I’ve missed two days of meme this time, so here’s a new record – three at once 🙂 17. Favorite protagonist and why! That’s too hard. I love them all for different reasons. I like Sulien and John Cavendish because their combination of emotional sensitivity and barely leashed violence makes them explosive to write –…
I know I’m not the only Christian who has ever shaken their heads over the Fred Phelpses of this world, read some of the pronouncements of some of the Christian personalities and politicians in the USA and thought to themselves “that’s not what my faith is about at all! What happened to ‘God is Love’? …
15. Midway question! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether professional or not! I have a kind of holy trinity of writers who I would like to grow up to be. They are, in no particular order, JRR Tolkien – the master of world-building, setting, plotting and invented history. He’s also (IMO) not given…
I went to see “How to Tame Your Dragon” yesterday and was absolutely charmed. I think if you like dragons and heroes who don’t quite fit in because they’re too clever and too wimpy/compassionate for their culture then this one is for you. Toothless the dragon completely steals the show, and I wish I could…
13. What’s your favorite culture to write, fictional or not? I love the 18th Century in England (tell me something I don’t know!) It’s boisterous, loud, rude, self-confident, quintessentially English in a kind of lager-lout way, and yet at the same time it’s delicate, refined, intellectual, curious, self-controlled and full of groundbreaking new ideas about…
12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of worldbuilding? Any side-notes on it you’d like to share? I have to assume that this doesn’t mean world building in the traditional SF sense, in which you literally do build the world from the type of sun , the orbit, the geology…
This blog post really resonated with me today. I think that my recent writer’s block is less a failure of inspiration than a failure of courage. After all, if you don’t say anything, people can’t hate you – except of course how they can and will, whether you speak or don’t speak, act or don’t…
I managed to miss out posting on #9 yesterday, so I’ll just do it today and pretend I always intended to do it that way 😉 9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them. It’s a process of accretion, very much like building up a stalactite or a…
8. What’s your favorite genre to write? To read? I don’t honestly know. I’ve very much enjoyed writing historical, but I also love contemporary magic realism, or historical/paranormal/mystery. I enjoy reading Age of Sail, mystery, romance, fantasy, science fiction. I don’t think I’d normally seek out a Western, but I very much enjoyed Calico by…
7. Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your characters? I find music too distracting to listen to it while I write. I prefer silence. I’m one of those people who can’t help but stop and give the majority of my concentration to…
