Writing method questions

Do you like to create books for adults?

I don’t mind writing for adults, but the ages of 17-28 was a very “haunted” time for me where I was dealing with issues growing up, becoming more independent, feeling emotionally all over the place, dating for the first time, and then, what would dominate that era of my life, dealing with a bipolar 1 diagnosis and severe mania. I consider these “lost” years in my life. While some incredible things happened during this little era of mine (like my playwriting and composing), I always felt like these years never truly belonged to me, because I never felt fully like myself or fully in charge of myself.

I want to write for this age group and for readers who might have had issues with this rough decade of existence in their lives. It’s the time of growth from young adult into new adult, and I like to write for young adult and new adult audiences. New experiences, like young love and new independence, can really resonate with readers who are in this point in their lives.

Not only is writing for this age group a sort of “do over” for myself, but also, it’s to write for any reader in that time of their lives who might be really going through it. That era of my life was hell, but I made it out, and I survived, and things got better. Your happy ending will come.

Have you experienced writer’s block, and how do you handle it?

I never understood why there are authors out there who insist that writer’s block doesn’t exist. I’ve definitely had it. I take it to mean an obstacle that prevents you from doing the writing, and that’s why you are mentally blocked from moving on. Don’t writers run into this?

Anyway, the first thing I do is try to throw myself into my inspirations–costumes, cosplay, movies, anime, manga, comics, reading, etc.–and the trick to this is that what I consume has to somewhat be related to what I’m writing. I have to keep it in the vicinity of relevance, otherwise I’m just 100% distracting myself.

Next, I hand-write a dialogue with myself in a little notebook. I did this a lot with Son of the Siren, where I got stuck frequently due to dealing with past trauma. I had to stop and start a lot and work through things mentally/emotionally. So my diary with myself might be something like, “I’m having a hard time writing X. Here’s what I think should happen, but I don’t know if it will work because of Y.” Then I ask myself probing questions and come up with alternate plot points. Usually from all that writing I can figure something out.

For whatever reason, I haven’t done the self-dialogue writing with “The Darkening Gate” trilogy yet. And I definitely have been blocked (I’m sort of blocked right now with The Step and the Walk). I guess because I’m on such a tough deadline I might view the additional writing as a waste of time, and instead just somehow force myself into the seat and work through it. That happened with The Name and the Key when the deadline came a-knockin’.

Do you base your characters on real people?

I used to. When I wrote my musical Melancholia, I was very angry and depressed and wrote characters based off of my ex-boyfriend and my ex’s then-current girlfriend. While they ended up being the audience’s favorite characters, I sort of…let them have it in terms of what I thought about them. I gave them a song, “The Tango Absurda,” that was based on something very private my ex had told me…and I was so awful and set it to music. On top of that, I made it very clear I didn’t believe him. Readers, this was so mean of me. And immature. This was during the super-bipolar era so I didn’t know how to deal with my feelings, or how to stick up for myself without exploding everything around me into little pieces.

I loved writing Melancholia. The music and lyrics are genuinely awesome. The story, not so much–it’s a fever dream and a mess, much like my psychological state at the time. “The Tango Absurda,” given its content, would never fly with audiences today.

It’s always been a goal of mine to rewrite Melancholia from the ground up (just keeping 99% of the original songs) and have it performed once more in my lifetime.

…I digress. So…I used to write about people I know. Now that I know how harmful that is (and it’s been done to me! It was awful!), I promised myself I would never do it again.

I usually just put bits and pieces of myself into my characters.

What types of questions do you ask yourself when planning a new book?

• What do the characters look like? (I think of them like an anime character visual sheet)
• What causes the characters to look happy? Sad? Devastated? Angry? (What caused what emotion in their life)
• What clothes are they wearing?
• What motifs or things that interest me do I want to play with this time?

How do you create your main characters?

This sort of ties in to the previous question. I always create the visuals of a character in my head first, and I imagine their design full-bodied from different angles, then their faces making different expressions, like what you see when character designers create a visual sheet. Here’s another one for you to see what I mean.

The thing about visual sheets is that a small handful of facial expressions are selected to be depicted by the artist, to show the character’s emotional range. I like to imagine their facial expressions too, and then I ask myself, what happened to make you make this expression?

Clothing plays an ENORMOUS part in character creation. I will write a book and create a setting/historical influence entirely based on the clothing I want the characters to wear. For example, Son of the Siren is based on Tudor England. The Name and the Key and the rest of the books in The Darkening Gate trilogy focus on the Regency period.

Lastly, after I play around with visuals and some backstory based on emotional facial expressions, I’ll find one of those character questionnaires and fill those out to get a more complete sense of the character. If I skip that part, (sometimes I do), it’s because I want to go right into making things happen to the character–particularly in terms of obstacles OR rewards (like romance).

