#WordWeavers 2406.04 — Antagonist POV: Is it easy for you to apologize? Can you apologize to someone right now?
If I made a mistake or bumped into somebody? Of course. Many people recognize me, or take a look at me, and something between awe and stupidity sets in. I account for that. I've survived the fall of civilizations; I can be charming. What I won't apologize is for doing things I must do, whether it simply upsets you or ends up killing people you knew, and all the permutations in between. My role in this miserable life that never ends is ensuring humanity survives. Nobody apologizes to me for saddling me with that responsibility. You know what really ticks me off? Questions like this one. Sorry!
"Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts—only in the truth. You get the facts from outside. The truth you get from inside." –Ursula K. Le Guin
#WordWeavers 2406.03 — Who is your most creative character?
In the sense of one of my creations being uniquely different? I have one who character who interacts with the spirits of a few people and aliens who have died over the course of the two SF novels, but in the end it's difficult to decide whether the spirits were "real" or if the shaman is simply insane. In another set of novels, the main POV is able to rewrite reality (but not history) by application of will, but doesn't really understand the process or the implications. It takes a couple of books for her to fully understand she's being used, then she has to fix what she's been tricked into doing.
In the sense of the character being a creative? Being creative isn't often important in my stories, but my characters have things they do beyond what is necessary for the stories. Almost all my characters cook, and at least one of them cooks for a party that proves pivotal to the story (the shaman above). Caramelo in Inklings is a "spirit" photographer. It's important for the story as the MC wants to get him a job because she finds his work amazing. His artistry allows me to add a visual component to how the magic flows in the story.
#PennedPossibilities 335 — Do you use metaphors in your writing? What are some examples?
Yes. But it took a question like this to think to quantify it: A lot less than I thought. Going through three different stories (recent works), I found that I rely on simple description and simile most of the time. After 10 minutes, I couldn't find anything suitably florid or particularly interesting to relate.
The devil-girl is at heart a control freak; she's just not mean or unpleasant about it. Depression results when she's stymied in finding how to control problematic situations from which she cannot escape, which usually ends up with her trying crazy and dangerous things to bully her way through.
But...
If it the situation puts people at risk and she can't do anything about it...
She did have a mental break one time, where she failed to harm herself.
Another time... well, her employer died, though it was because her employer became too stupid to live. She has enduring PTSD, and it's not because of her too young age. It's that she's was raised to be responsible and doesn't know how to let go.
#PennedPossibilities 333 — Pride Month Edition: Do you write any characters who are a part of the #LGBTQIA+ community?
My objective is to write female characters who overcome and deal with the strictures of their society, whatever they may be—stories that make you think of why needing to write such stories should even be necessary. (#Feminist author.) I neither avoid nor actively seek to write otherwise diverse characters, but I have written them anyway. Characters have a way of presenting themselves. I've written a gay romance side story for my current main WiP arc. I wrote a short story accepted for a trans fantasy anthology that sadly never got published because the publisher went under. That my MC's roommate is also apparently bi just is, and how it plays out is just what it is, too. No drama. Having been brought up with diversity makes me want to depict diversity as normal and everyday. Do I try to make political points with such characters? Not so much as I might with female characters.
#WordWeavers 2405.31 — Do your MCs enjoy games that are more physical or intellectual?
Wintereyes has never heard of... What did you call that? Games? She'd be interested in learning more about Township people if you would be willing to teach her.
The devil-girl is familiar with the concept of games, and she's done role playing games—as in trying to act the part of various people she might deal with in social situations (estate parties) or in real life (tenant farmers, officials, miners, petty rulers, etc.) Doing well meant she'd face less anxiety when hosting or negotiating with real people. Social anxiety was one of the many reasons she would later run away.
Things like board games or sports games? She wouldn't see the point. She was a prizefighter. Though people considered it a sport, that was never a game for her. It was how she would earn tuition and hone her fighting skills, and get sucked into the mob.
So physical or intellectual? She'd definitely enjoy physical games better.
#PennedPossibilities 331 — Has your MC ever desired the feeling of a fresh start, or a better understanding of themselves and / or the world around them?
Yes. Disappearing and starting fresh is a recurring theme with her. She's done it a few times.
My devil-girl values her freedom to pursue her interests (thaumaturgy) over practically anything. But for a single book, she has no attachments to anything material. She lives as an ascetic. Threaten her people and it won't end well. She will do most anything, if she feels she is learning or stretching herself. And, when she's pressured to do what annoys or bores her, or you have the temerity to threaten her, she will state clearly that she will disappear on your ass if you don't stop. No idle threat, that. She ended up running the syndicate when the Doña died (and no comment about who was responsible for the Doña's death), then ghosted the organization two weeks later taking nothing with her. She'd gotten rid of the undesirables first and was just sooo done with it all the flapping headaches.
