Writing Meme

[naomikritzer]

Gacked from topaztook:

Ask me anything at all about my writing, and then post the same question in your livejournal so I can ask you about yours.

Comments

[perimyndith.livejournal.com]

How do you write and still manage to have enough time for your children (and husband)?

[naomikritzer]

I don't have a day job. That helps a lot: I'm with the girls all day, and I don't do much writing during the day. I write fairly fast -- that helps, too. Some of my writing gets done very late at night, or in the evening while Ed is getting Molly her snack and putting her to bed.

Ed is a really good father: he does Molly's bedtime routine each evening, and if he can keep Kiera away, too, that's writing time for me. This is time I'm not spending with the girls, but it's time that Ed gets to spend with them.

Writing has always taken some time away from Ed, to be perfectly honest, but I have also always considered quality time with my spouse to be a legitimate excuse to slack off writing a little. Ed normally goes to bed earlier than I do (he's very definitely diurnal; me, not so much). It's worked out so far.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do you play favorites with your books, or do you love them all equally?

[naomikritzer]

Teresa Nielsen Hayden, over on her blog Making Light, once did a list of Forms of Insanity Known to Afflict Authors. One of them went something like this: "This book is terrible. I need to burn the manuscript and move to Guam and hide." I tend to suffer from that one, so it's not a matter of loving my first two novels more than my most recent novels, it's that I've had more time to get over my loathing for them from when that stage struck.

I currently love my first two books (Fires and Turning), like FREEDOM'S GATE okay, am fairly fond of FREEDOM'S APPRENTICE, and utterly loathe FREEDOM'S SISTERS, except when writing is going well and I'm convinced it's the most brilliant thing I've ever written.

When it comes to my books, I am an utterly dysfunctional psychotic bat of a mother. It's a good thing I don't usually have to get up with my books in the middle of the night. Playing favorites with them is small potatoes.

[porphyrin.livejournal.com]

Your three books (okay, three and a half, and I'm waiting eagerly for F.A.) published so far are fantasy.

Have you ever written a science fiction novel, or do you want to in the future?

[naomikritzer]

I have written one, actually. I wrote an SFnal detective story when I was waiting for FIRES/TURNING (one book, at the time) to sell. When Bantam bought FIRES/TURNING, they said they weren't interested in SF from me and would like me to write more fantasy. I had finished the detective story (the tentative title was WIDENING GYRE, though I was going to change it -- there's already a book out with that title, and while you can't copyright a title, I don't see any reason to make it more difficult to find my book on Amazon) but I wasn't particularly happy with it -- I felt like some major element just wasn't there, and I couldn't figure out what it was. So I stuck it in a drawer, revised the manuscript that Bantam had just bought, then sent them a proposal for a new trilogy, and have been writing THOSE books since then.

When I am done with FREEDOM'S SISTERS, I would like to revisit Gyre, try to figure out what it needs, revise it, and send it to my agent to see if he can sell it to someone. It's a book that COULD be the first of a series, so I could potentially write more.

I feel more at home with fantasy, though.

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

What made you go against the cultural norms and write about a same sex relationship in Fires/Turning?

[naomikritzer]

This is one of the few times that I've had a character turn around and just do something. I was planning to write about an intense friendship between Eliana and Mira. But then Eliana fell in love, and it seemed like such a betrayal of the character to say, "No, shut up and get back in your closet, that's not what you were supposed to do!"

This was very early on in writing, so it shaped what came after. I'm not sure how that book would have turned out if it hadn't happened.

[topaztook.livejournal.com]

(And I have finally made it over here to see if you did post the question in your blog -- in the same day I finally responded.)

Your (published) writing is all in a specific genre. Do you have any hopes/plans/desires/unpublished stashes to write in any other genre?

[naomikritzer]

Well, I have an unpublished SF/mystery novel. As far as other genres go -- I have thought occasionally about trying to write historical fiction, but I'm very intimidated by the sheer quantity of research. I feel like I'd have to go back to college and get another BA first, this one in History. I have also thought about writing mysteries, but I'm more interested in writing SF/F, so that's what I'm planning to stick with for now. (Interestingly, my favorite mystery author, Laurie R. King, recently wrote an SF novel under another name and noted in an interview she did that she was much more of an SF reader as a young woman, and her first attempt at a novel was SF.)