Author FAQ
- Where do you get your ideas? - Most of the time the ideas for my stories start as very vivid dreams. After waking from these dreams I write them down and if, later on down the track, I can generate a story from them...I do.
- What do you mean 'generate'? - Flesh out, bring life to the characters. Sometimes the dream may have given me a name, or a brief glimpse at who they are, what drives them and what they are facing. If I can generate/create a flowing line from there, the story is born.
- What is your writing process like? - *laughs* Writing process... I'm not going to paint myself as something I am not. I am human, I get side tracked...easily. Though, once I'm in the 'flow', I usually just type....and type...and type. Then I go back and review, set up the structure and flesh out what I have.
- What things derail you the most when writing? - A few things...my biggest 'derailment' is games. I am a player of MMO's and Single player games, and 9 times out of 10 I am on there when I should be working on my writing. Don't get me wrong, it's a good distraction, and sometimes it does help to take a break. The other one is Facebook. I can lose a lot of time just browsing.
- Games! Which ones? - I play World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls Online and occasionally pot around on Minecraft.
- When did you start writing and why? - I started writing when I was young, I think I was 10. I would spend the occasional holiday on Waiheke Island with family, getting tips from Wanda Cowley (NZ children/young persons author). It was on those holidays I would write the most, creating worlds and characters. Fleshing out the characters and worlds, creating worlds where the girl could be the hero, where she could pick up a sword and fight off the bad guys. Then I would go home and read what I had written, I guess you could say I couldn't find a lot of books I really enjoyed. So I wrote them instead.
- What was your favourite book growing up? - I read above my age when I was a kid, but I could never really find a book I could connect with, a character I could really get a feel for. That was until I stumbled across a book by Robin Hobb called Ship of Magic, book one of The Liveship Traders trilogy, when I was 11. I still own the book, I've read it a few times since, and each time I pick up new things.
- How many unfinished books do you have? - *looks at computer and sighs* Way to many...most, their stories have faded away; to be picked up again sometime in the future. Others are almost done, but just need that elusive 'last thing' to finish them.
- How do you view writing? - For me, personally, it is a way to connect with myself. Find the central core of who I am. I guess you could say it is almost meditative and spiritual in practice.
- Are any of your characters based on real people? - As a whole...no. That doesn't mean there aren't aspects of people I know in my characters. I would never write a person I know directly into a story, however I do find that the use of their personalities, quirks and/or what I adore about them often do help to flesh out and make the side characters a little more real.
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