Questions and Answers, The Fourth

The Qs in today's Q&A are courtesy of the lovely Charmaine :) Thanks, Charm!

What are your thoughts on self publishing and distribution and marketing of your own work?

Actually, this article sums up my thoughts pretty well. While I certainly don’t think there’s anything wrong with self publishing, and some people have proven you can make a living from it, I don’t have the knowledge or the personality to make it; so I plan to stick to traditional publishing. That said, I do have a self-pubbed ebook out (The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Dogs), and I have plans to self pub some short stories eventually ;)

What is your favorite non-writing website?

DeviantART, absolutely.

I love art, especially digital art. While nothing will ever compare to drawing with charcoal, I’m in love with digital art because there’s no mess, you don’t need somewhere dedicated to storing it all, you can set it up as quickly as you can turn on your computer, and pack it up just as fast, and it’s much, much more portable. I am, in fact, planning to get myself a graphics tablet for my birthday :D

If you’re interested, you can find me on DeviantART as Greeninkblot.

What is your favorite time period to write in?

Time period? Wow, this is tough one! I don’t usually consider the time period of something very much when I’m writing it. Actually, that’s not 100% true. I write in the present a lot because I’m not too good at writing history. I suffer from very acute and chronic Perfectionism; if ever I let myself write something historical, I would have to spend literally years learning Every. Single. Thing. I possibly could about the culture, the era, the food, the clothes, the politics, the technologies, the trends at the time, what inventions were happening at the time, what sort of fabrics they had access to and what the world view of the people was on the cosmos, religion, life, death, sex, marriage, children, animals, boat-building, snail-racing, whale-hunting…

Yeah. It’s much safer if I stick to the present, or a present-like fantasy world.

Thanks, Charm, for some great questions! For the curious, check out rounds one, two and three, and watch out for the fifth and final installment coming soon to a Friday near you ;)