• What helps you stay focused in today's distraction filled world?

Baj: Some days I do a better job of it than others, but having less to do with social media has been a big help. I schedule posts as often as I can on my author platform accounts so I can still be present to my followers, but I really try to limit how much I get sucked into the digital realm doing the mindless scrolling thing. I also don't have the TV on unless I'm watching it, I don't have kids, my husband works out of the home, I may qualify as a hermit because I don't leave the house much, and I lead a generally quiet, simple life that would bore some people to tears. It's the perfect environment for someone like me, though, and the silence keeps my mind from being overloaded, so creativity flows fairly easily (most days -- sometimes I'm blocked up like nobody's business! My writing group helps me a lot during those instances!).

• What's your advice for aspiring writers who might struggle with turning writing into a full time career? What has helped you the most?
  

Baj: I know it's different for everyone, so I feel like the majority of advice is subjective. But one thing that I think applies to everyone is this: Nothing is free. Whether it be time, effort, or otherwise, everything cost something. Authordom is no exception. If you want it, you have to work for it. But if you stick with it, and you really put the pedal to the metal, I promise that one day you'll have something to show for it -- it's just a matter of time. That determination that drove me to put in the hours toward reaching my goal...that's what got me where I am, and will continue to push me toward my next goal. Well, heh, that and a whooole lotta grace!

• And now, the rapid fire 1 word answer portion!

Baj: Oh gosh. These are so hard!!! I'm not a cut and dry person when it comes to this stuff!! I'll have to pretend it's life or death, must pick only one...

Cats or dogs: Dogs
Beach or mountains: Beach
Cake or pie: Cake
Plotter or Pantser: Plantser
Favorite food: Tex-Mex
Favorite author:  Uhhhh...today it's C.S. Lewis
Favorite City: Home -- Lindale, TX

I "met" Tyffany through bookstagram (that's a bunch of book lovers on Instagram) in a round about way, kind of through a friend of a friend, and then she won a contest... I honestly can't remember, but the point is, from those convoluted beginnings I met this talented writer and amazing photographer of all things bookish (and also a big video game nerd, our love for FemShep and Garrus knows no bounds). From there, I got to know a bit of her writing tribe, enter Becky, who I have only just started to get to know, but, who after interviewing, has risen really high in the rankings of my "awesome people to know" list. I had the honor of interviewing these ladies as they embark on a new adventure of writing a book together. So while I can continue gushing about all the things they have done and accomplished, I'll let them tell you more in their own words. Be sure to read to the end to get even more information on these ladies, as well as all the links to follow them on social media, as well as to buy their books (I have had the pleasure of reading "Imber" already and loved it! You can read the full review here).

• What has been the biggest help, and hindrance, to your writing and getting your books out in the wild?
  
  

Becky: Social media!!!!!!!!! Seriously. Couldn’t have done it without all the incredible help and feedback I received from readers and writers I discovered through Instagram and Facebook, and from friends and family too! All the convos and pictures and shares have sparked interest, something I never would have been able to do on my lonesome. At the same time, algorithms can be a hindrance. Even Amazon gives attention to books with more reviews, so getting noticed is time-consuming and takes away from my writing time. Still trying to balance the two (writing and marketing)!

Tyffany: I have to agree, social media for sure. My writing is light years better because of our writing group, but also because of the other incredible people who beta’d for me. And co-writing with Becky has definitely taught me a lot about my habits, and what I could do better, and what I do well. And I would have never met her without social media!
As to getting my books out in the wild, I’m fairly sure my sales would have been absolutely nothing without the incredible incredible people on (especially) Bookstagram. The likes, the shares, the comments, the encouragement—I would definitely not be doing what I’m doing right now, almost full time, without the amazing people helping support my book. (Thank you guys <3)
Hindrance wise . . . Reviews! They can absolutely make or break an author and they’re SO hard to get! I know my sales vs reviews percentage and they’re very skewed. If you love an author, please please leave them a review. Like Becky mentioned, algorithms are a pain—Amazon practically buries you til you hit a certain number.

Becky: Amen, girl.

• What’s the hardest social platform to keep up on? Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and why?

Tyffany: Facebook! I honestly just forget to do it. I don’t keep up with Twitter as well as I should either, but I like to think my hyperactivity on Instagram has to count for something. xD

Becky: All of them? Ha! Once upon a time, all I had was Facebook. Now that I keep track of several on a daily basis, I struggle to juggle. People keep saying I should get a Twitter account but, if I did that, I’d probably never have time to write, hehe.

