Confessions of a Fantasy Author – Jo Zebedee

This will be the last confession of 2017. I’ll wait while you all breathe a collective sigh of relief disappointment. But don’t worry! The authory confessions will be back in the new year, with plenty more sinners begging forgiveness. Today we have Jo Zebedee, author of Waters and the Wild, here to bare her rotten soul.

 

I write science fiction and am really bad at some aspects of science. One of my worst is getting muddled about the effects of gravity. If it’s low gravity does that mean more bone density or less? If it’s a gas planet is that more or less gravity than a smaller planet. I do get there (I have a science for dummies book, and long suffering science friends who take questions) but it can lead to interesting first drafts….

 

I once wrote a smutty flash fiction story about a nun and some waves that might have been a little more… corporeal… than water normally is. And slightly equine…. Anyhow, I didn’t mean to write a smutty story. If I had meant to, it would have been just fantastic. But I’d had a few drinks and I came up with what I considered to be masterful, posted, went to bed. I got up in the morning to comments and sniggers and … I was relatively new to the forum, so that made it worse. On the plus side – at least I made a splash!

(Rob – I think everyone should join me in a petition to get Jo to share this smutty nun story)

My other writing sin is possessive apostrophes. I really struggle with them, although I’m getting better. Also, giving some of my characters slightly Northern Irish dialect when they’re not supposed to be. Mostly my copy editor, Sam, catches them and lets me know!

 

I’m incredibly face-blind which means, essentially, I’m lucky to recognise my own mother. I used to work in a medieval castle that is a big tourist draw and we used to get quite a few celebrities through, pretty much none of whom they recognised. Which is how I came to threaten Paul McCann with his kids being asked to leave if they climbed on the cannons again….