Tag, you're it! (Blog Hop)

Happy Friday, everyone! I've been tagged to participate in this blog hop by the lovely Kirsty over at Mischief, Magic and Mayhem. We originally met through an online critique website a couple years back (Scribophile) and Kirsty was an early reader for Living Dead Girl. That being said, she's also an awesome and highly imaginative writer, and I would love to see her stories shared with the world. Her work has a fantasy edge to it, with a lot of influence coming from mythology, folk & fairy tales. Pretty cool stuff!

And, on to the questions:

What am I working on?

I've got a couple projects in the pot right now. There's the sequel to Living Dead Girl, which is probably halfway though the rough draft. This story is turning out much more different than I'd anticipated. Sam will have a much larger role. In fact, the dynamic between him and Jen has changed in a way that I hadn't originally planned. And poor Jack...he's having a tough time again. I didn't plan that either, but I suppose if everything is hunky dory and perfect with no conflict, there wouldn't be much of a story, would there?So for now, that's all I'll reveal about what is going to happen.Here's a tiny snippet, though, taken from a scene where Jen comes home to find Sam already waiting for her:

“Pet,” he said, with a grin.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why do you always let yourself in?”

He shrugged. “I did knock.”

“But you knew I wouldn’t be here.” I hooked my toe under the lip of the coffee table and yanked it toward me so his feet dropped to the floor. 

Since I love Jack, though, I'm also working on a novella from his POV. It spans the time before he meets Jen and overlaps into the Living Dead Girl story.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Well, I think my work doesn't neatly fit into Urban Fantasy, that's for sure. For Living Dead Girl, it takes a while for the supernatural stuff to happen. I tried to make up for that in other ways by using Jen's profession (as a mortician!) as well as some of the the characters interests to help establish a mood or tone. The story still has a disconcerting element to it, because it really does spend a lot of time building up this developing relationship between Jen and Jack before ripping it all away.

Why do I write what I do?

I think I'm just drawn to things that are aren't quite normal, haha. I enjoy horror and fantasy and finding ways to blend it into the real world. That's a real challenge to me with writing--to make these things that, no matter how farfetched they are, seem believable.

How does my writing process work?

I have a very unorganized way of writing. All of the planning aspect of it goes on in my head at random times, and I don't outline or anything. I'll usually just sit down and start writing a scene and go from there. Sometimes, if I get stuck, I'll skip ahead and write a later scene just so I don't kill my forward progression. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I've found that it's very easy for me to get hung up and frustrated when something isn't going the way I want (with my writing). That is a challenge that I'm working really hard to overcome. I'm one of those writers that thrives with revisions, once I've already got that skeleton of a story down. When I'm first writing a rough draft, I feel sort of lost and sometimes that trips me up.


Well, it's time to pass on the favor! I'm handing the torch to two lovely ladies from Coffee Talk Writers--Ms. Renea Mason (who just released a new book!) and Ms Kishan Paul (who has a couple great stories she's currently pitching). Both are currently in NOLA for the Romance Times Convention, but they'll catch up when they return. Ladies, YOU have both been TAGGED!!!!!