I snagged this meme from Catherine Haines‘ blog. Because it looked fun, I love NaNo, and she told me to.

When and how did you find out about NaNoWriMo? How did you do?
My first NaNo introduction was on AbsoluteWrite Water Cooler where I noticed people talking about NaNo, entering/winning/and the frustrations of lack of sleep. I was bemused that some people I knew had won, thinking it was an enormous international writing competition of some kind. By the time I finally figured it out, it was 2007. I entered and wrote 51,000+ words on a Historical novel. Rather hard task, might I add, seeing as it was mostly unresearched.

Where do you write and with what do you write?

My first novel was written almost solely on notebooks in cafes and on the ferry. I still have those notebooks and boy were they ever a pain to type up. Since I got my first laptop, I have used these glorious machines almost exclusively for serious writing. I plan out most novels and scribble ideas on paper, but write on my laptop. I like sitting comfortable, quiet places close to sources of coffee, and have been known to brew large pots and sit next to them basking in the radiance of the caffeine.

How do you find time to write?

Let’s not talk about this. No, really. I used to write in holidays, weekends, evenings, any time at all. But lately (especially since I moved far far away and into the next galaxy) I have had little energy or time to spend outside of my busy job and full-time study. This and I am very easily distracted by shiny things.

Huh?

I’m sorry…

What did you say?

SHINY

Are your partners, friends and family allies or enemies?

My family gets that I write, my brothers more than my parents. I think they understand – as much as any non-write can understand anyway. Most of my friends aren’t writers but they take me in their stride. I have an eccentric reputation (not deserved. I totally didn’t grab a friend who was sitting on the stairs, gabble that she looked like a character, and tug her all around the theatre we were in to find a camera to photograph her with. Really. <.< >.>). Luckily I have *some* writing friends, like Catherine and JK and other lovely people, who make me feel less mad.

What are you strengths and what do you use to help you get to the end?

Originality, my stories are usually quite unusual. I like to think I’m good at building characters and tension, setting scenes, and drawing the reader into the story. I discipline myself to write the whole thing from start to end instead of running off in tangents to the ‘most fun part’.

What are your weaknesses, obstacles and challenges that hinder you from finishing?
Low self-esteem, tireness, shiny things, and a general worry that I’m failing.

Do you plot/outline/plan or do you write by the seat of your pants? How much do you plot or how unprepared are you?

I outline with moderate detail, having had a bad experience of non-outlining where I had to rewrite half a novel. I research to the enth degree. Really. Honestly. I have about 200 pages for my current novel.

Do you participate in the real life community, go to write ins and meet ups in your area?

Haven’t before, but there’s a fun kickoff party going on with me and Catherine. Yay for Halloween, writing, movies, and geekfests.

What are your writing aids? Special snacks, music, totems, rewards or punishments?
Music – to set the mood. Coffee. Silence. Fresh air. Support from family members. An ability to disconnect the net.]]> http://rebekah.amynta.org/2009/10/nanowrimo-qa/feed/ 0 http://rebekah.amynta.org/2009/08/when-characters-whisper-about-other-characters/ http://rebekah.amynta.org/2009/08/when-characters-whisper-about-other-characters/#comments Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:19:29 +0000 Rebekah http://rebekah.amynta.org/?p=57 Well. Isn’t this awkward? I was discussing with my friend Catherine about Donar The Dokkalfar and Rordan the Gentry and their abiding dislike of each other. Just as we were wondering what Rordan could possibly have done to earn Donar’s eternal wrath, Rordan himself supplied me with the answer.

Apparently there was an incident in their wild youth where they met up and got very extremely completely drunk. The next morning – they were in the same room… in the same bed… in a state of undress that left very little to the imagination. Rordan assures me that nothing actually happened, but he did let Donar spend a very uncomfortable hour considering what might have happened. For which embarrassment Donar has never forgiven him.

Delicious.

And so I present to you my current cast, cram-packed with glittering stars and models, and heavily borrowed from the realms of Doctor Who and Vampire Diaries. Hey, a girl’s gotta get inspiration from somewhere!

Iris, my big-eyed girl, was unusually easy to find a face for. I simply typed ‘Model, big eyes’ into google-images, and found Masha Tyelna, the model with the amazingly large eyes.

Next is my flirtatiously dangerous bisexual gentry, Rordan. It was, again, a stroke of luck that I found him relatively easily through the key-words ‘model, male, red hair’. I came across the gorgeous Bartek Borowiec, who has posed in a fascinating number of fantasy-based shoots.

