KP Spotlight! Abigail Metzger

And we are back with another KP Spotlight! 

Today we are super excited to be sharing an interview with the lovely Abigail Metzger, Kingdom Pen's Poetry Editor and the authoress of the the wonderful poem The Cardinal in My Tree.

Thank you so much, Abigail, for doing this spotlight! 

Abigail Metzger: Hi! I’m Abigail (obviously, because it says in the title). Three interesting facts huh? Well... I’ve been writing since I was five years old, I live on a hobby farm and I love winter. And not just the snowflakes, snowboarding, and dreaming about skijoring; I actually love the cold weather. Yes, everyone else thinks I’m crazy too, but I’ve always preferred winter to summer. And I also prefer my paracosms to much of reality. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a very fortunate person and I love my life and where I live and everything. But when I think of world events, politics, or such, my paracosm is a contrasting and beautiful reality. I know that many people and writers have only one, and maybe I do as well and I just don’t know it, but I suspect I have a couple of different paracosms. My favorite being the one that I created especially for the land in my current novel.

(I have a suspicion that that was more than three facts.)

AM: I would of course like to publish my novels and short stories. But presently my goals are to keep improving my skills, learn new poetry forms, and finish my current novel by the beginning of next year. But in the long term, my goal as a writer is to create truthful and impactful stories that affect and live in the hearts of readers. To show them God and His magnificence through great stories.

AM: My favorite thing to write is flash fiction. And though the length of these pieces is, well, a flash; a lot of work and research goes into a good piece of flash fiction. Not nearly as much as a novel of course, but take An Atlantic Adversity for example. An Atlantic Adversity is about the final interaction between two people before the titanic is sunk. But to write that five hundred and some words scene, I obviously wrote the first draft. Then I researched names relevant to that time era, what hour the Titanic went down, what song the musicians played as it sunk, clothing styles, uniforms, images,  and many other miscellaneous bits of knowledge that helped paint the scene.I had gone through, oh, about three drafts, major alterations to the excruciatingly brief character arcs and pacing until I finally got the finished product. Since then, flash fiction is just a favorite of mine. It also helps me focus on pacing and is a good break from longer projects.

AM: I wouldn’t say I’m drawn to any particular genre as long as it’s not non-fiction, horror, or too preachy. I enjoy general fiction, poetry, and stories that involve adventure, swords, and snow.

AM: The funny thing about other authors and the way they influence my writing; whenever I read a book, no matter the style, aesthetic, or what it is, it doesn’t matter. Because whatever I read, reflects in what I write and the style in which I write it. Thence I often get particular about what I read.

AM: I enjoy Kingdom Pen’s writing articles and works immensely, but my favorite thing about Kingdom Pen is the awesome writing community and being able to collaborate with other writers. It’s always so much fun to hear other opinions and I absolutely love learning more about their characters and stories.

AM: My biggest accomplishment, I believe, is every time I decide to do something and I keep at it even when things get so hard, others wouldn’t blame me if I quit.

AM: 1# Research. Even though it sounds mundane, it has a gold mine of ideas. Even if your writing fantasy; research mountain climbers, exotic cat breeds, European castle maps. There are hundreds of plot ideas lingering at the tip of a researched item.

2# Get the first draft written at all costs and only write the scenes that excite you, for if you spend your energy on the boring things first, you won’t have any for the really good stuff.

3# Write some each day, even if it’s just a paragraph. You only get better at writing when you do it.

4# Let your imagination go crazy sometimes. Huh? Oh wait, excuse me, the purple dragon in my cupboard asked me for a jar of marshmallow fluff.

5# Always have a journal handy. You never know when you’ll spot someone in the supermarket whose suspicious briefcase might be an inspiration for your WIP’s villain.

6# If you wake up in the middle of the night with an amazing idea for a story, but think you can remember it till morning: write it. Because you won’t remember.

 7# “The only writer to whom you should compare yourself is the writer you were yesterday.”              

–David B. Schlosser

8# Remember that I want my copy signed.

AM: My most recent story is one that I have been working on for nearly three years. Meaning two years and eleven months of notetaking and thinking about it, one month to write the first draft. NaNoWriMo does wonders for procrastination. The Snow Warrior is starred by a young (sixteen-year-old) woman warrior. The setting is in an ancient winter world. And my immediate cast is the Snow Warrior herself (the fierce/wounded/strong main character), Anton (the healer/doctor/friend), Lila (the more or less adopted sister), Filip (the archer/love interest/rival), and Morio (the dispirited survivor/wanderer/kindred spirit). And of course (the insane/crafty/dangerous villain), Artur. 

The story is about, endurance, courage, survival, hope, doing what’s right no matter what, and I think there’s a friendship theme in there somewhere. Wrote from an omniscient POV, one of The Snow Warrior’s main underlying theme is about never giving up.

AM: I think my three favorite parts of writing are worldbuilding, creating clever dialogue (whether it truly is clever or not is another thing entirely), and interviewing my characters. I love being able to ask them questions and having them answer, I love hearing them talk and I love living in their world. My favorite thing about writing in general? That’s simple, my favorite thing about writing is doing it.

AM: My biggest struggle as a writer is plotting stories and figuring out the MC’s goals. Everything else, though also difficult, is manageable. But I always get stumped when I try to think of a way that this character can do this, while having what that character over there does, make sense. My biggest fear as a writer is short yet direct and it’s the thought that my stories won’t reach readers and won’t impact them.

AM: Sometimes I can make five thousand words, sometimes I make a paragraph. Sometimes I write on my couch next to the windows, sometimes I write in the haybarn with the cats. Most of the time, I just see where the characters take me and where they want to stop. Every day looks a little different.

AM: Favorite? Most memorable? Ah, but of course! The first character that always comes to mind, the character that I can’t forget. The character that if she wasn’t there, it would be hard to imagine myself as a writer in the first place. Mejia. (My-juh). Yes that is a name of Spanish origin and that probably isn’t how you pronounce it either, but I like a feel of it just the same. I plan on changing it as soon as I find (or invent) a Russian-based name that sounds exactly like ‘My-juh’. No, I’m not- well maybe I am a little crazy, but just the same, I am very particular about what I name my characters.But anyway, Mejia is my foremost favorite character.

And so you get an idea what she looks like, picture a sixteen-year-old, stern-faced warrior. She is clad in black and grey. Her wolfskin boots tightly bound with strips of leather as are the cuffs of her gloves. Her hair is long and coffee-colored, a scar runs across the right side of her face and a short sword hangs on the left side of her belt.Her personality comes in, in its simple version, three layers. The outer layer is gruffness and ice, which begins to penetrate to her second layer. The second layer is a lot of what made her who she is; fear, distrust, pain, truth, determination, fortitude, and endurance. And then there is her core layer. Now I grant that Mejia is not a warm and fuzzy character in the least, her core layer is mostly molded out of strength, virtue, and doing the right thing no matter what the cost is to her.

AM: Well, to be honest, I experiment with just about every genre that I have an idea for. Although, I would like to gain some more experience in the way of Science Fiction because while I have great character arcs and settings for one, I’m not too techy about space travel or electronical functionings. So I’d like to experiment in Science Fiction and maybe a genre in the way of superheroines/superheroes.