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bitchesofostwick · 5 years

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writer’s interview

tagged by @a-shakespearean-in-paris thank you darling!! 🥰 i’ll tag @veridium-bye @fourletterepithet @gingerbreton @caffeinated-mabari @apostatetabris @gothkimmyschmidt

Q: What is your coffee order? depends on where i go!! if it’s dunks, a medium iced dark roast with one cream and whatever flavor swirl i feel like that day (lately it’s been thin mint tho). starbucks, usually a hot or iced latte. any other cafe, either a hot or iced latte or a hot or iced mocha but ONLY if they use cocoa powder and not syrup.

Q: What is the coolest thing you’ve ever done? i don’t??? really do cool things?? i mean there are probably *objectively* cooler things i’ve done but my favorite going-out experiences, which are the coolest things to ME, are the concerts i go to. my favorites in the past ~5 years have been paul mccartney, fall out boy/paramore, the first time i saw arctic monkeys (not that the second time was bad it’s just that you never forget the first), awolnation (both times tbh), don henley, lorde, lady gaga, all five times i’ve seen chevelle tbh, houndmouth, band of horses, elo, the fratellis......idk, it’s just like, going to see live music just makes me feel like i’m on a different plane of existence i know that’s corny but that’s just how i feel and so much of what i write and who i am is inspired by music soooo.

Q: Who has been your biggest mentor? my intermediate magazine writing professor from my sophomore year!! i don’t write magazine stuff anymore but even beyond the class material, she’s just such a genuine and supportive person. i miss visiting her office hours. i haven’t seen her since she did a book launch near my neighborhood two years ago.

Q: What has been your most memorable writing project? in terms of fanfic, definitely AWA. seeing my own creative style grow is so wonderful, and seeing ellinor’s journey actually come to life is equally as amazing! outside of fic, i was a music journalist in college and got to interview bands and stuff when they were in boston, so that will always be a really memorable experience for me. i miss those days. now i pay for my concerts like the rest of the peasants.

Q: What does your writing path look like, from the earliest days until now? my earliest memories of creative writing come from when i was about 8 or 9. my sister and i collected beanie babies, build-a-bears, and various other stuffed animals and had an entire made-up universe, complete with families, romances, plots, and an economy. we use to fold and staple printer paper together and write six page stories about them. i think we had over 30 booklets at the peak of it. i went on to write creatively in high school and then attend college for writing, focusing in creative writing. ironically, this made me despise writing creatively. i switched my focus to magazine publishing and pursued publishing and editorial, which is my professional field now. i didn’t delve back into creative writing until the tail end of my senior year of college, where i wrote my first(!) fic, a still-unfinished and never published skyrim longfic (it’s hanging in at around 50k words). i lost it again for a little while and then decided to jump back into fic writing this summer when a particularly depressive period of my life led me to the dragon age fandom. i hope to continue pursuing it as a hobby for the near and far future!

Q: What is your favorite part about writing? language!! playing with style, rhythm, cadence. i never write poetry and likely never will, but i always treat my prose as one would treat something more poetic in that i take a lot of pride in how it sounds and how it rolls of the tongue when you read it.

Q: What does a typical day look like for you? wake up. question whether i really need to partake in society. get up for real, shower, eat, go to work, pray that the mbta doesn’t fuck up my commute (it usually does), roll into work toting coffee for me and my work BFF (unless it’s her turn for coffee), answer emails from dumb people, and finally do the bulk of my work, which is copyediting biological and medical research!! then i come home, have dinner, and either watch movies with my sister (who is also my roommate) and her bf or write or play xbox. then sleep!

Q: What does your writing process look like? i jot down a lot of important parts, parts that stick in my mind, heavy dialogue, etc in advance—sometimes chapters and chapters in advance. then i’ll take whatever i already have for a chapter and work around it, tying bits together, usually working from the last scene, then the first, then the middle. then a single rushed proofread and post!! i don’t sit on chapters for fear i will end up hating it after looking at it too many times.

Q: What’s the best advice you’ve gotten? don’t break the rules until you know them. (this is important, to me, for grammar and style. personally.)

Q: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned? writing raw, realistic characters inevitably means that some people won’t like said characters and that’s just something you have to deal with.

Q: What advice would you give someone who wants to start writing? consume!! works!! consume books, consume film, consume plays, consume music, consume tv, consume art, develop a taste and decide your favorite things, ask yourself why it’s your favorite. what made that particular fic so heartwrenchingly good, or what was it in that movie that moved you to tears, or what themes of that album made it the best one that band has ever put out? MAKE NOTE OF THIS. let your favorite things influence you and mold your style and let it run into what you create, not because you’re copying it but because you know what it’s like to be so moved by something that you have to express it in your own terms. consume and create.

#tag game #this was super fun #long post

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