SCA, Pittsburgh and Brenna Lyons
It was my pleasure to interview prolific author Brenna Lyons for my blog this week. Sit back and enjoy what she has to share about her life, writing and the things that keep her going.
1)Where are you from?
Originally? I was born and raised in and around Pittsburgh, PA. After 13 years of moving around with the Navy, I settled in Boston, MA.
2) What is your writing name?
Brenna Lyons. I took it from two of my three SCA (Society of Creative Anachronism) names. I started publishing poetry with the SCA names. So, when I completed my first novel, I chose a variant as my pen name.
3) How long have you been seriously writing? 
Depends on what you mean by ’seriously.’ I’ve been competing in writing contests since the age of 11. That year, I won a place in Taproot’s poetry contest, the youngest winner of that time. At 13, I won a place in the Boy Scout Explorers program for journalism and had my first article published in a local newspaper. At 15, I won a place in the Young Poets’ Symposium at the University of Pittsburgh. At 17, I won a four-year scholarship to college, taking first place in a competitive essay contest.
As far as novels, I wrote my first three novels (one of which was a two-book serial novel) in 2001. I signed my first contract in May of 2002. In January through March of 2003, my first three works came out for sale: two novellas and a novel. The novel was the seventh I’d written to date. The novellas were written after that novel.
4) How many hours a day do you spend working on your stories?
It varies from day to day. Some days, as few as a few hours. On days that the muse is really riding me, as many as 14-16 hours.
5) What is your self-editing process?
I write the first two drafts of a book longhand, and any edits I do at that point are done in the margins and between lines. Once a final draft is in the computer, I do two major edit passes. One is visual, a proofing run, since I did the continuity/logic run while I moved it from paper into the computer. The other is auditory, accomplished with ReadPlease. That allows me to hear errors I can’t see. After that, the only edits I do are cleaning visual edits when I reformat the book for the guidelines of particular publishers.
6) What happened when you found out your first story was being contracted?
I celebrated by taking my family out to dinner. My biggest celebrations tend to come when books release or when I get a big royalty check.
7) What was the best piece of advice you were given in regards to your writing?
My first editor, Suzanne James, taught me: “The editor isn’t dismembering your baby. She’s polishing a gem.” I added to it: “Sometimes you have to cut off the rough edges, before you get to the soft cloth.”
Are you a plotter or a pantser? Why?
Pantser. I have a character-driven process. I may have a vague idea of where the story is going or of a scene in the book, but I always have a handle on one or more characters. Everything flows from the character, beside roadblocks I may throw in their paths and world rules I may remind them exist. I can’t tell the characters what to do. I can’t force them to my idea of what is supposed to happen in the book. The plot comes from the character; I don’t write characters to fit a plot.
I don’t plan. I don’t know what’s coming on the next page, let alone the last. I don’t write linear. I don’t write one book or story at a time. At the moment, I have 80 or so works in process. Simply put, save trying to meet a deadline, I write whatever screams at me the loudest.
9) What author would you like to be most like?
I like that my style has been compared favorably to Stephen King’s, but I like being my own creative person. I’d love to have Sherrilyn Kenyon’s magic touch with readers, though.
10) What’s your favorite genre to write in? Why?
Whether I have romance or erotica involved, I love writing spec fic, of all types: fantasy, science fiction, even horror. I like writing in the unexpected, outside the world as we normally experience it. I also like writing dark; paranormal, non-human, and horror lets me exaggerate the human condition and/or the challenges characters face.
11) How do you avoid interruptions?
There’s a way to avoid them? I do a lot of my writing while the kids are at school or after the kids went to bed. But the truth is, as the oldest in my family, I learned early to work with kids making noise, so aside from people trying to talk to me while I write, noise doesn’t bother me.
12) What organizations are you a part of and how have they helped you?
I’m a member of many organizations: EPIC (The Electronically Published Internet Connection), BroadUniverse, IWOFA (Infinite Worlds of Fantasy Authors), ERWA (Erotic Readers and Writers Association), Mike’s Writing Workshop, Write Publish Market, Marketing for Romance Writers, and many more writers’ organizations. I also belong to dozens of lists where authors and readers mingle.
All groups provide a certain amount of networking and interaction. Since authors are, by nature, a largely introverted lot, and the business is so widespread, online networking is a good thing. Groups such as Mike’s Writing Workshop and Write Publish Market include all manner of published and unpublished authors, as well as industry professionals.
