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[RokofAges75]

Yo, teachers, they get the job done!  I enjoyed that we all went with physically writing and Tracy went with setting. Hadn't even thought of the question that way.

High five for the Hamilton reference!  Also, yes we do!

I am thinking about how Tracy interpreted the question and if I have a favorite season to set my stories in.  Judging by the last five stories I've finished, I would say fall because three out of five of them were set then.  Fall is my personal favorite season, so that makes sense.  But really, I usually base the timing of my stories around what works best with the Boys' schedules, since most of my stories are based more or less in reality.

I love that it's a ferret and a penguin, very 00Carter of you both. Have you been taking good care of Billy and Bob as you've been finish Bethlehem or have they retired?

They've been enjoying a well-deserved break.  I'm hoping Billy will come out of hibernation this weekend to get me going on a new story, but we'll see.  Maybe Bob will give Rose some inspiration while Billy's resting.

[RokofAges75]

What book from your childhood has shaped you most as a writer? hm, I wouldn’t say that any books influenced how I write. But as a kid my favorites were the Boxcar Children and Goosebumps.

Tracy, I enjoyed both of these series as a kid too.  Along with Babysitters Club, Goosebumps was my favorite!  Do you remember your favorite book from each series?

I feel like my favorite Boxcar Children was The Yellow House Mystery, although I can't really remember why or even what it was about at the moment LOL.  That's just the title that popped into my head.  Gonna have to look that up.  I also always enjoyed the very first book in the series.  

My favorite Goosebumps was a tie between One Day at Horrorland and The Cuckoo Clock of Doom.  I have an old short story called Seduction of Evil about AJ being turned into a vampire that I feel is Goosebumps-esque LOL.

[nicksgal]

The Babysitters Club was one of my favorite series too!  Which girl did you most identify with?  Stacey was my favorite; I wanted to be her, but really I was more of a Mary Anne or Mallory.  Did you watch the new Netflix series that came out last summer?  It was SO good!!  I binge-watched the whole thing in one sitting LOL.

Stacey, Dawn, and Claudia were my favorites, but back then I also thought I was more of a Mary Anne or a Mallory. I think I've become a bit more Stacy over the years, though.

I didn't! I've been meaning to watch it though. I'll binge it soon and we can discuss.

[nicksgal]

High five for the Hamilton reference!  Also, yes we do!

I am thinking about how Tracy interpreted the question and if I have a favorite season to set my stories in.  Judging by the last five stories I've finished, I would say fall because three out of five of them were set then.  Fall is my personal favorite season, so that makes sense.  But really, I usually base the timing of my stories around what works best with the Boys' schedules, since most of my stories are based more or less in reality.


They've been enjoying a well-deserved break.  I'm hoping Billy will come out of hibernation this weekend to get me going on a new story, but we'll see.  Maybe Bob will give Rose some inspiration while Billy's resting.

I'm money on my references lately.

I don't think I ever explicitly state the time of year. PBox is definitely Springish. I can't remember if Gobosei mentions location at all, but if it was good old CO, then when it was Never Gone time frame, it would have been late summer and when I switched it to Millennium, it would have been Halloween.  Beta Sigma Beta was definitely Halloween. So... Halloween is the season I set most of my stories around, apparently, haha.

Sending good vibes to both of you!

[FrickingKaos]

My favorite Goosebumps book is One Day At HorrorLand as well, especially the Doom Slide. I also loved the one that was a choose your own adventure. Escape From the Carnival of Horrors.

My favorite Boxcar Children book is a toss up between Mystery Cruise and Surprise Island.

I never read The Babysitter’s Club but I read the spin off of that where it was the little sisters of the Baby Sitters Club. I also read Fear Street, one of my favorites of that series being this story where the main character’s family is sold to a town that is run by dogs.

Tracy, I enjoyed both of these series as a kid too.  Along with Babysitters Club, Goosebumps was my favorite!  Do you remember your favorite book from each series?

