WIP questions

I’m such a whore for these things and as I’m no longer anywhere near popular or tolerable on Tumblr, well, whatever – I do them here! Nyah!

The problem I have with this questionaire, it concerns WIPS – work in progress. I have quite a few of them. so I’ve chosen to discuss Aside from Heaven. 29 questions

 

• What made you write your WIP? – Sir Guy wasn’t done with me yet. I pray he’s NEVER done with me! Gad there are times he just wrings me out!
• How long have you been working on your WIP? Oh lord, I started writing it before Manna was finished. So, December 2014. Damn, have I been writing Aside for 6 years???? And I’m only on the 2nd reincarnation???
• How has the WIP changed between starting it and where it is now? William is MUCH longer than I expected. When I started it, I knew ALL about reincarnation 1 (Roland) , reincarnation 2 (William Edward) and reincarnation 4 (Lady Guianna, the last Abbess or Ripleys.) Had no clue about the others. Since I started it, I’ve come up (actually written) the entire 3rd ‘reincarnation’ who we never meet – we meet his eldest son and we see Guy’s ghost in all of his furious glory. I’ve sorta plotted out Reincarnation #5 (which should be a one shot!) and my early Regency Guy will have a hefty story as well – not as long as William Edward’s, but pretty thorough. I know what I”m doing with the last reincarnation. (He watches Atlanta burn in the Civil War) So 6 of my 9 lives are pretty well plotted out.
• What came first, the title or the plot? I’m going to say they came at the same time.
• Where did you draw inspiration from? Drugs. Okay, the thought of bringing Guy down through history. When he arrived in Genevieve’s office 3 months after her car wreck, he had been through a lot! The Leather-clad Muse thought that story needed to be told!
• Is your WIP part of a series or standalone? Definitely part of a series!
• What genre is your WIP in? historical/Romance/Action-adventure/comedy/horror/drama/hotsex
• When creating the characters for your WIP, what came first to you? I know them when I put them to ‘paper’. Intimately. I know what they look like first.
• Who is your favourite character to write? Obviously, I love writing Guy. Funny thing, I worry he’s out of character or moving out of character, because when I started writing Manna, I couldn’t really ‘hear’ his voice. I heard Vaisey, loudly. Genevieve screamed, she was so loud in my head. And Guy was quiet. I really enjoy writing my secondary characters. In Manna, there was Eleanor, the little servant girl, and several other minor servants and knights. I really enjoyed writing Marquis and Jeoffrey. In the Asides, there will always be a man-servant, a lead knight. They are all descended from Timmy and I enjoy them a lot.
• Do you have an outline? Yes. Do you stick to it? Usually. I add to it and move it around as I go, if necessary.
• How do you structure your plot? You know, I don’t really know. With the Asides, I’m having to delve into the history of the time period and make Guy fit in.  So I have a monarch spread sheet. Sometimes, it’s been really easy. The first part of William Edward’s life pretty much wrote itself. It was easy to just drop him in there. In many of my original bullet plots – there will be a lot of empty spaces, with the end result at the end.
• What part is the hardest to write in your WIP? Sitting down and doing it. Getting it from mind to ‘paper’.
• Are there scenes that you cut already? No. I’m rather deliberate when I write. A lot of thought goes into it before hand anyway. I hear how ‘editing’ and removing things are liberating… I did that before I committed it to paper.
• Tell us about an upcoming scene in your WIP, that you’re excited about. OMG! William and Edward III get into it! Edward Has done something a king would do (at least in my world) that William would rather he DIDN”T do! (arrange an advantageous marriage for him, when he’s kinda already married – to Viv! IN order to get his way, William holds over Ed his very valuable – dare I say it – trump card.
• Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on.

  He pointed his finger at the door. “You are no longer welcome in my court.”

  The Black Knight shrugged. “Court is over-rated.”

