Jason Jack Miller tagged me in a ten question blog hop known as the LIEBSTER AWARD.

1. Where did the idea for your current Work-in-Progress (WIP) come from?

I’ve been obsessed with time-travel stories for as long as I can remember. H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine was the first time travel story I fell in love with. There have been many since. Plus I’ve watched Back to the Future at least 37 times. My first attempt at a novel had to feature time travel.

2. Quote a favorite line from one of your favorite books.

3. Now quote your favorite line from your current WIP.

4. What unique challenges has your current WIP had that your previous ones did not?

My current WIP is my first fiction WIP. Being the first, there are lots of challenges. Like, can I even create a story worth a reader’s time? Can I create characters that readers will care about? Can my story matter to anyone but me?

The jury is still out.

5. If you saw your main character at a party, how would you react?

I’m not really a party person. But if I saw Sara García at a party, I would probably admire her from afar. She’d be more likely to start a conversation with me than the other way around.

6. Who would play your main protagonist/antagonist if your current WIP were made into a movie?

For Sara, somebody like Salma Hayek, only rounder. Here’s Salma pregnant:

7. What are your biggest inspirations for writing?

What George said. My inner demons make me do it. But seriously, stories help us understand who we are, help us to learn, to become our best selves.

My WIP is dedicated to my brother Alan who died in 2010. Being older, he controlled the TV in our house when we were kids and turned me into a Science Fiction geek. Time Flash: Another Me would not exist if not for Alan.

8. Summarize your WIP as a haiku.

Can a woman on a diet
foil an evil corporation?
Cat.

9. What role does music play in your writing?

The music that you listen to gets encoded into your experiences of different points in time. Songs remind you who you were and what you felt and thought and wanted—recalls to you all your past selves. Songs become our personal anthems. I often use music as a way of getting into my writing.

In Time Flash: Another Me, songs Sara hears on the radio when she time travels into the past, tell her who she was, who she hoped to become, and help her recognize what matters. Music helps her navigate through her past and make her way toward her heroic destiny.

10. What’s one thing you’ve learned about the craft that you wish you had learned earlier?

I was frustrated early on with my attempts at writing fiction, because everything I wrote was terrible.

No one told me it would always be that way. I’m not saying my poetry arrives full blown onto the page, but it sure requires less blotting out.

My first attempts at story are crap. They always will be. No matter how many words I’ve written before. The good words elude me.

If I had known that it was normal, and I would never get better at first drafts, I might not have given up.