Fizzle by Alison Hunt

For those that missed the last two Sundays, I came up with a way to promote Do I Need to Use a Dragon? before returning to work/school.  That would be gathering questions and answering them on this post.  Feel free to ask other questions in the comments if you think of something and I will add it to the post at the first opportunity.

Enjoy and thank you to everyone who submitted.

1. “Life provides more or less time in certain phases. I tend to have more since my children are grown. Do you see your self returning to the publishing rate of an earlier era one day?” (From C.S. Boyack)I’d love to say that it will happen, but I don’t know.  For those that don’t know, I used to publish 3-4 books a year.  I doubt that I will ever get back to that rate.  Back then, I had more money to use towards cover art and more time for writing/editing.  My divorce knocked me down emotionally and made it that I had to reprioritize both my finances and time allocation.  So, publishing became harder to pull off.  I’m still writing, so I might have a year or two when I can release a bunch, but it will be rare.  I guess I don’t want to get my hopes up too.  Doesn’t help that sales are terrible since I lost most of my supporters in the wake of the divorce news.  So, it’s hard to justify the money and time I put into publishing.
2. “*squinting suspiciously* Just exactly how many notebooks do you have, sir? And can you explain more about how they help you organize your ideas and your writing?” (From Deby Fredericks)I have about 26 notebooks, but I’m fairly certain a few got lost over the course of various moves in my life.  These notebooks go back to 10th grade too, which was 28 years ago.  They catalogue everything I’ve come up with and allowed me to flush things out when I couldn’t get to book writing.  The human mind can only hold so much, so I always felt that I needed to maintain Idea Books to make sure I could always return or at least repurpose things.  It’s come in very handy in recent years since my memory has been fairly shaky in general.
3. “Is there a trope you think is overused or misunderstood in fantasy?” (From L. Marie)This is a tough one because I think there are cycles.  Whatever ends up being popular gets overused.  Currently, I feel like the ‘flawless hero’ trope is being overdone.  I don’t know why there’s a sudden swing towards heroes who are superficially flawed, but really near perfect.  Maybe it’s just what I’m seeing in popular culture, so it could be less prevalent than I realize.As far as misunderstood, I’m going to go with the ‘Chosen One’ trope.  In the past, I think this is what led to the perfect hero.  Yet, I remember a lot of old stories where the chosen hero still suffers and struggles.  This changed and now people see the trope as that of a character who never stumbles.  People end up hating this idea and flipping it on its head, which muddies the water even more.  I always thought that the Chosen One concept meant it was a person destined to step into a fight, but not always have it easy or win.  There used to be a sense of isolation or even questioning of ones own decisions that came with this concept.  Don’t really see that very often, which is a big reason why I play around with destiny and free will in my own stories.
4. “Do you think you’d write another book of short stories with Ichabod Brooks?” (Another from L. Marie)For those who don’t know, I wrote a fantasy short story collection called The Life & Times of Ichabod Brooks. The titular character is fairly popular on the blog.  He’s an experienced adventurer who takes jobs for money because he has to put food on the table for his family.  So, there was a very blue collar feel to Ichabod as well as him showing his age with aches and pains.  I’d really like to write another collection of short stories with him, especially since I have a list of other adventures.  The original plan was to have a few collections with Ichabod in the same vein as the old Conan stories.  Sadly, the popularity of the character never resulted in great sales and then I had limited time to write.  This forced me to put all of the smaller projects on the shelf until later.  Maybe far into the future when I have more time and money, I’ll revive Ichabod who has a better chance than my dystopian characters.
5. “Of all your stories, do you have one that stands out as on that you enjoyed writing the most?” (From John W. Howell)

   That is a tough question.  I know it might come off like a dodge, but I can’t pick any that I enjoyed writing more.  All of my books had some fun challenges.