One Hot Mess

I'm feeling pretty meh today, so I stole this from alex_beecroft in order to stave off boredom for a few minutes... Come join me!

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

Without a doubt, this is the Scarlett books. (In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the answers to this questions end up being Scarlett-related). Although I love all my universes, this is the one has the oldest, biggest place in my heart. The character of Scarlett (a pyromancer descended from angels and demons) came to me when I was very young, and the rest of the world developed as I grew and read. I'd say it's easily the best-developed of my universes: the characters and their arcs are all very firmly ingrained in my head, and I could probably write dozens of books about them all. There's Ash, the borderline alcoholic necromancer; Christian, the playboy werewolf; Kas, the old-before-his-time teen psychic; there's fallen angels, lost gods, obsessive demons, shady government organisations, and plenty of good old fashioned shenanigans.

I actually have two books and countless short stories (although most of those are lost) written about this world already. The first book, Fire and Moonlight, got me my first agent. Since then, I've desperately wanted to rewrite it because it's just so ... meh ... to me now. But there's never time! And I'm struggling to concieve an ideal plot for the first book at the moment, something solid and exciting and fresh to introduce the world with the bang I feel it deserves. So this project is on hold for the time being. I've been lucky enough to have a couple of short Scarlett/Ash stories published in Ethereal Tales recently, which gives me hope that this is a universe worth writing about.

I'm generally not a writer of the "my characters are REAL TO ME!!!" school, but in this case... yeah, they are. Scarlett and Ash in particular are very real to me, and I know them inside out and back to front. I'm pretty confident you could give me any scenario you liked, and I'd know how they'd react. Deep down in my heart of hearts, this is the series I want to get published and want people to love, which in a way puts me off ever attempting it, lol.


( Full list of questions behind the cut )