Denverpopcorn bears her SOUL

You like what I did what that? See what I did there? 


So, I haven't done an author interview in a while, but I decided, why the hell not? Too many awesome authors out there and I'm always interested in picking the brains of the writers of my favorite stories... You know, author to author, KWIM?


So, enter SOUL, one of my favorite WIPs. I started reading this because I thought DenverPopcorn's Drift was awesome. So after a pretty fucking spectacular WC with her and a few other fantastic authors, the lightbulb appeared and I got her to answer some questions. And since she just updated SOUL today, I thought it would be great to post this along with it.

DH78: Where did the inspiration for SOUL come from?

DP: The Cherry Exchange contest held in 2010. To the uninitiated, the contest required Edward and Bella to both be virgins when they gave it up. I was wrapping up "Drift" when the contest came out and I considered entering with the premise based on a college-aged Edward and a very mysterious, older Bella. I had a ton of drafts but they all read like an outline to umm…a larger story. I never entered the contest. 

DH78: What made you want to start writing ff?

DP: Another contest – Age of Edward. I had a story to tell, that's all. I had been reading fanfic for so long, I was loving every minute of it. Maybe some great authors inspired me because I started to imagine little stories, too. I saw the contest and thought I can write about one of my favorite eras – NYC in the 70s. I wanted to write an Edward who worked as projectionist in a seedy, pornhouse, but doesn't participate in the lewd activities in any way. He has to navigate all the temptations and, of course, he meets a brown-eyed girl in doing so.

DH78: SOUL is very different from a lot of fic out there at the moment. Some of your readers may find it difficult to even describe your story to someone who asks about it. Is it purely a love story, or is there more to it?

DP: It was supposed to be so simple! But, yes, it turned out to be more than a romantic love story. It ended up being Edward's journey into maturity, the kind of man he needed to be, and the kinds of platonic love he finds along the way to romantic love.

DH78: If you had to convince someone to read your story, how would you describe the plot (w/o giving away obvious spoilers, of course)?

DP: First of all, yeah, I know, I know it's hard to describe the plot. What plot? Kidding. It's a boy meets girl story, except he's a virgin and she likes spiders. Okay, it's more than that. He was abandoned by his mom and is struggling with it. He loves his friends. He's a writer, and a fighter, and, and… I've lost you, haven't I?

DH78: Do you have a set writing plan? Outline? Do you write organically, or is everything perfectly planned?

DP: "Drift" was well-outlined and planned. That one was easy in that way. Follow the outline aaaand done, right? SOUL, not so much. The outline is amorphous and I've scrapped so many scenes, it's ridiculous. With SOUL, I have a general character outline. The rest, I'm winging it. It's thrilling and it's gotten me into plot, word-count trouble. 

DH78: Who’s your favorite character in your story? Why?

DP: Rose. She hides her vulnerability behind street smarts and she was once a child beauty queen. I found her voice fun and easiest to write.

DH78: How long have you been in the fandom? 

DP: 2009? I think? 

DH78: What was the first ff you ever read?

DP: Wide Awake. I haven't read it since but I love everything about my memory of it… the discovery of this hidden where women, talented women, wrote these stories for free and the characters have sex, and drama, and, sometimes-ridiculous premises, but I fell for it. Also, did I mention sex? 

DH78: Are you reading any ff right now?

DP: Oh, boy. I don't have much for this one. I'm not reading too much ff at all. There are a lot of good stories out there, though, that fit specific moods. For fluff, I was enjoying katiewinkle's, Playing It Straight. For a bit of kink and mild angst, I've liked Beegurl13s, Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range and PrincessRachel's, My Mate. There are more, more but those are a few recent ones. 

DH78: Edward’s a very complex character. Certainly, very different from the usual Edwards of his age group in other fics. Is there any particular reasoning behind making him much younger (or Bella much older) in this story?

DP: I just thought it would be fun. Which is stupid. I had no idea how ambitious the project would be. I freaked out when I started writing it because, what the hell do I know about male virgins, right? And, of course, because of that question, I just had to pursue it. It took a very long time to understand this Edward since he's opposite my concept of a strong, romantic lead. And, yet, I have to try and sell him as such. He's a challenge. As for Bella, someone has to educate the boy in bed, right?  

DH78: Is there anything you can give away about Bella’s past that will wet readers’ appetites?

DP: Awesome question is awesome. Not even Faireyfan knows yet. I can tell you that she was smuggled away from the wedding altar once. It's character-relevant. Don't worry; we won't be seeing that guy any time soon. Ha.

Thanks for asking me to do this! It was fun. 

