Blogoversary

I've added the widget, but I cheated a little. The "Hello world" post is from Sept.29 – I couldn't wait to get started, LOL! Anyway, the official date was meant to be Oct.1st, so here we are again. Did you see the date on that first post? Yep, this blog is TWO years old! That's very old for a blog, if you ask me!

So, happy birthday, blog. During the past 2 years I changed themes 3 times, from Girl in Green to Toni to Andrea… which will come back in December when snow starts falling on WordPress blogs. I thought it was time for another restyling, so please welcome Comet!

Here are the monthly stats: I'd say it has grown! As lots of my subscribers (thanks y'all) are new, I thought I'd post on this day the interview to myself. These are the questions I'm going to ask writers (published or unpublished) from now on, so if you'd like to be grilled, leave a comment – I still have some spots to fill in October. In the meantime, I thought it was fair I answered all the questions myself first!

1: Where do you live and write from?

I was born in Rome, but having spent 8 wonderful years abroad, I consider myself international. I'm fluent in Italian, English and French, and wonder if I should learn the fourth language – considering my new movie passion I should pick Hindi!

2: When did you start writing?

I was still living abroad when I jotted down the first stories and poems in Italian or French. The first "official" illustrated story is from the summer of 1978 when we came back to Italy. I have "recycled" it half in the first Chronicle of the Varian Empire (out next year), the other half in Water.

3: What genre(s) do you write?

I started with… all of them! Sci-fi, fantasy, love-stories, mostly very dramatic and as I wrote what I knew (i.e. not much ) most of them don't make sense today, but I keep them anyway. In the second half of the 1980s I started writing sci-fi (my idea of sci-fi being Star Wars and Star Trek, not sci-fi literature), in the 1990s, after reading the Dragonlance saga, I switched to fantasy, in the late 1990s lots of M/M romance. New millennium – 10 years ago – I started writing in English, screenplays first, then novels since 2008. I went back to my first love (prose) and am now rewriting and translating  some of my babies, but also writing new stuff. I started doing graphic novels in the late 1990s and I always had both the Italian and English version back then. Now I write Silvery Earth stories and plan on publishing one sci-fi title per year. And use another pen-name for the "contemporary" stories – she will debut next year, so stay tuned.

4: Where do you find your inspiration? Do you put yourself in your stories?

Mostly "What if" or turning upside down a situation. Like my Amazons who treat men like most men treat women (i.e. as sub-human). Or I have a "Male Sleeping Beauty" (I saw him called Seeping Beau now, but in 1997 my English wasn't as good as now). And I used to be in all my stories until my M/M romance period. Now sometimes I'm in it, sometimes I'm not. I used to be the Warrior Woman in the 1990s, now I tend to write more feminine parts for myself (Axelle of SKYBAND, Winged Jesminder in Air, and Brenda de Zorig in Earth, coming in December)

5: Do you have a specific writing routine?

Nope. Sometimes I don't write for days because I read, draw or research, but when I start a story I don't stop until I reach the end of Draft Zero. After so many years I know how to stick to my own deadlines.

6: Outliner or improviser? Fast or slow writer?

Improviser. Sometimes I tell the whole story to myself (supposedly to go to sleep, which of course works the opposite way and keeps me awake until late, LOL), sometimes I do a drawing and decide to tell the story of those characters (I'm very character-oriented). I have very loose outlines and can never tell how long the final work will be. My average novel length is now 80000words. And yes, I'm a very fast writer. I waste time waiting for betas and editors' feedback or I could write one story per month. That's why I never did NaNoWriMo – don't have time for that!

7: Tell us about your latest book

Books of the Immortals – Ether explores what actually happened around year 100 of the Varian Empire – the alternative in Fire had shown a Blackmore Empire – so we see the same "future" characters of Fire (Claudia, Joyspring, Edwyn Blackmore and Kyler Darklight) and how they actually lived and interacted. You don't need to read Fire to understand Ether, though, as all the books can be read as standalone. The release of the fourth book of this series is postponed to sometime next week because I decided to rewrite the end and the cover artist had some problems in September so she fell behind too.

8: Indie publishing or traditional publishing – and why?

Indie publishing because I'm prolific and don't want to wait for agent or publisher's validation. The readers will be the judges. Also, I hate legalese and contracts. And I'd rather keep total control on my stories – yeah, I'm a control freak! I might look for a small publisher for the historical novel (other pen-name and British spelling) though, as I won't write many of those anyway.

9: Any other projects in the pipeline?

This year will see 5 novels (Books of the Immortals) and 2 short stories collections (Tales of the Southern Kingdoms). Next year I'll have the Chronicles of the Varian Empire (5 novels + 1 short story collection) out, another sci-fi title and the debut of another pen-name writing contemporary fiction. Yep, busy busy.

10: What is your goal as a writer and what are you doing to achieve it?

I will find my 5000 readers eventually! This is a five year career plan and I won't quit unless when I turn 50 I'm still in the red on my writing. I do have a publishing schedule until 2016 at least…