My kids are back at school!
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore the Summer season, and I love nothing more than spending time with my kiddos, but I was very happy to merrily wave them off this week as they headed off to school again to start 2024.
In writing news, I’m making good progress on Fated Fantasies #5 and though it won’t be out until April, (I wanted to be sure to give myself plenty of time to do their story justice).
But that’s enough about me, I am going to hand over the reins to B. Ripley!
Author Bio
B is a self described weirdo from the wild prairies of Alberta, Canada who lives on a diet of coffee, hockey, loud music, and horror movies. Along with her collection of increasingly strange art and slightly off-putting oddities, B lives with her husband and collection of pets in a house that looks like Halloween threw up everywhere.
Passionate about mental health and suicide prevention, B spends her days managing programs for a national non-profit and her nights writing heartbreak stories about broken people trying their best to survive while finding love and acceptance along the way.
B‘s Quirky Questions
Holly: Do you have any morning rituals? What are they?
Ripley: My chosen rituals include things like coffee, relaxing, slowly letting myself wake up and gently easing into the day before I start writing and checking my full-time job e-mails. The rituals forced upon me include things like feeding a screaming cat who believes if her bowl isn’t full to the brim she will actually starve to death, and trying to cleverly disguise horsey sized pain pills as fun treats because my dog is old and has bad arthritis in all of his joints, yet will spit out a pill without even thinking twice if he finds it.
Holly: When did you first call yourself a writer?
Ripley: Oh, I was really young when I decided I was a writer. I was in grade two and my teacher gave us a creative writing assignment about what could be inside a closed box. Other kids wrote paragraphs they were supposed to and when the bell rang at the end of the day, they all packed up their stuff and went home. Me? I got so lost in writing pages and pages of words about a witch, a skeleton and a cauldron that had potions inside it. When I finally came up for air, the other kids were long gone and my teacher told me that she’d called my mom for permission to keep me there so I could write while she did her end of day work. I remember going home and telling my mom that I was going to write stories for my job when I grew up.
Holly: Tell me something from your bucket list.
Ripley: I have always been in love with the ocean and I’ve always wanted to go on an Alaskan cruise where there’s a chance of seeing animals like orcas, otters, humpback whales, seals and sea lions. A shorter whale watching trip around Vancouver would be amazing as well. Really, my bucket list item is: WHALES.
Holly: What secondary character would you like to explore more? Tell me about them.
Ripley: The Harbinger from Haunting With A Ghost for sure! The Harbinger is a set of triplets (Malix, Calix and Helis) that rule The Nether where chosen Reapers reside when they aren’t reaping souls. Two of the three beings weigh and judge Chosen Souls that are brought forward for special consideration by the Reapers, and the third rows a boat on the River Styx that carries Reapers and Chosen Souls for judgment.
Holly: Who has been your favorite character to write and why?
Ripley: My absolute favorite character to write is Alex from Halfway Down. He is so broken and haunted by everything that happened when he was just a little kid, but he is trying so hard to survive even though pieces of him don’t want to be alive anymore. Alex permanently takes up space in my head and heart, and someday I’ll get back to that world and explore more stories about the Boys of Horseshoe Lake.
Holly: What do you do if you get a brilliant idea at a bad time?
Ripley: All of my ideas have come at the exact wrong time for them to happen! I’m a huge fan of post-its, especially the bigger ones that are lined. My entire desk is covered in random post-its with snippets and half scribbled ideas that have popped up in my brain and need a place to go while I work on other things. I do have a couple of really lovely notebooks, but I haven’t ever written in them. Instead, when the post-it stack on my desk gets too big, I pick through the ideas, ditch the ones that don’t work or that I’ve used, and then slide the remaining ones into the front cover of a notebook. It’s a very feral raccoon organizational style, but it works for me!
I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of Holly’s Quirky Questions.
I hope whatever you are in the world, you are safe and smiling.
A huge thank you to B. You are awesome!
Next week we have M.A Church
Until then: Find a Spark of Magic Every Day.
