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noelleno1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why.
It's called Anduist Road right now, but the title's always a work in progress. I think it'll change again, because the focus has shifted yet again. It's where
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princeduality and morteltelis and all their friends and junk are from. Sprawling, single-continental high-fantasy bullshit with a lot of the old cliches and a lot more social anxiety pumped into it. I'm most comfortable in fantasy settings, and I've had this one the longest, and a lot of the mythology and history is already set, so it's the one I enjoy bulking up the most. 'Cause there's already plenty there to tweak.The one I just call Sentient Tree Land is shaping up to be just as fun, too, 'cause it's the same kinda deal, just with different attributes. Trevis, Hubert, and a lot of folks I draw often are set there. It's a little less srsbiz, which is cool.
2. How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?
Hideous question. I have a notebook in my room somewhere with an old list of characters from high school, and it was about 110. It's changed and fluxuated since then, but I have at least 40 that are at least more than a name or family member with no personality.
I seem to have a lot more males than females overall, but I'm not sure why. They seem to suffer the most, too. 8|a
3. How do you come up with names, for characters (and for places if you're writing about fictional places)?
Funny sounds that mesh. Or I pick an item/verb/name that I like and rip some letters out, swap things around, and make it ~unique~ (or just stupid). I had no idea Chemin was actually a French word for years until I did a damn Google search and got nothing but pictures of roads, rofl. I still don't know the proper French pronounciation for it, either, so I guess it's okay I say it wrong!
4. Tell us about one of your first stories/characters!
The earliest shit is shit and we do not discuss it. So the next one would be Anduist Road, which was Written in Stone back in middle/high school (WHICH IS A DUMB TITLE CONSIDERING EVERYTHING...). It has a lot of tweaks and edits that we do not need to care about anymore, so here's its current state, stupidly sprawling as it is:
• A continent inhabited by multiple sentient species in several different nations is recovering from a huge world war, as it were.
• One of the losing nations retaliates by pretty much razing one of the winner's kingdoms by suprise--Chemin's home.
• The Anduist (a wandering priest/mouthpiece for a god) receives a divine phone call to start collecting certain people to get everybody ready for some kind of Big Bad Evil that's gonna hit. Everyone thinks it's another war, and another one IS coming, but that's not what the message was about. Oops.
• Chemin procedes to be a failboat at rallying anything. Shit Gets Real.
• Big Bad Evil's discovered, several attempts to repress it fail, and drama ensues.
• Chemin starts developing a spine due to shedding enough manly tears.
• Woops there's another war that eerily mirrors the last one. Lots of cynical remarks on history repeating itself.
• More stuff happens but that's near the end why would I spoil that even if I'll never write it all out??
It's one of those things with a supporting cast bigger than six Xboxes and whose central focus changed about 4 times to settle back on Chemin, who is no longer a capable protagonist. Hence all the backup. I like it better that way.
5. By age, who is your youngest character? Oldest? How about “youngest” and “oldest” in terms of when you created them?
Guhh, uh. Well,
obedientlyi had a baby girl, and she was about...six weeks old? I think she's youngest. The deities would be the oldest, but that's cheating, so my oldest mortals are probably Ellisha (whose age isn't fixed, but it's damn old) and the Wishgivers, whose ages range all over the spectrum, but the oldest ones clock in the thousands.
Chemin, Viyle, and Iore are probably my oldest still-in-use people. The Darkov family is my newest group of folks.
6. Where are you most comfortable writing? At what time of day? Computer or good ol' pen and paper?
I write when I'm miserable, lol. Or I can't draw what I want to draw, so I'll just write it/block it instead. Time doesn't really average out, and it's most often cruddy drabbles online or my notebook outlines.
7. Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your characters?
I flip my iTunes playlist on shuffle usually and just go with whatever's on, which is...every genre ever pretty much? But I have a hideous amount of techno, so that's on more often than not. Techno and a lot of OSTs, a lot of which are Tiësto and Hans Zimmer.
As for relating...yeah. I got character/story playlists on my iTunes because I'm a huge tool. 8|
8. What's your favorite genre to write? To read?
High fantasy is about the only thing I feel good writing. I'm not particularly big on science or politics, so trying to tackle something more realistic isn't...very realistic for someone like me. At least in a fantasy setting, I have the chance to mold virtually everything/anything to my particular interests, and to hell with the crap I don't care about.
