#amwriting – a look inside the author process

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Tags: #amwriting characters Jewish fantasy mythology The Jezebel Files The Unlikeable Demon Hunter

By Bell on September 13, 2020

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Fun fact. I wrote my Master’s thesis on gender and spectatorship in the animation of Chuck Jones. That’s a fancy way of saying that I studied Bugs Bunny cartoons through a feminist film theory lens. And yes, my mother was exactly as proud of me as you’d think.

I did a lot of research on the animators in Termite Terrace and was lucky enough to even meet Chuck Jones. Jones said that they never made cartoons for kids. Instead, they told the stories that they wanted to see.

There’s a lot of discussion in author circles about writing to market. i.e. finding a hot trend and jumping on it. It works very well for some people, but isn’t an approach I could take. Constantly learning about new genres sounds exhausting. lol

I prefer to take the same approach as Chuck and write the stories I want to read. This involves everything from magic, to the types of mythology, setting my books in Vancouver, the romance, the heat levels, female friendships, and of course, my snarky main characters.

With every new series, there’s a little voice in my head that says, “You’re only going to entertain yourself this time.” Happily, that has not proven to be the case so far. However, the wonderful and terrifying thing about an author’s imagination is how it connects (or not) with readers.

This is all in my head because I’m working through what my new series is. Nava was a much easier series to conceive of. Each book was entered around a deadly sin that thematically fit what Nava was experiencing. There was also a demon that embodied that sin.

Ash was a lot harder. I often didn’t find my theme until I’d finished my first draft and there weren’t any demons she could conveniently go off and fight.

I’m trying to find the balance in the new series and I’m venturing into new territory with my main character. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but only now does the time feel right.

Yes, I’m going to play coy about what that is.

Meantime, catch up on Ash’s adventures if you haven’t yet done so. https://geni.us/BloodAndAsh