More Tags // revealing the secret of how I smashed NaNo 2016

Let me tell you a story.

One day, I did a tag. I tagged Sarah. Sarah tagged Ralraymee. Ral tagged me.

And then one of the other people that Ral tagged did the tag and tagged Ral back and then. You'll never guess it.

She tagged me again.

*squints*

I did not sign up for this. *shakes head slowly* But anyway. :P

Thank you Ral for tagging me (both times) (and sorry for taking so long about getting around to doing this), everyone go check out her blog. She's only fairly recently started up again, but if you activate ninja skills you can stalk all her posts. *nods*

I shall now proceed to skip the rules and go straight on to the twenty questions (double tags shouldn't be allowed. xP) from Ral.


1. Can you share with us a Snippity Bit of a story you are currently writing/have written?

Nooo. You've already gotten enough Agent Kit snippets. Let's do something different. Time for stalking all my other story ideas and finding a nice little snippet.

I am a prince, therefore I must rescue the princess.

I must also have an over-protective mother, a father almost as stubborn as myself, and a name long enough to make a dragon cringe.

That’s just how it works.

No one asks questions. No one steps aside from tradition. No one protests that it jolly well gets boring after five centuries of the exact same thing. Over and again.

Cliché, am I right?

If one looks back through the history books, it’s all just repeating itself. Handsome prince, damsel in distress, tall tower. Toss in a couple of assassinations, wars, and on-the-side romances, and that’s the entire history of the country.

I can near enough recite it in my sleep.

And for me it’s all going to be the same.

“It’s what I did, and my father before me, and his father before him and—”

“His father before him and so on and on and blah blah. I get the picture.” I drape my hand off the side of the reclining lounge, trying to ignore my father.

Oh yes, I didn’t mention that because I’m a prince, I’m also a rebellious, stubborn son.

Again, that’s just how it works.

To be entirely honest, this one makes even less sense to me, because surely the fathers would have rebelled by now and slapped some sense into their sons. But no.

Not that I’m complaining.

2. Is there a funny writing experience you've had? If so, what?

a) I am a master of funny (do not question me here. *solemn nodding*)
b) how could I choose one thing??

Okay so let me pick one random thing. Last year in November - aka my first ever time of doing NaNoWriMo - I was doing some word wars. LISTEN CAREFULLY. This is where I tell you my secret of how I won NaNo in nine days.

I was doing word wars with some peoples on an online forum. Then one other girl and I decided to spice things up a little.

Next word war, we typed with our toes.

And then our thumbs.

And then our noses.

By the time we got to typing with our elbows, one of the others on the forum said 'do you think we could do a normal word war? Because I'm kinda doing this for NaNo.'

Then both me and the other girl said 'so are we.'

And I won NaNo in nine days so OBVIOUSLY IT'S A GOOD THING TO DO. Go. Word war with your nose, my friends. It makes things far more interesting and I highly recommend it.


3. What's your favourite thing to do to your characters?

Torture them

Of course.

And then cry over them.

And then do it again.

Ahh, the writer's life.


4. Is there a time you've gotten so angry at something that happened in a book you stopped reading? If so, what book/what happened?

No. I've never been so angry that I stopped reading (I've been bored and stopped reading a shameful amount of times though). I've had times when I was very grumpy, but I kept reading because I was holding onto a hope that it wouldn't be too bad. (spoiler alert: it was that bad)


5. What genre is your favourite to write in? (Comedy, Fantasy, Sci-fi)

Why do people like asking me this question? xD

I like playing around with a lot of different ones and I love them all for the different story opportunities that they have. 
- I love dystopian because cool inventions, explosions and fun stuff like that. 
- I love sci fi because -again- cool inventions, interesting planets, creative social structures. 
- I love contemporary fantasy because DRAGONS and also REAL LIFE. 
- Steampunk is cool because allll the gears and biplanes and old-style clothes and much fun stuff. 
And the list goes on and on. I SHALL NEVER CHOOSE A FAVOURITE.

I've never actually written anything solely for comedy. BUT this is me, and as I mentioned, I'm the master of funny (and humble about it, too :P). All my stories turn out funny without me trying. (Except maybe A Sprig of Green because it turned out mostly feelsy.)


6. What's your WIP story about?

WELL LOOK AT THAT I did a handy little blog post on this exact question a few weeks ago.


7. Is there a book you tried to read but got too bored? If so, which book?

*cough*WarandPeace*coughcough*
*more coughing* Among many others *cough*


8. Is there a time you realised too late you spelt something wrong?

Is there a time in any writer's life when they HAVEN'T spelt something wrong??

Ahem. Yes. Yes there certainly is. But that's okay because I don't even bother with typos in my 1st drafts and I don't usually do anything with my writing that's irreversibly set in stone if there's a mistake.


9. Is there a time you hated something that you've wrote? If so, please share :D

HA. HAHAHA. I love this question. I repeat my former answer: Have any writers NOT, at some point in time, hated what they wrote??

Because if you are that writer, please may I talk to you. Either you're delusional, or perfect.

