Anyways, on to the questions.
1) What am I working on?
Um ... the easy answer would be writing My Kingdom for a Quest and three more stories for my next short story collection ... but I write best when I multitask, and at the moment ... I have the following documents pulled up (Besides Kingdom and the short stories):
Half-Hidden
HaV Academy
The New Division
Just Another SciFi Novel
Water Princess, Fire Prince
Worth of a King
Bookania book 4.
PLUS, I have sitting beside me in notebooks:
The Nine Gems of Virtue
Rizkaland book 2
Footprints of a Mermaid
So ... I'm a bit busy at the moment.
2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I'm not exactly sure how to answer that. When I write, I don't worry about how it's different. Much of the time, I just scavenge around for cliches that I can reuse and re-purpose. And I write in such a variety of genres - mostly fantasy, but even there, I cover all of the bases. Dragons, fairies, retellings, epic quests ... I try everything.
But no one has my brain, no one has written these stories before. No one has used my twists, my vision. I put a bit of me into every one of my stories.
3) Why do I write what I do?
Because they are the stories burning in my heart, crying to be spilled through my fingers. I like taking old, tired plots and giving them new light. I like bringing up topics that people should think about it. I've been given stories to write, and write them I shall.
4) How does my writing process work?
As you can probably guess from my list of books I'm working on write now, it's a bit chaotic, but after the publication of four books, I've developed something of a rhythm.
I start with an spark, which could be anything from the idea of dragons who take on a human form after they are slain to the idea of a girl who has never been allowed to cut her hair. I mull on this idea for a few days to a few months, until I discover the heart of the story, which may be directly connected to the spark, or it may have nothing in common and I end up throwing that original idea out entirely.
Eventually, I get excited enough about the story that I feel that I'm ready to start writing it. I make it about two to five chapters before I realize that I started in the wrong place, or I'm going the wrong direction, and, armed with this knowledge, I scrap that notebook or document and start over.
This time I (usually) make it to the end, and once I reach those delicious words, I put the book away and work on something else. (Although sometimes I hand it off to my Grandma or someone so they can tell me what they think of it). Once I get back to it, I decide it needs a complete rewrite, so I plunge into that. It's usually a painless process, rewriting, though it isn't always.
Once it's rewritten, I send it off to my editors, do up a cover art, then hit the publish button.
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And I tag ... Jack.
Jack claims the title of Author, which makes her feel like a Time Lord when she capitalizes it. She has a sonic pen which deepens her Time Lord claims. She enjoys a good Science Fiction story though spends most of her time writing Fantasy and Steampunk, or a mixture of both.
You can learn more about Jack's other published work and upcoming books at her website,jacklewisbaillot.com
I enjoyed reading your answers. =) Sorry I couldn't participate.
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