Ten Questions

Answering the ten self-interview questions put forward by Rick Henry Christopher. Thanks for the challenge, this was interesting to do. A link will be embedded at the bottom for anyone else interested in completing it themselves.

What type of writer do you feel you are?

An interesting one, hopefully. I'm completely untrained as a writer. I've never taken any creative writing classes. I went to a school in a poor area and left when I was 14. I've had no formal training of any kind and yet I feel that in many ways, that has been a strength for me. By teaching myself through the passion I have for writing, I've turned writing profesionally into a very satisfying self-employed career for myself and it's inspired me to push further into writing creatively, allowing me to challenge myself and hone my skills over time.

What type of writer do you not want to be?

More than anything, I would hate to be boring. I revel in exploring the surreal and macabre in my writing. I'm aware that sometimes that can lead me into cliches, but I don't really care so much about that happening as long as the route I take through them keeps it engaging and interesting. After all, I believe if you find a way to bring the surreality and insanity into a normal situation, you can make a cliche original very fast.

What do you like about yourself as a writer?

I feel I have a very unique style. I'm very good when I'm in the right zone and mentality at channeling that into an unhinged stream-of-conciousness form of writing that I think very few writers are able to actually capture in a way that speaks to a lot of us who don't quite have all the bolts completely tightened.

What do you look for in other writers?

It really depends on the writer's category, honestly. There are writers I enjoy across multiple genres of course, but specializing in more surrealist styled-horror fiction, a voice is what I look for most. A true voice, an engaging voice. Above all, when I'm reading work in my favourite genres, I want to feel like I am in that headspace. I want to be truly taken on a journey by another writer through the work I'm reading.

What do you not like about yourself as a writer?

I could spend all-day on this question if I chose to, so instead I'll go with the thing I find worst about myself as a writer. I am absolutely, without doubt, my own worst critic. I have taken long hiatuses multiple times simply for not feeling my work is good enough. I've written nearly two full novels before when I was younger and then felt so unhappy with the quality reading them back I deleted them in a rage. I've got multiple manuscript drafts sat on my hard drive right now of varying thousands to tens of thousands of words that are still uncompleted. I have a huge issue with finding that no matter how great I feel I've done in the moment, it is never good enough in retrospect. I chase perfection, knowing it's unreachable, then I punish myself for falling short.

Which writing genre or category do you feel is your best?

Horror is most definitely my favourite genre, I love to write horror fiction. It's hard for me to actually finish enough of a story in that category to feel good enough about to publish as I always want it to be so perfect that there's always too much tinkering to ever feel okay with it. I'm a lot more loose with myself when it comes to poetry, so while I feel my horror fiction writing is better, I'm much better at actually publishing and reliably creating original poetry.

In which genre or category do you feel the most challenged?

Anything involving romance. I am somewhat autistic and it just doesn't compute, to be completely frank. Whenever it's been necessary to write romance into a plot of a story for mine, I find I either have to pretty much re-write real experiences of mine. Otherwise, I basically have to avoid it to make it not sound like an A.I. writing smut.

When did you first start writing?

My earliest memories of enjoying writing are from when I was around 7 or 8. It was when we were giveing a creative writing in school when we'd get a prompt relating to something we'd been learning about at the time, Ancient Greece. The teacher had asked us to write in one lesson our own original story set in the place and era about whatever we chose. I remember how excited I was when my ideas began to hit me. It was like something had just clicked all of a sudden and an electric jolt went through my body. I wrote over twice the pages of anybody else in my class during the lesson as I just couldn't put my pencil down.

I wrote a story that I found very fun to put together in which my protagonist was an aging Greek general in the ancient era. Hired by the king, he was sent to complete what was meant to be an impossible task as their most trusted longtime warrior, despite his initial protests about not wanting the job any more. After succesfully travelling across the land, leading an army once more and crushing the king's rebels, in a twist ending he swiftly beheaded the king upon his arrival back in Athens. Placing the crown upon his head, riotous cheers from the people rang out in support of their new king, after all the support he'd gained from them through his heroism in the battles. I was really, really proud of thinking of that twist ending on the fly and seeing how impressed my teacher was by it too really was a great boost to me at the time.

Why do you write?

I hadn't really written in years until I went through a brutal breakup in late 2021. A fellow writer friend that knew I hadn't written anything in many years to channel some of my feelings at the time into creativity. I tried my hand at writing some poems to share among my friends and was shocked by how positively they reacted to what I considered rusty on-the-fly work to get the feelings out. It spurred me forward to write more creatively, which turned into friends that write professionally taking notice, which ended up turning writing into both my most succesful creative pursuit as well as my most successful professional pursuit. Writing has done a lot for me, mentally and financially, it's a part of my nature these days.

This last question is off-topic. If you could be part of any television sitcom family, which one would it be and why?

I don't really watch any TV and when I do sitcoms are especially rare so this is actually really difficult. I have no real idea, so I'm going to just pick Two and a Half Men so I can sip bourbon at a grand piano in a Malibu beach house.