Six quick ones

I am determined to finally finish answering questions by the end of the week!

All six of these questions come from the fabulous Jessie Sin.

1. What has been your biggest challenge you have faced since deciding you want to become a writer?

Time. I never feel like I have enough of it. I want to spend all my time working on my books, my website, research, reading, everything involved with writing. But there are always things like a job, and church, and a husband, and pets, and eating, and sleeping, and bathing…that seem to take away my precious time.

Maybe Hermione will lend me the time-turner.

2. What are your personal publishing goals?

My main goal is to have a long, stable career in publishing. Anything above that (bestseller status, awards, movie options, whatever) would just be icing on the cake.

I gave a more detailed breakdown of my short-term goals a couple weeks ago.

3. Who is your favorite literary character and why?

Oh, this is a good one. There are so many great characters out there. I think my favorite would have to be Sonia from Crime and Punishment. Her ability to look past the crime and to the person is amazing. She is strong and supportive and just a wonderful character. And I think she might be the original “hooker with a heart of gold”. Don’t quote me on that though; I haven’t read a lot about hookers in classic literature.

4. If you could write a collaboration with anyone, who would it be and why?

I don’t know if I could write a collaboration with anyone. At least at this point. I have found that I need to be alone with my characters and their stories in order to write them down. When I share too much in the early stages, I tend to fizzle out. So I don’t know how successful a collaboration would be, no matter who it is with. Maybe it is the control freak in me.

5. How do you feel about the current Pride & Prejudice craze?

I am really torn on this one. On the one hand, I think people working hard to write a book and get it out there is a great thing. And I don’t have a problem with books based on or strongly influenced by the classics (I have one of my own that draws heavily from Crime & Punishment). BUT, I wish people would pick another book to focus on now. There are so many P&P influenced works out there; some of them sound great, but to be honest, every time I see a new one, it makes me want to read any of them even less.

6. Exactly what is it about new/fresh notebooks and pens that make a writer’s toes curl?

Possibility. A blank notebook longs for the touch of a pen; it yearns to be turned into something beautiful. A new notebook screams possibility to an author. You will write your masterpiece in me, it says, all the words you have dreamed but could never write–now is your chance.

Possibility.