8/28/2010

Why, yes. I am stealing these questions from Cherise, who stole them from Onna, and I can't remember if Onna stole them from someone else. But anyway. Here goes. (Hopefully this'll make a nice, long blog post.)

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

Ehh....favorite. I don't like that word, since I don't really have a writing project that I prefer from all the others. It's more like I try several ideas, finish the novels, and they just sit around until the times comes to edit them. I have like 3 novels waiting in line right now to get my full attention, and a fourth that isn't even done being written. But right now The Shadow requires all my attention, and until I've at least written the final version of the story (which I feel I am doing now, but don't take these words too seriously) i can't move on to another one.

But this doesn't answer the question.


My 'favorite' project must be the novel I spent the late summer speed-writing. It's going to be an epic novel in three parts, and so thick it isn't likely to ever get published at all. Part One, Autumn, is two hundred pages long. The other two parts are going to be about that length, and I hope to make some progress on Part Two for NaNo. (I have several projects fighting for my attention during NaNo, since it's one of the few times a year I can share my attention. :P)

Why? Well, because I didn't plot much at all before I started writing. It was based on two dreams I had, around mid-July. In one of the dreams, there was a boy and a girl who could for some reason read each others' minds. I knew it was some sort of curse, and they were struggling to put up with it. They were in the back of a car being driven by one of their parents, probably his, and it was very awkward between them. While they spoke with the parents, between them they were having a different conversation completely, a silent one. This was obviously something they had not asked for.
In the other dream, this same couple was walking around Wal-Mart. The girl, Olivia, grabbed a thick box of colored pencils. I haven't really done anything with this dream yet, perhaps it'll be written in parts two or three. I know it was the same two people, because they were communicating by thought, and it looked like them, too.
I started writing, based solely off those two dreams. I thought at first it might only be a short story, or if anything, a short novel that would not go past 150 pages. (Which is a novella, I believe.) But that wasn't the case. Having planned practically nothing, I found subplots coming to life as I wrote, and plot details I never dreamed of before. *grins* Because most of what I did know came in a dream.

It was more fun writing this than any other project I spent weeks plotting to death. Which is saying a lot.
So my favorite project is the one I never planned. :)

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

I don't know how many characters I have, and I never made lists of them. One thing is for sure, I have enough characters that they could gang up on and defeat me with hardly a problem. >.> Considering I'm not very nice to most of them.

This is really hard to answer. I think my preference depends on the personality of the character.

So here's the thing. Female chars are easier for me to write. But male chars are more fun to write.

I love writing my girl MCs, too. I know I would get along with them great, before they found out who I was, at least. But sometimes I feel like, since i'm a girl, it isn't always a challenge to write about a character that is a girl. It's a breeze for me, and that tends to make scenes bland, or drag on---since it's so easy to write, I found myself not working as hard.

Writing about my male MCs is different. I concentrate more, because I don't want them to sound like girls. i don't want them to be weak. I don't want them to lack personality. They're different, and they have to be written differently.
But with them, i have the problem that sometimes I fear my guys are too courageous. Too polite. Unrealistically so. That slows down the scene, as well.


The result is, I have no preference. It all depends on the character's personality.