No, DP, Thank you!!! :)

-DH78

Plummy Talks Shakespeare, Magic Realism, and Sexy Robots

I recently had an opportunity to chat with Plummy, author of Pressed for Time and Neverending Math Equation, about her writing, her passions, and Shakespeare. I absolutely loved her candidness and sincerity, and was thrilled with the chance to pick her brain. Her current WIP, Love in Idleness, is a blatant departure from formula fic, and those who are already reading will be able to gain some understanding about the author's direction. Those who have yet to start reading will hopefully be intrigued enough to check it out.


Love in Idleness: Bella Swan meets the perfect boy during her junior year, but when she finds out he's a freshman, and an evil mastermind, all hell breaks lose.

      DH78: Where did the inspiration for Love in Idleness come from?

P: This is a long answer, but I swear it’s pretty much the truth.

I’m very interested in the character of Bella and the way she’s portrayed in the Twilight series and in fanfiction. More often than not, I don’t love how she’s depicted (overly weak, overly strong, waffling), but I’ve also found her hard to write. So, when Chele and I were finishing up Pressed For Time, and I discovered that that Bella had a very deep understanding of and belief in the role of fairy tales in the lives of both young girls and women, it struck a chord with me. I got thinking about transformation and enchantment and how she made sense of her existence, which got me thinking about the previous story I’d written (Neverending Math Equation), which I also think of as a fairy tale, and realized that what I was really fascinated by was the idea of every day magic, and the little dreams that people hold on to, and why one might choose reality over fantasy, or vice versa. 

At the same time, I’d been kidding around about wanting to write “Shakesfic,” and specifically a Twilight/Midsummer’s Night Dream mash-up. The original idea was going to be a very close interpretation of the play: Bella/Helena, Alice/Hermia, Edward/Demetrius, Jasper/Lysander, Rose/Titania, Emmet/Oberon, Carlisle/Theseus, and Esme/Hippolyta, but I had an issue with Puck. Who should play him? Jasper came to mind, which screwed things up. I thought maybe Alice would be a better choice, but that meant I’d have to replace Hermia with Tanya. After thinking about it, it seemed all I’d actually be doing was cutting & pasting scenes and dialog directly from the play. So, I dropped the idea.

But one day in late April, after I had myself convinced that I wasn’t going to write anymore fanfiction, or at least not for a while, I got it into my head to try and write using third person narrative, and once I started, I realized that the midsummer “motif” was already there. The first four chapters basically wrote themselves though I became more interested in the fairies (Mote, Cobweb, Peasebottom and Mustard Seed), than the main characters, and very interested in Titania, because it also sounds like “Tanya” from canon. And then everything went to hell.

DH78: What made you want to start writing ff?

P: I got all kinds of caught up in Clipped Wings & Inked Armor.* It wasn’t the first FF I’d read, but I simply adored it. So, when the “Tattward & Inkella” contest came around in June 2009, I decided to enter because I was pretty sure I could write a 5000-word story. Of course, as it turned out, I couldn’t. The story, which was ExB, got all turned around, and the more I tried to get the characters to behave, I couldn’t – and by the time I did figure out what the story was, I’d already missed the deadline. But, having gone through the process of understanding what I wanted to write, I committed myself to finishing it. And that’s how NEME came about.

DH78: LiI (Love in Idleness) is very different from a lot of fic out there at the moment. Some of your readers may find it difficult to even describe your story to someone who asks about it. Is it purely a love story? Is it sci-fi? Are either of those genres secondary to a larger point? If you had to convince someone to read your story, how would you describe the plot?

P: First off, I am horrid at titles. My kids are lucky they even have names. Second, as just about anyone will tell you, I couldn’t write a decent summary if my life depended on it. And thirdly, I can’t stand having to check the category boxes when I put up a story, and sometimes go back and change them, repeatedly, because I feel limited by having to say it’s one thing versus another.

But this is a really good question.

I think, first and foremost, that Love in Idleness is a love story. This is what I most like to read, and so this is what I most like to write. I also think that the genre that best describes LiI is “magical realism,” because it allows magic to exist in the real world. 

I looked it up on Google, and liked this bit of description. Magic realism is

...what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe.

I’m also really trying to follow the themes in AMSND (A Midsummer Night's Dream), which all revolve around chaos: loves difficulty, magic, dreams, and contrast. I’m probably over-simplifying or over-complicating things. One of those.

And, it’s also got a little bit of hentai thrown in for good measure, because I find fantastical beings (um, like fairies, robots and vampires) very erotic.

Whenever I’ve had to convince someone to read any of my stories, it has come to a bad end, but I think if someone likes stories with layers, and to immerse themselves in a different world than their own, but also likes a good rollicking romance, then Love in Idleness is probably a decent choice.

