So You Want to Know About Miguel?

A simple survey, because telling you all of this in paragraph form would get all rambly and nonsensical. :)

(Real) Name: Heather

Nicknames: Miguel, Cracker

Birthplace: Osage, Iowa

Sign: Capriquarius (Capricorn/Aquarius cusp)

Pets: Mango and Lilly (golden retriever and black lab, respectively)

Tattoos/Piercings: I have my ears pierced twice, and those are all the piercings I plan to have. As for tattoos, recently got my first (an anchor with my husband's name - he's in the Navy) and am already planning for at least two more!

Indoors or Outdoors? If the weather is nice, I love being outdoors. There's just something about nature that relaxes me right down to the core. But it's winter right now, so I'm indoors almost constantly. Blah.

Ideal Place to Live: Somewhere secluded - in the woods by a lake, river or ocean. A log cabin with gardens and hidden alcoves in the trees. This cabin must have a fireplace and a library with bookshelves built into the walls. A jacuzzi would not be amiss, but it is not completely necessary.

Instruments I Play: I took some piano lessons as a child/teenager, so I can play passably well. Currently, I am without a piano and going through withdrawals. Other than that, I can pluck a few chords on the guitar...
and that's about it.

Random Talent: I'm pretty good at memorization - movie quotes, song lyrics. Also, I make a mean chocolate chip cookie.

Favorite Color: blue/green... a sort of deep teal, also plum and bronze

Favorite 3 Books/Series: "Biting the Sun," by Tanith Lee; "Harry Potter," by JK Rowling; "The Black Jewels," by Anne Bishop

Favorite Author: Tanith Lee (dark fantasy/horror)

Favorite 3 Bands: Sonata Arctica, The Decemberists, Cold War Kids

Favorite Song: Right now, it's a toss-up between the following: "O Children," by Nick Cave; "Rise to Me," by The Decemberists; "The Power of One," by Sonata Arctica

Favorite Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean (there are a lot of other movies I love, but not one I can think of that has really stuck with me more - TC probably has a lot to do with that fact.)

Favorite TV Show: Dexter or The Office

Favorite Fairy Tale: "Rumpelstiltskin," as told by Edith H. Tarcov (illustrated by Edward Gorey)

Favorite Poem: "A Dialogue Between Soul and Body," by Andrew Marvell
(or "The Ungrateful Garden," by Carolyn Kizer)

Favorite Childhood Memory: The neighbor boy and girl, my two sisters and I would often engage in a whimsical imaginary game we called "All Fantasy" (because any fantasy characters or situations were welcome). Since Junior was the only boy, he was always assigned to play the prince. My elder sister and the neighbor girl were always princesses. My younger sister wanted, for some reason, to be the royal hound. And I? I was the dragon. The best damn dragon you ever saw.

Who inspires you? Tanith Lee, JK Rowling, Colin Meloy, Tony Kakko, and (as cheesy as it sounds) William Shakespeare

What inspires you? Music, mainly. Especially things that Sonata Arctica and The Decemberists have written. A lot of their songs are stories - stories I would love to elaborate on.

Author I Sound Most Like: It's kind of weird to compare oneself with another writer - we all have a pretty unique voice - but I think the author I would compare my style most with is Anne Bishop. I think we both spend a lot of time inside people's head, analyzing thoughts rather than our characters' surroundings. Sometimes to a fault.

Favorite Scene in "Two Captains": Now that I've written that question down, I don't know if I can answer it. While there are a lot of things that I love in the later chapters, I think my favorite parts are the times when Will and Jack (or Jack and Ryenne) have snappy little back-and-forths in some of the earlier/middling chapters. For example:

"Stop being so bloody prosaic."
"Stop being so damn stubborn."
"Sometimes, I hate you."
"I'll take that as a compliment."

Favorite Passage that Tulio Wrote: ""I'll keep my cabin the way I like it, thank you," Jack retorted fiercely, adding almost as an afterthought, "And don't you dare get any bloody ideas about changing a single bloody thing about it! None of that 'woman's touch' business." He grimaced at the thought. Any touch of Ryenne's was probably fatal. The woman was a positive viper." - This made me laugh out loud when I read it the first time, and it still does.

