As a writer of fiction, do you enjoy the process of writing?

Yes, very much, to the point where if I’m not working on a novel for publication, I’m probably writing something else—blog posts, essays for one of my websites, or fiction not intended for publication.

In fact, my Talespinner and I may have accidentally a book. When we aren’t working on our novel together, we frequently write fantasies in shared Google docs, and we somehow came up with a rich, detailed, dystopian world that’s a bit like a mashup of Brazil meets Brave New World, only ruled by Russian-style oligarchs, with lots and lots and lots of hot but also vaguely horrifying sex.

I’m still not sure exactly what happened. We started out sexting and somehow ended up with a large cast of complex characters with intricate, nuanced relationships. We’re closing in on…um, holy shit, almost 90,000 words of text. (We just tonight started discussing if we want to try to publish these stories, and if so, how.)

Writing is an escape. My productivity tends to skyrocket when I’m under stress. I love the process; when I’m in the groove, it’s less like I’m creating the story and more like I’m watching a movie in my mind and writing down what happens.