The lovely Elin Gregory tagged me for a meme—and since I can’t resist memes, or talking about writing, here goes. (Oh, you can find her posting here.)
What am I working on?
Right now I’m editing two Contemporary Paranormals (one novel length and one that may grow into a 20-30K novella), and a YA short, and drafting a story for the Goodreads Don’t Read in the Closet event. Two more stories are knocking at the door but they have to wait until I’ve met the deadline for the GR story.
How does my work differ from others?
Not sure exactly but it must because it doesn’t seem to have mass appeal. I’m trying to move a little closer to mainstream but I’ve never been quite sure where the middle of the road is, so we’ll see what comes from that experiment.
I come from a lit fic and non-fiction background (which is hilarious, since i grew up in public housing and am still wildly undereducated) and mostly write about folks for whom being part of the middle class is the impossible dream, or just plain strange little stories (like kink that’s not BDSM—what was I thinking?!). Also, I don’t think a sex scene requires penetration which is a departure in MM as far as I can tell, regardless of the reality of queer sex practices. But maybe my opinion goes back to coming of age in the early 80s.
Why do I write what I do?
Because people will publish it and read it? Not the whole truth, but close enough. I’m a bisexual woman whose had, let’s just say a wealth of experiences to draw from in many areas of the queer experience, so that’s what I write. I’ve been writing fiction with the goal of publication since 1995, published since 1998—but the stories with female protagonists haven’t been picked up by paying markets or I’d write more of them. It’s just like anywhere in literature—stories about male characters are seen as more universal and stories with female characters are seen as niche. Not being critical, just an observation.
I’m working on YA fiction with bisexual main characters, but it’s hard to find a place for a piece of LGBT YA fiction unless the heroine ends up in love with another girl at the end. I think there should be a place for bi lit that’s not dependent on a same-sex Romantic ending, but I don’t know if I’ve found one yet (we’ll see within the next few weeks *fingers crossed*). But a lack of interest never stopped me from writing before. 🙂
How does my writing process work?
Ha! Raven (the muse) is laughing their ass off in my head.
I don’t have a solid process, but I do this a lot:
- See something shiny and then start to hear a new voice in my head;
- Struggle to get the first bits down;
- On the verge of falling asleep get a lightning bolt of inspiration that won’t let me close my eyes until I’ve scribbled at least a half-dozen pages of notes, snippets of dialogue, etc.;
- Dedicate months to draft upon draft until the story reveals itself to me;
- Hit or miss search for a beta;
- Revise until I feel it’s ready to sub.
Elin says I’m supposed to tag more authors, so I’m tagging Grace R. Duncan, CJane Elliott, Brynn Stein, and Dianne Hartsock. Have at it, gals!
Charley Descoteaux 