So I was nominated by Ed Ireland to do this award thing.  I don’t usually do these and I know I’ve rejected plenty in the past.  The difference here is that I’m currently locked in limbo for the next hour and looking for something to do.  Not the noblest of reasons, but maybe this will jog me of my melancholy too.

So I answer Ed’s questions, write some of my own, and then nominated 5 people to do as they will.  Either ignore or carry on.  Here we go:

My answers:

• What are your favorite things to wear while writing?  Clothing.  Preferably warm stuff in the winter and airy stuff in the summer.  Usually something of the denim persuasion is on me.

• Who inspires your works?  So many people, places, and things.  I leave myself open to just about everything.  The two current series have different origins.  Legends of Windemere is off a Dungeons & Dragons game.  Crossing Bedlam started as a quirky daydream and probably stemmed from Mad Max, Deadpool, and other violent action flicks.

• How much are your characters a copy of real people? Who are they?  Since the current series is based off a D&D game, they share aspects of the players.  Beyond that I don’t usually do characters based off real people.  I used to in high school, but people found out and that opened a door of opinions and critiques.

• Are you a planner or a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pantser type writer?  Judging by the shelf full of notebooks, folder full of outlines, and scraps of notes everywhere, I’m going to say planner.  Either that or I enjoy owning the processed corpses of trees.

• Aside from what your preferred genre is, what other type genre do you enjoy writing?  I’ve tried a few beyond fantasy, but most haven’t really grabbed my attention.  That and I didn’t feel like I was good at them.  My newest series is going to be a Rated-R action, comedy, post-apocalyptic ride, which was a lot of fun.  Just threw off the restraints and let my inner imp run wild.  So I might be adopting whatever this is as a secondary genre.

• What famous faces are behind your characters? Start the casting call.  I actually don’t have anyone.  I used to just grab random names off IMDB and act like I knew what I was doing.  Then I just stopped.  Maybe the D&D thing affects this too since the players have their faces kind of on the characters.

• Which modern writer do you find fascinating?  Hard to choose since I’m a horribly slow reader.  I’m really into John Flanagan’s series Ranger’s Apprentice, which I love for the world-building and characters.  As far as fascinating goes, I don’t really know who I’d pick.  For a bit, I was fascinated by the whole 50 Shades craze, but only in that I was confused on how it got so mainstream.  Don’t remember erotica getting that much attention and spread.  Then again, I never really paid attention to it in general.

• What famous voice would you like to hear reading your book?  Torn between Morgan Freeman and Mark Hamill.

So my victims are:

1. C.S. Boyack
2. John W. Howell
3. Melissa Barker-Simpson
4. Tracy Carrig
5. Nicholas Rossis

My questions:

1. If you could have only one enhanced sense, what would it be?
2. Are you going to eat that?
3. Do you think a stubbed toe or a paper cut hurts the most?
4. What is the one thing you wish someone told you about being an artist?
5. The protagonist of your latest book is at your door.  Is this a good or bad thing? What will you do?
6. Is there one aspect of your personality that you’d never wish on a fictional character?
7. What animal would you want as a totally tame, will never hurt you pet?