In addition, specialty groups aid in whatever your focus is. EPIC is great for issues dealing with independent press, e-books/e-publishing, POD printers (pod_publishers is another good resource for this one), etc. BroadUniverse is for female spec fic authors. IWOFA is for spec fic, whether written by men or women. ERWA focuses on erotic romance and erotica, regardless of publisher type or subgenre. Marketing for Romance Writers focuses on marketing. FictionThatSells, though it welcomes many genres, was originally ChickLit list, and many list members are from that genre.
13) What have you found to be your most effective form of marketing?
The most effective forms of marketing I’ve used have been offering free reads (either of a novel or novella for a week or of a short story indefinitely), writing articles and/or short stories for the byline or for charity, and submitting stories to anthologies. Of course, no marketing works as a stand-alone. To get the most out of any effort, it should cross-market with other efforts, like web site, blog, twitter, etc.
14) If you could do one thing different in regards to your writing career, what would it be?
There are a few publishers I would have skipped dealing with. There were a few comments I wouldn’t have made, though everyone is entitled to a bad day, once in a while. Most of what I’ve done, I’d do again. Aside from the publishers I would ditch…there’s not much I’d really change. And now I teach new authors how to bypass some of the mistakes I made. I didn’t have the blessing of starting out with a large database of knowledge others were willing to hand me. I had to learn piecemeal and by trial and error. So, I offer the information I didn’t have.
15) What is one problematic area you have with your writing and how do you fix it?
The changing grammar rules and spelling rules? Seriously, the biggest problems I have with writing is that every new edition of Chicago Manual of Style of M-W Dictionary means a percentage of my publishers changing their style sheets…and others not. It means keeping a database running of the nits they are going to ding me on and trying to keep them straight. Grinning… It never fails that I edit with publisher A and then have an edit with publisher B, where I hear: “You can’t do X, because M-W says this is the preferred spelling is now.” Uh…does that make the other wrong? Of course not, but I have to remember that B won’t let me just be correct. I have to be consistent with their style, which will always match the newest editions.
If you mean writing tells of my own… I’ve gotten pretty adept at spotting and correcting for them. One thing I still do, from time to time, is shortcutting things like “I need to get laid” to “I need laid.” It’s a regional shortcut I learned growing up, but not every character would use it…and not every reader would, either.
16) Do you have critique partners or beta readers? Why?
Not really. I have one buddy who gets to read everything I write…after it’s submitted but before it releases. Lisa used to be my beta tester, before I got quite so busy and quite so polished. She still gives me feedback on the emotional punch the work carries.
Why not a crit group? To be honest, I don’t like politics. Any time you get a group of people together, there will be some that just can’t help themselves and feel the need to play politics and cliques. Since I view these types of groups as valuable more for the interaction with other authors than the crits I get from them, anything that makes it unpalatable for me is unwelcome.
I have, in the past, had crit partners. As I polished my style, the need for them went down. I still give input on some of their work, but I never ask for crits in return. In fact, I’ve found that it makes me uncomfortable to give others more than a passing look at my work, save my beta tester.
17) Were you always a writer? What did you do before you started earning money as an author? Do you still do this?
My degrees are in accounting and computer programming, mainly because my parents believed in having a career to fall back on. Initially, my double major was accounting and journalism, but they were impossible to fit into a schedule together. Since I was already writing without a degree, I dropped journalism and took writing classes as my electives.
In the years since choosing my majors, I’ve worked in convenience stores (worker and management), as a tutor, as a sales clerk, as a stock girl (the Navy moved us around a lot, and sometimes these were the only jobs I could get), as an accounting supervisor, teaching people to use the computers, backward engineering accounting systems, as an auditor…all of that until my first child was born. After that, I went into special needs child care and then into teaching special needs kids. I gave up that final job just this year to write full time.
18) What would your ideal day be like?
My ideal day? The kids go to school, and my husband has the day off, so we get to spend time together, have sex, take a nap, have lunch, etc. I’d do my morning e-mail while the kids are getting ready for school. The kids come home from school, and we do the usual after school work and play, make dinner, eat, play games or watch a movie. The kids go to bed, and I spend the night writing. That’s a great day for me.
19) Who has given you the most support along this creative path?
That would be a toss up between my husband and my best friend. Both have given me monetary aid, when I needed it. Both have given me emotional legs up, when I needed them. In addition, Tamer keeps my computers running and updates my software. He also takes the kids once a week or so to allow me peace, especially in the summer. Lisa is my beta tester.
20) What piece of advice would You give to aspiring writers?
