Day Twenty-eight: 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.

Um, no. I've injured my characters quite badly but it's never been a permanent thing. I don't think it's a conscious decision, but living with chronic pain as I do, I don't really want to be writing about it as a condition as I suffer that 24/7.

Day Twenty-nine: How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?

Every day. Nearly everything reminds me of what I'm working on at a given time - music, TV ads, the way the sun shines on a pool of water in the driveway from overnight rainfalls, the scent of good food cooking, you name it.

Day Thirty: Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!

I tag no one. If you want to do this meme, go forth and meme!

Day Twenty-seven: 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.

Not really. I find that the more I work with a character, the clearer their appearance becomes in my mind's eyes, but it's still a fairly nebulous image until I see a photograph or a video or something of a person who sort of 'clicks' with what's in my head. I see my stories in scenes rather than characters, the scene comes first and the character develops from that.

It's been cold here lately which makes all my joints hurt and makes writing difficult if not impossible. Which is why this batch of meme answers are rather overdue. Four days worth beneath the cut. Oops? Let's just say that joints are evil.

( ........ )

Day twenty-one: Do any of your characters have children? How well do you write them?

No, so not applicable.

Day twenty-two: Tell us about one scene between your characters that you've never written or told anyone about before! Serious or not.

This isn't applicable either, because if I've thought of it, it gets written down. These two questions were fairly redundant for me, I'm afraid.

Day Twenty: What are your favorite character interactions to write?

Hm. I think this is best done in list format.

* Gabriel and Michael.
* Gabriel and Declan.
* Jonas and Mario.
* Blaise and Christian.
* Blaise and Stefan.
* Skeld and anyone.
* Oren and anyone.
* Ellina and Mata.


The last four are characters in the Order of Shadows trilogy. For some reason, this trilogy is at the front of my mind lately. Although I rather suspect it's this meme that's doing that more than anything else. There are no doubt many others that I enjoy writing but I'm tired and there's a hellicopter flying overhead for some unknown reason so my mind isn't coming up with any others right at this moment alas.

Day Eighteen: Favorite antagonist and why!

I had to think a lot about this because my antagonists, while I enjoy writing them for the most part, I can't really say any of them are favourite characters. Maybe Asmodeus, an Archdemon, because he likes to taunt and snark at the good guys and comes out with some really biting commentary. Or Father Sander because he's a very intelligent man who is also incredibly despicable. A lot of parts of his personality I don't like at all and I put them in for shock effect. The head of the Order of Shadows is a nasty, nasty man as well, and I would say that I like writing him more than Father Sander, his brother, even though he's not quite as base-level nasty more of a nasty character with a lot of nasty plans.


Day Nineteen: Favorite minor that decided to shove himself into the spotlight and why!

Oh this is easy. Gabriel. I only ever intended him to be a minor character because I needed an Archangel for a story to work as an intermediary between other angels and God. It didn't take long for him to grow from a background character that I intended to pop up only occaisionally to be one of the loudest muses in my head. Part of the joy of writing him is his complex personality, he's quirky and fun-loving; he's quick to violence and anger; he's full of the joie de vie and he's not above destroying civilisations if he has to. He likes to laugh and enjoys life and his job and the many different facets of his character are always fun to write.

Day Seventeen: Favorite protagonist and why!

Hm. I have a few, actually.

Gabriel.
Archangel Gabriel, the way I write him after exhaustive research and reading more scripture than I ever thought I would, is, in short, a brat. He gets along with his older brother Michael the best out of all his siblings and he and Michael have a very strong brotherly bond, they're best friends as well as brothers. Gabriel enjoys his vices - cigarettes, alcohol, sex, swearing - and even though he doesn't need food or drink to live, he enjoys indulging his culinary appetites. He's a soldier, a warrior, the General of God, second in command to Archangel Michael, and his carefree joie de vie can drop away in a heartbeat when he takes up his sword and goes to do battle. I like writing him because his turns of phrase are quirky and interesting, dialogue for Gabriel has always been a challenge because of his accent. I've decided that his vessel - as the angels in my writing take a human vessel in order to work on Earth without being detected as unusual - is from working class Britain, northern Londoner to be exact. His vessel was also a SAS General before Gabriel got permission to use his body for his own needs. The SAS General was dying of cancer and on his death bed, he gave Gabriel consent to use his body.