DH78: Do you have a set writing plan? Outline? Do you write organically, or is everything perfectly planned?

P: I’ve written three stories, and I’ve approached each of them differently. I think I’m still trying to figure out the best method for me. I generally keep an outline that has to be updated constantly. I try to follow the story, rather than force it to what I think it should be, but I also do a LOT of reading and research about the images, symbols and words that strike me while I’m writing. I have lists of the characters and what they do and don’t do (who swears, who doesn’t, which words they use). I keep random timelines, map locations, get directions, draw up blueprints, whatever strikes me. And I have files and files and files of pictures on my computer, which I have to purge every once in a while for fear that they will be discovered. It’s incredibly inefficient and a lot of time I’m mostly distracting myself from actually writing (or working). But when it comes down to writing (which I often do long hand to stop myself from playing with formatting in the middle of a first or last draft) I really try to focus in on the scene, and what each character needs to get out of that particular moment. It’s a lot like acting and writing for the stage, which is what my training is.

DH78: Who’s your favorite character in your story? Why?

T: In this story, my favorite character is Bella and Mote, who are the same. I feel horrific admitting this and am scared that Edward will abandon me once he finds out, however I happen to know that these are his favorite characters too and am hoping he’ll cut me some slack. 

The reason I like her is that she is quite a solitary figure and happily so. But I think she has to learn to share a bit of herself, because most anything in life is a collaborative process – whether it’s getting Mote published, or letting someone into her heart - and I think she has to learn how to do this without giving up what is magical about her.

DH78: How long have you been in the fandom? 

P: March 2009 is the date I got my own FF profile. I think I started reading in February, though.

DH78: What was the first ff you ever read? 

P: It was a TrueBlood fic and I think it was by Terri Botta and I think it was called Let Love In.This might not have been my first, but it was the first I remember.

DH78: Are you reading any ff right now? If so? Wanna rec something you’re loving so far?

P: I am adoring, slathering over and fixated on Falling Empire of the Heart, by HoochieMomma. It’s an Arthurian inspired fic (I was a huge Arthur geek when I was a teenager, and it has awakened all of that for me) that focuses on the destinies of Edren and Bellona, but features standout characterizations of all the main Twilight couples. The story itself is smooth as butter with awe-inspiring prose, and a wonderful story arc that requires a bit of thought. It’s a work in progress and currently has twenty-three of the most satisfying chapters I’ve ever read. I have a few FFs that I adore, but this is the only one that I consider jaw dropping.

DH78: Some people may be wondering if you are you an HEA girl? Those of us who have read Pressed for Time or your other stories understand that your view of an HEA is not typical or cookie-cutter, but an HEA nonetheless. There might be some who worry about how this is all going to go down. Any thoughts? 

P: I don’t mind being labeled an HEA girl, but I’m definitely not a hearts and flowers writer. I like endings to feel like endings, not the beginning of the next story, neither do I want them to read as a wrap up of every single loose end in the story. And most of all, I like the ending to match the beginning. I think somewhere this is called “geometric progression,” which is when the chapters match forward and backwards, so, in a way, you can tell the endings of my stories by reading the beginning. In NEME, Edward flies in to NYC wanting to be a “regular guy” not a wunderkind, he wants to understand what love is, and eventually he does, or at least he’s starting to. He’s in a better place than he was. In PFT, Edward is self-loathing and considers himself an “asshole." In the end, Edward does not loathe himself and actually sees a future, and comes to grips with the fact that he is still probably an asshole, but that he can use that particular trait to help the woman he loves.

This is the kind of HEA that I write. However, I am desperate to write about a wedding. I don’t even really like them in real life. Which is probably why. 

I know this makes no sense, but it’s been fun trying to describe why I do what I do and how I do it!

xot

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I had a ton of fun getting to know a little more about one of my favorite authors. Plummy, thanks for your time and your thoughtful words! 

You can also follow Plummy on Twitter @plummy6 

*Clipped Wings & Inked Armour by HunterHunting was pulled this past year. It is no longer available.

Primarycolors Talks Fireflies and Fate

When the opportunity presented itself to interview the author of one of the most popular fics out there at the moment, I didn’t hesitate. Primarycolors, author ofFirefly in Summer, sat down and answered a few pressing questions posed by her fans and me (I’m a huge fan too, by the way).

Firefly in Summer: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6672297/1/Firefly_in_Summer

Summary: Edward finds himself back in the little beach town of his childhood when he inherits the local bar from his uncle. The elusive, pretty girl next door has killer legs, a sketchbook and secrets that are slowly eating her alive.

Rated: M – Angst/Romance – E/B

DH78: Where did the inspiration for Firefly in Summer come from?

