How is the writing coming along?
So far it is going okay. I am a bit behind I think... not really sure since I haven't got it all typed up by this point. But I hope to catch up during this week.
Pantser or Outline?
I definitely write by the seat of my pants, or a pantser. I have never been able to outline not even when I was in school which was very hard when teachers wanted to see an outline. I don't just sit down and just write whatever comes to mind either. Usually with a story I know the beginning and something in the middle or end, depending. I usually have a few scenes that I know need to go into the story and maybe a couple of characters that are needed but that's about all I work with when starting my story. Everything else just comes to me when I write. I've found out if I don't write this way if I try any other way I usually get blocked or writers block. Which doesn't happen all that much. The only time it really happens is if I try to change the story in a way I would like it to go instead of the way the character wants it to go.
What is your first paragraph? (Or first two)
I tinker and pluck
at the words and numbers that scrawl across my desks screen. Bored out of my
mind with the desk work that was accumulating in between my training. I
definitely am in need of an assignment. Something to get my blood pumping. I
hate having to put in these desk hours.
The name I was given when
I came out of my egg is K-479, but I go by Kay when I can get away with it. My
job is Hell… literally, no pun intended. I work for the Collective in the
corporate office of Hell. Which only makes up half of the Collective’s whole.
Book cover design?
This is just something I messed with, something fun to do to get ready for November. It is not the cover I will actually be using if and when I do plan to publish it. But I like the idea and concept of just showing the city. I would also like a different kind of font but that is the best one I had to work with for what I was using to make it.
Character pictures/ profiles?
This is a very close picture to what Kay looks like except that her wings are feathered and not like bat wings and she has no horns on her head. The red robot eye she doesn't get till after the accident when she receives her robot wing as well. The only other thing that is different is that her hair is also black with just a streak of silver through it.
These are what Kay's new wing will look like when she loses one of her normal feathered ones.
This reminds me of Jake the main guy in charge of the Hell office.
What scene are you most excited to write?
The one I am most excited for is two different scenes one of them I am going to be writing soon and that is when they go to this other world and what they see and what the world used to be like before the incident. Also the other scene I want to write isn't until closer to the ending and its where she goes to the Outlands to bring back in the Rogues.
What scene did you enjoy writing?
I enjoyed writing a scene between my main character Kay and her roommate and best friend Sierna. I didn't even plan to write this scene it just kind of came out. I as well as the reader learns a lot in this scene between them that Kay isn't exactly who she says she is and isn't the good agent she puts up. You learn a little bit more about her past.
Has anything changed from when you first started writing?
Many things have changed but one thing I didn't know was that my main character is a hacker and has a shady past that she is hiding. Which I of course don't know everything about but she lets me tells bits here and there. Hopefully it gets settled by the end of the book. I don't plan for this to be a series but one never knows. Originally this wasn't going to deal with many other worlds, I was just going to have this world and the human world but that didn't seem interesting enough to me.
Is there a part that has been hard to write?
Not especially, there are slower parts that are a bit slow of course to write but most of the time the only time I have a hard time writing a lot is when I wrote a lot from the previous day.
How did you come up with the concept of your novel?
I got Kay's story originally from just seeing a picture and basically just thought up a story idea for that picture. I do that with a lot of pictures. It sat in my mind for many years before deciding to write it, I could never see past the beginning of the story. But as soon as I started to write it, it all came to me.
How do you keep yourself motivated to keep writing?
My characters keep me motivated by not leaving me alone so they are always pestering me to write their stories. Also talking to other writers and authors gives me encouragement to keep working on my stories to some day get them published.
What inspires you to write?
The authors I read, keep me writing. My aunt who encourages me to write more so that she can read what I have written. My grandma inspires me as well, even though she is not here anymore I know she would want me to continue on with my dreams.
How does your writing make you feel?
It depends. Currently what I am writing makes me feel happy that I am able to write something complex and out of my comfort level. At first I was scared and worried that this would be to big of a book, that I don't know enough to finish it, but now I am almost to the halfway point and it is coming together. I always have to think in baby steps lest the work overwhelm me. Sometimes what I write is hard to get out but I think that just makes the work that much better. I have a novel idea that is going to be really tough to write since it will be dedicated to my grandma who passed earlier this year. I am still not sure when I will write it, especially when I can hardly think on it sometimes. Below I will show you a piece that was tough for me to write, not because it has happened to me but because I had a dream that was that vivid. Which is where I get some of my other story ideas. Perhaps that will better explain.
