Ann St. Vincent is an “executive businesswoman & blogger who writes about her sexless & open marriage, affairs, divorce, sexual reawakening, online dating, and relationships.” I recently began following her blog at http://annstvincent.com/ and you should too (well, unless you’re uptight about reading extremely frank posts about sex, then nevermind). Today I got a pingback that she “tagged” me in this post: The Blog Tour | Tag… I’m it

Dang, I thought this sort of thing was over with Myspace? Normally I don’t have do “chain mail”, but how could I resist this eye?

Okay, well, I’m not going to “tag” anybody else. If you’re reading this and want to participate voluntarily, go for it. But I’ll answer the standard questions:

1) What am I working on?

I have several fiction novels in various stages in development. The one that I am closest to finishing is a Young Adult mystery called “MISSING”, about a girl who investigates when her former best friend disappears after going to meet a stranger she met online. That’s actually an unusual genre for me, as my main interest is sci-fi and fantasy, which is what most of my other books will be about. I grew up with Star Trek, Star Wars and other sci-fi, that’s what I always loved. So my hope is to create my own stories that spark readers’ imaginations the way the books I read and movies I watched growing up did to mine. I’ll admit that I’ve slacked on the book-writing, especially in recent months when I’ve done so much writing on this blog. And now that I’ve gained so many new followers and people coming to my blog via freshly pressed I feel more obligation to post, so there’s no content when people come here. But there’s only so many hours in the day, I have a day job to go to Mon-Fri, and often tired when I get home, so I don’t always have the amount of time to write that I’d like. So one thing or the other is going to suffer. I very well may have to take an official “break” from this blog soon, to concentrate on the books for awhile.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Well, I’d like to think I just have my own unique “voice,” but that will be for the readers to judge. I’d say that one of the main things is that my books will be ethnically diverse. Especially when it comes to sci-fi. You look at classic sci-fi, I’m talking about space opera stuff set in the far future when humans have reached the stars, the majority of the main characters are usually White (yes, even in Star Trek). But statistically speaking, the majority of the human race today is ASIAN. So that will be reflected in my books.

In fact, here’s a sneak peak at some cover art I’ve commission for one book that I’m working on, featuring my own Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon-type of space opera hero:

Art by Keith Howell

3) Why do I write what I do?

There’s an old saying among writers: Write the books you want to read. So that’s what I’m going to do.

As for blogging, well, that’s an interesting question. I don’t know. Ever since the early days when I first go online and started posting on various message boards, I become known for writing overly long posts. So blogging just feels like an extension of that. I have thoughts and opinions on things in the world, so I write about them, because I can.

4) How does my writing process work?

For blogging it’s just whatever pops into my head, or something I see on the news or read about online, if I find it interesting I’ll come here and write about it. If no specific topic comes along, I can just write a post in one of my many categories, pick a random book, movie, comic-book, etc. to write a review about. For the books I tend to try to fill in the background of my characters as much as possible, even if it’s some info that won’t actually be revealed in the book, I fill it helps me write about my characters if I can think of them as real fully-developed people. Then I like to write a chapter-by-chapter outline, and work from that.

So, there you go. hope that was informative. I need to get ready for that aforementioned day-job now. Later, homies.