Tag, Your'e It! Blog Tour...with Cp Bailois
What am I working on?
Okay, I guess the best place to start is with my almost finished project, The Lightwalker. It took a year to get to this point, but the third installment of The Sword and the Flame series is currently with my beta readers to hammer out any inconsistencies, plot holes, or stupid moments I may have had before heading in for edits.
The story picks up four years after the events in The Purging with the character dealing with their current situations when whispers of a Darkness rising pulls them into another adventure. Where the first two novels had a coming of age theme, The Lightwalker and the fourth book, The Dragonmaster, will have a growing up and maturing theme. At least that’s my hope. As always, the readers will decide the theme as they see fit, so who am I to argue?
As I hinted at, I’m currently writing The Dragonmaster. It’s an interesting challenge, as it’s the first time I have so much material from The Lightwalker I felt would be better served in this book. I have roughly 40k words to rewrite for the beginning of The Dragonmaster so it’s interesting. Sorry, but I’m not sure how to explain it further than that. I’m sure others could word it better than I can, so I’ll have to pass on that for the moment.
The Dragonmaster will pick up right after the events of The Lightwalker and the characters will… well… I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.
I’m also bouncing between a couple of other projects. One is a western I started about three or four years ago but never finished and the other is a collection of horror short stories for a second Skeleton Key collection. Each story is inspired by a different Metallica song so we’ll have to see how it goes with that as I keep getting stuck. lol
How does my work differ from others in my genre?
I know I ask this question a lot, and answer it, but I have to be honest in that I hate it. lol I’m sure others do this as well, but I try to take cliches and turn them on their ear. There’s something about making someone feel comfortable before jabbing them with a cattle-prod I find entertaining.
Why do I write what I do?
As a child, I loved to read and escape into other worlds where I could be the hero. It’s something that helped me cope with the joys of being picked on in school or by my friends. As long as I had a world to step into, their taunts didn’t bother me as much as they probably hoped it would. Because of that, I’m a firm believer in the power of escapism and I want to give others a chance to forget their troubles for an hour or so here and there.
There’s something special about fantasy, horror, and science fiction that is freeing. despite their popularity, these genres tend to be largely ignored like they’re the red-headed stepchild locked in the basement by many. It helps engender a feeling of community among the authors and readers. Plus, they’re fun to read and share our thoughts on particular topics in a mostly relaxed forum if we choose to. To me, they’re the best to read as any message usually isn’t preachy or heavy-handed.
Also, humbly I say this, I write stories I want to read. No matter how great another writer was or will be, I’m the only one that can tell my stories my way. I believe each of us have a voice and how we express it is up to us. Some prefer others to tell it, while those like myself want to give life to it ourselves.
How does my writing process work?
How does with a great deal of pain and agitation sound? Just kidding. It’s not like that for me (The headaches come from our fur babies when they refuse to leave me alone).
I usually sign online when I wake up to do any networking or other tasks so I can focus on what i need to do for the day. After that’s done I break out the pen and paper. Yep, you heard that right. In this day and age of computers and voice recognition software, I go old school.
Writing by hand gives me a certain focus I don’t have when using the computer. It’s harder to skip down half a page to work on another idea without confusing the crap out of myself, so I have to focus my thoughts before getting started. Once I finish, I start transcribing the ream of paper onto the computer. As sad as it sounds, I only type about five pages an hour. I blame my handwriting. Even my printing is horrible.
Of course, I can’t forget about having music playing. While I prefer crypt-like quiet, I love when I find music that brings the story to life in my mind. It’s like I’m watching a movie play out. Each of my books have been written to different cds. It’s amazing how no two books work with the same music. Or am I just being weird? Oh well. I can live with that.
Well, that’s it in a nutshell. Thank you all for taking the time to read my ramblings. As I’m sure you noticed, I tend to be one of those complicated individuals that refuse to be categorized and drive people crazy so I hope I’ve offered something of worth you can use or found interesting.
Now to tag a few authors to answer the same questions. Let’s see… who’s that hiding in the back… AHA! Got ya!
Michelle Cornwell-Jordan, OG Tomes, and Shay West. Ladies, come on down. The floor is yours.