Suicide Dreams by Raquel Gabrielle Liskey
I'm a specter this time... It shifts on a tilt.
She screams and others wake with a start, she bounces from world to world seeing so much pain and not having a way to deal. The mirrors around her show her every possibility yet they are not her. She flips from mirror to mirror fear rising as she doesn't see the correct person looking back at her.
"No
t me." She whispers.
She tugs at her hair with shaking hands. She glances around her at all the mirrors and all the worlds and doesn't find anything to make her feel safe and comforted.
It is loud here but nothing makes sense. She can not find her way home. They look upon her as if she were not the real one.
"Not me. Not real." She mutters.
Her anger rises as she pounds on the glass that separates her from these other realities.
"You're not me!" She screams.
They don't hear. Or they pretend not to.
She punches now with all her might and makes the glass break and creates spider webs across the shiny surface. She rips at the broken shards tossing them away from her making the horrid sight disappear.
The glass pricks her delicate fingers as she rips each piece from the puzzled mirror. She rushes to the next and does the same, in a frenzy now as her hair sticks to her perspiring forehead.
Hands coated in blood she steps to a new world where she sees her self lying on the floor.
"Me." She stands still as she caresses the mirror with a bloody hand prints.
The calm before the storm.
She wanted back she wanted out she wanted to go home in this lost world.
Her temper rises once again as she shoves at the mirror to let her back. She grabs it in a fit of anger not understanding the consequences. She tosses it and it shatters on contact.
We are sucked into that last world but she doesn't go home or realize where we are with her anger up so high. She just stomps around the glass it crunches under her feet creating bloody pools on the hard wooden floor. Some of the shards are not small enough so she grabs them with broken and bloody hands as she breaks it even more.
I glance at her frenzied form watching her logical sense disappear. Something slithers across the floor, something pulls the other her near the bathtub. I move towards the passed out body, curious.
I watch as I know what is about to happen, but I can not make it stop. Only she can. I glance back at the angry one she doesn't even realize.
My eyes slide back to the bathroom. As the water turns on from above.
Missed shards of the mirror slither across the cold floor. Nothing was making sense yet everything seemed to at that moment.
Hands grip the bloody glass, her eyes vacant as they open staring at nothing and everything all the same. The other room is quiet now only silent tears track down the girls vacant face.
Was this before? Was that where she went? Was that her destiny to see her many realities lived as she can only watch?
This is no joke to her, no laughing matter. She means business as she slits the inside of her arm from wrist to elbow. She digs in deep the glass breaking and leaving shards deep down below.
The blood runs freely the water does as well as it has over run the lip of the tub now turning the deep red to a bright pinkish red.
I tilt my head in wonder. A sliver of darkness races across the floor running towards me. I ghost through the wall and am now in the kitchen. Time has passed a small note left on the kitchen table. The kitchen is peaceful and warm there are rolls in the oven baking. A welcoming home compared to what I just witnessed.
A man and woman enter some time later when no life no longer dwells here other than me and the kitchen now is foggy the sweet aroma of bread turned to a sickly burnt smell that coats the back of ones throat.
They leave the door open to air out the small space and rush to the oven. The man flips the knobs to turn it off. The woman stairs at the big blocky letters that were left to them.
I am guessing.
All it reads is
I just can't the signature underneath was signed
~No One
A simple yet terrible goodbye. The darkness hovers as the room breaks into chaos. One scrambles for the phone the other goes to look. I back away wanting out. I am done with this. You made me watch you made me see now let me go. But the grip holds tight as the darkness presses forward. A blur of darkness zeros in on me and goes to strike. I catch the thing in a strong two handed grip.
Caw!
I peak open an eye and then open both eyes to stare at the black bird in front of me as it screeches at me. It ruffles its feathers forcing itself closer to me. I open my mouth about to throw it back. The darkness within its eyes is bleak. It phases through and dives into my throat.....
Now the darkness within me is a little bit stronger. And they will never know why. Never really see it until it is to late. Remember.
Will you write other short stories on here?
I can put other short stories that I have on my blog as well but they are not what I tend to favorite in writing. Most stories I write and short stories I have written in the past I believe can be longer but I will think on it definitely let me know if you would like to see more. I will mention that I also like to write short stories about my side characters kind of tell their side of the story, I think I may have just came up with a little short story from Sierna's point of view.