I like reading contemporary fiction, though. High fantasy's okay, but more often than not, it exhausts me. I enjoy fantasy stories that vary their locations/timelines and such, but aren't so ingrained in the whole HURR DRAGONS HURR ELVES HURR. Which is weird considering how many damn pointy eared freaks I have in my own set, I guess...,
9. How do you get ideas for your characters? Describe the process of creating them.
I don't even know. I think most often times it comes from the drawing/design aspect first. I make a face or an outfit that I like, and then fill in the personality and such into it to suit. Other times I might be influenced by a show/book I like and a particular character trait/attribute I wanna tackle in my own way. I guess it depends.
But yeah, I think it's safe to say the drawing tends to come first.
10. What are some really weird situations your characters have been in? Everything from serious canon scenes to meme questions counts!
Story by story--
ANDUIST ROAD
• Chemin and a drowned Iore get ferried by a sea monster. Niko probably pisses herself when she sees this, but we don't say that kind of thing because she's a lady.
• Royal Guard Captain Merrek spent a lot of Chemin's younger years fishing him out of trees, falling out of trees, and ripping his pants due to fishing/falling.
• This. Which I intend to keep canon.
TYRANNICAL ALIEN ELLISHA
• Pretty much the entire story
• There's a talking baseball bat that can change into pretty much any inanimate object when needed, so.
• Also there's a whole arc involving a world where people break into song a la Disney movies.
SENTIENT TREE LAND
• Prince Donovan spends a few weeks as a disgruntled snail with a very fetching mustache.
• Hubert gets kidnapped by female pirates. Silliness ensues.
• Luyssious/Trevis teamups are always very special moments. Usually ending in grunting, strangling, lampshaded compliments, or all of the above. Dead Wives Club ftw.
SOUL KING
• Idk this story is just hideously sad and shonen and miserable
ELIMAY
• There's a whole aspect where one of the characters, who is human, is seen and regarded as just another furry dude by the general populous except Chiinah, who sees him for what he really is.
11. Who is your favorite character to write? Least favorite?
Take a moment to get it out of your system that I have a character named Elle. It's actually kind of where my nickname comes from, but she's grown so completely different from me, that she's not a munsona anymore. She's her, and she's a ball to write. But she's kind of a cynical bitch. And by kind of I mean extremely.
I also like writing Trevis, who is a different kind of asshole altogether. And Chemin, who is just. Precious. And Regina Darkov's alternate personality, which is pretty much like a Freudian id. Childish, petty, and a bit on the crazy side.
I have a hard time with Luyssious because he's just so...muted. His personality isn't very dynamic, and he's pretty passive and uneventful when left to his own vices and, y'know, not busily hacking up monsters because his dead wife said to. He doesn't have any vocal quirks, so it's like. Buh.
12. In what story did you feel you did the best job of world building? Any side-notes on it you'd like to share?
Anduist Road's world is the most fleshed-out. I been at it since I was 13, so dangit, I better have something to show for it. :|
13. What's your favorite culture to write, fictional or not?
I like small, village/tribal communities that're heavily influenced by family the most. I have lots and lots of little family-based clans and towns, and I like the flavor it has compared to a big, strange city of strangers. That, and it just gives me an excuse to design more damn characters. 8|
Off the top of my head, I can think of...
• The nomads in the Shurris Badlands (Anduist Road)
• Shiril and Sheerol clans (Anduist Road)
• The Darkovs and Lumas (Soul King)
• The currently unnamed north village where Chiinah's from (Elimay)
• The giant wolves (Sentient Tree Land)
And so on. I just like the intimacy of a close-knit village or family clan.
14. How do you map out locations, if needed? Do you have any to show us?
I draw maps. 8|;
This is the one for Sentient Tree Land.
Anduist's is on notebook paper.
The rest are pending as needed. :V
15. Midway question! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether professional or not!
Maggie Furey wrote my favorite fantasy series, Aurian. I didn't like her other work, but Aurian was totally my favorite in high school. Hardcore female protagonist, yeah!!
I also really enjoy E.L. Doctorow for his 20th century fictions. God, so easy to read.
