SiEF FAQ

Warning: Read at your own risk. Spoilers may abound. These questions are usually asked after reading the book, and therefore could give parts of the plot away.

 

1- Are Scrabble Tournaments really on ESPN?

Yes! Actually, I found the idea of Scrabble Tournaments fascinating when I was flipping through the channels and happened across it several years back. Admittedly, they aren’t on as often as Spencer likes to watch them in real life, but they are shown on both ESPN and ESPN2 if I’m not mistaken. Try late-night if you are interested in watching one for yourself.

2-It’s not possible to fail a pregnancy test.

And that is not a question. Seriously? Anything is possible. In fact, if you paid attention not only is it possible to fail a pregnancy test, there’s also several ways of doing so. So there.

In all honesty… this little quirky part of the story was inspired by yours truly. The first pregnancy test I took did not manage to get the stick wet except for maybe a few drops. And the test itself warns against either peeing too much on the stick or not enough. They really are very tricky contraptions. Though, admittedly it’s better than killing a rabbit.

3. Where did you get the idea for Stuck in Estrogen’s Funhouse?

Well, as with all my writing it was always very character-centric. The plot as far as the estrogen troubles happened because when I went off of Depo Provera, my cycle got screwed with and I went through the same early development that Dr. Duck accuses Marti of experiencing. Unfortunately, it took me five different doctor visits and 500 dollars to be told anything about breast development or whatnot. I swore I was pregnant, and did a lot of research on pregnancies that tested negative into the second trimester. After it was determined that I was indeed not pregnant, I told my husband that I would get back at the doctors for not really giving me any answers by writing a book in which they were wrong. So when I set down to do NaNoWriMo, I already had that motivation and Marti just… came to me like all my characters do.

4. So… where do you get your characters from?

“Where do you get your ideas?” – Ha! Not even a best-selling author (yet!) and I’m already being asked this age-old question…or a varient of it anyways.

My honest opinion is that (nerd alert) some people believe in multiple universes. Well… in a way I do. I believe there are two universes- this one that we live in, and another where every fictional character that ever has been/is/will be/could be conceived lives. These two universes are bound together telepathically through words. So anytime you read some book, you are accessing their world as much as the author did when he/she was writing about it. This communication line also links you to other characters that are friends of the characters you are reading about… and that’s how I get my characters. They already exist in another universe/dimension, and when I read books by authors I love, they make their presence known.

Ok… So that may not be the way it truly works… but it sounds like a solid theory considering that I really do get all my story ideas when I can’t put down somebody else’s book. I guess the best way to explain it is that I start writing facts and random thoughts in a stream of consciousness and eventually the words that appear “out of my head” are no longer mine and take form in a characters personality. After that they just are. And facts about them either seem right or wrong for no logical reason. *shrugs* Maybe I’ll do a better job answering this when I AM an international best-selling author.