Not least in the main trio is Donar, the Darcy-esque Dokkalfar. He was harder to pin down, as the only thing I knew about him was that he was dark. Luckily – with a little help from my writing friend – we hit on the ubiquitously handsome Ian Sommerhalder, who happens to be playing in a rather different love triangle in Vampire Diaries. I like to think this image shows Donar in his usual pensively thoughtful and reserved frame of mind.

And then there are the supporting characters. After some thought, I decided on:

Carey Mulligan for Sarah-The-Pixie,

Russell Tovey for Arthur,

Arlenis Pena for Ginny

and Bruno Langley for the newcomer and supporting character, Stefan.

November 1: 2,000wds. A meets his saints-keep her mother and she decides she doesn’t like him. Oh the ANGST!!
2- Didn’t write
November 3: 6,000+ wds. M and A fight about who gets to keep the prisoner. My prisoner! No Mine!! Vidocq tells them to play nicely.
No diary for the next week
November 12: 19,800 words. A is griping about his father. Again.
November 15: A is beaten up and M has a second flashback about his time in brest. Curse you Alain Dupard! 25,000
November 18: Poor little boy A feels lonely. M thinks about his A hate and angst abounds. 29,000
November 19: A plays pranks on hs teachers and is surprised when they decide they don’t like him. 32,000
November 20: A has panic attacks, and Marc covets A’s wine. 34,000
November 21: 35,000 A’s teacher decides to have a flashback within A’s flashback. This is getting out of hand. How can anyone have a flashback in someone else’s flashback anyway? M’s girlfriend gets a name and gets to do some jealous sniping. Her initial is also M.
November 22: A’s teacher’s flashback gets out away from him. A is mischevious and basically cute. M gets heartily sick of it and tries to get drunk.
November 23: 38900. A’s father: son I want you to become a prison guard.
A: But I want to be a lawyer! (random Rom)
A’s Father: Just do as you’re told so you can angst some more!!
A: Oh. Ok. Have some toffee.
November 25: 41000 A gets more drunk and begins to babble a bit more than he was already doing. Mutters darkly about being a crook and a cop and being confused about his social identity. M thinks about shutting him up, but it’s more amusing to let him talk.
November 26: 42800 A decides to talk about the army. He likes Jean Venet. Jean Venet doesn’t like him. A thinks this is amusing because A is weird like that. M thinks this is amusing too because of references to daisies.
November 27: Finally A decides to blurt out the sordid tale of how he came to arrest the evil M Chancard. M Chancard is not amused. Also a flashback. 47700
November 28: End. Both MCs are heatily drunk (and probably heartily sick in a gutter about five minutes after they walk off screen) The Cafe is glad to see them go, and Jean Venet gets a little peace and quiet at last.

At the end I had 51,000 words. And two characters who proceeded to amuse and enslave me ever since.

There’s a terrible sense of loss. One moment you had a world right there at your fingertips. Then there’s nothing. Your characters refuse your cajoling, the paragraphs won’t gell, and sentences tnagle up like twisted string. Each word is an enemy, each comma a challenge to place.

I’ve been struggling with writer’s block on my current WIP for coming close to two years now. At first this was because I wrote myself into a corner by not outlining (I’m an outliner – to those of you who don’t outline, my heartfelt admiration). But then – even when the story was ironed out – things didn’t happen smoothly. True, I got about eight chapters written when I moved towns and had a short holiday from work. But since then I have written perhaps a couple of thousand words at most. Each time I try, I feel rebuffed, confused, convinced that it’s no longer good – I’ve lost any talent I ever had – I’m no use – and the story is plunging into disrepair. Look at that sentence, I think. There are so many really good sentences earlier on. This just isn’t good enough.

The pressure mounts, I clam up, and poof goes another writing session. To get the creativity out, I writer RP, scribbles, outlines, ideas… all kinds of things. I write pages and pages happily. But when it comes to my novel I freeze up. What is even more frustrating is that this didn’t happen with any of my previous books. Do I aim too high? Am I essentially driving myself into a state of perpetual tension and killing my creativity? More importantly, how do I stop?

