The Ingredients of XIII

So I got this idea from on Anthony's blog, but he got the idea from this link , which leads to this interview . (Hey, that's all part of writing -- borrowing others' ideas and recycling ideasand going down a rabbit hole every now and then.)



Using the interview questions that Anthony borrowed, I will attempt to distill my current work-in-progress (XIII) into a few short words or sentences.




SUMMARIZE YOUR BOOK IN TEN WORDS OR LESS: (Wait, shouldn't "less" be "fewer"?)



Naomi discovers that her boyfriend is a demigod.



I guess that's an oversimplification, because that summary only describes the first "book" in the series.



IF THIS BOOK IS THE LOVECHILD OF TWO OTHERS, WHO ARE ITS PARENTS?



Tenchi Muyo! and Trigun



Yep, they're Japanese manga. Still counts as a book, right? But again, it's an oversimplification. Way too many other books/manga/anime/TV shows/movies went into the inspiration for XIII. But I suppose these are where it really began



WHAT INGREDIENTS GO INTO THE RECIPE OF YOUR WRITING STYLE?



For this particular storyMountain Dew, blood, vodka (any kind, really, but Smirnoff would be best), pizza sauce, pomegranate seeds, secondhand smoke from Marlboro cigarettes, the smell of wet asphalt after a brief rain, gallons and gallons of mud, precious stones of all shapes and sizes, a lot of heartbreak, ibuprofen, the catch of the day from a Russian fish market, the stomach-wrenching feeling of jealousy, college-ruled pages torn from a bored high school kid's notebook, Axe "cologne," the rumbling sound of a diesel engine, guns - guns - and more guns, daggers, knives, swords, several charred amaranth seeds caked in dirtI could go on forever.



Gather all ingredients, dump them all in the pot at the same time under the light of a full moon, stir briskly, stand back from the stove because there will inevitably be an explosion of some kind, simmer for approximately nine years, and let the entire bizarre mixture come to a boil every couple of months or so.



In the end, you'd mainly get the taste of Mountain Dew and the profound bitterness of heartbreak.



Thanks for the inspiration, Anthony! Those were some difficult questions to think about.
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