• Give a spoiler for your WIP. One of Guy’s later reincarnations is a pirate of sorts and Queen Elizabeth gifts him with a bride – The bride is unwelcome and disliked, but the other properties that come with the gift (Ripleys) according to him, makes his ‘whore of a wife’ worth it.
• Post the last line you wrote in your WIP –

  William was across the bench and to her side, his hand over her mouth.”If you wish to stay alive to raise our daughter, you will never repeat that!”

• Give a brief character description of your main characters. – Vivienne: Very much her descendant. Intelligent, an earth mama of sorts. She cares about people, has no problem stomping when necessary. Her love for William/Guy is rooted in compassion, understanding, and desire. She sometimes has no filter between her brain and her mouth.
• Do you know how your story ends before you start writing? Yes. Typically about 2/3rd of the way through it, I will write the last chapter or epilogue, so I have a destination.
• What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow? Never use the word ‘has’ or ‘have’ unless I have (hah!) no choice. Also, never use – said, ask, yell… etc… if I can ‘state’ that with a punctuation mark. That’s redundant. He said. We know he ‘said’ it, what did he DO when he said it? In addition, I will attempt not to use the same word over and over and over. Same verb, adverb, adjective, etc. I had an English professor who hated the word ‘is’ and would take off a letter grade every time you used it. He didn’t tell us this. Our first paper, he didn’t read it – just circled the word ‘is’ and deducted accordingly. I hated that man. I should dedicate my first published book to him – thank you Prof B. for being a total shit. 
• What’s a common writing tip that you mostly ignore? I’ve been known to swap view points – 1st person to 3rd person – without thinking about it. I’m told that it’s weird but works.
• How many projects do you usually have going at once? Right this minute, I have I believe 7.
• What’s more important: characters or plot? That’s an effed up question. Both are equally important. Great characters will not save a weak plot and a fabulous plot can not carry on with weak characters.
• Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? Nooooooooo. I have WIPS i’ve set aside for a long time. Years, What made you abandon them? In one case, I missed a major plot device and wrote myself into a wall. I ponder on that on occasion. In other cases – well – Richard Armitage captured my interest more. Duh. I have one I just pulled out of the mothballs where I simply stopped hearing the main character voices in my head. They stopped talking. They’re whispering now and pulling the fic out and dusting it off, I discovered I was very close to the end. To be honest, I simply have too many ideas and not enough time.
• What authors and books have inspired you to write your work? I make no bones I HATED 50 Shades of Shit. And I LOVE Lexi Blake. I was -and still am – convinced that Sir Guy’s story was much more complicated than what the writers of Robin Hood told us. They wanted us to love Robin. Robin was a shit. Sir Guy was more interesting. Yes, there was shadow, but where there is shadow, there is light. Also. Leather. Hmmm mmm So I wanted to give that obvious BDSM edge to Sir Guy. Because he’s so Dom.
• What is the worst writing advice in your opinion?  You must write like this… you know what I HATE to see??? Really? And I’ve seen it a LOT – especially in the HP fandom – when a writer posts at the end of the chapter – Do you like this???? What would you like to see next? Tell me how you want it to go! Really? Are you serious?
• What is the best writing advice? Write for you. Don’t write for accolades, don’t write for reader numbers, don’t write it the way someone else thinks it should go. Write for you. Write YOUR story, not someone else’s. That long laid aside WIP I talked about earlier? I’m going to have serious haters when it’s over. Because it’s not going to end the anyone thinks or wants it to end.
• Are you planning on publishing your WIP? That’s a good question. People say I should publish Manna. And Asides (and the Shepherd) are part of that. I’ve considered it – bulleted it out as a matter of fact. It will take a SERIOUS rewrite in the middle. The entire while she’s in Nottingham will have to be rewritten. The Asides and The Shepherd won’t have to be. If so, how? I don’t know if a publisher would want it. I’ll probably Self-publish.
• Five years from now, where do you see yourself as a writer? Hopefully faster at it. 5 years from now, I’ll be eyeballing retirement in the following 3 to 5 years and I”m going to want to bolster my 403B’s