So several people have asked me, in amidst the more general posts on writing and formatting things and watching too much television and my cat being adorable, exactly how it is that I go about writing a book. Since saying 'I put words on paper until a novel falls out' seems a little bit twee, and I like writing things down, I am now writing out How I Write Books, or, What Seanan Does In Her Rapidly Decreasing Spare Time. This glosses a lot of the more complicated steps, since a truly accurate portrayal of how I write books would involve a lot of 'stop writing, go find a zombie movie' and 'get another DDP,' and no one actually needs to read that. Those particular steps are sort of a given.

Soooo...

( Click here and learn about the way one blonde's brain works, in the literary sense. Lots of confusion? Yeah, that's rather to be expected around here, where running three books at the same time is entirely normal, but stopping to focus on something that makes sense absolutely isn't.Collapse )

So we've been working for a while now -- and by 'we,' I mean taraoshea and porpentine -- at giving my website a total overhaul. Because of the way my brain works (which is not like your Earth brains), this means Tara designs the new graphics and layout, Chris implements them, and then I start doing the new site text, because I can't 'see' where the new text should go until I have the old text in place on the shiny new layout. So poor Chris is going to do a huge amount of heavy lifting and then immediately get hammered with textual updates. Feel for him.

In an effort to keep him from killing me, I figure I should start prepping some of the text now, while I still have a little wiggle room. So I present to you...

What goes into my FAQ?

Obviously, there needs to be a section on filk, as well as the absolutely required section on writing. What do you want to see there? What makes sense? What have you always wanted to know, but been afraid to ask? What have you put into your own FAQs?

Help me keep Chris from killing me.

So I've actually started getting my own set of 'frequently asked questions' from people who hear that I've sold a trilogy. They don't include a lot of the classic writer's questions, as yet -- I figure I'll start getting really sick of 'where do you get your ideas?' and 'can you introduce me to your agent?' sometime after book two comes out -- but they're fascinating all the same. Here's a selection, with exposition.

Why do you write about ______?
People who know me through horror and are thus aware of my undying passion for dead stuff and diseases tend to blink at me and ask 'why do you write about faeries?' like it was some sort of unhealthy personal grooming choice. (One acquaintance picked up the opening chapter of Rosemary and Rue, read about ten pages, and then said, clearly perplexed, "This has faeries in it." Perhaps he assumed I wouldn't have noticed.) People who know me through fantasy and are thus aware of my lifelong obsession with folklore and fairy tales tend to ask the reverse question, looking puzzled as they say 'why do you write about zombies?' I sometimes want to arm both camps with boffer weapons, get popcorn, and watch them try to beat each other into submission. Because it would be funny.

Why haven't you quit your day job yet?
Well, beyond the fact that I don't actually have any books published at this particular moment in time, I like paying my mortgage. I like eating things other than canned tuna (although, I must admit, not often). I like being able to buy comic books. Do I eventually want to quit my day job? Oh, hell yes. I'm a fast, disciplined writer, but there are only so many hours in the day, and the idea of being able to get up in the morning and just start writing is heavenly. I'm just not quite there yet.

When is Rosemary and Rue coming out?
I like this question, because people who ask it tend to want to buy my book. Unfortunately, I don't have anything resembling a functional answer to this one yet, because it's still early days. I have a whole lot of editorial to look forward to before I can even take guesses at the date.

Will you be at WorldCon?
2008, no. 2009, yes. 2010, if I have to sell one of Brooke's kidneys to do it. (She's Canadian, she has good kidneys.) I want to go to THE LAND OF POISON AND FLAME. That's what I call Australia. THE LAND OF POISON AND FLAME. The idea of an entire continent devoted to destroying human life is sort of like the idea of Willy Wonka's factory: too good to be true, but oh, if only it were...

Do you sleep?
No.

I can't wait to see what gets asked next...