I write what I write because that's who I am as a writer

Hannah Moskowitz has an amazing blog post on this topic.
So does Shayda Bakhshi.

I figured it wouldn't hurt to put my .02 in on this topic, since I'm actually aiming to get a double Bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Creative Writing when I go back to school next fall, and then go on to get my MFA in Creative Writing and a Masters in Anthropology with an emphasis on linguistics.

I took my first creative writing class as a senior in high school.  I needed a filler and my mum suggested that one.  "You want to be a writer, don't you?" she'd asked me.  "You should take it to see if you can learn something you don't already know."

I took it.  And Mr. D was the biggest waste of space for a teacher you could get when it came to creative writing.  I had double trouble with him because he was also my English teacher.  The bell would ring ending English and I'd just sit there and wait for creative writing to begin.  After a few weeks I started dreading that bell because as an English teacher he was brilliant.  As a creative writing teacher, he sucked.

He was insistent on us writing essays, doing daily writing exercises, and keeping a writing journal.  All of those things I wouldn't have had issues with if he hadn't kept failing my writing exercises and marking me off on my journal.  Why?  Because I write speculative fiction, not literary fiction.  I write science fiction and fantasy.  I turned my writing exercises into exercises in description of Aleran or character development for one of my sci fi stories.  My writing journal was full of poetry and short stories tied into my worlds.  He told me that he wasn't interested in someone who wanted to write "trashy novels".

Now, at that time, "trashy novels" were the bodice ripper romances my grandma read.  The ones with the explicit sex scenes.  I told him, quite horrified, that I didn't write trashy novels.  He told me I wrote something other than literary fiction, so what I wrote was "trashy".  He relegated the whole of the science fiction and the fantasy genres with a wave of his hand as "trashy".  He told me I lacked talent and should instead consider looking at becoming a teacher since I didn't have it in me to be a writer.

I was crushed.  At the time I didn't have much in the way of a strong sense of who I was.  So I stopped writing.  I wrote poetry still, but nothing at all in Aleran or any of my other worlds.  That persisted for two years as I struggled to get myself through college.  I decided to pursue a teaching degree, since it at least would let me teach children about "good" literature and that's what I wanted...wasn't it?

It wasn't.  And when the opportunity came to take English 111 and 112 (honors English), I jumped at the chance.  It was a writing intensive program, and once it was done I could brave the spec fic creative writing class.  Even though I didn't think I was good enough I was rediscovering myself as a writer.

Once again, my love of fantasy and science fiction got me ostracized by my teacher.  She told me that the books I loved weren't real literature.  She said that mythology and the early works of fantastical fiction (faerie tales, mythology, the arabian tales, etc.) were just exercises in describing a world primitive minds couldn't understand or to teach virtues to children.  I was told that, once again, my dreams were as nothing compared to the realities of my teacher's world.

I stopped writing at that point.  Completely.  I did the assignments and had my portfolio all neatly lined up for the creative writing class.  But I didn't go forward with it.  I didn't see the need.  I wasn't a writer, just a talentless woman with delusions of grandeur.

My mum had different ideas.  My mum wrote most of her life, and she knew what I was going through.  She went through it herself at one point.  It took her a decade, and a lot of encouragement from my dad, to get her back into writing.  Mum wasn't going to let me suffer for that long.  She walked up to me about a year after I took that class and she quite literally smacked me upside the head.  "Sit down, pick up that pen, and write."

I did.  Bouts of writer's block aside, I haven't stopped since.  That was around 12 or 13 years ago.  I've finally gotten to a point in my writing where I'm getting ready to brave the world of publishing for my first novel that I feel is good enough to reflect me as a writer, and the world I've been laboring over for 20+ years.

I also intend on going back to school and getting my multiple degrees because it's something I love.  If I get a teacher who doesn't love it, I know how to get around that now.  I'll look at anything I learn from those classes as a way to apply a different view to my writing but I won't ever let another teacher dissuade me from writing what I love.

My thoughts on NaNoWriMo...or "Why I Torture Myself Every Year"

NaNoWriMo is pure torture.  Think about it.  You set a word goal, you type like mad, and you hope to high heaven that you can finish.  It's the annual hell many writers put themselves through.  Why do we do it?

I can't answer for anyone else, but for me it's simple.  No, it's not because I'm a masochist (or a sadist either, though my husband's accused me of enjoying making HIM suffer in November with my NaNo nonsense).  It's because every now and then I need a kick in the pants when it comes to my writing.

Every year I've done it I've done variations on the same MS.  This year I'm branching out.  Instead of working on my fantasy stuff, I'm delving into the world of science fiction and my "Psionics" story.  I've been kicking this particular storyline around for a few years now but I've never put any time into writing it. I know the characters.  I've known them for almost five years now.  I know the setting.  I know how it begins, and where it ends.  But I don't know anything about the journey from beginning to end.

