My brain loves to wander in random directions. One time, after a tiring day of working on a computer, I rubbed my eyes and thought how cool it would be to have cybernetic eyes. Then they'd never get tired. More thoughts soon followed... "Ooh! What if I went in for one thing and woke up with a bunch of other parts replaced? How weird would that be?" I kind of latched onto the idea and came up with a story premise. The plot was cobbled together later over time. #pansterlife

Finishing! As happens to a lot of writers, I was super-excited for the first half, then stymied about what should happen in the second half. It sat in my folder for nearly a year, half-finished.

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I've always enjoyed the emotional aspects of character development. We all react to extraordinary circumstances in different ways. It's that internal struggle to Do The Right Thing that fascinates me. Because it's not always apparent what The Right Thing is.

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This one is a standalone. I suppose it could be made into a series later, but I've never had the attention span to write the same main character in more than one story. I like switching things up.

Above all: self-acceptance. It's natural to care what others think of you, but your own opinion of yourself is what matters most of all. Each of us have to accept our shortcomings as part of an entire package of a wonderful human being. Even if parts of that human being are missing

Finishing can be difficult, but doable! Sometimes taking a break is what you need, but if too much time goes by, you'll lose touch with your story. If you're still stuck after the break and you don't know what comes next, here's my favorite trick: Think about how the story ends. Just jump straight there in your mind. Don't worry about any of the subplots. Just imagine how the main plot is resolved in the end. Does the good guy vanquish the bad guy? Does the girl get the woman of her dreams? Has balance been restored to the solar system so Earth is no longer in danger of plummeting into the sun?

Coming up with the story ending serves as a beacon for your foggy writing, and it's usually not that hard. It's connecting the dots that's hard.

Now that you have your ending in mind, ask yourself, "What needs to happen to get there?" Does the good guy need to find the bad guy's lair? Does the girl need to overcome her shyness? Do the scientists need to make the aliens leave the solar system alone? What is the thing that has to take place to get the ending you want?

Figured it out? Now what needs to happen for THAT to happen? Do you see what we're doing here? We are jumping to the end, and then going backwards one step at a time to figure out the requirements for the next thing to click into place. This is the technique I used to get myself out of my year-long slump for Becoming Bionic.

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I think all my main characters have pieces of me in them. I tap into my own personal experiences to bring them to life. Not that I've ever had parts of me replaced with cybernetics, but I can imagine the shock of finding out such a thing. It's fun to imagine how I might react

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I don't normally write science fiction, but this one focuses more on the emotional aspects of the story. This is material anyone can relate to, but in a setting that far different from everyday life. I think most readers will find something about it that entertains them.

My next endeavor is to finish Book 4 of my Forestfolk series. It's been sitting in my WIP folder for over a year now, half finished. I'm going to have to employ my aforementioned trick to get that story going again. But I will finish! Tessia deserves her own story, just like Siena, Sember, and Nirrin (the first three books in the series).