Q & A with LJ

Well, I've done it again.  Realized a day late that *yesterday* was my Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour posting day.  Sigh.

This month's topic is a self-interview.  So here's my go at a Q & A of things about me you might want to know.  I wanted to do something pithy and ironic, but I don't have that sense of comic timing nor do I do irony well.  I figured I'd just go with my typical earnest, serious self.

Q: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
A: I've always loved words.  Reading them as well as writing them.  For years and years, my dad had something I wrote in 1st grade folded up in his wallet.  It was a story using homonyms and I remember it had something to do with a new gnu.  I've been keeping a journal since childhood and putting my thoughts to paper (or now screen) has always come naturally to me.  Writing as a career wasn't something I really considered until I hit my 40s.

Q: Plotter or Pantser?
A:  Well, I'm about the least spontaneous person I know, so you might think I must love to outline every last detail of my work.  But the truth is, I think that dichotomy is somewhat of a false one.  While I don't think I could sit down and put pen to paper without any sort of road map, I also couldn't see writing the story once it was fully planned.  In reality, there is a balance in the writing between forcing the story to fit a plan and grabbing the tiger by the tail and riding it wherever it goes.  I believe both elements--planning and serendipity--are needed for the magic that is story. 

Q: Coffee or tea?
A: Both.  I never drank coffee until graduate school.  I was always a tea drinker.  Coffee was kind of a rite of passage to adulthood in my household and I got quite a lot of flack for not liking it.  Now I have to have my morning coffee.  It's as much a ritual as the need for caffeine.  But I still love my tea and that's what fuels my late afternoons, especially now as the weather is getting cooler.  I'm lucky enough to have a small tea shop in my home town that sells a wide variety of loose teas.

Q: Have you unpacked all your boxes yet?
A: No. Quit pestering me.   (We moved back home in August after a house fire that displaced us for nearly the whole year.  Yes, there are still sealed boxes in my office.)

Q: Do you write to music?  If so, what's on your writing playlist?
A: Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  Lately, I've been obsessing over Florence + the Machine and The National.  Placebo is good writing music too.  In order to listen to music as I write, I need to be so familiar with the song that I don't get caught up in the lyrics. That's why I can't write to new music.

Q: What's up with your new dog?
A: Sigh.  Dustin is a work in progress.  I had hoped Tigger would be a good influence on him.  Sadly, it's been the other way around.

Q: What are you working on now?
A: I'm splitting my time between developing a marketing plan for my first indi release (The Between, coming in January!) and continuing with novel number 7 ("YAGSIP"=YA ghost story in progress).  The past month has been a blur of learning about eBook formatting and typography for a print book.  One of the things I want to do is a long blogpost on the steps from finished manuscript to indi release.

If you have any other questions for me, just leave them in the comments.

To see what other Forward Motion writers on the tour have to say, return to the Merry-Go-Round page.