#PennedPossibilities 330 — How does your MC go about expressing or not expressing their sexuality? CW: Sexuality?
Intellectually? Tactically?
She was reputed to have the kiss of death, but that gets ahead of that she used it to control the Doña's underlings in the mob. She even arranged for her own teacher, a mob lieutenant, after she'd throughly studied for the test and felt she was ready. She didn't kill him, don't worry! She found she enjoyed kissing, and used it aggressively on men (and women) as a tool until she discovered the whole thing could be fun—then incidentally found herself "expressive" with two boyfriends in two days.
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 9 Nbr 30 — How do you achieve a sense of wonder in your stories? CW: Intimacy
I don't have a formula, and it isn't something I try to create arbitrarily. It's usually written by accident (or incidentally), and almost always requires tuning of the found passage to make it truly wondrous. It's the right words in the right order. [Not helpful, R.S.!] If anything, wonder is usually tied up with emotion, a sense of achievement, or something well deserved, maybe even something so perfectly crafted by people or nature that it would make a person stare or feel goosebumps. However, I find simply being human can evoke the best sense of wonder—for example:
I woke to dawn rays filtering through lace draperies. A cool jasmine-scented breeze tussled the soft fuzz on my arms and brought the sounds of twittering robins and sparrows. My bombastic bedmate had not molested me. Perhaps she had heard me when I said I preferred men. That, however, did not prevent her from snugging up to me in her sleep.
I grew aware of warmth against my back. I commended myself for not flinging myself from the bed like a crazy person this time, but instead lifted my head and looked back. She lay there, sheets kicked off by one of us, her golden back against my paler one, making us a pair of Cs. Her usually poofy hair matted against her face and spread out in night-sweat glued-together curly tresses across her pillow. She snored imperceptibly, and somewhat daintily for such a large-boned woman.
When I shimmied to break contact, she began to shiver. Even after I gently replaced the sheets over us, she continued. She twitched. After a few moments, I heard the faintest whimper.
I lay my head on the pillow and felt bad. I shimmied back, until our skin made contact. In a minute she quieted and fell deeply asleep. I didn't move. Didn't want to. Because, I knew. She had felt terribly alone—worse, I realized, so had I.
#PennedPossibilities 329 — How is your SC typically seen by others? Does it ring true to who they really are?
The roommate SC in a previous story is seen by others as an imperious arrogant bully who is always correcting people and not at all friendly. To say her adoptive mother runs things is an understatement of epic dimensions. The SC, as a controlling person by nature, accepts and amplifies the sense of power her mother lends her. Since she is rarely, if ever, seen around her adoptive mother and then seems both cowed and agitated in her presence, many consider her a bossy blow hard. She's proven herself the smartest student in school and holds a TA position in practical magical arts.
Is this who she is inside?
Hardly.
She has the expected problems with self-esteem. Her mother is her mentor, but she's unable to demand attention despite needing it, and instead drinks (and will take drugs). She feels horribly lonely. Boys run away at their first opportunity, despite the status they could acquire befriending her. She even considers letting herself be used—not that anyone would have the temerity to try, which turns it into a fools quest.
The MC ends up in a situation where the SC offers her a bed when the MC loses her job (okay, quit the mob) along with her apartment (which becomes unsafe). A bed. Literally. The SC's.
The MC discovers her roommate only sleeps well when held.
#WordWeavers 2405.29 — How would your MC handle finding a spider in their home?
Technically, Wintereyes lives and runs with wolves in the Fell Woods so she doesn't have a home. However, in the worst couple of months of winter, she puts up a lodgepole tent and invites the wolves to stay with her around her cook fire. That means fire wood. That means spiders. If I know her, that probably means blowing them from the wood and safely away.
#WordWeavers 2405.28 — Did your MCs have comfort objects they carried as a child? Now?
I guess if you could run away from home and fear being dragged back again, you must be a child? Right? The day she ran away, she took only one thing that wasn't essential. It wasn't a doll. She was tutored on how to govern and had people (not dolls) to practice with everyday. It wasn't a remembrance of her parents. Their celebrity had made them shy away from photography, and then they died. Taking a vinyl record was a nonstarter; listening to it, if she could, would have made her cry. Not comforting. No, what she took was a very obscure book! I'll let her talk about it for you:
My books lay thrown on the counter, on top of the messenger bag, on top of my clothes. I felt a spike of anger. I looked from them to him.
He said, "Stop with the playacting. This—" He tapped a hand on my Marlin's Tertiary Primer for the New Age Thaumaturge."—is a month's basic for most!"
I shook my head. Over the last nine months, I'd learned the first edition was worth magnitudes more.
He pushed aside the book revealing the stained blue paper-backed journal. "And this: Thaumaturgical Review Letters. That's nobody's idea of light reading."