This is what NaNoWriMo is for me.  It's a chance to take a trip with the characters and see them for what they're worth.  It gives me a chance to see where they're going, who they're going with, and how they plan on getting there.  Who knows?  They may change the end on me.  It wouldn't be the first time my characters have run off with my plot and left me gasping for breath.

I'm also upping the ante on the word count goal this year.  I did the same thing last year, pushing for 75k instead of 50k.  This year I'm feeling confident I can make 100k in 30 days instead of 75k.  I've also got a private wager going on with my husband, who I've finally managed to convince to do NaNoWriMo this year.  We've got a bet going that I'll out-write him.  It's all about who's got the biggest word count at the end of November.  If I win, I get a kick ass massage.  If he wins, I've got to let him go on a shopping spree with $300 and no questions asked or protests made.  *shudder*  I need to win this.  (No really, I need to win this.  LOL)

Whether or not I win, whether or not I beat my husband, it's all a moot point if I don't have fun while doing it too.  So bring on the November Torture.  I'm ready, willing, and able to deal with it.*






*I just have to lay in my store of chocolate and Mountain Dew first.



Disclaimer: All commentary in this post is subject to change at the drop of a hat because I may change my mind about the word count, genre, and/or the wager with my husband at any moment.  Probably not, but you never know.

30 Days of Writing - Day 12-15

(I'm short cutting this since I don't know if I'll have time in the mornings to write the blog posts. Very busy these days.)

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?


*smiles*  I just did a couple of posts over on Scribblerati about this.  The world I've spent the better part of 20 years of my life writing in is the one I've done the most (and best) world building on - Aleran.  I've gotten the cultures, lifestyles, geography, meteorology, zoology, botany, etc. taken care of for all of the continents in the world.  I know what creatures live where, what they eat, how they survive, and even which have gone extinct due to climactic shifts in the climate and terrain (my world underwent a huge cataclysm when the Elder Gods stopped their younger counterparts from destroying each other and all of the races).

Some interesting facts about Aleran...

--It's a world of islands.  I don't have huge sprawling continents like on Earth.  It was, at one time, very Earth-like.  But then the aforementioned issue between the gods happened and it became a world of island nations.

--Non-humans used to outnumber the humans.  On most continents they still do.

--The average life expectancy on the series of islands I'm putting my current WIPs in is actually a lot higher than normal because the Goddess of Death has been locked up and her demi-god son is trying to manage things for her.  It's not working out as well for him.  As a result, birth rates are lower and the population isn't as large as you'd think (because murder, illness, suicide, and accidental deaths still claim lives...it's just the dying of old age part that isn't as prevalent).

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


The Sindlans and the Ketsueki are my favorite.  They're also the most complex, for all that they're a fairly simplistic pair of races.  Both have astonishingly rich cultures for those who only look at them as barbarians or cursed individuals.

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


I've got several maps I've created over the last few years.  They're all tucked into my sketchbook, until I get them put into the Binder O' Doom*.  I don't have any up online, and probably won't until I get to the point where they're actually in the hands of a publisher and about to be published.  Because by that point I might actually be able to afford a scanner to use to get them up online.

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


I admire so many, this isn't a fair question! Instead of naming them off, I'll give generalities here.  I admire the Indie authors I've gotten to know since - to me, at least - it takes a lot of guts to go outside the normal way of doing things.  It's even very refreshing to know that many have had some success with their endeavors with publishing their novels outside the normal methods of agent-publisher-bookstore cycle.

I admire anyone who can write a book that makes you think, feel, and dream with the characters.  Novels where I have to actually think as I go through, ones that stimulate my imagination, are my favorites.

I admire anyone who can write a book about a touchy subject and have it come out not sounding all preachy and irritating.  There are a great many "hot topics" out there, and a writer who can successfully include one or more of these topics in their books and get their opinions across subtly are masters in the art of prose - at least, as far as I'm concerned.



*The Binder O' Doom is my HUGE white three ring binder that's probably got a 5 inch width (usual size is 1-2 inches for 3 ring binders).  It contains all of my world building notes, SOME of the history, and my half assed sketches that I'm very bad at doing of the characters.

30 Days of Writing - Day 9

9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.


That's a hard question to answer.  My characters come from a lot of different places.  Some are based on people I've encountered.  Some come from ideas sparked by reading or watching movies.  Some spring whole and ready to go out of my subconscious in the form of dreams.  Wherever they come from, however, they are only bare bones - ideas without flesh.  They are not exactly who they will be when I set them in motion on the page.

When I have a character arrive, I look at them and ask myself where they would fit.  Which world will they inhabit?  Do they have their own story to tell, or are they part of a larger story?  Who are they as people?  What are their likes/dislikes?  What is their favorite color, their favorite food, their favorite music?  I tailor the questions to match the idea of the world I think they're going to inhabit.  If they don't fit in that one, I try to see if they fit into another established story.  If they don't, and I don't yet know what their story is, I file them away to be used at another time.