Where do you get your information or ideas for your books?

• from living overseas –the cultures, folklore, languages, and locations
• from anime and manga
• from movies and TV
• from music (mostly instrumental)
• from other books

How long does it take you to write a book?

It varies. Son of the Siren had no strict deadline, so I wrote it on and off at my own pace, and that took two years, plus about a third year of rewrites based on beta read feedback (never again!). When The Name and the Key was my thesis, it took the entire three years of graduate school to knock it out. I rewrote the beginning six or seven times. I also tried to rewrite it as a fairy tale at first until all of the dark stuff invaded the story and took it over. When I rewrote The Name and the Key for Oliver Heber Books, I had started out writing it when I felt like, which took like a year, but then had to speed it up when it was under contract. I think it took like a year and a half or so. The Step and the Walk, if I meet my extreme personal deadline, will have taken six months.

How do you handle criticism?

I think if the criticism shows a sound explanation or logic to it, I can take it well. But if there’s criticism I get that makes no sense to me, I have a harder time dealing with it. Sometimes I take that kind of criticism badly, especially when they say something about the book but there’s no evidence to back up what they’re saying. (This is different than sharing an opinion.)

A quick list of comments that irked me from Son of the Siren: the book wasn’t diverse, the Queen pursuing Lirien was like “a teenage boy’s fantasy,” and that the book reads middle grade (got that one more than once).

I’ve actually had much harsher stuff said about the book than that, but in those instances, I started laughing, because they were hilarious. They were clearly the reader’s opinion, and reading is subjective. I can’t tell anyone an opinion is wrong because the reader feels what they feel, and that’s not up for debate. So…opinions don’t seem to bother me; only when criticism of the work gets something completely wrong with no evidence to support it.

The solution to this is to never read reviews. But I am a weak person and I’ve always read them. It’s how I can tell what to do for the next book–it’s kind of educational to me, plus, it’s a pulse on the reader where I can see how I’m doing. Lastly, when I get a great review, it makes me feel validated. So…I’ll probably keep reading them. But the big rule–never respond to them.

How much research do you do for your books?

I probably research clothing right in the beginning of writing the series, and then, as I write, I’ll look up the food that people ate at the time, maybe the architectural designs of the living quarters of the day, the currency, how people who were ill got treated…and then as I go, a question might pop up like, “How fast does the human body decay in water?” which means I research on the spot. I can’t continue writing until I know what I need to know in the scene.

How do you deal with the pressure of meeting deadlines?

Not very well. When the time comes, I seem to be able to force my butt into the seat and pump stuff out to meet the true deadline, but sometimes I procrastinate. Right now I should be writing 1543 words of The Step and the Walk but I’m stuck, so I’m blogging instead–writing, just writing the wrong thing. Oops.

Maybe in a roundabout way this procrastination will push me further into stress, and that stress will motivate me to batten down the hatches and finish.

I have asked for an extension before. The Name and the Key was due in November originally and I asked if I could turn it in in December. I felt really, really guilty about that, but my publisher was really flexible with it. I’m trying to write The Step and the Walk in a way that avoids pushing deadlines further. The motivation behind this is to try to fit the trilogy into a rapid-release type setup. Readers tend to not want to wait for their series books anymore, so I’m trying to write faster for this reason.

How do you choose the names for your characters?

I have certain letters of the alphabet that I really like, plus names with two or three syllables that I like…I go by sound and flow first, usually, and then meaning if it’s important to me. I use Behind the Name , a naming resource where you can search by country of origin, gender, meaning, etc. It’s marked its 30th year according to the website banner–in internet time, that’s FOREVER! It’s an incredible resource. Right now, I’m basing an island off of ancient Greece in The Step and the Walk and coming up with Ancient Greek character names has been a lot of fun.

Do you ever consider the reader’s perspective when you’re writing?

If I’m going into some darker territory, I do–I worry about the reader’s sensibilities or past experiences. I don’t want to trigger anything unpleasant and make reading my book unsafe for them. Also, I try to consider the reading when I want to geek out over something, like alchemy. You can go down the rabbit hole with something like that, and I can only mention what’s important to the story in its relevant time, or else I’m just info-dumping or subconsciously bragging about what I know.

How do you develop your plot and characters?

Honestly, I try to escalate–how can we make things worse for them? I might stick moments after something awful happens to let readers recuperate, but basically, I develop plot and characters by coming up with ever-increasing misfortunes that heighten the plot stakes and test my characters’–well, character.

Do you aim for a set amount of words/pages per day?