PC: Well, the setting of Summerside is modeled after a few real places, most notably Seaside, Florida. I spent some time there as a teenager when Seaside was still very small… it was romantic and quaint, very quiet. The beach cottages really were like lollipops! But for the purposes of creating a setting for the story, well- I threw a lot of “Mayberry” in there too—some old-fashioned, one-street, small Southern town characteristics like Mrs. Cope’s one room grocery, and having to “go into town” for anything big, like art supplies or the movies.

As for the story… it’s just a premise that’s always intrigued me. Having the opportunity to change something in your life… and what the consequences of those changes might be. It could never just be black and white. There would always be sacrifices. 

DH78: What made you want to start writing?

PC: Something I’ve discovered about myself… I think very visually. I’ve read some excellent fics in the past few years and my favorites were always the ones that fed me those tangible clues… color and smell, how something felt under someone’s fingertips, emotional cues. People always seem to give themselves away physically. The best visual cue fic I’ve ever read was in.a.blue.bathrobe’sTropic of Virgo. I could eat that story with a spoon.

When I started rewriting fics in my head as I was reading them… adding those little visual details… that’s when I thought that maybe I should write one for myself. 

DH78: Without spoiling it for everyone, was the big plot twist planned all along, or was it something that came out organically as you were writing?

PC: Every single thing in Firefly in Summer was planned! I had to, in order to keep myself sane. All the details are organic though. The major plot points were not.

DH78: This is for other authors who struggle with updating on a schedule: How do you keep yourself on task when writing, when obvious issues like RL take priority? Do you set a specific time aside to write?

PC: As an artist (my RL occupation) I learned early on to draw something each day, even if it’s only for five minutes. Even though I never considered myself a writer, I discovered that writing is very much the same, especially with a story. 

I’m lucky in that I work from home; so I can move my time around as I see fit. I can also write with kids playing right beside me. I have no idea how I developed that particular magical ability but I’m grateful for it!

I do wish I could write at night… it would be easier. But my head is clearer in the morning. Most days I’ll get up before anyone else, grab some coffee and work on a chapter for an hour or so.

I also keep a notebook in my purse… the scene right before Edward stands with Bella’s sheets in front of the washing machine? I scratched that out with a stubby pencil that desperately needed to be sharpened while waiting for my two little girls to get out of gymnastics class. One of the other moms said, “What on earth are you writing over there? You have the saddest look on your face!” 

DH78: Who’s your favorite character in your story? Why?

PC: I think Edward is my favorite. He changes the most. He’s the only one who will truly be able to appreciate what he has. I also feel like I owe him big time for breaking his heart.

DH78: How long have you been in the fandom? 

PC: I think I opened my Twilighted account in 2008! I lurked and read a lot before I ever ventured out by myself. 

DH78: What was the first ff you ever read?

PC: My first was Amethyst Jackson’s Only Human followed closely by Oxymoronic8’s Innocent, Vigilant, Ordinary.

DH78: Are you reading any ff right now? If so? Wanna rec something you’re loving so far?

PC: Gosh. Well, I have crushes on several authors- which means if they post something, I’m there. Right now I’m in love with twanza’s Love in Idleness. She has the loveliest imagination. The fact that she can back it up with beautiful words is heaven on earth.

DH78: A lot of people were asking this, so I have to put it out there. Feel free to answer as you wish: Are you an HEA girl? The #1 worry from your readers seems to be the nervousness they feel about how this is all going to go down. Any thoughts?

PC: I know that’s a big worry for people! But I’m very conscious of the readers who want to keep things a surprise. A lot of things were righted, but not everything can ever be perfect. I loved SM’s Breaking Dawn, but life just doesn’t turn out like that. However, I do think Edward has been through enough. Let’s just leave it at that.

DH78: What are your ideas about Fate? Do you believe in it? It seems to be the most prevalent theme in your story, besides the obvious relationship between E/B. Do you think everything happens for a reason? Do you think Fate fixes itself? 

PC: Hmm. I think Fate can mean different things for different people. Personally, I feel that there’s a plan, but that I have free will within that plan. If I had Dr. Shan in front of me right now, I might ask him if he really believed his recalculating theory, because it implies that a wrong turn was taken. What if “wrong” were simply relative? We’d never discover anything if we always went where we were told… we learn by doing, by making mistakes, by overcoming adversity. We can either believe that we have no choices, that everything is predetermined, or that Fate or God places certain obstacles in our path so that we can learn, influencing our later decisions, hopefully changing us for the better.

As for how this applies to Firefly in Summer… well, that’s up for discussion. Edward certainly has choices. He’s going to make the most of them.

-DH78