You asked, I answered...

To those of you who asked questions after my "Interrogation" post, thank you!  I'm going to jump right into the answers, so without any further ado...

Anita asked if one of my characters is ill.  The answer is no. Not a single ill character in the book. Wow.  They must use a lot of sanitizer.

Candee asked which one of the characters most resembles me and why.  Well, Hallie Barnes, the MC (main character) is definitely the most like me.  She's my age, she has children, and her personality is a bit like mine as well.  I've found that I write best about what I know, and I know a lot about those things! =) She's also different in a few ways as well, the main one being that the big issues she deals with have never happened to me personally.

Betsi wanted to know if the timeline in the book is longer than a year.  And the answer is...no.  It's actually just a few months' time.  There's a little bit of backstory which goes back a few years, but the actual time frame only goes through about three seasons.  She also wanted to know if there were any lemurs.  I hadn't thought of that, but there could be a possibility!;)

Bethany asked a question, and I actually spoke about the answer quite a bit in my second post here on blogger. But I'm going to re-tell it anyway.  One night last May, a few weeks before school got out for summer break, I was lying in bed thinking as usual, while trying to fall asleep.  A scene suddenly popped in my mind, where my (now) MC and another person were in the middle of a very awkward situation.  I could see the looks on their faces, understand what was going through my MC's head, and in the next few days things just evolved from there. I had to figure out who rest of the characters were going to be, and once I did that, the story line just sort of began to come together.  Of course, throughout this process a lot has been modified (plot-wise) for flow purposes, but not a thing has changed about the scene that sparked me into writing in the first place.  I've always enjoyed writing, it's definitely one of my strong suits, so there really wasn't a question of "if" I could do it in my mind, it was more like "how" was I going to do it.

What have I learned about myself through this, Sierra?  I think I've learned that though some things end up being harder to do than we initially thought, it doesn't make them not worth doing.  I knew going into this that there would be a lot of hard work, but obviously plots and hooks and showing versus telling and all of the other things we have to incorporate sometimes get in the way of the "dream" part of writing and require a lot of time and effort (as most first time and even seasoned writers would probably agree).  But I know I can do it.  I can follow through, I can work hard and not quit, and I can use any frustrations I have and turn them into inspiration. I've also learned that I have some great friends that I've met via the internet who continue to help me when the going gets tough.

The "what have I learned about what I want in life" question, at this point, is an easy answer.  Along with being a good, involved mother and wife, I want to share this story (and any future stories I write) with others.  I want to entertain my readers -- to make them laugh,  make them cry,  make them not want to put the book down, and I want to hopefully have them sit back after reading the book feeling better to have read it.   And of course I want to be known for my writing, if I'm being honest.  But that option is still quite a ways away.

So there you go, the answers to your questions about my WiP.  And again, thanks so much for asking!