. My two guard dogs. Badasses.

But I love Xerphin because he’s just so damn mean and he gets so much pleasure out of it. It’s fun to write, as messed up as that sounds. There are bad guys that you utterly despise, bad guys that annoy the crap out of you, and bad guys that somehow manage to rock (like Darth Vader – he was NOT a nice person, but damn he was cool). Xerphin rocks. That’s why I was pleased that my critique group liked him (even though the piece featuring him needed serious work – and with good reason too).

Writing Meme: Day 17

17. Favorite pro­tag­o­nist and why!

Kaiton! I love that man. In a way, he’s every girl’s dream come true. Well, at least for girls who’ve always wanted a guy to change from bad to good.

Kaiton is the ultimate bad boy. A top warrior in Xerphin’s army, he saves a woman and goes traitor (he’d been thinking about it for a while anyway). But while he plots his return, he falls in love with the woman he rescued, they marry, have a baby girl...but then he loses his wife.

AWWWWW.

On his own once again, he believes it's safer for his daughter if she grows up in a normal family instead of running around with him (he's back on the revenge plot - did I mention he found out Xerphin slaughtered his people while he was gone?). From there, it's just one big party. You never know how far on the dark side he is (to borrow from Star Wars) or if he'll ever go back to the way he was with his wife. Especially after he meets his daughter again.

DUN DUN DUN!

He's simply a blast to write. His "fuck with me and I'll kill you" attitude, his dark/light see-sawing, his interactions with his daughter - everything is just so fun. And I torture that guy so much, mentally and physically. I've beaten him up, nearly killed him, and when he does die, he doesn't go to hell, but he's been such a bad boy, he's not allowed to be with his wife's spirit either. She's constantly being reincarnated, so his heaven isn't entirely heaven. You should see what his soul looks like.... *cue evil cackle*

Writing Meme: Day 16

16. Do you write roman­tic rela­tion­ships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you will­ing to go in your writ­ing? ;)

Ooooh yeah. I do enjoy a nice romance here and there. They’re almost as much fun to write as a fight scene. Everyone loves a nice bit of sexual tension from time to time. As for how “far” I’ll go, I used to give my characters their privacy, but in my last ms, well, let’s just say I went all the way.

(And on a totally different subject, I'm giving away 4 books on my Bookseller Recommends blog!)

Writing Meme: Day 15

15. Mid­way ques­tion! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether pro­fes­sional or not!

There are a lot of them. There is no one writer I admire the most because they’re all out there, working hard, and putting their work into print while I sit here and pull my hair out and...yeah. So I'll name a few authors and say why I admire them and their work.

Karen Marie Moning - Her great stories and her dedication to her fan base. Even if she doesn't always personally answer some of her fanmail, you will get a response from someone that's not a form letter. I hope to have a fun following like that someday.

Janet Evanovich - Because she has to put up with people damanding books year after year since they don't realize it takes a while to actually craft the book to make it decent and then all the production stuff that goes after it, so she's probably been doing books in six months or so, which is why people have no reason to bitch when they don't like the story. You hear that, Stephanie Plum fans? You want a better story and better writing, quit bitching about how long it takes to get the next story. Janet also gets ponits because of the number of books with the same characters in them. I honestly don't know if I could come up with 18 books featuring the same people. It's no wonder she crafted a story revolving around Diesel...

J.R.R. Tolkien - Not just world building; universe building.

L.J. Smith - Description powerhouse. I'm pleased to say I sold another copy of The Forbidden Game a few days ago.

Pretty much any author who manages to land an agent and get their book into print. That itself is a feat.

Writing Meme: Day 14

14. How do you map out loca­tions, if needed? Do you have any to show us?

I’ve actually create several maps. If I need to visualize it better, I’ll do a quick sketch or something, but if I really need to see the whole thing (or I’m just feeling fun and artsy), I’ll make an entire map. I got into it for a while, so all of the ones I’ve done were made around the same time. I never used to have a scanner, but now that I do, I guess I can show you one. Mind you, these are not the best. I stopped taking art after high school.

Here are two of the five maps I've drawn. It was cool after scanning them because scanners always deliver stuff in HUGE format, so seeing my pen strokes magnified was kinda neat.

Writing Meme: Day 13

13. What’s your favorite cul­ture to write, fic­tional or not?

Galatacs. I love them. Even though I killed all of them. No joke. I wiped most of them out in the early part of a story. But that just makes the ones left that much more special. I even started to make a language for them and everything. I know, it’s ridiculous. But I still love them. Superior fighters in every way, they rock at what they do. They bleed gold. Their most powerful weapon is their skill to transform into dragons (the big kind), but it’s also a weakness (the thing that allows them to change can be broken and it hurts like a mother).

Writing Meme: Day 12

12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of world building? Any side-notes on it you’d like to share?

I suppose my best so far would have to be the novel getting shopped right now. Take note that I said “so far.” And it’s only that way because of all my critique partners and their endless badgering about more/better description. There is a difference between more description and better description – I just needed both of them. So I read some books and did some practicing and busted some ass to deliver better planets.

I don’t really have any side notes though. I still need to work on my description and world building powers so I’m not exactly one to give any advice. However, Word Painting is a great book that you should take a look at if you have issues like I do.

Writing Meme: Day 11

11. Who is your favorite char­ac­ter to write? Least favorite?

Tricky. Very tricky. It’s almost a toss up between Akira and Xerphin. Akira because she’s just fun as hell, a chick that doesn’t take crap from anyone and never backs down from a fight. If I could be a character, she’s it. I love Xerphin just because he’s so goddamn mean. He is, by far, my favorite bad guy. Sorry I had to kill you babe.

Least favorite, I’ll go with what my brain shouted. Chaverria. He’s fine now since his part is over, but at the time he was a pain in the ass. I didn’t know what to do with him and it was like he kept doing stuff that I wasn’t even really sure I wanted him to do. You know that one character that just starts doing shit without your permission? Like the quote at the top of this blog? Yeah, he was that guy. An older wizard that didn’t seem to have a right place anywhere. And if I remember right, I think I’m going to change him some more in the future because I realized he never uses any magic. It’s kind of stupid to have a wizard hanging out and not helping when there’s a huge effing fight going on.