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Author Merita King
Merita tell us how did you learn about Nano Wrimo
Hi, I first heard about Nano on facebook. Someone posted a question in a group I used
to belong to, asking who was planning to do it in November 2012. I’d never heard of it before so I commented,
asking what it was. When they told me,
I was intrigued enough to go to the Nano site and take a look. I write fairly quickly, about 5k words a day
is average so I was pretty confident I’d manage the required 50k. I didn’t hesitate to sign up.
How many years have
you participated in nano and how does the group help with your word counts.
My first one was November 2012 and I found the Nano group
during the event. When the event was
going on, I found the daily word wars really helpful and fun to do. Even now, in between Nano’s I enjoy the
weekend-long word wars as I’m actively writing a new novel at the moment.
When did you start
writing and why?
I began my first novel in June 2011. I’ve wanted to write a book since I was a
teenager but I never had the ability to make my writing full enough for a
book. I have a very vivid imagination
and often got plots and story ideas pop into my head. The reason I began writing was because of Vin Diesel, he got me
started. He was always encouraging his
fans to be creative and would often comment on our efforts, which was a huge
inspiration. It started as fan fiction but as it grew and grew, I realised it
could be a book. That first night, I
wrote for 8 hours solid and finally dragged myself off the pc at 4am. After that, I had a dilemma; it was still a
piece of Riddick fan fiction and if I continued with it and wrote a Riddick
book, I’d probably end up in trouble with copyright and trademark laws and as I
had no idea how to go about getting the appropriate permissions, I started
again and used the same plot and peripheral characters, but changed my
protagonist completely. Vincent Domenico
was born.
My latest novel is called Floxham Island ~ Sinclair V-Log
AZ267/M and it’s the first in a new series.
The main character, Sam Sinclair is a Freelance Law Enforcer with the
Inter Galactic Law Enforcement Agency and his job is to find, capture and
deliver a specific target into the hands of the relevant authorities. Sam decided, after 20 years of being a
Freelance Law Enforcer, to make his own video logs where he recounts the more
memorable of his experiences and uplink them to the galactic web so others can
enjoy them. In Floxham Island, Sam
recounts the nightmare than befell him when he was sent to capture Professor
Kluvak Nembier, who was suspected of murdering 9 of his colleagues on an
archeological dig on Agrillia 3. Sam and
his colleagues, find themselves stranded on the strangely deserted prison
planet, Floxham 4, where they soon realise a new killer is amongst them. Whilst having to avoid the indigenous
terrors on Floxham Island, Sam has to identify the real killer before too many
more of them die.
How did you get into
Self Publishing?
I started out by sending off my first manuscript to various
agents but found most of them refused to accept science fiction and those that
did, rejected it. After a dozen
rejections I researched self publishing and decided to go ahead on my own. For my first two books I found a little old
guy who did formatting for very little money but after that, I really wanted to
know how to do it myself so I had a go and found it reasonably simple and now I
do the whole process myself, apart from cover art. I was lucky enough to find a very talented cover artist who
offered to work with me and he now does all my book covers.
Did you learn
anything along the way as you wrote the book?
Now this is a great question and one I’ve never been asked
before. Yes I did learn something
extremely valuable. I learned that I am
good at something, that I have an inner voice that is worthy of being heard and
that I finally have something that I can be proud of. I’m autistic so communication is hard for me. I always felt I had something to say but
have never been able to allow that inner voice to speak before. Now, through my writing, it can finally
speak.
From start to finish,
how long does it generally take you to write a book?
Usually a couple of months to finish to first draft. I write quickly and usually do around 5
thousand words a day, which is a chapter for me and the book tends to grow at
around 3 or 4 chapters a week. I then
put it away for a few weeks before I begin the process of proof reading and
editing.
What advice would you
give aspiring writers?
Get the story out.
Just get it out of your head and onto the page. You can tidy it up later but if you don’t
get it out of your head, it’ll never see the light of day. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar at
first; all that can be seen to when you proof read it. The most important thing is to get it out of
your head.
For you personally,
what is the best thing about being a writer?
For me, the best part is being able to say what I want to
say, the way I want to say it. To give
full control over to the creative side of my mind and bring my fantasies into
physical form is so totally cool that I can’t really describe it. To see those words, to read them later and
still be moved by them, to cry and laugh at those words and know that they came
from me, my abused and damaged self, is just awesome.
Are you learning
anything new even in this stage of your craft?
Oh yes, I’m learning new things all the time. I can now format a complete novel for kindle
in less than an hour. I’m learning all
the stuff we were never taught at school, such as what a dangling modifier is
and little tricks to make your writing a little more sophisticated. I’m still stretching my creativity all the
time. For instance, Floxham Island is
the first of my novels to be written in first person POV. It’s most natural for me to write in third
person omnipresent so first person was a huge challenge and I found it hard but
a fantastic learning experience. I
struggled to get Floxham Island past 50 thousand words because I found first
person a little constricting but because of that experience, the second in the
Sinclair V-Log series, which I’m in the middle of writing now, will be much
longer as I’m now far more comfortable with first person. Having researched the accepted rules of
‘good writing’ with regard to first person, the second one in the series will
be around 80 thousand or so.
Thanks for joining Indie Authors 4 - U
Great interview!!! Thank you.
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