This is how I came up with the short story arc surrounding Emir, Tyber, and Elizabeata.  They were three characters I didn't know anything about who just showed up one day demanding I write about them.  I found out something about them and realized while they fit into the world of Aleran they didn't fit into any established story.  At that point, I made a few more notes and left them to sit.  I eventually wrote a trio of short stories that were rather half assed but at least they got voices and had some time to shine.  Recently I went through and edited two of the three stories, and completely rewrote the third.  Now the stories fit better in the timeline of Aleran, and seem to fit better with the characters as they presented themselves to me.

Emir
Tyber
Elizabeata

I've got spreadsheets, character dossiers, and random bits of information about everyone I've created tucked into folders, saved in my email, and on my computer.  One day I hope to find a home for all of my orphaned creations, since I firmly believe that all my creations have their own part in a story - be it their own, or as sub-characters helping tell someone else's tale.

30 Days of Writing - Day 7

7. Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your characters?


I listen to whatever I have free.  Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes I listen to anime (Japanese language only - English is a distraction), sometimes I listen to movies or tv series playing.  It all depends on what I'm writing, what my mood is, which WIP I'm dealing with, and which characters I'm focusing on.

When I listen to music, I listen to Within Temptation, Nightwish, Taylor Swift, movie/game/Broadway musical soundtracks, and some international stuff by Namie Amuro - among others.  My playlist isn't very broad these days since I lost a good chunk of my music when our old computer crashed.  But what I have works for now.

I'm hunting for music that, to me, expresses my characters.  I haven't found much of anything yet.  I'm eventually going to create soundtracks for my books to listen to while I write.  I'm just waiting until I can acquire more music.

There are those days where I want absolute silence because I don't want anything to break the mood.  On those days NOTHING is played while I write.  But most of the time I need some kind of background noise or I tend to lose focus and wander off to do other things.

30 Days of Writing - Day 6

6. Where are you most comfortable writing? At what time of day? Computer or good ol' pen and paper?


I'm most comfortable curled up with my laptop on my bed.  I can lounge and write, or I can prop my pillows up behind me and lean up against the wall.  Right now I'm using my husband's iMac because my laptop got pawned to pay bills.  I expect to get it back in the next month, though, which will make me a very happy writer.

What time of day - honestly, I don't write better at one time or another.  I don't even really have a preference.  It's wherever I can fit it into my schedule.  I'll write snippets and notes during slow times at work.  I write when I get up in the morning because my husband wants his computer in the evenings.  When I have my laptop back, there's a good chance I'll probably sneak a couple hours in during the morning and a couple when I get home from work at night.

I prefer to use a computer to do my writing.  It keeps up with me as I type, and if I make a mistake the backspace key is a lovely thing.  When I'm at work, I write by hand.  I've filled up a few notebooks that way (one of which is missing right now...grrrrrr).

30 Days of Writing - Day 5

5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about "youngest" and "oldest" in terms of when you created them?


That's a very good question, especially since I tend to use races that live very long lives in most of my stories.  I think, in terms of physically the youngest, it's Jeena out of my Psionics story line.  When you first meet her, she's barely sixteen years old and has been flying a fighter since she could pilot on her own.  This particular sci fi story is very odd to begin with, so don't mind the age.  She's only been flying in full on combat for the last two years.

Oldest? If we don't count the gods of Aleran (which have been around forever), then it would have to be Minerva and Amberle.  Minerva is the ancient red dragon who rules the rest of the dragons up in the mountains.  Amberle is the amber dragon who sleeps under the forest and provides the magic by which the forest thrives.  They both play parts in most of the Aleran stories and have been around since the creation of the world.

Oldest in terms of when I created them?  Algethra, Jes, Lealye, Dhore, and Prince Taethen - the Blood Shadow crew.  This was actually the first story I started writing in Aleran many years ago.  The outline is still hanging around, and I fully intend on rewriting it one of these days.

Youngest in terms of creation? Oh hell...I don't know.  I'd probably have to say Kieran.  Kieran is a character who was created as a foil for Raghnall, briefly entertained the potential of becoming a semi-major character, and has now once again been relegated to the sole purpose of getting people to like him so when he dies his death is the catalyst for one of the major climaxes in the story arc dealing with Raghnall and the others.

30 Days of Writing - Day 4

4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters?


Ok, this one is a little more difficult for me.  I wrote my first story at the age of eight and it was a faerie tale version of "A Little Princess".  I guess, in a way, you'd call it fan fiction.  It makes me wonder how many of us started out writing stories for various fandoms - or because we think we can do better than the author in question.

