If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

January 4 question – Do you have a word of the year? Is there one word that sums up what you need to work on or change in the coming year?

Jayden: My word for 2023 is consistency. I need to be more consistent in many facets of my life. Work is the one place I’m probably the most consistent because I’ve developed my routines. But I need to be more consistent at home with completing the chores that pile up (Richard helps me to be good at staying on top of the daily chores). I need to be more consistent with getting my school work done on time. I need to be more consistent with advertising for my side job. And the big one is that I need to be more consistent with my blog. On that note, did you see our big announcement on December 31st? I really hope that I can stay consistent this time, so be sure to read my posts, like, and comment, so I know you’re out there reading!

Richard: Graduate! Once I’m done with grad school, it’ll open up a ton of time and energy for other things. I have a ton of writing projects that are kinda sorta ready to move onto the next step, but keep getting shoved out of the way for schoolwork instead.

What is your word of 2023?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

December 7 question – It’s holiday time! Are the holidays a time to catch up or fall behind on writer goals?

Jayden: I think it’s bad. I get out of my routine so much that I fall behind on everything. Even though I have more time off of my day job, it’s hard for me to keep a writing routine when I’m not working. It’s weird, honestly, that when I have more free time, I get less done. I guess it’s just a mindset.

Richard: Probably about neutral? There’s a bit more free time to write, but I’m also usually recovering from Nano. I usually hit January pretty hard though.

Do you find that that you catch up or fall behind during the holidays?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

November 2nd – November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever participated? If not, why not?

Jayden: Yes! I’ve been participating since 2007 or so. I’ve made it to 50k or more every November (but rarely in the Camp months). I’ve even managed to write 50k in 24 hours three times. Never again, haha. It’s a lot. But I was proud of that accomplishment. With how busy I am now, I’m only planning to aim for ~50k this year for NaNo. I’m sure I’ll feel like I need to get more, but we’ll see what happens.

Richard: My first NaNo was also around 2007 or 2008. I’ve won the last 3 or 4 years. NaNo is actually how Jayden and I met. (Jayden: THANK GOODNESS FOR NANO! <3)

Are you participating in NaNo?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

October 5th – What do you consider the best characteristics of your favorite genre?

Jayden: My favorite genre is romance. I love that there’s always a Happily Ever After. Real life is often serious and sad, so when I invest time in reading, I like that it can have a nice, neat conclusion. What’s your favorite romance novel or who is your favorite romance author?

Richard: Not a genre per se, but I’m going to go with serial fiction in all its forms. I like the way the spread out pacing gives a story room to breathe and for people to speculate and interact in “real time” with it as it develops.

What do you love about your favorite genre?

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September 7th – What genre would be the worst one for you to tackle and why?

Jayden: Historical fiction. I don’t have a great grasp on history, so I’d have to do *a lot* of research, which I don’t particularly care for. I love to read it, but writing it would be awful.

Richard: Does Fanfic count? I’ve tried it a couple times, and I just can’t wrap my head around writing other people’s characters.

What would be your hardest genre to tackle?

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August 3rd question – When you set out to write a story, do you try to be more original or do you try to give readers what they want?

Jayden: I write for myself. I tried writing to get published, but especially in the world of kinky smut, they often want very specific things. As a bisexual switch, sometimes I want a variety of things in one story. It depends on my mood. So when I write and self-publish, I can write whatever combinations I want. It’s very freeing. I just keep reminding myself of the best writing advice I’ve ever been given: write what you want to read.

Richard: For most genre writing, I think you should be trying to do both. If you’re writing a fantasy story, people want to see some dragon slaying or whatever. But you should be trying to do your dragon slaying in an original way. Have your peasants give the dragon more and more tributes until it’s suffocated/crushed under it’s horde!

Original or Give ’em What They Want?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

July 6 question – If you could live in any book world, which one would you choose?

Jayden: That’s hard because a lot of the books I read are dystopian, and that doesn’t sound so great! Harry Potter is a very cool world to live in, once You Know Who is gone, anyway. I guess I’ll stick with that one.
Richard: One of those safety instruction books, where people drop blenders into tubs and stuff. It just seems like a very strange place, I’d like to find out more about it.

What book world would you want to live in?

If you’d like to chime in and let us know your answers to the questions or drop a link to your post if you’re participating, please do so in the comments! And check out the IWSG website for more answers!

June 1 question – When the going gets tough writing the story, how do you keep yourself writing to the end? If you have not started writing yet, why do you think that is and what do you think could help you find your groove and start?

Jayden: I know that if I don’t finish a project in one go, I won’t ever finish it. It’s too hard for me to come back to it after a lot of time away. That’s why NaNo is so great for me–I can write the whole novel in one shot. (Not one day, generally, but one month at least.) When I switch between projects, I tend to get distracted and lose track of details, even when I outline what I’m writing as I write it. So that motivation of knowing I might not ever finish the project is a big part of getting to the end.

On the other hand, I’ve been kicking around this erotic novel set in a world with societies of Dommes (and dinosaurs!) but I haven’t, and Richard and I even did the whole worldbuilding outline! I don’t know what’s stopping me there, but I am hopeful that I can get to in July for CampNaNo. Having other people to support me definitely helps a lot!

Richard: My favorite trick is to switch how I’m telling the story. A lot of my writing has mini-epistolary sections, so those are a great opportunity to think about it from a different angle and get unstuck. Swapping to a different part or character can work too, but I find the little snippets I get from writing travel guides, new casts, etc. are more useful.

How do you motivate yourself?