J. MARTAIN, AUTHOR
Jennifer is a native of Wilmington, North Carolina. As a child (and immature adult) she wanted to be everything from a cardiovascular surgeon to an actress. Around age 40, she finally decided to just be herself, and has been much happier ever since.
She's been a vegetarian for a couple of decades now, and would love to be full-on vegan as soon as she can afford a chef. Meanwhile, she's grateful for high-quality, organic, gluten-free, vegan frozen entrees.
Her favorite hobbies are all work-related (boring!), but she does love to travel, and has a special fondness for megalithic structures that challenge our current understanding of human civilization.
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My Process
- When I think I'm ready to write, I rarely do. Instead, I muck about in the background observing gestures and smells and sounds while my characters bubble and stew in their angsty trigger moments.
- When those moments become a cohesive scene, then I type it up.
- But sometimes while I'm typing a scene, it morphs into transcribing the data from their entire lifetimes—and then I forget to do things like drink water or take bathroom breaks.
- Oh, and for all you fellow writers... Yep. I edit as I go. Most of the time I feel like a documentarian burdened with editing and re-editing until the words on the page meet the approval of my characters' attorneys.
My Quirks
- When I'm stressed, I formulate and edit complete sentences in my head, then speak them as if they were written prose. (I've been told this is weird and very annoying.)
- I'm incapable of being presented with a problem and not trying to brainstorm a solution. (Also very annoying. If you just want a shoulder to cry on, I'm not the one to call.)
- I have a special understanding with bugs. Particularly spiders. When I find them in the house, they remain calm and wait for me while I get a glass and piece of paper to gently trap and release them outside.
- (I definitely have more, but oversharing is icky.)
My Theories
- There are non-humans among us, hoping we'll evolve to avoid replicating some of their own more spectacular mistakes.
- At least one civilization in our planet's distant past was a heck of a lot more advanced than we are right now.
- All religions and mythologies contain truths. The tricky part is that humans chose the words to tell the stories.
- Schrödinger's Cat is a cautionary tale. Two words: conscious observation.
- We are what we consume.
Wilmington, North Carolina
(April, 1977)
He reminded me of a picture in Mimi's big Bible—one of the scary ones with shining, winged angel-men swooping down over all the sinners frozen up to their eyeballs in Hell's black ice...
—Lilith Ann, age 7