Tyffany: You might! ;) Twitter can be a bit of a sinkhole though. xD

Becky: Still weighing the pros and cons… No, I’m just delaying… forever. ;)

Tyffany: *gasp*

• You both are willing to branch out and write in new genres, that much is evident! But is there a genre you love to read, but you’d never write?
  
  

Becky: I used to read a lot of historical romance but have no desire to write it at this time. Same with Epic Fantasy, as much as I love reading it. Gasp! Sorry, Tyffany ;) Once in awhile I’ll stumble across an amazing contemporary romance, but I don’t know if I’ll ever write one. I like bending reality too much!

Tyffany: I’ve actually been writing since I was really really young, so I’ve dabbled in writing a TON of different genres. I’m pretty flexible, I like the challenge. Epic fantasy definitely isn’t for everyone xD Creating everything from scratch and making it cohesive can be a pain! I have to agree with the contemporary thing though—I read contemporary that I love, but I don’t think I can drop the fantastical elements enough to write one. xD I love my powers and not-quite-humans too much. ;)

• What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever gotten?
  
  

Tyffany: Write for yourself. Every time I’ve struggled to write a scene that I can see clearly, it’s because I’m fretting about reader perspective. I also think it’s really important to follow your story gut—you know what you’re doing, at the end of the day. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think it’s important to write certain subjects with a deal of respect, sensitivity, and research. But those aside, it’s your story, and we want to hear you tell it.

Becky: Ditto! Also “Write what you know” and “Write what hurts.” I took those to heart 100%. Doing so is very therapeutic for me, and also makes my characters real and relatable!

Tyffany: ^^^So much that.

• Any last parting words of wisdom, advice, or things to avoid for aspiring authors you’d wish you had gotten earlier in your career?
  
  

Becky: Don’t think you’re done when you write/type “The End.” That’s just the beginning. If that scares you, then good. You’re not alone, ha! Writing a book is about editing and revising and pruning and taking the advice of others when they say something isn’t working. You get tunnel vision while writing your story, so seek outside perspective. This is a MUST. But most importantly, celebrate the wins, no matter how small. Keep it fun. Writing a story and sharing it with the world is a crazy exciting adventure. And an honor.

Tyffany: Hmmm. Completely rewrite your manuscript, at least once. I’m talking, print it out or open another document, and retype every. single. word. I know that sounds totally crazy, but you really will spot a ton of bigger picture problems and repetitions that you didn’t realize were in your manuscript. Be kind to people who give you constructive criticism, ignore people who just want to tear into you. Take all advice with a grain of salt—if something feels wrong to your story, you don’t have to change it. But know the difference—don’t be so stubborn that you miss an actual problem.
    Don’t be afraid to ask for help—there is a thriving writing community on Instagram and inside the Bookstagram community and I highly recommend getting involved on there, even if you’re just there for the incredibly beautiful book pics. ;)
    And remember to be grateful—to everyone who helps you along your way, to everyone who cheers from the sidelines, to everyone who reads your story. Be kind. Writers need each other, so much. We are not each others competition, we’re all going through the same thing. Don’t tear your fellow authors and writers apart—lift them up, share your knowledge. Only you can tell your story. No one can take that away from you. So why not help someone else tell theirs?

Hello favorite booknerds! If you follow me on Instagram, you saw I recently did a road trip through Oregon with the husband. It was technically for his 30th birthday (which was in June) but he’s been really craving some fall foliage so we pushed the trip back. Now, what does that trip have to do with me/this blog/my writing? It actually ties into the question/pressure of writing every day and the importance of recharging through disconnecting. Allow me to explain.

A lot of big name authors as well as “how to” books on writing and publishing will say you have to write every day, or that you really, really should write every day, because you can’t refine a blank page. And that’s true, you can’t edit or make a blank page better, so forcing yourself to write even when you’re fairly positive the content isn’t where you want it to be, at least gets you moving in that direction. Solid advice, right? Well, yes, usually. Waiting to write only when you “feel inspired” is not the best way to go about things in my opinion. Inspiration can be like lightning, sure, but more often that’s used as a feel-good excuse for writers block, which is something I just have to work through by writing (I’ll cover that in another blog post). However, there is SO MUCH MORE that goes into a book than just the physical act of writing, and those things take time and deserve just as much attention as well.