I have a ton of them. Let’s see…how about my top 7?
1. Don’t obsess over the perfect opening line, perfect hook, perfect market, genre distinctions… While you’re worrying about all of that, you could be halfway done writing the book. Write it first, then craft those things or fit the book to a market. There’s never only one right market for a work anyway.
2. Don’t worry about minute edits while you’re writing the book. You can edit poorly-written work. You can’t edit a blank page. Get the butt in the chair and WRITE it. Then edit it.
3. Don’t try to copy anyone else’s writing process. The words come for you how they come for you: longhand or in the computer, quiet room, white noise, music, noise and insanity…even the number of words per day that is comfortable for you. Trying to copy someone else’s process will only drive you crazy and adversely affect your output.
4. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try new things. WANTING to be a pantser doesn’t mean you’ll be good at it. You may need more framework to your process. So try. If it works, keep it. If it doesn’t, don’t. Remember, there’s no single right way to write a book.
5. This is a career. Learn what the terms mean. Learn what’s ’standard.’ Learn to read guidelines and how to change from standard to what the individual editors and agents want. Learn what the terms mean and how to apply them.
6. Writing the book is only the first step…and it’s one of the easier ones for the writer to accomplish. You have to learn to edit, to submit, to market, about contracts, about royalties… You don’t just write a book, submit it, and wait for the money to roll in.
7. What’s the most important subject to take in school, if you plan on being a writer? ALL of them. Whatever you learn in English (grammar, preferred spellings, etc.) will change with each new edition of Chicago Manual of Style or Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary or whatever resources a publisher uses, which is why there is never a real ’standard’ across all publishers. You have to be able to do math to check your royalty reports. You have to know science to get it right in the books… In fact, the more knowledge you have, the richer your books will be. That applies to both book knowledge and practical experience.
21) What do you do to refill your creative well?
Read other authors. Take a walk in the park. Write something else. Look at submission calls and contest calls. The mind is always working, so I just need to give it new input.
22). What place would you love to vacation in if money, politics, and health were not an issue?
Europe. In specific, I would love to spend a whole summer in the UK…Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England… Plus, maybe jaunt from there over to places like Germany, Norway, Italy… My husband has been all over Europe and the Med. I’d love to see the places he’s seen.
23) Who do you model your heroes after?
I don’t. In my first book, all the characters started out modeled after men I knew, most of them my husband’s Navy buddies, but as the book grew, the characters morphed and became their own persons. Eventually, I started having arguments with them that went something like, “Yes, Chris would do X, but I’m Eric, and I wouldn’t because…” From that point on, my characters haven’t really been based on anyone (save perhaps heroines based on portions of my own psyche and one based on Lisa and me mixed).
24) Do you have any tricks for keeping your heroes separate from one another or for remembering their attributes in your stories?
I don’t have much of a problem with this. Every character is different, in my mind. Every book is. While I might keep databases of world dates (birth, death, who is king when, alien holidays, etc.) and family trees, I don’t have to keep databases of character traits. Since all of my stories grow from the characters, they are who they are…always.
And just for fun, what or who is your favorite:
Drink- Non-alcoholic? Milk. Alcoholic? Kahlua and milk or a Virginia Bushwacker.
Movie- Depends on my mood. Ladyhawke, Clue or Oscar, Steel Magnolias, Practical Magic, Grosse Pointe Blank, Con Air, The American President, Love Actually, practically anything by Kevin Smith…
Actor- I don’t usually latch onto individuals, but… Maybe Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro, Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, or Morgan Freeman? A great character actor is Tim Curry.
Actress- Uh…maybe Anette Bening in The American President or Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinnie?
Book- That’s like asking my favorite movie. It depends on my mood. It’s easier to name my favorite authors: Sherrilyn Kenyon/Kinley MacGregor, Angela Knight, Gloria Oliver, Elaine Corvidae, Stephen King, John Saul, Piers Anthony, Jeff Strand, Rowena Cherry, Tee Morris…
Color- Green…most days. Some days, I lean toward blue or purple.
Holiday- Christmas.
Season- Autumn.
Saying- “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter won’t mind.” Dr. Seuss
Historical person- That’s a toss up between several people…Boudiccia, Eleanor Roosevelt, and President Harry S. Truman. Truman, ironically, is the originator of another of my favorite quotes… “I never did give them hell. I just told them the truth, and they thought it was hell.”
Thank you Brenna for allowing me to probe. You can find Brenna on MySpace and you can read her blogspot blog to keep up on her news.