Francesca Lia Block. Absolutely gorgeous imagery in her post-modern fairy tale worlds. It's really an experience.
ruffwriter, who is going to be professional, I called it. She's amazing to read and to write WITH. :') Y'all should read her stuff in order to become suddenly cool.16. Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing? ;)
I'm stupid for romance, somehow? Even if I don't let most of my main protagonists have it. It's usually a secondary thing, because things solely centered around romance make me roll my eyes. But...I do have my exceptions which I do love. Even if I tend to wreck everything and make it never work out in the end. It's usually more of a case of life after love, rather than true love happily ever after hoohah. THERE'S EXCEPTIONS, but my tendency is for the frailty of it all. My personal experience probably has something to do with this, but we write what we know, right?
I don't write smut. >:| Folks got better a imagination for that, so I don't need to come up with a clever way of "HE STUCK HIS WING-WONG IN HER THINGY".
17. Favorite protagonist and why!
Chemin.
He's such a failure. He shouldn't be a protagonist, but he is, and it's sad. I just make his life suck. But he must be made of rubber or something, because sooner or later, he bounces back, and I think that's why I like him. He'll suffer, but keep going. Without complaining, even!
18. Favorite antagonist and why!
The Nightcap is so shonen final boss it's retarded and I love it. It's a parisitic demon from the Otherworld (basically a kind of collective of heaven/hell/etc where things are spirits or whatevs) that is more than a little ambitious, takes over a Darkov body, lerns their sekrits, and sets out to get the Soul King Crown to devour EVERY SOUL EVER EVIL LAUGH HERE.
Good times. :'|
I also really enjoy one called Odelay, but telling about her would kill some fun.
19. Favorite minor that decided to shove himself into the spotlight and why!
Iore did this way back in like. 10th grade? I forget. But first he was just an annoying imp thing that first showed up when a house fell on him. Since then he's just wormed his way into my heart and became very damn important, and though the house doesn't fall on him anymore, his life is 600x worse. He shoulda stayed secondary. 8'|
I think the fact that he brought a lot of friction and conflict to the main party was why I loved him so. He was a little offbeat (a 24-year old stuck in a 12-year old's body, oh boy), and way too fun to get rid of.
20. What are your favorite character interactions to write?
• Chemin and Iore. True biffles. It's a very athlete-and-coach, tough love kind of friendship that shapes the former into someone better, and gives the latter a little more faith in the outside world.
• Elle and Mike. Best friends since kindergarten, now in high school and in that place where people are really trying to set them in different categories, and it gets to them in ways, but at the end of the day, they just want to be there for each other somehow. Though the lady doth protest too much and hence, drama.
• Chiinah and Tombar. A little ray of sunshine in a dark gloomy soul. I could say the same for Chiinah and Claude, cause the kid just has that effect on angry ex-royalty. But with Tombar, it was a lot more tender and raw.
• Hubert and Seyfi. More manly biffles. I REALLY LIKE WRITING FRIENDSHIPS OKAY. But they compliment each other very well, and it's fun to have them together doing stuff. Drinking (beer and wine), fighting (lances and swords), dealing with women (Yvonna.......,), etc.
And so on and so forth. I love the stuff that comes out of co-writing with Becky, or threading over at Mothdeath, too, BUT THE LIST COULD GO ON FOREVER THIS POST IS LONG ENOUGH.
21. Do any of your characters have children? How well do you write them?
SO MANY CHILDREN FOR SO MANY SECONDARIES. Children are okay. I try to keep them pretty low-key and out of the way, 'cause they can get annoying or hard to accept because writing a particular age group can be tricky since I don't really. Have a lot of young children around me anymore.
They are usually girls. And young. Idk why. I like drawing foo-foo dresses, okay.
22. Tell us about one scene between your characters that you've never written or told anyone about before! Serious or not.
Uh, well...Idk. Um.
Oh, so in TAE, there's a point close to the middle of the story where Mike has this funky dream he's out in a desolate, atmosphere-less terrain. Kinda like Mars? And he sees Ellisha, who doesn't acknowledge him at all until he's right up next to her, and then she grabs him by the throat and lifts him off the ground. And then it's not Ellisha but Elle, and the whole thing kind of gets trippy as hell mixing images and faces until some strange human guy pops in and says something like "DON'T YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU PROMISED YOU'D DO?"
And then he wakes up upside-down halfway on the floor. And he's weirded out by it for a grand total of 10 minute (cause then it's time for Pop Tarts) until he starts getting powers and notices shit falling into weird place like his dream.
Yep.
23. How long does it usually take you to complete an entire story—from planning to writing to posting (if you post your work)?
