Written Author Interview
- Tell me about yourself. What do you like to do outside of writing. What is a day in the life like for you?
My life is what I like to call ‘beautiful chaos.’ I have a full-time day job as an evaluation specialist that keeps me very busy, but I find it extremely fulfilling. I also teach pole fitness on the side, a passion of mine I found about three years ago. Aside from that, I care for my beloved pets – my dachshund, Simba, and my three birds, Iago, Zazu, and Jewel. When I have a spare moment, I really enjoy working out, reading, and playing video games.
2. What inspired your first novel? What was the thing that got you into writing in the first place?
I’ve always been a huge reader myself. I especially love fantasy and dystopian novels. I was really inspired by Eragon – that was probably the series that really got me thinking that I didn’t just want to read about these worlds, but I wanted to create them as well.
My education also hugely inspired me. My BA is in Sociology, which I find absolutely fascinating. Tying the two together – creating romantasy while inserting comments or discussions about society and how it works – really propelled me into writing the Phoenix Keeper series readers are seeing today.
3. How do you come up with characters? Are they spontaneous or meticulously planned?
Most of my characters start with one or two distinct personality traits and sort of evolve from there. I spend a lot of time attaching motivations, desires, dislikes, fatal flaws, and other defining characteristics once I sort of have the basic ‘one-liner’ description for a character. The last thing that usually comes together is the appearance. A lot of the times, their personality sort of defines their appearance. Other times, I find myself drawing my own little twist on some of favorite celebrities or characters.
Fun fact: A common misconception is that my character Felix has lavender eyes as a sort of tribute to Rhysand’s violet eyes from the A Court of Thorns and Roses series. I wrote Felix’s eye colour long before I ever read A Court of Thorns and Roses! In fact, I started planning my series (and my characters) when I was 15, in 2010. ACOTAR wasn’t released until 2015! Nothing against Rhysand or Sarah J. Maas, though – I love her books!
4. What are some of your favorite genres to read? Are there any books you’d recommend to first time readers or people looking for something new?
Romantasy is my tried and true. I will always be a romantasy reader first and foremost – there’s just something about magic and dragons and world-building! I always am open to trying new genres, though. I’ve enjoyed dystopians and mysteries in the past!
I’ll speak to romantasy, because it’s what I know best. If someone’s looking to try out the genre, I’d highly recommend the Kindred’s Curse series by Penn Cole. The magic system isn’t overwhelming, the world is fairly intuitive and easy to immerse yourself into, and she has a very clear, impassioned writing style with clever dialogue, underlying social commentary and themes, and a fiery female main character. Spark of the Everflame had me interested, but Glow of the Everflame really had me hooked. I remember listening to the audiobook, arriving at my destination, and realizing I still had 5 minutes left of the chapter. So I drove around in circles until the chapter finished – it was THAT good.
5. What’s the most difficult thing about being a writer?
I think the expectation that we can’t just be writers anymore. We have to be editors, formatters, marketers, public figures – if you want to stand out, a lot of effort goes into making yourself present, especially in the day of social media. On the one hand, it’s wonderful that so many people now have the opportunity to self-publish or publish work in non-traditional ways. On the other, there’s so much material now that you have to put a lot of work into not only writing your work, but convincing people that it’s worth reading. I suppose that goes with any creative product, really – but sometimes, I wish I could let the work speak for itself, rather than have to constantly promote.
6. What is your process for completing a novel from outline to final product?
I call myself a ‘plantser.’ All of my writing usually starts with a singular idea – it could be a scene, it could be a concept. I’ll usually sit myself down and let myself build on that idea for as long as I need to, with the goal of developing a cohesive general storyline. Notebooks, post-its, whiteboards, I use them all. Included in this are settings, characters, plot devices, all the works. The final step in the process is to bullet-point everything that happens in every chapter, until the end of the story – this is also how I decide how many books there’ll be, which POV it’ll be written in, e.t.c. The bullet points are really high-level, though – all my details in terms of dialogue, clothing, exact wording and the like comes out when I actually sit down to start drafting. And I like to give myself that flexibility to improvise on the go – sometimes I think of something way better as I’m writing that makes me rethink the entire plan. So to summarize, I go in with a plan, and allow the plan to re-plan as I write, if that makes any sense.
7. What’s the most unhinged thing you’ve written in your novel? Don’t worry, we don’t judge here.
Hah! Where do I start? Well, I don’t want to give any spoilers, so I’ll talk about something I ended up scrapping. There was the potential for a threesome scene in The Phoenix Keeper series between Felix, Seraphine, and Julius, but I could not get past the fact that Felix and Julius were half-brothers. I didn’t want them to do anything to each other, obviously – just to Seraphine. It was kind of supposed to be a play on her fantasy. But still, it just felt icky to me. So, sorry folks – not happening (or you’re welcome, I guess?).
8. What’s one thing about being a writer that absolutely drives you up the wall?
Though I’m a very creative, cloud-like planner, I’m somehow also a very linear writer. So if I have a scene I’m stuck on, but four scenes clear as a bell after it, it’s extremely difficult for me to skip ahead and write the four scenes until I’ve finished the preceding one. It’s my most common form of writer’s block, and I hate it. Part of the reason I can’t progress past the stuck scene is because whatever I write could inform the others, and when things are a mess in my books where I have to keep bouncing back and forth with edits as I’m writing, I get very overwhelmed. So I’ve learned to just do things in order. But sometimes, I can be stuck on a scene for days at a time, and that causes a backlog. It can be very frustrating.
9. What does being a successful writer look like for you? What type of life do you want to live as a writer?
I would love to just connect with kindred spirits in meaningful ways as much as possible. Walking into bookstores and seeing my books makes me extremely giddy. People asking for me to sign their books and engaging with me about my story absolutely floors me with happiness. It was never about the money for me. I always just wanted to write a story that people could relate to, connect with, and enjoy – just like my favourite authors did for me. If I can do that for even one person, I consider that a success.
10. Describe your writing journey. If you had to write a story centered around it, do you think you could pull it off?
Well, I lived it, so I may as well document it! In all seriousness, it was a bit of a whirlwind to get the Phoenix Keeper to where it is today, and it’s not even close to done. But I suppose telling my story and sharing my process might help others with their writing. So yes, I’d definitely do it if it could help someone. It’s a crazy world, the writing one. I was grateful for any guidance I received, so I like to pay it forward when I can!
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