Some days, writing just isn’t possible or feasible, as the story I am thinking up is just this conglomeration of interesting ideas and hooks, but no real plot. So I need those days to research, I need those days to think. It’s hard to impress on people how hard that step can be sometimes, because there’s not much to show for your effort. But creating an entire world with its conflicts and its people is very hard, especially if you don’t want to do a retelling of another story. Some of those days are spent in a library, but not all of them. Sometimes, at least for me, the best way to break through that clutter of trying to figure out where to start, is by disconnecting from my computer, and going somewhere new. That gives my brain new data to incorporate when I start thinking about work again. I get all this new sensory information and meet so many new characters--I mean people, that the act of recharging and NOT writing actually makes the physical act of writing all the better once I get back in front of my computer.

Then there are some days where I’ve written a bunch, and now I need to make sure where I’m at in the story still makes sense from where I first started. Some people won’t edit any of their work until they are done writing that first draft, I don’t really work that way. As someone who doesn’t do extensive outlines (they make me bored for the story I want to write, and no one wants that) sometimes I just need to go back and reread things I’ve previously written and massage those sections before being able to move forward. I’m not necessarily writing new words, and I may not have new content to show for my effort, but I am working.

Feeling like you have to physically write new words every day, even if it’s just one sentence, puts a lot of, I find, unnecessary pressure on the author. It discounts all the other steps that go into writing that aren’t exactly writing, but just as vital to the process. I know I struggle with this all the time, I like having new work to show. But If I didn’t take the time to recharge—like driving all through the state of Oregon—or research things like fairy mounds (a real thing I did for TMOS), or even spend weeks editing old content, I’d be doing myself, and you by proxy, a disservice. I’d be essentially going into gun fight with a whiffle-ball bat. So, even if I don’t write every day, every day is still a writing day.

I know I’m not the only author or writer who feels this way, and I know there are plenty who disagree with me, and that’s fine! At the end of the day, this is the process that works for me. If this kind of process suits your creative endeavors as well, then awesome! If it doesn’t, that’s fine! You do what works best for you, but just remember: even baby steps are steps forward, and you are making progress. So tell me, friends, what is your process like? Would you be able to get things done with my method?   

Hello, my favorite booknerds! So, one of the questions I’ve gotten that you wanted to see in a blog post was: how I come up with my characters? I interpret this question in a few ways, from how I character build, to why I chose to have my characters look the way they do, as all of that was done intentionally. I try to always create my characters with intention—this is, of course, 100% the case for my main and secondary characters, though I can’t say I always do this for a character who isn’t named and has all of one page in the novel. Still, if you’ve read my last blog post about how I name my characters, you can bet that I love character building just as much (because I do).

Perhaps the easiest thing to explain is why I decided some characters needed to have certain personality traits. Once I figure out what the central story is, and how/where the book needs to end, it becomes a matter of figuring out what kinds of personality types will fit with the goal I have, and also add wonderful obstacles for my main cast, because a story without interpersonal conflict is boring in my opinion. That’s why Lana has such a strong maternal instinct and wants to be a mother, but Jon is more than content having their lives revolve around just the two of them. It makes for a persistent conflict that helps a character get to the place they need to end up by the end of the series—sorry, I am trying to avoid spoilers here for some of my new readers, so some of the specific traits will be vague.

The story and the struggle I wanted my characters to undergo dictated that Tallis couldn’t be a born leader and that Donovan had to have an incredible sense of familial loyalty. Whereas, because I wanted to challenge some of the tropes and stereotypes I find annoying, I made Tomas a gentle intellectual rather than a brawny meat-head, and I wanted my character of color to come from an unbelievably stable, supportive, and intact family unit. It’s also why I give Tallis her quirks of avoidance and have her struggle with anxiety, because I want to show that strong can come in a plethora of forms.

As for looks… I created characters that I would like looking at, as vain as it sounds. But hey, if I couldn’t fall for Tomas or Donovan because they looked like trolls, I wouldn’t expect you to, either! But the sad truth is, Tallis looks like the girl I wish I looked like.

