Writing Meme: Playing With Worlds [1/30]

I must confess to being a shameless copycat.  Instead of writing a brilliant and original post for you entertainment, I have stolen a writing meme from Onna.  I am going to borrow her method of doing it, too: instead of filling out all the questions at once, I will make each question into a blog post.  I have also created a handy directory of all the questions for those who wish to steal the meme. 

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why.

I am so tempted to say ‘the one I haven’t worked with yet’, but that would be unfair. I’d be a fool to let discontentment color my view of the past.

Each novel that I’ve worked on has had its own charm and its own give-and-take. With each one, I would be justified in saying, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Tears for the Silent Lands, which in my memory always feels bland and hopelessly riddled with errors, is the only novel I’ve finished. POE, my first attempt, had all the magic of a first love along with all the clichés. Enchantress, the novel that completely swept me away, I ended up abandoning because the premise went against my conscience and my faith. And now, two-thirds of the way through Evanescent Moonlight, one of my more stable works, all I can see is the lack of characterization and description, the inconsistencies, the chapters that need to be taken out, and the overall un-stellar-ness.

So really, I could almost say that my favorite universes are the ones I’ve stolen from other writers – namely, fanfiction. The time I spent writing for the Sherlock Holmes universe was an absolute blast. I loved being able to dive into a complete and fascinating character, along with the moody, nostalgic world he lived in. The experience taught me so much about what a true character is, and why we love some books and forget about others. Compared with such brilliant craftsmanship, all of my ‘children’ only seem more and more like cardboard cutouts.