Some Q&A about me & my writing

I saw this survey on a few other blogs and I decided to do it! If you are reading this you are tagged to do it as well. comment and link to yours and I will comment and follow if I am not following you already!

1) What’s the last thing you wrote? What’s the first thing you wrote that you still have?
The last thing I wrote was my chapter 27 for my awesome fantasy novel. The first thing I have ever written that I still have would be a picture book about some sort of prince and princess.

2) Write poetry?
Sometimes but not often enough. I should start writing it more often.

3) Angsty poetry?
Not really. Unless you consider the meaning of life angst.

4) Favorite genre of writing?
Fantasy. Period.

5) Most annoying character you’ve ever created?
It was a guy named Fidencio an don't ask about the unusual name.... He was simply very clueless and annoying and I ended up liking my villain more than him. So that was it for Fidencio.

6) Best plot you’ve ever created?
The plot for my current novel. I have had great comments on it and I think it's the best out of all my other ideas. It's very intense and there is no chapter that is bland. Though it ended up a bit shorter than 90,00 I would rather have it condensed and intense than long and blah.

7) Coolest plot twist you’ve ever created?
My novel right now is very twisted. I am not sure I can say one of them is the best one though. It really depends on different opinions.

8 ) How often do you get writer’s block?
What is writers block? As soon as I turn on my music my fingers are flying.

9) Write fan fiction?
I actually never even tried.

10) Do you type or write by hand?

One novel which I was only 12,000 words into I wrote by hand. But that was when I didn't have access to a computer because I wrote it in class. Otherwise I don't write by hand. It's a pain.

11) Do you save everything you write?
I save every bit. You never know when it will come in handy.

12) Do you ever go back to an idea after you’ve abandoned it?
I plan to link a few abandoned ideas for my next novel.

13) What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?

My current WIP. Title is still being worked out though.

14) What’s everyone else’s favorite story you’ve written?
Gosh here is another question which I don't have much of an answer to. It's the current book I am revising. I have had great comments on it from betas and friends.

15) Ever written romance or angsty teen drama?
I have pretty intense romance in my novel but it's not only romance. Maybe some day I will give it another shot!

17) How many writing projects are you working on right now?
I have one started but I am really focusing on finishing my YA Fantasy.

18) Have you ever won an award for your writing?

No I never submitted it to any contests.

19) What are your five favorite words?

Anemone, technology, piranha, cryptology, tendrils

20) What character have you created that is most like yourself?

Hard to say. I created my MC by my personal liking. But I can't say we are that alike. Maybe I could say his adversary or Tiya, but I personally try to focus on creating characters that I would like and not all of them are my clones. In fact none of them.

21) Where do you get your ideas for your characters?
Everywhere. In fact I have written up a post on this topic so check that out but to answer the question I take little pieces from unknown sources that I have encountered in my life and I link them together to create someone extraordinary.

22) Do you ever write based on your dreams?

I was told that I should but I haven't given that a shot yet.

23) Do you favor happy endings?
Yes I do! But I don't like cheesy endings.  I like resolution in endings for sure.

24) Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?

No I don't pay any attention to it, though I usually can tell if there is a red underline under a misspelled word.

25) Does music help you write?

YES! It helps me concentrate. I have an awesome playlist which I play to write. Once the music is on my fingers are typing until I am done. I love music and I love instruments.

26) Quote something you’ve written. Whatever pops in your head.
This is from a new novel I just started...
“Hello” I answered the phone for the umpteenth time only to hear silence. I dropped the receiver in frustration, slinging my black bag over my shoulder. I walked towards the door ready to leave when the shrill ring of the phone froze me in my steps. Cold shivers ran up my spine as I slowly walked back to pick up the phone. The lights in my apartment were turned off making the scenery even more bloodcurdling.

Can't wait to see you guys do this!

The End

Lot's of us are anxious to get to the end, yet lots of us aren’t. I love to write about my characters so I guess I am neither anxious nor do I fear the end. Especially that I decided to make my book a trilogy. But anyways I came to so many posts about a great beginning but not too many on endings. Of course it really depends. I have read books that leave the ending...hmm....let’s just say not really an ending. There is no end. The strings are still loose and it makes me a bit frustrated because I spent time to read the novel and the end sucks. Many books I have come upon had a bad ending. There was this one book for example that had a great beginning. Intriguing, gripping and interesting but when I got to the end it turned so weird that I didn't even want to read it. Let's just say the whole beginning and middle of the book was very realistic and then at the end all of a sudden there are some kind of evil demons and angels.


Now, it really depends on whether you are writing a stand alone novel or a trilogy/saga etc. But still since you would be querying one novel you have to query as a stand alone so the difficulty for me was to tie the ends yet keep my options open for the next novel. Since my very first novel I have learnt allot about ending, beginnings, rules etc. Many of theses things from other people's informative blogs and many from books. I have also learnt that you can't have one of your major characters die at the end. Because that sucks!

So endings are very different but how do you reach yours? Are there any specific types of endings you enjoy or hate?

