Freddie's Braindroppings

July was hard, folks. I don't mean that in any euphemistic ways. It was busy as hell at work. Day Job is crazy in the summer because everyone's on vacation, half the office is not around, it's high convention season, and the workload seems never ending. Still I should have been making time to blog. But I'm getting back on track now with this new Writing Wednesday post: Why I Write HEAs.

Hey everyone! Back with another Fridays with Freddie post, up a little later than usual today. Today I'm talking about why I write what I write. First of all, it would probably help to make sure you know what I write before I start going on about why. I write diverse LGBT/queer romance often with fantasy, urban fantasy or paranormal overtones. Sometimes the romance takes a bit of a backseat to the overall plot, but it will always be there and it will always be queer and/or diverse.  Obviously I'm still growing my platform, so there isn't a lot already published that I can point to as examples of what I write, but that doesn't mean I can't talk about it. So let's talk about why I write it. I am a queer, plus-size, cisgender woman of color who rarely - if ever - has seen myself in the books that I read. I tend to read the same genres I write, and the reason is in the sentence right before this one. There are only a few liberties taken here; this is ...

Welcome back folks! As promised I'm back again with a new Fridays with Freddie post. Today I decided to follow along the same vein as last week, when I talked about being organized. I mentioned how often I get ideas I can't use just then. Jumping off from that, I'd like to tackle these questions: Where do your characters come from? Do you draw on real life? Do you create character profiles? Let's get into it!

I'm back already? I know, crazy, right? Well like I said I had some ideas to help me keep posting with more regularity. I'm instituting Fridays with Freddie where I'll blog about any number of topics from inspiration and book reviews, to behind the scenes in my books and newsworthy events. I'm starting today off easy with a common question authors get: How do you keep your ideas organized?  This is a multi-response question here because it depends on what we're talking about. I tend to get ideas all the time. I mean, all the damn time. While at Day Job, while eating, while showering, on the train, in those moments when I'm rolling over and trying to get back to sleep. All. the. time. But they're scattered and ephemeral, not usually something solid I can get started on right away. Or they're for future books that I have to put aside because that's not my current WIP. When I get bombarded by ideas like that, I need to get on top of them immedi...

The last almost two weeks have been intense where my writing is concerned. I think I churned out about 28,000 words in that time, which is a ton for me, considering I work full time and sometimes struggle to squeak out 400 words a day. So I decided to make my goal 440 words per day. Then I noticed I was consistently putting out 1,000 words, so I decided to up the goal to 1,000 to meet what I was already producing. As soon as I did that, I started putting out between 1,500 and 2,000. This past Friday I wrote 6,000 words. I haven't had this kind of productivity since I did NaNoWriMo six years ago and churned out 7,000 words on day one. And that was because I wasn't working at that time. So I'm really proud of the success I've had with this novella. And even better, I finished it today. I need to reread and edit like crazy, as well as give it to a couple other people to read, but I finished it exactly when I wanted to. Not only that, but I already have a ton of...

If I'd written this post last week I'd have been excited about the warm weather, digging out my spring dresses, and the prospect of going out to write in coffee shops or accessing my own wifi from my yard. Instead, here I am, in a sweater, having come inside and doffed my winter coat and scarf. My hair is sad I chose this week to let it breathe after a month of a protective style, and I'm generally grumpy that mother nature has decided to play a late April Fool's joke on us by dipping to below freezing temperatures. That aside though, I've been writing during my breaks at work (got over 1,000 words on Monday!) and fully outlined my next novella this past Sunday, so I'm hoping I can finish it in time for my deadline. I struggled with a title and was actually considering submitting it without one and working with editors to select one, when I pulled a phrase from an important poem that comes up and found that it worked perfectly. I dislike writing without ...

Looks like the summer's over, huh? It's Labor Day today, aka the unofficial last day of summer. Though one look at the weather for this week makes it pretty clear nature's not ready to let go of the heat just yet. I have the day off today so I figured I should get some writing in, at the very least some planning and blogging. Less Than Three has put out a new anthology call , this time for fairy tales. I'm really excited about this one, because I have a few fairy tales I've already written I could rework, but there's one in particular about the moon that I never finished. This is the perfect opportunity, and better yet, I have until The end of March which means I can continue work on the two stories I'm currently working on getting done before the end of the year. The story I'd originally intended for the Lovely Dark and Deep  anthology is now firmly into novella length. I don't expect it will be long enough to be a novel, but it's cert...

I've been gone a long time. I know. It's been a little rough here in Milanoland. Day job's been busy - I even went away on a business trip a couple months ago. But most importantly, I've been struggling with writer's block. Not just "I can't advance this story," but  "I don't know what to write in my blog" as well. Hell it's been hard even to just get through reading a book, much less trying to write one or about one. I don't know what's causing it, but I'd guess a bad mix of stress and depression. I'm muddling through. I don't now what broke the spell but I opened one of my WIPs about an hour and a half ago and started reading through it. I did some editing as I went and wound up adding a good 2000 words, and linking parts of the story together that previously were unconnected. I feel really good about it and actually feel like I'm back on track. Yeah that's me right now. :D In other life ...

Wow folks, I am so sorry I disappeared. Between the holidays, a new job, a vacation, and then just life in general, i just was not making enough time to come and post here, I'll give a quick update on some things and try to get back in the swing of posting more regularly. Just before Christmas I found out I was getting a promotion and a raise. While that made my Christmas very merry, it did also pretty much double my workload. I have no time to sneak in writing during lunch and when I get home at night I'm too brain-dead to try. Meanwhile I still have a ton of ideas I need to get written so I need to find the time to make sure I write. My vacation was awesome and just what I needed. Unfortunately it meant I was playing catch up with the new workload. I still feel like I am catching up. There are mistakes I keep making but I also have been told I'm doing some great things so I'm somewhat relieved. I'm excited and drained by my job every day but I'm happy, so ...