I think, in terms of stories written that did not include someone else's characters, I'd have to say that it was the earliest incarnation of my present high fantasy WIP.  I'd been fascinated by the story of Lady Jane Grey and wondered what it would have been like if her story was different.  I was also fascinated by faerie tales and decided to write one of my own based loosely on the historical facts about the 9 day Queen of England.  Thus "Anne and Edward" was born.

Anne was the abused daughter of a scholar and his evil sorceress 2nd wife, and Edward was the spoiled brat of a prince who was now king of Vassa.  But Anne and Edward were also good friends from those days when her father used to bring her to Court and Edward had always wondered what happened to her.  Well, when her father died and her stepmother turned her and her younger twin sisters into slaves, Anne took her sisters and fled to the neighboring lands, where they became servants for much kinder people.  Eventually Edward, doing a tour of his kingdom, sees Anne again and rescues her from her life as a servant and together they put an end to the evil stepmother and the twins became the ladies of the lands.

Really cheesy, very much a Cinderella story, and nothing I'd ever recommend anyone read.  But it was the first time I seriously put anything down on paper that meant something to me.  The characters have changed, the entire world has changed, and the little faerie tale I'd created has now been relegated to a place in my massive story notebook where other stories that I've abandoned now reside.

30 Days of Writing - Day 3

(Doing a double post so I'm caught up, will resume normal posting schedule tomorrow.)

3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you write about fictional places)?


There are two answers to this question.  The first is for naming the characters.  If I have a specific meaning in mind I hunt websites like www.babynames.com to find the name that fits the meaning.  If I'm looking for random names, I go to Behind The Names random name generator.

However, I also have to like the sound of the name.  If it doesn't flow right, or if it doesn't fit the character even with the correct meaning I won't use it.  I tend to use hybrid names - 2 or more names combined to make one - when I don't like what I find.

When it comes to naming places, I can honestly say I don't know where I get my names.  They seriously just randomly turn up in my dreams or when I'm writing.  I'm sure there are things that influence them but I don't know what they are.  For me, naming places is harder than naming characters.

30 Days of Writing - Day 2

(Ok, I know this should've been done yesterday.  I actually forgot I was doing it.)

2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?


I do a lot of story lines where I have multiple characters where I have to handle the POVs, the setting shifts, and the plot twists for each of them.  I love having large casts of characters to work with.  It gives me ample opportunity to say, "I don't want to work with X today.  Y needs some help on one of his/her scenes.  I'll work with Y today."

For example, in the high fantasy WIP I'm working on now I have three protagonists.  The antagonists shift with each POV so each character has his or her own enemy that they are working against.  They each have their own supporting cast of characters too - at least until I get them all in the same place to bring the climax about.

Another example would be the UF story lines I'm working on.  In "The Fallen" we follow the adventures of one woman as she struggles to understand who she is and where she comes from.  She meets up with some colorful people, finds love, and ultimately sacrifices a lot to stop the end of the world.  In "Fang Faces" (yes, I know - lame title) we follow two different couples through the whole thing.  We start with 4 separate individuals who quickly become two functioning teams and eventually become something more to each other.

As for the gender of my characters, interestingly enough I've come to realize most of my protagonists are male.  Which is very odd for me since I have a very hard time writing males. But two of the three protagonists in my epic high fantasy WIP are male.  My UF couples are male/female pairings.  Both of my sci fi stories follow primarily male protagonists, although there are a couple of females who get the spotlight.

30 days of writing - Day 1

I decided to go ahead and give this a shot.  If nothing else, it'll give me a chance to explore some of my own thoughts and such.

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why.

My favorite has been, and probably will always be, Aleran - the fantasy world I've rebuilt so many times over the last 20+ years to get it to its current status.  It's my biggest project.  I have dozens upon dozens of story ideas based over a long period of time in this world.

To bring it into focus even more, my favorite story arcs all have to do with the continent of Vassa/Kingdoms of Erondahl, Lytharia, and Sindla.  I've put a lot of effort into working out the kinks in these lands and building characters from these lands.  I've noticed a distinct shift from human dominated societies in my work and into the kingdoms dominated by my Elves, Sindlans, Majiin, and Terathen.

My very first story in this world was a very badly written knock off of "A Little Princess" turned into a weird faerie tale.  I was also only 8 years old and it was the first story I'd ever fully written.  Of course, that story has long since vanished from my collection and I can only tell my inner 8 year old that it's for the best since we write so much better than we did back then.

I've written barely concealed Cinderella stories out of this world, projected a lot of my insecurities onto the characters, and my favorite collection of characters to play with have undergone so many different incarnations I seriously ought to make a spreadsheet just to see how they - and the world they live in - have evolved.

I enjoy my other projects and look forward to writing all of them, but of all my projects/universes I really feel Aleran is the one that actually reflects who I am as a writer and how I've evolved my storytelling abilities over the years.