Cherry Ann

Questions for the Author

These are some questions I have been asked about my book. Feel free to comment or PM me anymore questions and I will answer them. ~ TukiYuki
~When will the next chapter be published? Sorry everyone my updates will be slow for a while. I'm very busy with preparations for opening my bakery business, working to 2 jobs and teaching my son at home I am just tired and can't sit to write. I hope to write during the holiday break.
~ Your chapters have a lot of grammar issues do you check them before posting? Yes and no the first few chapters I edited myself with no software long ago. I have clinically diagnosed dyslexia, (I say clinically because I was diagnosed by doctors who specialize in this not by a school or so joe shmoe) I was not diagnosed until I was out of middle school and not clinically for many years later. So a lot of grammar and spelling I never learned properly. I am learning to catch more of my mistakes now and learning the proper grammar rules. I have been going back and fixing the past chapters so hopefully they are better now. I use three editing softwares because none of them are perfect most will catch different things. I use Ginger, spellchecker.net, and spellcheckplus.com. Software will never be perfect so I know there are most likely more errors I have not seen yet.

~ What was your inspiration for Cherry Ann? I used my high school years as a starting point. Cherry Ann was me in high school, I was the candy shop girl. Some of the names are people I know and I pulled a little from their personalities and appearance, but exaggerated them. Some of Cherry's clothes are clothes I have/had. I have always loved vampires, I'm one of those people who can honestly say 'I loved vampires before they sparked'. I have read many vampire books and have seen many movies. Cherry Ann is my ideal vampire world.

~ I want to write a book but I have no clue how to start. How did you start writing your book? I had the same problem when I first started. Basically I have stories going through my head all the time, just about every night when I lay down to sleep my brain won't shut up. It's annoying, so one night I just started writing what I was thinking and before I knew it I had an outline of my book. This story came alive for several weeks during the hours of 12-6am. I have written a few versions of the story and have changed when things happen. My book is complicated do to the fact I refer to dates and days of the week, so I have a time line to help me keep track of where I am and when I want things to happen. As I wrote new ideas come into play and the story expanded.

Start with your idea. What is your story about? Who do you want in your book? What do you want to happen to them? How you want them to deal with the situation? Write an outline if that helps, once you have your book mapped out all you need to do if expand it. Add descriptions, dialogue, soon you will see your story taking on a life of its own. I'm am not an expert but this is how I write.

~ How did you come up with the names in your book they are very interesting and unique? Research for the most part. Cherry Ann and Tack are just out of my imagination but several of the vampires are named from vampire mythology and some of the names are just from baby name websites. I do pick names based on meanings, if a character is of a certain personality I will pick a name that means just that or close to it. Some of the names are just because I love them.

~ Who made your covers? I make all my covers.

~ Why is your story set in the 1990's? Basically that was around when I was in high school, and since I am starting with pulling from my high memories the dates stuck. I started this book several years ago as well, so it wasn't so long ago back then. I kept the dates as they are because, why change them?

~Do you ever get writer's block? YES!!! I'm currently struggling with it, I am stuck on Chapter 11 for Cherry Ann. You just have to walk away for a while and not force it. Sometimes I start writing the next part, I do know and add to the part I missed later. The ideas come out eventually. My time line helps me, I know what I want to happen so I will write it and then expand the story around it. With Cherry Ann I've had to walk away for over a year and am just now getting back to it.

~How many stories have you written? Currently just three, even though I have so many in my head I just don't get them down on paper I have two more stories that are just an idea waiting on the sidelines. I hope to get to them next year if I finish Cherry Ann and Lost Then Found this year.