Out the Gate

     This is my first attempt at being interesting, so please bear with me. Mostly I’ve wrestled with the idea of starting a blog because I don’t have a steady stream of ideas for what to say about myself or my own opinions. Modest? Not really. Anxiety about oversharing? Often. Says way more than people wanted to hear and have now come to understand that more is not always better? Definitely. That said, this blog page will not have regular updates. I can, however, promise that when I do have an idea and find a way to say it well, it’ll find its way onto this page. Mostly likely filled with sarcasm.
     Now that you know to expect fully random thoughts and updates, we can begin. You may only be aware of the one book that’s available, The Centurion’s Woman: Maiden, but my computer is filled with short stories, more novels and… my name is Amanda, and I write Fan Fiction. (Admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery, right?) I’ve been writing since I learned how to write and, when computers became available as household items – and my parents could afford one – I taught myself to type and started getting the scattered pages of loose-leaf assembled into files and folders.
     Writing is my adventure. It has always been my creative outlet, and a constant comfort. Can’t deal with reality today? Tuck in with a pilot who just survived a helicopter crash and is now hiding in a fox hole with a mysterious sniper somewhere behind enemy lines… and suddenly all my stuff with the looming work deadline being dependent on a printer that “might” print all the pages gets slapped back into place as not life and death. Suddenly I can cope again because, let’s face it, my day to day isn’t that bad. The next morning I can arrive at work, blurry-eyed and caffeine I.V. inserted because I stayed up until stupid o’clock editing (and I still need a word that’s better than ‘wavy’ for the way the heat was rising on the sand), ready to tackle that printer issue with a full arsenal of four-letter fire power.
     Drafting out a short story is my sanity check. I should, perhaps, be worried at the amount checks required on a regular basis… nah. I’m good.
     Fan Fiction is one of the ways I use to get over writer’s block. Can’t think up my own characters? Borrow someone else’s! I’m not a fan of reading Fan Fic because I like to keep the characters honest to canon, and the majority of Fan Fic writers don’t. I just use the characters and their worlds to run my own branch of something that would fit into their existing universe. Not that exciting for Fan Fic fans, but it keeps me writing when I don’t have anything original to type up, and that’s the key to why I do it. My original ideas always show up again once the writer’s block ends, and Fan Fic lets me practice writing while I’m waiting; and I get to hang out with characters that I already love.
     Novels are a totally different ball of wax. Until Maiden, the longest, continuous stories I’d created didn’t pass out of the novella range. Fun to read, fun to write, would make a decent made-for-TV movie but would never pass muster for anything cinematic because the ideas were just too small. Maiden ripped the ceiling off that idea and threw me into the amazing world of Alex and Ixillius without a whit of worry over the fact that I needed to be living in my own reality, with husband and kids and a real job, too. Novels take over lives. The characters grow in ways that short stories and novellas don’t give them the full opportunity for, and the story pushes itself into IMAX levels in your mind.
     While writing The Centurion’s Woman trilogy, a fourth novel (unrelated) strode into my head and the characters demanded attention. For six weeks, I lost a lot of sleep, and Alex and Ixillius got pushed aside like skinny kids at a metal concert. I lived and breathed the lives of Maggie, Devlin, Millicent and Tristan, on top of still working full time and being married with kids. 42,000 words flowed through my keyboard to get that story out of my head, and I’m not a terribly fast typist (I don’t finger-peck, but it’s not like I can keep up with spoken words). Many hours were happily spent on an uncomfortable chair, and I can’t wait to be able to share that story with you.
     For me, short stories sooth, Fan Fiction entertains (me, at least… I’m going to just keep those tucked away for now), and novels… well, novels let the author live in the same world that we get to create for the reader. The amazing part is that we’re the first ones who get to see it and experience the wind, sights, and flavors that the settings and characters go through. The best part is that we can then share that universe we were lucky enough to create.
      Enjoy your adventure!