First of all, however, there is a feature over at the blog of Anne Elisabeth Stengl, cat-lady extraordinaire and the award-winning authoress of the Tales of Goldstone Wood. She very cheerfully agreed to host myself and Jenny, and gave us each a question to answer. Mine?
I'm sure you get this a lot, but I know it's what everyone is wondering, so I'm going to ask it anyway! How did you, a busy young high school girl, find the time, gumption, and drive to write and polish a manuscript? And what steps did you take to prepare it for publication?
But I'm not giving you the answer. You have to stop by her own lovely blog for that. And don't forget to check out Jenny's feature while you're there! She was asked about the reasons behind her writing The Shadow Things.
Meanwhile, here are a few of the questions the readers of Scribbles sent in during October. Mirriam asked...
1. What is your workspace like? (This was a popular question.)
It depends on whether I work on my dad’s computer or my laptop. At the desktop, I’m at a computer desk with books (either mine or dad’s) and a scattering of odd papers all around. There’s a window on my right, so I get the sunlight and can see the street. As for the laptop, it gets carted around wherever I feel like being. If I’m in my room, as I am at the moment, I sit on a bed with my cat on my lap (he doesn’t like the laptop).
2. Do you have any writing idiosyncrasies?
I don’t like to be talked to when writing, I can’t write when people are looking over my shoulder, and I often have difficulty when anyone is in the same room. I’m a picky writer. I tend to murmur snatches of dialogue aloud when having a hard time ironing it out.
3. Do you have favorite songs you listen to while writing?
I don’t write well to music; it distracts me, and I find myself singing along or following the rhythm rather than typing. Occasionally I like instrumental music, like Two Steps from Hell, and up-beat music like Owl City. It all depends on the book I’m working on, though. I seem to remember listening to a lot of Manheim Steamroller and Fernando Ortega while writing The Soldier’s Cross.
4. How long does it generally take for you to write a first draft?
This has been expanding for every book! I wrote The Soldier’s Cross in about six months; it would have been sooner if I hadn’t balked at writing—well, a particularly sad scene. My next novel came in about the same period, but the combined draft of The White Sail’s Shaking took a year and a half. But hey, it did end up being two books!
5. What sort of character is your favorite?
What sort of character? As in, do I prefer sad and brooding, happy and bubbly, or brusque and sarcastic? That’s a hard question; it takes all sorts of characters to make up a world, and as I look around I’m at a loss to see that any one kind particularly calls out to me. I like fiery characters, but as prominent side characters, not narrators. For my main characters, I suppose you could say I like some stubbornness, some pigheadedness—traits you’ll find quite loud in Fiona. “Bubbly” is not my personality of choice, but I try not to do “brooding” much, either; all the characters from my idiotic early works were brooding, and that rather put me off writing them. Male characters are easier for me to write, and, I find, most enjoyable.
6. What is your favorite character you've created so far? Why?
You do like the hard questions, don’t you, Mirriam? You expect me to look at my casts of characters and choose a single favorite? Pshaw! It greatly depends on which book I’m in closest proximity to. When I finished The Soldier’s Cross it was Pierre; when I finished Wordcrafter it was Ethan and Justin both; now that I’ve just completed The White Sail’s Shaking, it’s a terribly hard draw between Tip and Charlie. (I’m pretty fond of Josiah Darkwood, too.) I like contrasts. I like to see the sparks fly from two such different personalities as Tip Brighton and Charlie Bent, and to see the give and take on both sides. I love Tip for his rough, uncultured, well-meaning bumbling and the pigheadedness I mentioned before; but I love Charlie for his elaborate elegance, his poise, and his snide arrogance. They’re opposites, and I think that’s what endears me to them both.
It depends on whether I work on my dad’s computer or my laptop. At the desktop, I’m at a computer desk with books (either mine or dad’s) and a scattering of odd papers all around. There’s a window on my right, so I get the sunlight and can see the street. As for the laptop, it gets carted around wherever I feel like being. If I’m in my room, as I am at the moment, I sit on a bed with my cat on my lap (he doesn’t like the laptop).
2. Do you have any writing idiosyncrasies?
I don’t like to be talked to when writing, I can’t write when people are looking over my shoulder, and I often have difficulty when anyone is in the same room. I’m a picky writer. I tend to murmur snatches of dialogue aloud when having a hard time ironing it out.
3. Do you have favorite songs you listen to while writing?
I don’t write well to music; it distracts me, and I find myself singing along or following the rhythm rather than typing. Occasionally I like instrumental music, like Two Steps from Hell, and up-beat music like Owl City. It all depends on the book I’m working on, though. I seem to remember listening to a lot of Manheim Steamroller and Fernando Ortega while writing The Soldier’s Cross.
4. How long does it generally take for you to write a first draft?
This has been expanding for every book! I wrote The Soldier’s Cross in about six months; it would have been sooner if I hadn’t balked at writing—well, a particularly sad scene. My next novel came in about the same period, but the combined draft of The White Sail’s Shaking took a year and a half. But hey, it did end up being two books!