*sigh*

Suddenly I have a gorgeously talkative, effervescent dancer lounged across a table in the corner of my mind. She is aparently from the court of Queen Mab, sent to keep the peace as a nuetral party on the bequest of all sovreigns involved. Why anyone would send her to keep the peace, I don’t know! All I know is that sometime after the murder of my unfortunate male expendible cheating gentry, a new dancer shows up at the club Iris works in. She’s bold, cheerful, magical… laughter incarnate.A short petite sparrow with bright red hair and the widest smile, Sarah has the whole clientelle eating out of her palm. Maybe it’s due to her bizarre sideways honesty that Iris never guesses her true nature.

All I know about her really is that she’s there to keep the peace during the investigations, and God help any who decide to try to cross her. Five foot three she may be, but that’s five foot three too tall for you!

Dunk me in caster oil and call me obsessive, but I’ve always had a passion for the authentic. And a fear of being too ‘feminine’, which one could theoretically blame on growing up with three brothers. Lately all my novels have been male dominated. I have Early Frost, with intelligent, dutiful Thomas, rambunctious Caleb, and the mysterious Jack Frost far outnumbering poor Andy as main characters (I’m not counting Tyra, as her face time is sadly limited due to her being rather – well – insane and homicidal). And in Requiem, Alain Dupard and Marc Foubret team up with a predominantly male cast to solve crime in 1820’s Paris. They do eventually procure significant others, but not until the fangirls will have had ample opportunity to insist that ho yay exists.

The last major female character of mine was a rather regrettable incident in my second novel. Let’s just say that she would be the first thing I would cut in any rewrite, being a borderline Mary Sue and having FAR less character growth than either of the – you guessed it – boys.

So it is with no small relief that I consider Iris. She is the first seriously major female character I’ve had in almost four years, and she is coming along splendidly. This doesn’t mean I don’t love my boys just as much as ever. Heaven’s, no! But it is comforting to know that I still have a few gals rattling around in my brain. Hopefully they will come out a bit more often in future.

And hopefully Roll Me Over Slow will permit me to make an experiment or two in Male character development. Rordan may not be exactly feminine… but…

Except this time, thanks to a little prodding from Catherine… things are MUCH more interesting.

Because this time it’s not just a murder mystery/fantasy. Oh no. This time we have a backdrop in the middle of London, in the roarting twenties. All original characters have been slashed in favour of a sparkling new cast. Iris – the heroine with big short-sighted eyes often hidden behind thick glasses. She works at a club as the secretary to the manager, and has always had the ability to see things other people can’t. Arthur – Iris’s brother. Out of his league in the Eton society he’s been thrust into by his schooling, but not at home with his middle-class family anymore. Rordan – a member of Gentry society sent to London to investigate a murder. Flirtatious, exotic, handsome, charming… dangerous. Donar – a dark elf from Scandenavia, investigating the same crime but with a personal interest in the outcome. Quieter and more grim than his Gentry counterpart, he seems nontheless to be uncannily good at seeing through people and their masks. And finally, Ginny – Arthur’s childhood sweetheart, who has found herself suddenly considered unsuitable for his new status. The daughter of an African American emigrant, she wants to study medicine and is frustrated by the restrictions placed on her.

This. Is going to be fun.

Isn’t that what all of us writers want? To be heard? In my case it is. I collect themes and stories like a small child might go about collecting the scraps and bits and pieces he sees along the roadside. It’s funny what you can see if you’re really looking for it.

A little introduction to my works might be in order. I am – as yet – completely unpublished so long as one does not exactly count the work I have done for a computer game called ‘Academagia’. I specialise in two main areas: Historical Fiction and Fantasy. As of right now, I have written three full novels, one excessively long partial rewrite, and 79% of my current novel. I have dabbled in plays, screen plays, musicals, songs, poetry, and graphic novel scripts. But in the end my love and affection is commanded by two major canons.

First is my historical novel, which – despite the insistance of ninety percent of people I talk to – is not a romance. It is actually a mystery series which I have been planning and researching for what must be drawing close to two years now. It belongs in my favorite time period, the 19th century, and has all the fun of a detective story, mixed with the glorious seductiveness of French history.

Second is the Fantasy, an eerie piece set in a forest near Cambridgeshire. It is called Early Frost, and I have been writing it for far longer than I have written any novel before. Celtic fairy lore meets the 60’s as three English children get scooped up into a dark and uncaring Sidhe world by accident. Jack Frost plays a major role and has already convinced me that I need to write his prequel series.

Apart from this I like writing things that walk along the darker side of fiction, but never without humour. I adore research, and my bookcase is a patchwork of murder mysteries, classical literature, medical books, and books on poisons. Just like any good writer’s bookshelf ought to be!!

Welcome to my home. Stick around!