Yes. Of course. I've gone through stages of hating every single novel or story or anything that I've ever wrote. True fact. But I get over it.


10. (Last one, phew) How do you get your ideas?

It's like this. For me, ideas are like ninjas. They stalk me, they see me right when I'm least expecting them, and then they pounce down from behind. They are merciless things.


FIRST TAG DONE, WOOT. And now for tag number two.


1. Do you draw your characters? *hint hint*

Let me get one point straight.

I am not an artist.

At all.

BUT STILL. Because you asked, let me show you some amazing pictures that the epic Sarah S-B drew of my characters because she's an amazing artist and friend and you all need to see her drawings.

Please say hello to the Ginger Ninja and the Green Trident. Two characters from a superhero story of mine. That isn't written yet. But shall be. One day. Hopefully. xD

And this adorable one is Ben Kit and Brinley. Brinley is actually Sarah's character, and she and Ben met in a character chat a while back. Good fun. (about 90% of the character chat was basically the scenario shown in the picture. xP)

Now go check out Sarah's blog to stalk more of her amazing drawings!!


2. Is there some strange thing you do to help you write? If so, what?

It's not really that strange as such, but I have specific musics for each WIP to get into the feel of it. I also avoid having the internet open (other than maybe a youtube playlist) while writing otherwise it's too big of a distraction.


3. Is there a time you've been interrupted while reading/writing and gotten so bored of reading the same thing over and over again? If so, what book?

I'm not entirely sure what this question means? Other than begin interrupted and rereading half the page to find out where you were up to. And eh. I don't normally get that badly interrupted.


4. Does your main villain have any special 'connections' with the main character? (Eg: Epsilon, Star Wars, ect)

For Agent Kit - if he did, I wouldn't say. Because spoilers.

For all my other WIPs - same answer. I shall not impart the spoilers.  *mysterious smile*


5. Is there a time you've never seen a plot twist coming and it surprised the living daylights out of you?

First of all. I had no idea that other people used the term 'living daylights.' I assumed that was a weird thing my family does. BUT NO APPARENTLY NOT. I am impressed. (Now I just need to discover whether it's Australian slang or just an odd figure of speech.)

And yes. Yes I have had that happen. Someone please help me find my daylights. Five cents reward for anyone who catches them - living preferably. Dead daylights don't work quite as well.


6. 3 worst books you've EVER read.

You do not need me to list these. Trust me. I will start ranting if I do and no one needs that.

If you're really curious, stalk my goodreads. (although note - sometimes my star ratings aren't what you should go off because I used to rate them...oddly. Which ended up with some books that I really didn't like...at all...somehow sporting three shiny stars. Also going off my two books that I've rated one star - one book I didn't like, the other I was just bored by and apparently bored enough that I slapped it with a one-star. xD)


7. 3 BEST books you've read.

THIS on the other hand, I shall answer. Maybe. If I can choose only three books. I'm going to stick with fiction books.

1: A Time to Rise - Nadine Brandes
2: Veiled Rose - Anne Elisabeth Stengl
3: Resistance - Jaye L. Knight

And just so you know, I spent about half an hour trying to choose those books. Other than A Time to Rise. That one I wrote immediately. *throws Nadine's-fan-forever confetti everywhere*


8. Your character and their friends have to go on a looonnnnggg journey. Monsters attack. What does the main character do?

Ben considers himself a bit of a ninja. He would probably charge in to protect his friends, get thwacked by a monster and then Will would actually save them all.

This is basically the rough summary of the whole of Agent Kit. :P


9. One of your favourite things you've ever written.

*blinks*
I can't choose.
How could I choose something like that.
I protest.

My favourite story that I've written is probably A Sprig of Green but that said it's battling with Rogue Escarlate and co. because I honestly love those characters so much and I've been working with them for over a year and they're just such a part of my life. So yeah.

I tried to choose. I really did.
I also failed. Oh well.


10. (Last one, phew *sighs with relief*) Your character has the opportunity to kill the super-ultra-evil-villain BUT. He's unconscious, he doesn't have a weapon, he's severely wounded, someone else beat him up. Would your main character spare him (for now) or straight-up kill him?

One thing that I shall say here - Ben would never kill the villain. There's one scene in A.K. where he almost kills a man (it was slightly different originally but I'm changing it in the rewrite) and it leads on to a huge traumatic stuff and let's just say that Ben's goal is to stop anyone from getting killed. 

Not killing people is also a big part of his overall character arc and stuff.

He wouldn't kill someone who was about to kill him, let alone someone who was unconscious and bleeding. He would try save the villain if he was like that.


And there we have it. I come out with yet another tag post (are you tired of them yet??) and more collages and snippets from YET ANOTHER story idea. I have enough story ideas to keep me going for almost a decade.


What's your favourite thing to do to/with your characters?
(face it though, writers are all horribly cruel and we torture our preciouses.)
Do you like making aesthetics/collages for your characters/WIPs?
(I'm not the only person obsessed with this, riiiight??)