Without pressure I try to write at least 500 words a day. But I’m under pressure now to finish my book at the end of the month, so I need to write 1543 words a day. Actually, I was so exhausted yesterday after working on what I needed to teach class today that I blew off writing and went to bed early…so today, to stay on track, I need to write 3086 words. BLARGLE

Do you read much and if so, who are your favorite authors?

I do try to read all the time. Fiction takes more of an effort out of me, but when my brain power is working, I’ll read the works of Alix E. Harrow, Rachel Gillig, N.K. Jemisin, Holly Black, Margaret Rogerson, Tananarive Due, and others.

BL manga dominates my reading, to be honest. I can zip through those quickly, I love the romance and the art, and I’ll read anything from dark to spicy to sweet. I’ve read SO MUCH that I can’t remember many creator names, but I will say that my favorite writer/artist is probably Meguru Hinohara. Her(?) ongoing work is Therapy Game Restart, but there’s a fantasy BL called The Dragon’s Betrothed that I really love. It’s on hiatus in Japan, and I’m praying we get to see the conclusion to that story.

How do you deal with bad reviews?

Depending on how they are written, usually I’ll laugh, roll my eyes, or take it far too personally and stew in it. But mostly the bad reviews have been hilarious.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

I have lots of trouble with plot and giving characters enough to do. My rough drafts are really, really short. I always think my plots are large enough to build an 80,000 word book or so, but with The Darkening Gate trilogy, I’m finding I’m hitting my major plot points too soon. It got worked out with The Name and the Key, although that’s going to be a slim volume–67,000 words or so. I’m aiming for the rest of the series to be roughly the same amount, although if they get a little bit bigger each time, I don’t mind. But for consistency, I want them to be about equal in terms of length. So far, The Step and the Walk is really, really short.

What is your work schedule like when you are writing?

So, writing is not my primary job. Someday I’d like it to be, but I’m just not financially sound enough yet. Adjuncting is my primary job, although to be honest, you really shouldn’t rely on adjuncting as your sole source of income because the pay is so low. Alas, this is all the work I can find with my job background. ANYWAY, school takes precedence. If I have to stop writing to grade papers, I have to stop writing to grade papers. If I need to put my weekend towards the lessons for Mondays and Wednesdays, I’ll do it. So, I usually only write when I can squeeze in time here and there, and that’ s on my days off. I write primarily on weekends, except when weekends need to be devoted to grading.

Do you have a specific writing style?

I wrote all about this in a post called “Why I write how I write.” What you can expect:

• easy to read and simple language
• shorter length
• medium to fast pace
• a diverse cast
• a touch of romance
• a happily ever after

Those first three points speak to the type of reader I am. With my bipolar disorder and consistent concentration issues, reading can be a challenge for me. So, I like to write in a way that makes reading easier for people who may struggle like me.

Can you share a little of your current work with us?

This is an early scene in The Step and the Walk, when Andresh is at university. He is a literature major and is currently enrolled in a survey course of what would be the equivalent of our Renaissance age. The class is studying symbolism and imagery from the time period, plus the meter and rhyming scheme of the poetry of the time. Their first text–an alchemy book.

“Very good. The cauda pavonis is a clue to alchemists that they are on the right track. Now, someone read the accompanying text out loud. Someone who hasn’t spoken yet. How about you in the back. Mr. Arvensy. I’ve been curious about you. I’ve never had twins in my classes before.”  

A warm, pleasing tenor voice filled my ears. I turned around in my chair to see the source and it was a young man with red-gold curly hair just like Madeleine’s. He had white skin like me—though I’m paler—and rosy cheeks and lips. Almost like he wore cosmetics, but it was natural, and it looked good with his nearly feminine face. I can’t remember his first name, but I know the second someone says it I won’t forget it again.

He read the verse:

“‘Splendid Solis shines in Glas,

After blackness phase doth pass.

The Peacock’s tail, immortal Age

Nigredo to Albedo stage.

Cross Black Gate and Rainbow see,

Whiteness soon be clear to Thee.’”

No, I did not have that entirely memorized. Yes, I copied it. But I can remember almost everything else clearly.

“Thank you, Mr. Arvensy. There’s that lullico rhythm again,” Dr. Pedrikar said. “And this little poem reveals some of the image’s truths. Blackness is a phase—called nigredo. This is referred to as one of the four gates of alchemy. The next is albedo, or white, then citrinitas, gold, and lastly, rubedo, or red—the color of the philosopher’s stone. If you make it through all four gates, you’ve discovered immortality. The peacock’s tail, or cauda pavonis, is a flash of iridescence, rainbow-like colors that appear right after the blackness inside of the flask disappears. If you see this rainbow, then the albedo stage is guarenteed.”

This is totally a geek-out section for me, the author, but also, it’s to teach the reader the basics of what type of magic Andresh will be getting into later.