Hello guys! (I say guys in the term, 'people.' I know there probably aren't any boys/men reading this girlish corner of the internet (Wow, that phrase is so overused.)
Today I'm so excited to have you read this post! I'm going to interview Emma Jane, Heidi, Hamlette, Natalie and myself, duh, with some writing questions. I love my writer friends. :-)
My dear guests, do introduce yourselves!
Emma: Hello people! I’m Emma Jane. I’m a quirky, slightly obsessive sixteen-year-old girl with starry brown eyes who loves to love things. I love singing country songs, reading good novels, and swooning over good movies that make me laugh and cry and everything in between. Above all that nonsense, though, I’m a Christian, and I hope to glorify my Lord and learn to love Him better with everything I am.
Heidi: Heidi Peterson (author of Ellen and Tales for Little Ears) is currently working on her third book and second full length novel. She's a lover of wide-spreading land, summer dust, white pounding waterfalls, and mountain tops; also of good dark coffee and rich stories. Most of all she's a lover of the One who is the Word, the Word made flesh. You can visit her author website here and her personal blog here.
Hamlette: I'm 34, married, and we have three kids that I home school. I've been making up stories for as long as I can remember, but when I was 14 I decided to learn how to write them down. I'm still learning.
Natalie: Hello! My name is Natalie and I’m 16 going on 17. I’m a country girl at heart and some of the things that make me happiest are fresh air, flowers, books (especially classics and historical fiction!), photography, ice cold water, singing and piano playing, glorious sunsets, laughing with my family, and most importantly my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Oh, and I like writing. Which I think is an important factor of this interview. ;)
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| This is us, having fun with some other bloggy friends. :-P |
What’s the weirdest name you have ever used in one of your books/stories?
Emma: I’m not exactly famous for weird names (unlike some people I know, *ahem, ahem*), but I like to use unique ones. So many names are so overused in literature. I have taken a solemn oath never to name a heroine Elizabeth. In my current novel I have a character named Del Winsome, which I think is pretty nifty. I’m also writing another story about a little girl named Butterfly Galloway; called ‘Fly’ for short. I don’t know where I got the name, it just kind of dropped into my lap one night and I thought, hey! Cool, let’s use that.
Heidi: While most of my names are fairly traditional, I do like them tangy. My most recent christening was a cowboy nicknamed Suds/Sudsy.
Hamlette: Back in high school, I wrote a sci-fi story with a character named Alethea Lalita. Looking back, she was basically Princess Leia crossed with Maid Marian. I do still like the way that name rolls off my tongue, though.
Natalie: Ummmm….I’m not sure. Most of my stories are pretty “normal”, haha. Except I have written Star Wars fanfiction in the past, and I suppose names like “Roam Mondeckk” is pretty strange. Yup. It is. I kind of wince to remember some of my stories and characters...they could be quite…...lame. haha
Naomi: Tote Gab (a man. And no, I'm not kidding. Yes, I did make up the name 'Tote.')
Share the last dress description you wrote.
Emma: *scratches head* I don’t really describe clothes much, to be honest. At least, not in detail. But the main character in the novel I’m writing is very infatuated with stylish clothes, and so sometimes I enumerate on what she dreams of wearing, what she wishes she had. Let’s see:
I hurried to get dressed, hastily pulling on the other dress I had brought with me-- the ivory one with little blue flowers, though it was hardly ivory anymore from so many washings. It had belonged to Rosanne before me, so it had seen a lot of wear and tear in its day. Still, it was kind of pretty, and I had already decided that there was no use in being ashamed of my clothes. I’d get new ones soon enough.
Heidi: She appeared at the head of the stairs, gold curls pinned up above her gray silk dress. She moved closer down the hall, ruffles swirling and rustling round her feet.
Hamlette: From the novel I'm revising: The dress was a dark green that reminded him of the pine tree he'd spent half the night in. Its full skirt swung out around Annie as she turned, like an upside-down flower drooping during a rain storm.
