The Mermaid's Madness came out...OH CRAP TUESDAY.
jimhines was running a contest to promote his book, The Mermaid's Madness, and all I had to do was ask him a question and post the answer on...yeah. Tuesday.
AH WELL.
Q: Do you now, when you encounter a new or old folk tale, find yourself mentally rubbing your hands together and thinking 'hmm, I think I can use that...'? Are you incapable of 'turning it off' at this point?
A: In the beginning, when I was working on Stepsister and then Mermaid, and was still trying to plan out where to go with the whole series, I was much more obsessive about various fairy tales and the possibilities for retellings. At this point however, the first three books are turned in, and the fourth is planned out and 1/3 written. I'm not planning on a fifth book in the series, so I'm spending a lot less time looking for new tales and more time trying to figure out the best way to bring the series to a close.
Instead, I now find myself distracted thinking about the next series after this one. I've got two and a half characters in mind, some ideas for setting and plot, but my brain is in that exploratory phase where I can't go five minutes without another "Oooh, what if this happened too?" or "What about a character who could do that?" From talking to other writers, it seems like most of us are always thinking one or two books ahead of whatever they're actually writing.
There's a roundup of all the Q and A's here.
My review of the first book in the series is here. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading Mermaid.
AH WELL.
Q: Do you now, when you encounter a new or old folk tale, find yourself mentally rubbing your hands together and thinking 'hmm, I think I can use that...'? Are you incapable of 'turning it off' at this point?
A: In the beginning, when I was working on Stepsister and then Mermaid, and was still trying to plan out where to go with the whole series, I was much more obsessive about various fairy tales and the possibilities for retellings. At this point however, the first three books are turned in, and the fourth is planned out and 1/3 written. I'm not planning on a fifth book in the series, so I'm spending a lot less time looking for new tales and more time trying to figure out the best way to bring the series to a close.
Instead, I now find myself distracted thinking about the next series after this one. I've got two and a half characters in mind, some ideas for setting and plot, but my brain is in that exploratory phase where I can't go five minutes without another "Oooh, what if this happened too?" or "What about a character who could do that?" From talking to other writers, it seems like most of us are always thinking one or two books ahead of whatever they're actually writing.
There's a roundup of all the Q and A's here.
My review of the first book in the series is here. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading Mermaid.