Beautiful People: Author Edition

It’s that time again, time for the first Beautiful People link up of the year. Beautiful People is a link up for writers, hosted by Cait from Paper Fury and Sky from Further Up and Further In, which is designed to help writers get to know their books better, and to give them a chance to share a little about their books with other people. This month is a special edition, putting us writers in the spotlight. In the interest of length I’ve cut the original 15 questions down to just 10, which I hope you will enjoy.

1. How/why did you start writing?

It was the fault of a character, Indigo Starsight. She was supposed to be a bit of an alter ego for myself, but she turned out to have such an interesting story of her own that I decided to write a book about her. It was terrible, as a first book should be, but that helped me realised how much I wanted to write books and I haven’t stopped since.

2. What’s your favourite part of writing?
That would definitely be where I get to start a brand new project while the idea is still shiny, new, and perfect. All the planning, all the coming up with amazing characters, all the excitement, it all comes together in that moment when I put the first words down. It is an amazing moment. The whole first drafting process is so much fun, but beginning the book is the best part of all.

3. What’s your biggest writing struggle?
Editing. My first drafts are very messy. I know that, and I know editing is supposed to make my pile of random words into a book. The problem comes when I keep missing important things I need to fix. I’m sure I should be better at it now, but I’m in the sixth draft of a book (the first two being total rewrites), and it’s still got big problems. I’m still learning about editing, and it’s definitely my biggest struggle.

4. Do you write best at night or day?
Definitely in the day. I do my best work in the middle of the morning, and in the middle of the afternoon (my brain dies in the middle of those two points). Unfortunately, due to study, I end up doing most of writing at night, but I must prefer writing in the daytime.

5. What does your writing space look like?
The best answer to this question is to show you a photo or two. What is most important to me in my writing space is that there has to be, well, space. Preferably clean space. I need to be able to find my pens, notebooks and resources. And there has to be a cup of tea or coffee.

6. How long does it typically take you to write a complete draft?
It depends when I write it. Outside of NaNoWriMo, it takes me about a month, start to finish. During NaNoWriMo it takes me one to two weeks. My first drafts are always really quick, really messy, and really fun. The advantage of writing my drafts so quickly is that I don’t lose the initial excitement, but they are a lot messier than if I’d taken more time.

7. How many projects do you work on at once?
When I’m drafting: One.

When I’m editing: Two to three.

I’m a one book girl when I draft, mostly because I draft fast and try not to get distracted from the story I’m supposed to be writing. All those shiny ideas. But when I’m editing, I’ll cycle through a couple. So I’ll edit one book, then let it rest and either plan or edit another book. I never have more than three active projects at any one time though.

8. Do you let people read your writing? Why or why not?
I let some people read my writing, but not everyone. I have a few friends who I will let read pretty much everything. They’re my encouragement team. They don’t critique my books. I’m sure they notice all the bad stuff and mistakes, and goodness knows I warn them about the bad quality enough times before I give it to them. But they just read it for fun and then they encourage me to keep going. And then I let a few people read and critique my writing when I feel that it’s ready to be looked at. Or when I think I need to be brave. But I don’t show many people my writing before it’s finished. It’s too scary.

9. If you didn’t write, what would you want to do?
I don’t really want to imagine a life where I wasn’t writing. But, hypothetically, if that ever happened, I would fall back on my second passion, which is music. Admittedly, I feel even less qualified to be a musician than I do to be a writer, but to be a musician would definitely be my second choice.

10. Which story has your heart and won’t let go?

The Dragon Thief for sure. This story has massive problems. It’s a fantasy story about a convicted thief who has to chance to earn her freedom by finding an important magical item that was stolen. It’s a great idea (to me at least), but I have big problems like the fact that I have no idea what the villain’s motivation is. It’s on the backburner at the moment, but it won’t stop poking me to sort it out and make it shiny. I love the idea and the main character, so hopefully one day I’ll get it straightened out.

I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about me and my writing. Are you participating in the Beautiful People linkup? Link me to your post! Anything else you'd like to know about me? Ask me a question in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer it.