5. What sort of character is your favorite?
What sort of character? As in, do I prefer sad and brooding, happy and bubbly, or brusque and sarcastic? That’s a hard question; it takes all sorts of characters to make up a world, and as I look around I’m at a loss to see that any one kind particularly calls out to me. I like fiery characters, but as prominent side characters, not narrators. For my main characters, I suppose you could say I like some stubbornness, some pigheadedness—traits you’ll find quite loud in Fiona. “Bubbly” is not my personality of choice, but I try not to do “brooding” much, either; all the characters from my idiotic early works were brooding, and that rather put me off writing them. Male characters are easier for me to write, and, I find, most enjoyable.
6. What is your favorite character you've created so far? Why?
You do like the hard questions, don’t you, Mirriam? You expect me to look at my casts of characters and choose a single favorite? Pshaw! It greatly depends on which book I’m in closest proximity to. When I finished The Soldier’s Cross it was Pierre; when I finished Wordcrafter it was Ethan and Justin both; now that I’ve just completed The White Sail’s Shaking, it’s a terribly hard draw between Tip and Charlie. (I’m pretty fond of Josiah Darkwood, too.) I like contrasts. I like to see the sparks fly from two such different personalities as Tip Brighton and Charlie Bent, and to see the give and take on both sides. I love Tip for his rough, uncultured, well-meaning bumbling and the pigheadedness I mentioned before; but I love Charlie for his elaborate elegance, his poise, and his snide arrogance. They’re opposites, and I think that’s what endears me to them both.
Bree asked...
7. The Soldier's
Cross is your first book: had you tried writing any other books before
it, and if so, what was one of them?
I did attempt a number of books
before writing The Soldier’s Cross,
but I never managed to finish them—perhaps I simply needed the pressure of
something like NaNo (I don’t believe I previously managed to write more than
30,000 words on one story), or perhaps it was because the plots were so
terribly lame. The first thing I put my
keyboard to was a sort of fanfiction based on one of Jenny’s own early
stories. It was populated by
archetypical Mary Sues and Gary Stus, and I abandoned it eventually. Then I tried a murder mystery, for at the
time I was in love with Agatha Christie’s works, but I was far more interested
in the characters than in the murder or the plot.
Better than either of these, and
thus still in existence, was a collection of pieces centered around Stonehenge,
a British girl, and the coming of the Romans and the Gospel to Britain. I wrote no more than five or six pieces, but
I still have them. I think this was the
piece that saw me begin to improve.
8. Are you planning on
publishing any of your other books in the near future?
But of course! The
White Sail’s Shaking is being shoved across literary agents’ desks now, or
into their inboxes. Since I have decided to pursue traditional publication, the timing is very much not up to me.
9. Has writing been a
long-time love or a newer excitement? (i.e. how long have you been writing?)
I’ve been writing for
five or six years now. I don’t think I
began, however, because I really loved writing.
I began because Jenny was a writer, and I wanted to imitate that and to
be able to capture, as she did, characters and places and far-reaching
adventures. I wanted, too, to be good at
something. I began to write just at the
time when young people generally start to get their legs beneath them and make
sure of their own bearings, and writing was something that grew out of my own
search for a passion. It’s a pretty good
one, I think!
10. Which do you prefer
writing: fantasy or historical fiction?
Unlike many, I have to
say I lean toward historical fiction. I
confess I’m not very good at stretching my mind to the fantastical, and
world-building from the ground up is a great undertaking indeed. Of course with historical fiction there is
also an element of world-building, but at least you’re given the mud and the
straw before being told to make bricks.
Besides, I love the richness of history.
I love historical figures like Edward the Black Prince or Simon de
Montfort, Stephen Decatur or Alexander Hamilton. I love time periods like the Age of
Sail. I love the unfolding saga of humanity,
chilling though it often is. Writing
stories that live and breathe among such characters, such times, is a thrilling
vocation.
11. What author(s)
inspire you?
Many authors inspire
me. Close to home, there’s Jenny—but
most of you know that. Then there are
authors I’ve known a long time, like C.S. Lewis (for his way of getting down to
the glowing heart of a matter); Rosemary Sutcliff (for her richness and the
bitter-sweet flavor of her writing); Jane Austen (for her wit and romance); and
Charles Dickens (for his amazing skill at weaving together immense casts and
plots). I also enjoy James Fenimore
Cooper, especially The Last of the
Mohicans, even though it did rip my heart out. More recently, I’ve discovered Robert Louis
Stevenson, and something about his writing speaks to my heart: maybe it’s the
spice of adventure in the words.
For inspiration,
however, I have to say that I can glean inspiration from whatever I happen to
be reading, or watching, or listening to: things as far-flung as Sherlock
Holmes and Owl City. Perhaps it’s the
trait of any artist to be stimulated by life in general.
12. Do you prefer hot
chocolate, apple cider, tea or coffee while writing?
Tea! Twinings, preferably Ceylon, though I’ll
drink anything black (except the Greys; I can’t stand the Greys). I like coffee to wake me up over office work,
but I don’t drink it while I write.
Apple cider and hot chocolate tend to flay my throat. So when I do need a hot drink, it’s tea for
me.
There are a number of questions still waiting to be answered, but they shall be "got to" soon! Stay tuned for Part Two, and maybe Part Three, as well.