Giving your characters a life of their own

     Pretty much the topic header sums up what this post is about today, but what I am really looking into talking about is whether you control your characters at all. Funny thing is lots of writers that are my friends like to just make up a character and stick them into an uncomfortable situation. From then on the character sort of controls the story, depending on their traits and who they are as a person etc. For me this does not work fully. Of course I let my character have his personality and I have him make the choices that he would but I actually just recently started working on outline and it made my life so much easier. My very first novel that I finished writing last year, sucked. I let the characters lead the way and the plot got very messed up. My main character was clueless about everything and the ending is for a different post completely. I am not saying that writing by pure instinct is at all bad by the way, it may work great for your guys and many other writers but for me it’s a no no I guess.

     So when I decided to rewrite the book to make it perfect I ended up taking my lovely antagonist, placing him as the main character, removing most of the rest and outlining. I outlined every chapter in detail until the ending, even estimating the word count of every chapter and calculating it so that it would fit below 90,000 with a good ending. Because a bad ending will make agents scowl. Any ways this worked like magic for me. It made my life so much easier and I managed to follow the storyline perfectly (well I have 2 chapters to go to the end still…). Don’t get me wrong though, I add, I take away and it doesn’t turn out exactly like the outline, but the outline gave me a path to follow so that I don’t get lost. How about you? Do you like to give your characters the lead or take the lead yourself and plan their path out?

@#$#@ in novels

We all swear at times right? But let's admit it. Most of us here don't cuss every other word otherwise I would be swearing now right? So how do we all take in swearing in novels? Would you like it if your kids, siblings (in my case) that are younger read books with tons of swearing in it? My personal opinion is that swearing is absolutely fine. Like I said we all swear at times. Whether some of us swear at each other and others simply swear when something goes wrong. I think that if it is used swearing sparingly and at the right times it sort of just blends in with the scene. But if a character or characters swear completely for no reason it sort of slows the story down. At least for me. But swearing is completely a different case in fantasy novels. Particularly if you are writing an older made up world. For me personally I haven't yet used swearing other than damn and bastard. But to me those aren't really swearwords. What is your opinion on swearing and how often do you tend to use it or see it in your novels?

The Damn hardship of writing.....

Ok. I am frustrated. Officially. Well at least I was yesterday, and I am thinking to myself "What are you frustrated about it's sunny and there is no snow?" but just as so many of us, I can't get my plot to shine through my query. I am literally four chapters of revisions away from the end and I can't write a proper query. So I do many query critiques and I can really see where the query is weak and where it can be improved but staring at my own query is like staring at a whiteboard. I can't notice any issues because I know what my story is about! But I am not giving up hope. What I am trying to do is simply to erase all my thoughts and ask myself the three questions that are supposed to help...


Who is your MC?

What is his (in my case it's a guy) goal?

and how will he achieve his goal?

As of today I am still struggling with the perfect query particularly because I have so much sub-plot and twists. I have no problems with the manuscript..I have betas that love it and love the story and are rooting for me but...The dreaded Query. Oh and did I mention that I still haven't started the synopsis and that I planned of sending out queries back in January. Was I that crazy? I guess the new year was keaping my mind very fuzzy lol. So how do you write the perfect query? What strategy do you use?

Killing off characters...

If you follow my blog you probably know that I am in the process of finishing my revision. A complete rewrite of my original novel which changed so much that it really turned out to be a different novel. Well the real topic of today's post is killing of our characters! Yes we writers are murderers. Some faiths that we create for our characters are pure evil... (snickers and laughs evilly) Some are just necessary for the story to go on. for example I had my main character almost drink out of a goblet of juice when a knock was heard on the door and he out of the kindness of his heart gave the juice to a guard. The guard drank the juice and died a horrid and gruesome death after the poison slowly dissolved his internal organs and capillaries! I mean it was just a guard right? I had to do that so that my character doesn't die and so that he discovers that somebody is secretly trying to kill him, I mean poison. For this character I admit not to even care killing him off. I didn't even give him a name.

But what about characters that are there with your MC from the very start? The characters that you named and made up a past for. Sacrifices have to be made. That's probably the conclusion I came to. But hey in my very first novel the MC died at the end. That's how amateur I was back then. In fact it also had a cliché beginning! Thank god that I started reading these blogs and learning. lol. I guess it's true that first novels really do suck! And even if you disagree there are writers that wrote a first novel without experience but believe me they revised countless times before getting it to where they wanted it so technically it's not the first anymore. So what is your opinion on killing characters off? Is it easy for you? Hard perhaps? Perhaps impossible because you are such a kind person or perhaps you make up the most treacherous deaths for them to face? Leave a comment!

ONE MILLION Words

I forget who it was that said that to really be a writer you need to write 1 million words. This just now popped into my mind and I thought it would be a great topic for a little debate. I personally have to say that I disagree completely. You could bang off 1 million words and they could suck. So does this mean that after you did you can really write? I know I am far from off writing 1 million words. In fact in my whole very short life of writing I probably only have written 250,000 words, which for some of you is a full novel. Let's just say that I started a novel two years ago and didn't get past the first fifty pages. Scrap.

Then I started and ended a novel last year and now I am 20,000 words away from rewriting it. Though the story completely changed it it turned out a new novel by itself. So I am very new to writing, but that does not mean that someone who has written one million words could produce something better. To me it really depends. For example if I compare my first writing to my writing now you could think that the manuscripts were written by two different pieces. There is so much valuable information out there on blogs, forums and sites that you don't have to write 1 million words to learn. It is all a matter of how fast you catch on and how fast you improve. What is your take on the 1 million word theory and if you agree with it have you hit 1 million yet?