When it's not wartime, Gabriel plays pranks on his brother, loafs around bars and pubs, goes out to see bands play, drinks his own weight in alcohol and smokes way too many cigaretes. When it is wartime, Gabriel is a ruthless warrior, running campaigns in the name of God and commanding the Seraphim, the choir of warrior angels that he's the Commander of. He is the agressor where Michael is the protector and as such, Michael gives Gabriel a great deal of freedom in mapping out campaigns because of Gabriel's talent for military strategy and ability to adapt to the world as humanity and the universe evolves. I haven't drawn on one particular tradition for Gabriel, I've taken elements of his background and mythology from the Apocrypha, the King James Version of the Bible, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Torah and the Koran. I've also looked at a few white magic practitioners, such as Doreen Virtue, who has written extensively on the subject of Archangels. Therefore, in my Archangel choir, there are ten Archangels rather than seven as mythology can't seem to agree on all of them. The main three - Michael, Gabriel and Raphael - are always present but there's a lot of contradiction about who the rest of the Archangels are. Gabriel's wings are also not, in fact, white. I personally find the white wings attributed to angels to be somewhat twee. Because he's a warrior, Gabriel's wings are black and grey, reminiscent of a vulture. Michael's are more tawny coloured, like an owl's. All the Archangels have different coloured wings. It's one of my personal little bugbears.

Blaise.
Blaise is a peasant from France in a dystopian future after the world has gone through an apocalyptic event that has set science back to the medieval period. Basically lots of farming and hunting, small towns and villages, and a crude feudal system with knights, dukes, lords, kings and princes. Religion isn't a big deal in this dystopian future, but there is a semblance of it within the over-ruling Order of Shadows which exists on the sole principle of preserving knowledge and history. Blaise is a scholar with a love of learning and enters the Order as an acolyte with a thirst for knowledge for it's own sake. Through the course of the story, Blaise grows from a naive peasant into an intelligent, compassionate and reluctant soldier. Writing him is fun because the almost innocent joy he has when he learns something new is borderline childlike, his thirst for knowledge is almost pure, he has no desire to use his knowledge for personal gain or power or anything, he simply loves learning. He can be socially awkward and gauche but his heart is always in the right place and he tries the best he can to do the right thing for everyone, not just for himself. Blaise is a very loyal friend and companion. His sense of humour is dry and sarcastic.

Day Sixteen: Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing?

Yes, is the short answer. The majority of my writing is m/m erotica and I have no problems with going to a NC17 rating. I'm comfortable writing graphic erotica and fading-to-black erotica. Having said this, most of the original fiction I've written has fallen into the latter category. I believe only Broken Wings has graphic erotica in it, the other pieces don't. This isn't due to a mild version of clutching my pearls or anything, it's simply a case of graphic erotica not fitting into the narrative. If it doesn't fit, then I don't see the need to force it. The Order of Shadows for example is heavy on the UST but contains no obvious romance whatsoever.

In short, yes I do write romantic relationships. I find them reasonably easy to write and if the story calls for it, I have no problems with writing graphic sex scenes.

Day Fourteen: How do you map out locations, if needed? Do you have any to show us?

Generally, I look at places whose history interests me: France, the UK, Egypt, Rome, Russia or my own country, Australia. Sometimes, I'll be piqued by the name of a place, such as Mount Brocken in Germany. Usually, however, my choice of location is based on whichever place I'm most interested in at a given moment. I think I posted enough links of awesome places in the earlier post where I talked about the catacombs beneath Paris, so I'll let that batch of links stand for this question as well.

Day Fifteen: Midway question! Tell us about a writer you admire, whether professional or not!

Admiring a writer as opposed to enjoying their work is something of a fine line of distinction. I admire those writers who work I enjoy but the only writer I can think of off the top of my head whose work has influenced me in terms of narrative development, continuity, scope and narrative arc as well as being a writer whose work I've enjoyed is J. Michael Stracynski and not for a novel. No, for what he did with Babylon 5 which to this day remains my favourite show. Equal to Supernatural, admittedly.

Day Thirteen: What's your favorite culture to write, fictional or not?

Human? Archangel? This is such a strange question. If I write it, I love it. A lot of my writing features bits and pieces of medieval history, so it's fair to say that the culture of the Middle Ages, particularly the period 1150 - 1250AD is high on my list of cultural loves. Ancient Egypt and Rome too, and Europe - east and west - in the Dark Ages. Then there's my love of late 1970's punk rock London.