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A step along the blog hop
May. 13th, 2014 09:31 amWelcome to this week’s step on the blog hop. There really should be music to accompany this, but suddenly the only tunes running through my head are the loathsome tinny ones sung by fake cheerful voices encouraging children to “send that chicken fat back to the chicken”, so, no. Anyway, you may have come to this by way of Mad Robins’ blog, and she was brought into this via Jennifer Stevenson, and before that Jennifer Stevenson, and before that Katherine Eliska Kimbriel and Laura Anne Gilman. One thing you may notice about these women, even if you haven’t had the pleasure of reading their novels (I have, and you should), is that they all have much more interesting names than I do.
Now, Karen Williams is a great name to grow up with. For one thing, it’s very hard to make fun of. It’s also very, very common, and a vanity Google search doesn’t find me until pages and pages down the line. I married Chaz Brenchley a couple of years ago, and have conveniently tagged him for next week’s hop. He’s an excellent writer, from Newcastle upon Tyne in England, and has written crime novels, fantasy novels, children’s books, even a play. His blog post should be interesting. And since I’m his wife, I’ve decided to write as Karen Brenchley. I even moved my web page to http://www.karenbrenchley.com, so visit it and visit it often in the coming weeks, as I update it and make it interesting.
Now, on to the blog post.
What are you working on now?
Chaz and I wrote a story together for Gears and Levers 2: A Steampunk Anthology
called “The Airship Towers of Trebizond.” We’re currently working on another story in that milieu, “The Ice Weasels of Trebizond”, which so far has been a lot of fun.
Other than that, I’m working on a novel about Robin Hood. When I was ten years old, I walked upstairs at midnight to my mother’s bedroom, tears pouring out of my eyes, to tell her about the ending of “The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood” by Howard Pyle. I had fallen in love with Robin Hood, and, sorry for the spoiler, but he died at the end. Beautifully, romantically, tragically. Mom wasn’t impressed, even though she was still awake grading papers. Still, my love of Robin Hood stuck with me to this day. I hope people fall in love with my Robin Hood.
How does your work differ from others writing in your genre?
“My work” is still somewhat eclectic. I’ve sold a fantasy (with Dracula playing a minor role), two science fiction stories, a horror story, and the steampunk story with my husband. There are others in the pipeline that I’ve sold but aren’t out yet, that are also not really in one particular genre. Still, each of my stories is very much “me”, in that my main characters have bits of my personality woven in. Even the villains.
Why do you write what you do?
I’m a computer scientist by day, and I’m fascinated by logic and its application (or misapplication) in the world. I also really like the Middle Ages (possibly because of Robin Hood), and belonged to the SCA for many years. I’ve traveled, though not as much as I’d like to, but I’ve been to four continents, and some of the countries I’ve been to have been very different from the U.S. I grew up in Idaho, though I’m quite happy to be living in California now. All of these things tend to bubble in my mind, until a character slows down long enough for me to grab her.
How does your writing process work?
I always know how the story ends. To start writing, though, I need to have my first sentence, and an idea about the character. After that, the story grows from start to finish. I don’t jump around. I can’t. I write fiction the same way I write software. Each piece needs to build upon the pieces before, so that as it goes along it creates a logical whole. The story may not end the way I though it would, and the characters certainly change along the way. I remember one day when I discovered that my main character, who I thought was a very nice, comfortable middle aged woman, told me she was actually a terrorist bomber. I was very upset by this, almost like a friend had betrayed me. It took me several days to get back to that story. I like finding out the story as I write it, and I hope readers like the story, too.
Next week’s step along the blog hop will be at Chaz Brenchley’s blog, http://desperance.livejournal.com. See you there.
Now, Karen Williams is a great name to grow up with. For one thing, it’s very hard to make fun of. It’s also very, very common, and a vanity Google search doesn’t find me until pages and pages down the line. I married Chaz Brenchley a couple of years ago, and have conveniently tagged him for next week’s hop. He’s an excellent writer, from Newcastle upon Tyne in England, and has written crime novels, fantasy novels, children’s books, even a play. His blog post should be interesting. And since I’m his wife, I’ve decided to write as Karen Brenchley. I even moved my web page to http://www.karenbrenchley.com, so visit it and visit it often in the coming weeks, as I update it and make it interesting.
Now, on to the blog post.
What are you working on now?
Chaz and I wrote a story together for Gears and Levers 2: A Steampunk Anthology
called “The Airship Towers of Trebizond.” We’re currently working on another story in that milieu, “The Ice Weasels of Trebizond”, which so far has been a lot of fun.Other than that, I’m working on a novel about Robin Hood. When I was ten years old, I walked upstairs at midnight to my mother’s bedroom, tears pouring out of my eyes, to tell her about the ending of “The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood” by Howard Pyle. I had fallen in love with Robin Hood, and, sorry for the spoiler, but he died at the end. Beautifully, romantically, tragically. Mom wasn’t impressed, even though she was still awake grading papers. Still, my love of Robin Hood stuck with me to this day. I hope people fall in love with my Robin Hood.
How does your work differ from others writing in your genre?
“My work” is still somewhat eclectic. I’ve sold a fantasy (with Dracula playing a minor role), two science fiction stories, a horror story, and the steampunk story with my husband. There are others in the pipeline that I’ve sold but aren’t out yet, that are also not really in one particular genre. Still, each of my stories is very much “me”, in that my main characters have bits of my personality woven in. Even the villains.
Why do you write what you do?
I’m a computer scientist by day, and I’m fascinated by logic and its application (or misapplication) in the world. I also really like the Middle Ages (possibly because of Robin Hood), and belonged to the SCA for many years. I’ve traveled, though not as much as I’d like to, but I’ve been to four continents, and some of the countries I’ve been to have been very different from the U.S. I grew up in Idaho, though I’m quite happy to be living in California now. All of these things tend to bubble in my mind, until a character slows down long enough for me to grab her.
How does your writing process work?
I always know how the story ends. To start writing, though, I need to have my first sentence, and an idea about the character. After that, the story grows from start to finish. I don’t jump around. I can’t. I write fiction the same way I write software. Each piece needs to build upon the pieces before, so that as it goes along it creates a logical whole. The story may not end the way I though it would, and the characters certainly change along the way. I remember one day when I discovered that my main character, who I thought was a very nice, comfortable middle aged woman, told me she was actually a terrorist bomber. I was very upset by this, almost like a friend had betrayed me. It took me several days to get back to that story. I like finding out the story as I write it, and I hope readers like the story, too.
Next week’s step along the blog hop will be at Chaz Brenchley’s blog, http://desperance.livejournal.com. See you there.