Natalie: Ooh, what a fun question! Here’s mine (it's actually a description of four dresses):
"She examined the gowns. One was a soft, bell-sleeved teal dress with an red undergown dotted with a gold pattern. The second was a cotton blue dress with puffed sleeves that tightened just before the elbow. An overskirt and vest of light brown material protected the dress from stains. The last two dresses were more delicate and formal, one being of light green folds of satin over a lacy underskirt and sleeves. The soft plum colored dress was patterned with a shiny deep purple leaf design and had a silver belt."
I don't always describe my outfits in great detail (although I do imagine them!) so forgive me if my description isn't very good!
Naomi: My dress was satin, dove-coloured, with black streamers half way across the skirt, and pretty white sequins filling in all the places that needed more trimming.
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Randomly nice dress :-)
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Talk about the best character you ever created.
Emma: THIS IS AN IMPOSSIBLE QUESTION. Very well, I’ll try. ;-P Though I don’t know if I could say I have a favorite, since I love them all so dearly. One of my favorites is Jimmy Hamilton in Curtains of Lace, because he’s just such a wholesome, fun, good guy. He’s charming in a backwoods sort of way, yet his manners are above reproach. He can basically adapt himself to feel comfortable in any situation, which is one of the things I love most about him. He knows who he is and he’s totally at ease with himself and everyone around him.
Heidi: I try hard not to pick favorites (and some important characters in my novel are still coming onstage), but I do thoroughly love Cedric and Richard (the protagonist and one of his brothers in my current WIP): I’m loving their emerging personalities and complexity and internal conflict…loving them for themselves. Edith (also in my current WIP) is turning out to be a lot of fun to work with, too. Two favorites from my finished work, though, are Captain Bryant and Pierre in Ellen. I like both tremendously and love how the relationship between them grows and develops.
Hamlette: My favourite so far is definitely Clancy, a secondary character in the novel I'm revising. He's actually the character who "brought" the story to me -- a man in a gorgeous black cowboy hat and long black coat, riding a grey horse. He's a deputy U.S. Marshal and a veteran of the Civil War, and he briefly mentors my protagonist.
Natalie: Well, as of now, one of my favorite characters is a knight from my retelling of The Princess and the Pea. He’s a happy, carefree kind of guy who enjoys teasing his best friend, the prince, and helping anyone in need. I really love him. He’s so funny and nice. He always has a teasing comment ready to make people laugh, but is tactful and aware of people’s feelings.
Naomi: Oh, I have loads of favourite characters. My current favourite one, though, is probably the hero of my current project, called Andy Eshton. He's a really young Jimmy Stewart in his looks, only with a rounder face, and a more lopsided, boyish, cheeky look. He's kind and witty and I love him.
How long do you write every day?
Emma: Ehhhh, usually about two or three hours, if I’m good. Sometimes it won’t be that long, depending on where I have to go and what I have to do in a day. Ideally, I’d love to just write all day, but I have a life, so....yeah. Plus, if I just wrote all the time, I’d never have any experiences to draw from! So it actually works out pretty good. :-)
Heidi: One to two hours is wonderful. If I’m working on other things as well (blog posts, etc.) it sometimes becomes half an hour, but (except for Sundays when I take an intentional break) I try not to let a day go by without several hundred words.
Hamlette: I don't write fiction every day. *GASP!* I know, I know, but I only have about an hour to myself each evening after the kids go to bed, and that also has to serve as my movie-watching time and my spending-time-with-husband time (we tend to watch a movie together every Friday night, for instance). I try to write fiction at least an hour every week, and a couple of times a month I'll go to Starbucks and write for an hour or two. However, I do blog at scattered moments during most days, and I keep a journal too. So I write a bit of something every day, just not necessarily fiction.
Natalie: I don’t have a set time for writing. I tend to squeeze it in whenever I can. I usually like to write at night before I go to bed (because it’s nice and quiet and I can get immersed in my story!) which can last anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour.