I'LL NEVER FINISH ANYTHING *SOBS
24. How willing are you to kill your characters if the plot so demands it? What's the most interesting way you've killed someone?
Rofl just ask Becky. I'm a slaughterhouse. The more I love a character, the harder it is to keep me from outright murdering or martyring them. It's so bad sometimes that I have to actually check myself to make sure I'm not going a little too killhappy with sad plot devices and/or deaths.
I think the most interesting deaths would be uh...
• Chiinah (oh woops spoilers I kill him), who walks onto the hand of Destruction and takes one for the team (re: everyone)
• Sam from a project with Becky. He's like a smoking, sometimes drunk, PTSD Shadowcat (except it's sorcery, not mutations), and he'll get stuck on some traintracks and have to phase through a train, but lose it about 14 cars in. Splat.
• Marty in Soul King pretty much sucks up the sickness out of his sister and dies for it. Good times. PLOT RELEVANT.
25. Do any of your characters have pets? Tell us about them.
• Chemin used to have a cat, but idk what to do with a cat on travelling adventures, so let's just say the cat ran off during the raid.
• Iore's mount might as well be a giant puppydog. He's a huge, monitor-lizard-esque beastie that Iore rides, but he's very precious. Iore named him Boy, because he's a creative guy.
• I'd say Cole's pet is Gossamire but idk if that counts
26. Let's talk art! Do you draw your characters? Do others draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favorite picture of him!
HMM THIS IS A HARD ONE.
And yes I adore when people draw my kids. It fills my soul with joy. I have a nice fat folder of art from others that I cherish greatly.
I love this thing I did of Hubert. I mean, I should fix the nose to be COMPLETELY happy, but ggg. I just enjoy it. Hard workin', hard bleedin', always genuine Hubie.
27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters.
Considering a lot of my character creation stems from drawing them? I'd say yes. I need a face to match the voice. They need to be as varied as their own lives, even if my style sets me into a few general types (long nosed folks, blocky-chin folks, bulbous nose folks.,.,). So yeah.
It usually starts with the face and the hair. Clothes suck, I fail at fashion, so that's always last, and there's many times where I rely on my better artist friends (Endy, Panda, etc) to give me some insight into how to approach a costume.
28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there's nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
• Chemin has problems comprehending language. He can't read well, and it takes him a bit to process words as they come at him. Worse to come up with the words he wants to use to speak.
• Regina Darkov has a split personality to help her cope with the task of having to slaughter monsters/demons for a living. Her alt persona totally digs on this, and is actually aware enough to bubble up and supress timid!Gina when need be.
• Iilnel is physically blind (unless his daughter is touching him).
• Charlie/Squeak is a mute. And emotionally constipated, but that won't count.
• Alexander Darkov's hands are mutilated and incapable of motion. He fights with his feet.
• Cosumata's body can't handle moisture or water; even humid days cause her to blotch and get rashes and she has to cover up. Excess water can damage her to the bone, so baths/rain/swimming are all big no-nos.
• Sam. PTSD. Good ol' alt-universe WWI!
• One of my superheroes is a twin who can't use his legs. He's wheelchair-bound until he taps into his ~special power~ that lets him fly.
8|;;
29. How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?
Always. Always.
30. Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his characters!
BECKY AND NOODLES AND WHOEVER WANTS TO DO THIS IDEC THIS WAS SO LONG IT'S SO LATE DRE WILL KILL ME FOR BEING UP THIS LATE...
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Date: 2010-03-10 07:04 am (UTC)• Idk this story is just hideously sad and shonen and miserable
I THINK YOU MEAN HIDEOUSLY WONDERFUL AND AWESOME AND EPIC.
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Date: 2010-03-10 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2010-03-10 04:22 pm (UTC)BUT
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Date: 2010-03-10 04:23 pm (UTC)even if you are breaking him completely my god
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Date: 2010-03-10 01:24 pm (UTC)your talent give me it
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Date: 2010-03-10 06:42 pm (UTC)I loved reading about all your worlds and characters. *A*
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Date: 2010-03-10 08:00 pm (UTC)Man, I used to get ideas for writing stuff from everywhere (even in religion classes) but I think university killed that. Aha...
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Date: 2010-03-11 12:06 am (UTC)yes, elle, even the furries. :I
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Date: 2010-03-11 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 12:10 am (UTC)