I came to the body positive movement late in my life. For most of my formative years, I believed I was hideous; I was too big, disproportionally shaped, my hair too dull, and eyes too plain. I wanted to hide, to be smaller. So, that’s why Tallis looks the way she does. She’s petite the way I had wanted to be all my life. She has the wavy, long, platinum blonde hair I wish I had, and sea green eyes I would kill for—ok, not really. That’s why Tallis looks the way she does and isn’t darker skinned, or have red hair, or what have you.

That being said, it’s also why Rosslyn looks the way she does. In an effort to embrace my own shape, I made Rosslyn this crazy confident, enviously curvy woman. She loves her freckles as much as she loves her body’s size—and others find her irresistibly attractive as well! For both her physical looks, and her confidence. Rosslyn is where I aspire to be in terms of accepting and loving myself, and Tallis is a throwback to the way I prayed I had looked for decades.

There’s a phrase, a lauded piece of advice often given to authors, to “write what you know”. I may not deal with feral elves on a daily basis, but I did know what it felt like to be dissatisfied with something I couldn’t change, and I knew that was unfair to myself. So creating characters that allow me to work through those things is, in my own way, writing what I know.

So there you have it, my friends! This is how and why I create my characters and a bit of the process behind bringing them to life. Hopefully this makes them feel even more realistic and grounded despite their fantasy setting, and, hopefully, it inspires both hope and acceptance should that be something you need. I’ll be answering more of your questions in later blog posts, but, as always, if there is another topic you’d like me to cover, shoot me a message! And let me know what you think of my process in the comments.

Hello my favorite booknerds and lovers of my stories! So, if you subscribe to my newsletter you saw the open call for blog post topics, and you guys did not disappoint! I have a whole list of things you want to know that I’ll be tackling. If you don’t subscribe to the newsletter, or missed the email, don’t worry: you can suggest more topics via the comments or feel free to message me the things you’d be interested in me discussing.  So, without further ado, the first of your blog post suggestions answered: How do I come up with the names for all my characters and places?

This sounds like a simple topic to start with, but honestly, I love this question. I love coming up with names for things. Too often fantasy writers feel they have to have unpronounceable names in order to make their book feel like a true fantasy. I personally hate that.

If I stumble over a name, if I can’t figure out how you’re supposed to pronounce it, I am immediately disconnected from the story. My flow in the plot disrupted as I pause to try and puzzle it out. Not that I find those books bad and therefore don’t want to finish, but I do find it annoying. Tell me friends: am I alone in this? But it was/is that annoyance that I take with me when I begin world and character building prior to writing the first paragraph of any of my books.

First, I figure out what place my fantasy worlds are based on, if any at all. For Selkirk, it has a very distinct Scotland/European feel to it, so all the names needed to fit that. As for places like Theda, it has a Sicilian/Italian feel. So, the names of the people and locations needed to feel authentic to such regions.

Once I have the geography figured out, I go on to sites like Behind the Name and filter out names based on region and how “old” something needs to feel. Selkirk, compared to Theda, is pretty far behind in terms of advancement, so the names needed to have an old-timey feel to them as well. From there I go through those lists and make notes of all the male and female names I like and, at first glance, can figure out how they are said—hence names like Raghnall, Baird, Ailbeart, and Lana. They look right when put on the page; they fit the vibe I want in being uncommon, being authentic to the region, and something that won’t trip people up—hopefully.

The process is rather similar when it comes to naming the rivers, forests, cities and towns in my books as well. If you haven’t noticed, I LOVE naming those regions. I even have maps drawn out where I label and name all the rivers and mountains that, one day, I’ll have re-made professionally, I promise. The only difference is I have to make sure these names don’t sound like they could belong to a person in order to avoid confusion. That’s how I settled on names like Kincardine, the Brethil Forest, and even Selkirk itself.

Fun fact: Selkirk is the name of a real town in Scotland! So you, my dear friends, can actually go and visit Selkirk if you so choose. Please let me know if you encounter any feral elves along the way!

The only time I don’t follow this pattern is for my contemporary fictions. As they are modern and set in today’s setting, having a name like Tallis would stand out, in a bad way. So I stick with names I like such as Rebecca, or use the names of family and friends, like Megan. Call it cheating if you want, but I like to think of it as creative problem solving.

So there you have it! That is my process for coming up with names. What do you think? Hopefully this clears that process up, but if not let me know, or if you’d like more details about a certain name in particular let me know that, too. In the meantime, let me know if there are any other blog topics you want covered and I’ll add them to my list!