Naomi: I try to write at least one-thousand words a day, which is about fourty-five minutes. It depends, though. Sometimes I have a tricky scene, and it could take two hours. Sometimes it's done in a half-an-hour. And then there are those days when I don't write anything at all. *shrink*
Share the first sentence of your current project. Only one sentence, mind.
Emma: I’m working on two things right now, actually, so...can I share both first sentences?
"It was always a special day, June 21st." and "The older folks who had lived there remembered it as being a sleepy little town."
Heidi: Cedric's eyes narrowed.
Hamlette: Bob Taylor found his brother Ezra in the kitchen, splashing himself awake at the wash basin.
Natalie: One sentence?? Okay, here’s the first (unedited) sentence of my current WIP:
“I put my foot down on this!” King Harold pounded the table for emphasis.
Well, due to Naomi’s rules, you’ll never know what he put his foot down about. ;)
Naomi: (Natalie, that was mean, haha.) Here's mine: Laura Morning was fourteen years old when she left her mother, which was much older than most of the children on board.
What’s something all your heroines in all your different works always have in common?
Emma: So far, they all have active imaginations and are prone to awkward and quirky situations. Don’t know how it happened that way. Or-- hmm. Maybe I do, come to think of it.
Heidi: Great inner strength. Some have it in the beginning and some grow into it, but they all have it in common. Good question!
Hamlette: They can stand on their own two feet. They're not needy or helpless, in other words. Same goes for my heroes. That doesn't mean they don't ever need other people, but that they aren't entirely dependant on others for their emotional or physical well-being.
Natalie: Hmmm...interesting question...I’m not sure. Maybe in that they’re usually fun-loving girls who are feminine but willing to do "boy's things" and “get dirty”. They’re usually friendly and happy, kind and helpful ...now that I think about it my heroines CAN be a bit redundant. I’m glad you asked this question, Naomi! It made me realize an area I need to expand upon and be more creative with! :)
Naomi: They always have a big imagination.
Are most of your protagonists blondes, brunettes or redheads?
Emma: Most of them are brunettes, but occasionally one of them will be blonde. I don’t remember the last time I wrote about a redhead!
Heidi: My women characters have been a fairly even mix: blacks and blondes and brunettes and one redhead. As for the men: in my current project the three brothers are all dark haired—with the protagonist definitely ‘tall, dark, and handsome.’ They originally started out quite different from each other and it happened over time, but I’m thoroughly pleased.
Hamlette: Hmm. I think most of them are brunettes. I'm a brunette, and I'm more attracted to men with dark hair than light. But they're not all brunettes -- Bob, the protagonist in my current novel project, is blond, and my second novel had a blonde female protagonist. I don't think I've ever written a red-haired protagonist, but I've had some as supporting players.
Natalie: Probably brunettes, although I have blondes and redheads too.
Naomi: They used to always be brunettes, but lately I've been creating quite a few blonde heroines. I try not to create redheads, because, yeah, it's a little overused.
How many projects do you have seriously running right now?
Emma: Technically three: the first is about halfway through the draft stage (yay!), the second is only a chapter long and some notes and lots of ideas, and the third consists of two short chapters, names, and a simple story outline. I’ve discovered that if I only have one thing going, I’ll probably get bored with it and want to start something else anyway. I just can’t keep the new ideas from coming, so I have to write them down.
Heidi: One. I’m channelling all my energies to my western/historical fiction novel On David’s Shoulders.
Hamlette: Two. I'm writing a short story that I got the idea for a couple of weeks ago, and I think it's about two-thirds done. I'm also revising my sixth novel. It's the first time I've revised a novel, though I've revised plenty of short stories, and I'm really enjoying the process.
Natalie: Not counting any fanfiction or anything silly like that, I have one story in the middle of being written, and one story idea being mulled over in my head. Plotting, scheming, casting, all that.