I feel like my favorite Boxcar Children was The Yellow House Mystery, although I can't really remember why or even what it was about at the moment LOL.  That's just the title that popped into my head.  Gonna have to look that up.  I also always enjoyed the very first book in the series.  

My favorite Goosebumps was a tie between One Day at Horrorland and The Cuckoo Clock of Doom.  I have an old short story called Seduction of Evil about AJ being turned into a vampire that I feel is Goosebumps-esque LOL.

[FrickingKaos]

I don’t unless it’s a parody of a movie that is what I am writing at the time. Such as the Wizard of Oz parody or the 13 Going on 30 ones I did years ago. However, the last week or so I was watching Titanic every night so I think that may have been inspiring a lot of things in If I Knew Then but it’s not obvious because my readers have not picked up on any references.

When I was writing Finding Carter I watched a lot of Disney films so there are numerous references to Disney movies as its a theme throughout the story (Plus Finding Carter is literally a play off Finding Nemo), not to mention each chapter has a Disney quote that fits the theme of each chapter.

For the most part I try to not watch things that are similar to my writing because I’m afraid that it will come out in my writing but I put TV shows or movies on as background noise while I write. For the last month I was watching Big Bang Theory and it had no influence on If I Knew Then, so that was a success.


Weird strokes of inspiration, i get the most random ideas from songs. Usually I come up with story titles and then a story idea forms from that, most of the time from lyrics that I can’t get out of my head. A lot of my one shots have happened this way.

Do you guys tend to read or watch things that are similar to what you're writing (in terms of genre or subject matter) to inspire you, or do you stay away from things that seem similar to avoid inadvertently copying ideas?

What has been your strangest or most unexpected source of inspiration?

[nicksgal]

I don’t unless it’s a parody of a movie that is what I am writing at the time. Such as the Wizard of Oz parody or the 13 Going on 30 ones I did years ago. However, the last week or so I was watching Titanic every night so I think that may have been inspiring a lot of things in If I Knew Then but it’s not obvious because my readers have not picked up on any references.

When I was writing Finding Carter I watched a lot of Disney films so there are numerous references to Disney movies as its a theme throughout the story (Plus Finding Carter is literally a play off Finding Nemo), not to mention each chapter has a Disney quote that fits the theme of each chapter.

What is it you enjoy about writing parodies?

Aw, Disney, cute! I love that you included quotes that went with it. I like when there's an opportunity to do things like that. Snippets of song lyrics was one I always liked doing when it fit.

[nicksgal]

Today's questions are all about characters!

How do you come up with character names for your stories? (Other than the obvious, "Well, Nick is "Nick.")

What are the essential characteristic s of a hero you can root for? Are there certain aspects of the Boys you play up if they're in the hero role?

What do you do to get inside your characters' heads?

If you could be a character from one of your stories, who would it be and why?

What's the trickiest thing about writing characters of the opposite gender?

Does one of your characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?

Now describe that character in three words.

Which of your characters do you relate to the most?

Do you often put aspects of yourself into your characters?

And just for fun:

Go back to that character you said holds a special place in your heart and think about the other characters in their story. They can only use each character once, so which character from their story would they pick to:

a. be trapped in the wilderness with? (can be frigid or tropical wilderness) Why?

b. spend the night in a haunted house with? Why?

c. have for a boss? Why?

d. pull off a heist with? Why?

e. be on the Amazing Race with? Why?

And because these are fun anyway, just answer for yourself with the Boys. You can only use each one once. 

Which Boy would you pick to:

a. be trapped in the wilderness with? (can be frigid or tropical wilderness) Why?

b. spend the night in a haunted house with? Why?

c. have for a boss? Why?

d. pull off a heist with? Why?

e. be on the Amazing Race with? Why?

[RokofAges75]

 My favorite Goosebumps book is One Day At HorrorLand as well, especially the Doom Slide. I also loved the one that was a choose your own adventure. Escape From the Carnival of Horrors.

My favorite Boxcar Children book is a toss up between Mystery Cruise and Surprise Island.

