Welcome, Blog-hoppers!
What are you working on right now?
I am working on a couple of projects. One is a short story about a young man, and his new puppy... on a spaceship traveling between planets. Housebreaking, er, ship training? has a whole new set of challenges for my resourceful hero.
The other is the sequel to Vulcan’s Kittens. Titled The God’s Wolfling, it will be the second book in a trilogy about Linn and her supernatural friends and family. The main god in this book will be Mannan Mac’Lir, a Celtic being with a problem, who is willing to exchange his help finding a fire-breathing horse named Fear, for Vulcan’s help with a tricky repair. Linn, and Merrick, the wolfling, wind up going on the quest when the older gods have to deal with a crisis. I’m excited about this, which will be my third novel.
How does Vulcan’s Kittens differ from other works in its genre?
Vulcan’s Kittens is mythology, but not just one mythos. It incorporates Graeco-Roman myths, Hawaiian, Native American, Aztec, and many more, for a very good reason. That reason is that even though it may look like Fantasy at first glance, the gods are not magical, they rely on advanced science they brought with them when they travelled from a parallel universe to our own, fleeing from the war with the Titans. By employing Clarke’s Law, I can create what looks like magic, but is within the realm of the possible in just a few generations from now.
Why do you write what you do?
I started writing Vulcan’s Kittens for my daughter. Now, all four of them want the sequel. It delights me to have my kids clamoring for more stories from me, and I mean to keep writing things for them as they grow, incorporating their passions into each tale - like the dragons I am writing into The God’s Wolfling. Other stories and novels come from my love of reading. Basically, I write what I’d like to read, stories with heroes and pain, but always hope, at the end.
How does your writing process work?
As I made the decision to pursue writing as a professional this last year, I started setting goals, like “write a novel in six months” and then breaking those down into how many words I’d need to write daily, and that made it much easier. As for where the stories come from, well, with the works in progress one came from an idea someone ran by me, and my brain just tackled with a little shout of glee, and this whole scenario about the puppy came alive in my head. The God’s Wolfling was a lot harder, as it needed to fit within the framework I had already built for Vulcan’s Kittens, and progress the big story of the trilogy as well. It took a lot of research and thought before it started to come to life for me, and it was only recently that I was able to begin writing the story, rather than plotting and planning.
Links to Other Blog Hoppers:
Henry Vogel
Storyteller site:
http://www.henryvogelstoryteller.com/
Serialized online novel:
http://cliffhangertwofifty.blogspot.com/
Celia Hayes
Writing website:
Pam Uphoff
Writing Site:
Where it began:
http://torchandsickle.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/childrens-and-ya-authors-blog-hop/