Naomi: Only one, seriously (*gasp* amazing, right?) But I also have two others behind which aren't very serious. :-P
Share a landscape/view description you have lately written.
Emma: I gazed happily out the window, stained and foggy, as though it hadn’t been washed in a decade. Still I could see pretty well. Whizzing past outside the glass was the predictable Illinois terrain I’d looked at all my life-- cornfields, meadows, dirt roads, here and there a tree, distant hills beyond. I say ‘distant’ because any hill that could be seen in Illinois was usually somewhere far off in the distance. Old Ripley itself was as flat as anywhere west of Kansas. Not that I’d seen those places myself, mind you. I just knew.
Heidi: (The “him” in the first sentence here is a butler): They entered behind him, standing again in the great inner hall with its shafts of sunlight hanging across space. Cedric looked up. There were dust motes floating in the light. The familiar stairs, polished to a dark and glossy sheen, mounted from the far end of the hall to the upper regions out of sight.
Hamlette: I hate writing descriptions. They slow me down. I put in only what strikes me at the moment during a first draft, and then I use rewrites to fill in the blank spaces. But here's one of my better ones:
She walked inside what turned out to be the waiting room for the studio. Saul disappeared through a door in the opposite wall, but Amy didn't see any reason to follow him. Instead she looked around the room. The walls were painted a soft, pale grey, and the carpet was a darker grey. There were black-and-white upholstered chairs, a couple of metal tables with books of sample photos on them, and a black counter at the back with a computer and a phone on it.
And on the walls hung three large photographs in shiny black frames. In bold contrast to the room and its furnishings, the three photographs were in vivid color. One showed a teen girl with waist-length blonde hair standing in a golden field with a chestnut horse behind her. The horse's head was draped over her shoulder, and she had a hand on its nose and was looking the horse, not the camera.
Another was a shot of a little boy, maybe five or six. He was grinning, shirtless, his hair slicked-down-wet, and he held a large frog in both his outstretched hands, showing it off to the camera.
The third portrait was of an elderly couple, probably for their fiftieth wedding anniversary. They were seated next to each other on a wooden bench, the woman leaning her head on the man's shoulder, the man leaning his head on hers. Their eyes were closed, their mouths turned up in peaceful smiles.
Amy stood in front of the third portrait, stunned. She had dismissed Saul as an annoying misanthrope the day before, but clearly there was more to him than she had thought. If he had taken these, and she assumed he had, then he didn't simply photograph people's faces, he captured who they really were inside.
That's from my fifth novel, which actually had a lot of description because one character was a painter, and another was a photographer. And I wrote it for NaNoWriMo, and nothing bulks up your word count like description! Truth is, long descriptions of what places look like bore me, even in books I'm reading -- I'll read something short, but if it's paragraph after paragraph about the vistas or the house or someone's clothes, I'm going to skim.
Natalie: This isn’t exactly a landscape description, but it’s outside and I like it so hopefully you will too.
She followed him out past the stables and into the grassy meadows beyond. The cool breeze lifted her curls and felt fresh to her lungs. Clouds rolled over the sky, sending waves of light running back and forth across the tall green grass. Henry reined in his horse. ‘Let’s have a race. First to that tree out there wins.’ She gazed across the field to a lone beech tree, tall and magnificent under the blue sky.
Naomi: It was huge, wide, open, free. The grass was greener than she had ever seen grass green, and the wind blew on it making it ripple in even ocean-like waves. She had never seen anything like this in England – so wide; kilometres and kilometres filled with nothing but grass. England had small pressed-together fields, with pressed-together trees, but America seemed to have wide, open spaces – nothing seemed to be close to each other. There was enough place for everything. Here and there, at the side of the fields and the smooth road, stood a sturdy tree, and in the distance you could see swarms of dark woods.
The second part of the big interview will be up soon!
In the next part we will talk about villains, endings and more. Stay tuned!