I snorted at how wrong he was. "I dumpster-dived that one. I hiked up to the university a few weeks ago. You'd be surprised what moneyed folk throw away!"
"I was saying—"
"My Marlin's is kind of like a plush bear for silly girls. And yes, I do sleep with it. Give it a sniff. It smells like silly me—"
#PennedPossibilities 328 — If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?
I'm way too #shy to meet them, even the kind and beautiful one... a white wolf with a gold collar that reads HUMAN follows her around. These people live a life on a different level from someone like me. I'd need someone to introduce me, and then I'd probably lock up.
#PennedPossibilities 327 — How much does your MC value other people? Do they wish to have many friends, lovers, and / or associates? Are they an easy person to love?
Both my MC's have difficulties with how they value people.
Wintereyes views people and beasts through the same nonjudgemental prism. She understands beasts' natures' intuitively. Where her gift allows her to live amongst the beasts she's befriended, she is prohibited from using her gift on humans. A decade of living with wolves, thriving, has rewired her social understanding of her species with no magical map to ease her way. It's unfortunate how people are attracted to her—and that she doesn't understand them or her body's reactions to them. She has met a boyfriend who she thinks will make her experiences in the human world better.
The devil-girl is autistic, but was raised with this being one of her best features. She isn't wired for dealing with people; it's a learned skill that her tutors drilled into her until using it became natural. Well, natural with a few glitches, if you were looking from the outside. She can be stiff. She can be undiplomatic. She really will only give you one chance. She finds too much glee in fighting (though her target needs to give permission to fight them, but implicit is good enough). The reader knows her struggle. Dealing with people is exhausting but a challenge; it's often a self-dare. Were she given her druthers, she'd say she'd rather be reading a book. Deep in a university library stacks. Alone. Helping people is a culmination of her skill, and part of her very much adores seeing people safe and happy. In part, this may be an achieved reduction of drama, but it may be her human heart. Now that she's discovered the concept of lovers—and that her brain is delightfully wired for it—and is learning the give and take that requires to make that work fabulously, her world is shifting toward really understanding those around her on their terms.
#PennedPossibilities 326 — Do any of your characters have a favorite place that they've ever visited?
I'm sure they all have somewhere, but I've never asked.
For the devil-girl, it's doubtlessly any library she's visited. She'd sleep in the stacks were she allowed. It could also be Silver's Gym where she trained for and became a champion mixed magical martial arts prizefighter—and achieved her first K.O. Brings back fond memories. Despite the athletic funk and the muscle nerds overflowing with testosterone and attitude.
Wintereyes loves her Fell Woods and running with the wolves, However, this happened in the last chapter and it feels like her recalling a favorite place?
Recessed radiance light lit [a ceiling with] a painted dusk sky full of fluffy clouds lit by a recently set sun. The cloud shadows and the orange, pink, and purples felt as if the painter had somehow captured an instant of time and transported it above me.
I'd stopped so abruptly, Caramello had to dodge, nudging my left shoulder. I caught him reflexively, grabbing his shirt to keep my balance, saying, "I've lain in the meadows at Streams End, staring up at skies like this. I like."
#WordWeavers 2405.25 — How often do your characters think of death?
The reader and author are privy only to the MC's thoughts. "Often" is a vague word. Generally the MC doesn't think of death as you and I would experience time. However, in story time, she thinks of it rather often. She experiences PTSD episodes from when she saw someone die horrifically during a gang war, then realized her actions (or rather her inactions) resulted in dozens of others dying. Being responsible but powerless to stop it rattles her to the core. Her death? Not so much. Having been a bodyguard for a mob boss, and to an extent being a prizefighter where an errant strike could be lethal before that, she's never expected herself to live to old age. Twice someone has tried to murder her; only quick thinking and skill saved her. Twice she actually died, only extraordinary attempts at resuscitation bringing her back from the brink. She's not yet 20 years old. Each time she learned something or achieved something, the very last time saving not only the life of her lover but the life of his assassin because actually murdering the assassin was worse to her than dying herself. Not becoming a murderer is a possible tipping point in her life story because she is was conceived as a evil character, and if something doesn't get in the way she will be responsible for the destroying the world...
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 9 Nbr 25 — Do you use a cover artist or design your own covers? Share your cover art.
I design my own covers, but I often pay a cover artist to draw them. I provide detailed stage directions (text) and supply excerpts, approve thumbnails then sketches, then negotiate color corrections to get them on one pass. I've also created abstract covers myself, or bought stock art. I've never used my photography in a cover. Yet. Once I colorized a sketch (digital watercolors) when a sketch was all the artist could provide when a family issue caused the artist to bow out.
I do the titles myself (and plan with the artist in the composition phase where I plan to put my titles). I've offered to do titles for others, but no takers, yet.
Um. Not sharing artwork. It's all for my other alias, which I feel uncomfortable revealing.