I never read The Babysitter’s Club but I read the spin off of that where it was the little sisters of the Baby Sitters Club. I also read Fear Street, one of my favorites of that series being this story where the main character’s family is sold to a town that is run by dogs.

I loved the BSC Little Sister (Karen) books too!  And Fear Street!  I don't think I ever read that Fear Street book though.  My favorite was The Fear Street Saga, the trilogy about the history of the Fear (Fier) family and how Fear Street came to be cursed.  Apparently they made a trilogy of Fear Street movies for Netflix that come out this year!

[RokofAges75]

I don’t unless it’s a parody of a movie that is what I am writing at the time. Such as the Wizard of Oz parody or the 13 Going on 30 ones I did years ago. However, the last week or so I was watching Titanic every night so I think that may have been inspiring a lot of things in If I Knew Then but it’s not obvious because my readers have not picked up on any references.

When I was writing Finding Carter I watched a lot of Disney films so there are numerous references to Disney movies as its a theme throughout the story (Plus Finding Carter is literally a play off Finding Nemo), not to mention each chapter has a Disney quote that fits the theme of each chapter.

Parodies are so much fun to write!  I do the same thing with watching whatever I'm parodying over and over again.  Last year it was the beginning of Return of the Jedi and the pilot of The Mandalorian as I was writing my third pandaskunk story.  The worst was when I was spoofing Independence Day in the second pandaskunk story - my copy of Independence Day is still on VHS, so I had to plug in my old VCR and freaking rewind that tape over and over again to catch the exact lines of dialogue and whatnot.  I finally found a copy of the screenplay online, and that made it easier LOL.

Do you find that having parodied something makes you see the original a little differently?

It's fun to make references to another fandom or source in stories.  I wrote a lot of Beatles references into Secrets of the Heart because the character Jori was based on my sister, who loves the Beatles.  I named all the minor characters after names in Beatles songs, and I even had chapter titles planned that were all Beatles lyrics, but I ended up not using those.  I don't even really like the Beatles, but I know more about them than I ever cared to know thanks to my sister LOL.

[RokofAges75]

Do you guys tend to read or watch things that are similar to what you're writing (in terms of genre or subject matter) to inspire you, or do you stay away from things that seem similar to avoid inadvertently copying ideas?

What has been your strangest or most unexpected source of inspiration?

I definitely do this.  It's a way to try to keep myself inspired and thinking about my story even when I'm not actively writing.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.  In the 8 years it took me to write Heroic Measures, I would start watching ER for inspiration and inevitably get sucked into an ER marathon and watch more episodes (sometimes more seasons) than I wrote chapters LOL.  But usually it's not that bad.  For The Road to Bethlehem, I watched a few wilderness survival movies and episodes of "I Shouldn't Be Alive" and re-read the novel "The Ruins," which was what inspired me to want to write a survival story in the first place, although the plot details are a lot different.

As for strangest source of inspiration... it would have to be the medical fetish porn videos on YouTube inspiring AHTIM LOL.

[RokofAges75]

Happy Saturday!  How's everyone's day going?

I officially started Fallen Angel this morning!  I was kinda waiting until I could come up with a decent first line, and I thought of one when I woke up this morning, so I wrote the first paragraph... and then went back to bed LOL.  Imagine how much more I could have written if I had gotten up and made coffee instead!  Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

Anyway, when I went back to sleep, I had a fanfic-related dream, which almost never happens (thank god).  I dreamed that I remembered I had another chapter planned for The Road to Bethlehem that I forgot to write and was like, "Damn, I've been claiming to be done for almost two weeks, and I'm not really done at all!"  But the chapter had nothing to do with Bethlehem; it was actually for another story I (in my dream) had written earlier and never posted.  It was an AU or original fiction about a class of kids coming back together for their first day of school after a school shooting.  I guess that would be influence of hearing about that horrible QAnon congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene harassing the Parkland shooting survivors.

