I would like to establish my own food forest and farm with which to live on and give back to the community. Ideally, it'd be a large acreage with trees and plants specifically chosen to feed and home as large a population of wildlife as possible in addition to the humans living on the property. I'd happily live out my days in the woods providing guardianship to my little utopia, encouraging other writers and artists, and finding new and innovative ways to live an abundant life with nature instead of fighting against it.
Honestly, I have no idea but I have been told my satirical fiction resembles Terry Prachett's whimsical style and my humorous stories about my own life have been compared to David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs. I'll take the compliment as I think all these writers are absolutely hilarious!
My first book Honoring Echo was written in 6 weeks of absolute trauma. Although I did have a professional editor go over it, I feel she was a little light handed and I think I repeated myself a lot and got lost in certain sections. This was even more apparent when a few years later I narrated the audio version and wanted to edit it while I was going along! Being new at narration I read it through 5 times until I absolutely hated every second of the process. Maybe someday I can go back to it and give it the attention it deserves but for now it served its purpose - it showed me I could write and publish a book and I have gone so far from there!
I have writing going back to my early teens and it's a real surreal to read some of those pieces. They're written surprisingly well and are still often hilarious but you could definitely tell my age and emotional immaturity at that time. My writing definitely has more nuance and empathy in it now. I have experienced so much more in life that the fictional characters I come up with also became a lot more diverse. It's all been a wonderful process.
Absolutely not. Although my sixth-grade English teacher caught me scribbling a manuscript down by hand one day and said I would be a writer when I grew up but I didn't believe her. I was writing as a form of escapism because I had a socially difficult life and pretty much no friends at the time. In my writing I could be the hero of the story and have companionship and adventures to boot. But in the real world I wanted to be a paleontologist - a dream that'd eventually die a long and painful death under the weight of my mounting health issues. Somehow during all this I continued writing and here I am.
Well, my first two books are all stories from my actual life. But I also have twinges of myself in my fiction. All the characters in Achilles in Heels mirror some part of my former teenage self. Achilles represents my struggles with gender norms, Deidamia is the brash and outspoken character I wish and wanted to be in those years, and Patroclus somehow took on the mediator role that I often found myself in during my adolescence. Other works sometimes have clips of real conversations in them - things I find insightful, strange, or funny.
I have always been absolutely terrible at picking titles but I make my own covers with my photography and limited illustrating skills. I know Milking the Cat elicits people's curiosity from the title and the photo on the cover draws them in even further. This book I think is the most approachable because I somehow nailed both things. I struggle with the others.
Writer's Block for me is usually the result of isolation or burnout. As such the answer is somewhat simple. First you must accept you have writer's block and just be OK with not writing for a bit. Then you have to refocus on taking care of yourself. Are you getting good sleep? Are your stress levels too high? Are you eating well? And then once you have covered the basics if you are still having trouble you should go out for walks, go explore an area or place you've never been to, and surround yourself with other creative people. Inspiration will find you at this point. Also keep a dream journal. Your brain sometimes does its best work at night while you are asleep!
I do but it's mostly as part of my marketing. If there's a particularly glowing review I'll often share it on FaceBook or Twitter or wherever else to garner more attention to the book. That being said I have gotten some comments and reviews over the years that have made my heart absolutely swell. It is an experience like no other to have a complete stranger tell you that your work has touched them in some way, taught them something, inspired them to do something, or even that they're using your words to help teach children half a world away! I wouldn't change that for anything. And as for the bad reviews... sometimes those can be downright hilarious too. I am at a point in my life where I recognize I am not everyone's cup of tea and there will always be haters and that's OK. It's their loss not mine. In the meantime, by leaving negative comments or reviews they're still helping me out by adding engagement. The algorithms love that!
I'm pretty sure I have flagrantly uncontrolled ADD so just sitting down and focusing long enough to write anything can be as challenging as trying to put a diaper on a wild bear. And then sticking to one project long enough to finish it is also a momentous challenge. I have SO MANY partial manuscripts just floating around in limbo it's not even funny.
Hilariously I can write male and gender diverse characters really well. It's women folk I struggle A LOT with. Maybe it's because even though I was raised as a girl I didn't really connect with the larger community of womanhood, nor was I ever able to really keep any female friends for a long period of time. It's a pattern that goes back to my earliest memories. Couldn't tell you why this is as I have certainly tried over the years!
It would be absolutely amazing if I could ever live off my earnings as a writer. I'd be over the moon, honestly. But after making this my goal for so many years and not coming anywhere close to achieving it I've backed off a lot. I've redefined success as writing something that really connects with someone. In a way this is me giving back to the community which is really important to me.
I think it just proved I could do it and encouraged and inspired me to keep going. My first book was really me crying out into the void, trying to heal some deep wounds, and finding myself in the process. I think that's why I hate that book so much. It's all me and bleck, what's worse than that?! It's much more fun to write fiction - just wander off into the whimsy. Nothing egotistical about that.
I can remember "writing" (i.e. plagiarizing) a picture book when I was 5. I typed it on this new thing called a computer. My father was one of very few people in town to own one. Why was I doing this? I don't know. I think just because my father was trying to give me something to do so I did. I don't remember writing with any seriousness after that until my painfully disappointing sweet 16. I started a journal then. It helped me cope with my worsening health, my social life that was dead in the water, and everything else. And then something weird happened. I took my pain and turned it into humor. I've never looked back from there.