"So she had left. And that was how she was found some hours later that evening, shivering in an alley with her cloak tightly clutched around her, by a boy very different than Thomas. It had started to snow, and large crystal flakes were caught in the boy's thick mop of dark, curly hair, and speckled his hard-worn clothing. He stood looking down at her, tall but not ungainly, mirth and concern sparkling in his eyes and fine, animated features. Ryenne had been immediately captivated by the charm and intelligence that seemed to flow from him. When he spoke, it was in a soft baritone." - As awful as Evil!Quinn turned out to be, this is how I always think of him: the charming boy who saved Ryenne from freezing to death.

Favorite Passage that Miguel Wrote: "It had been harder to free herself from those waves than it had been to surrender to them. Will had said nothing – not a word – when she'd stumbled into the house that night, dripping and shivering and coughing. The look he gave her was enough. She was home before dark every night after that." - I love the scenes where Will became a slightly more formidable character, a man to be respected. It gives me new love for him.

Hardest Scene to Write: You would think it would have been the rape scene between Quinn and Ryenne, or maybe even the final scenes, but it was actually Jack and Ryenne's sex scene. We'd been building up to it for so long, the pressure seemed immense. But, thanks to Tulio, it turned out beautifully.

One Thing I Would Change, If I Could: The story rambled around a lot, mostly because we had no idea what direction we were headed. I definitely think we should have mapped out our plot a little better... I love Two Captains, but it does tend to go around in circles sometimes.

One Thing I Would Never Change:  Jack signing on as a privateer. Not a lot of PotC fan fiction readers like the idea of Jack being tied down to a "normal" life, but I think that's one thing that helps set our fic apart. Plus, it's damn tragic. And writing tragedy has a strange sort of satisfaction to it.

One Random Life Goal (Other Than Publishing THE NOVEL): I have always wanted to be the voice of a cartoon villain. It probably stems from all those instances wherein I played the dragon. Still, I think it would be sooo awesome.

That's all you get for now. I'll post more Q&A if I think of anything interesting. Until then, I'm off to practice my villain voice/maniacal laugh. Wish me luck.

Once Upon a Time...

...two fifteen-year-old girls sat in the rickety wooden seats of their high school's auditorium, discussing the swashbuckling pirate adventure on which they were about to embark. They called this adventure "Two Captains," (a working title that never seemed to find a proper replacement). At the time, they did not realize this "adventure" would claim seven years of their lives and extend over fifty-nine chapters and three hundred pages. Would they have written it, had they known?

Probably. They had very little else to do at the time.

Flash forward to the future!

The year: 2010. The month: November.

These same two girls, now a few years older (though arguably not much wiser), sat huddled over a binder of notes, the glow from their respective laptops casting an ethereal blue light on their furrowed brows. It was the first day of NaNoWriMo, and they were about to finally begin a project that had had its inception many years before, in the ill-planned piratical adventure. It was the Original Novel, and this was just the kick in the pants they needed.

But would fate see fit to give them victory? Would they be able to pound out a rough draft within the strictly structured confines of National Novel Writing Month's deadlines?

Honestly? No. Not by half. But they did manage to do something that was, in itself, quite amazing: they wrote a prologue. A fantastic prologue! A prologue that led the way to filling all the little (and massive) plot holes they had been fretting over during all those years of brainstorming and fanficcing. A prologue that brought hope and joy and light to the dark little closet of doubt they had been keeping their Original Novel in. A Prologue of Destiny!

And then November ended. Writing slowed to a standstill. The light hope had brought was growing faint. Life, held at bay for so long by the sheer power of their imaginations, slipped its tether and howled around their apartment door. The girls eyed their side-projects with growing interest and longing. What were they thinking? How could they have taken on such a huge project while they were still so unprepared? Would their feeble wordsmithing ever be able to do the story justice? What would they do now!?!?

Well. They're writing an alternate ending to the fanfiction they had thought finished, for one. It's for a good cause, promise - relief for the victims of the massive flooding and cyclone in Queensland, Australia. Brainstorming, for another. Last of all, they are blogging. This blog, to be specific.

Those girls are we. And we are Tulio and Miguel. Elise and Heather, respectively. We are writers. And someday... we will be AUTHORS! *cue dramatic orchestral interlude*


On a more serious note, we will be using this blog to discuss the joys and pitfalls of collaborative writing, the effect our outside lives have on our ability to write as a team, and, of course, to update you in vague detail on the progress of The Novel.

The blogs that you see listed in the sidebar are our individual journals, which will be used to discuss our side-projects, random musings and whatnot. They may or may not be updated regularly. Only time will tell.