Anyway, I woke up wondering if I really had written a story that I forgot about, then quickly realized that was just a dream.  But it got me thinking, if I were to write an AU about the Boys working in a school, what would their roles be?  I am not currently planning to write a BSB teacher story, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

[nicksgal]

I don't even really like the Beatles, but I know more about them than I ever cared to know thanks to my sister LOL.

This is how my mother feels about the Backstreet Boys to a T.

For The Road to Bethlehem, I watched a few wilderness survival movies and episodes of "I Shouldn't Be Alive" and re-read the novel "The Ruins," which was what inspired me to want to write a survival story in the first place, although the plot details are a lot different.

I Shouldn't Be Alive is wild! It's one of those shows where I'm like "this can't be true!" and yet somehow it always is.

[nicksgal]

Happy Saturday!  How's everyone's day going?

Started off my day by doing anything except writing since there's no "looming" writing deadlines in my life as far as PNecklace goes. Though I did wake up and go, "This next chapter should actually start this way and come before the last chapter I wrote." So I had a few ideas to start out, but wanted to sit on them for a minute. So I hung out with the husband and watched the Reese's Senior Bowl while we decided what to eat this week. He went to the grocery store and I started writing, but kept getting stuck on an encompassing noun to describe AJ's AJness, so I am here refreshing the forum again. I put a comment on it that was akin to "this is what I want to say, but I need a noun" and might just keep writing without the perfect word. I hate that so much... But there's other things in the chapter that have nothing to do with it, so it might be time to just move on?

So there's the good news, I suppose. Editing PBox did not derail PNecklace from being written, even after about two months off. I also have two friends that would be willing to beta read an OF version of PBox, so now I need to decide if I want to focus on that or keep writing PNecklace. I think at the moment I'm going to go with writing PNecklace since I have some pretty solid plans on the next ten chapters or so.

I officially started Fallen Angel this morning!  I was kinda waiting until I could come up with a decent first line, and I thought of one when I woke up this morning, so I wrote the first paragraph... and then went back to bed LOL.  Imagine how much more I could have written if I had gotten up and made coffee instead!  Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

How does it feel officially starting a new thing? I feel like a first line is always daunting. I always get stuck on what would be the perfect opening. I slept late too and it's totally sunny out. Maybe the full moon a couple days ago was just exhausting for all of us.

Anyway, when I went back to sleep, I had a fanfic-related dream, which almost never happens (thank god).

Anyway, I woke up wondering if I really had written a story that I forgot about, then quickly realized that was just a dream.  But it got me thinking, if I were to write an AU about the Boys working in a school, what would their roles be?  I am not currently planning to write a BSB teacher story, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

I like fanfic related dreams, they happen to me a lot while writing and then I hope I can remember the scenes in the morning! What don't you like about fanfic related dreams? Is it that yours are less "interesting plot elements" and more "I forgot table 34's ranch!!"? Because I hate those "I forgot table 34's ranch" moments. They will still wake me up in the dead of night and I haven't worked at a restaurant in five years at this point.

If all the Boys worked at a school... Hmm... Is this a high school, an elementary school, or a middle school? I think that would change my answers. Please note, I'm actively avoiding "music education" for their roles, because obviously they could do that. But offhand I could see Kevin as the principal, Nick strikes me as wacky science teacher material complete with DNA tie and lab coat for fun (today we get to blow stuff up, muahaha), Brian would be a math teacher (I went Econ originally, but couldn't think of what other History classes he would teach), AJ some sort of creative arts teacher (I can't decide between visual arts or theatrical arts), and Howie would make a great English, History, or Foreign Language teacher (pick your poison).

[nicksgal]

I started writing, but kept getting stuck on an encompassing noun to describe AJ's AJness, so I am here refreshing the forum again. I put a comment on it that was akin to "this is what I want to say, but I need a noun" and might just keep writing without the perfect word. I hate that so much... But there's other things in the chapter that have nothing to do with it, so it might be time to just move on?

My brain was determined to not move on until I found the correct word instead of the general vibe. Sometimes writing is exhausting. I found it, so carry on, y'all.