Since you've published a book I was wondering if I may ask a couple question?
Does it feel different from writing fanfictions?
Do you find your self relating to GRRM's pace of writing like the long years between books?
How did you like your covers for your original works? Did it take long to pick out?
This is just crack question but any chance there's a minor red headed character with her dark haired partner? You know as a little Easter egg jk. But in all seriousness we always knew you could sell your works and I'm glad you took the chance!
Hello!
Wow, I'm flattered that you want to know this stuff so thank you for asking! I'll happily answer each one below the cut :)
Does it feel different from writing fanfictions?
Yes. The joy of writing is still very much with me but there's some major differences and things I've had to adapt to when looking to sell books as an unknown author versus writing fanfic for a pairing that people are seeking out. The biggest is the wait for validation. Can't post a chapter of an idea, see how people respond and start crafting a story from there. You write the whole damn novel with little to no input from anyone else and then put it out there for critique before publishing.
It may sound weird but I've found more freedom writing original works in some ways and more restrictions in others.
The restrictions involve more planning, outlining and plotting. I have to stay on track instead of indulging in Side-Character B's backstory or a secondary romance, etc. Also, I would hop from genre to genre with my AUs and, while there are authors doing that I'm sure, it's not a safe bet for a newbie looking to make money. So, I found a niche in contemporary romance that I enjoy reading and writing and I dove in. I'll probably tackle another niche with a new pen once I've got ten or so books under my belt with the current pen name to try it out.
The freedoms involve making my characters whoever they tell me they are. No one will scream 'that's OCC!' because these are my characters. There's no trappings of canon or expectations in that sense either although romance readers tend to have favored tropes, etc and they expect you to stick to the 'formula of romance.' Also, I miss talking fic with other writers and fans of my Jonsa works as there's more distance between me as an author and people who read my books. Don't get me wrong, I love interacting with some of them who have reached out but the gap is there and it can feel lonelier.
Do you find yourself relating to GRRM's pace of writing like the long years between books?
No, lol. This is a side hustle for me but a romance writer would starve going at his pace unless you had that miracle hit right off the bat (which is soooooo rare) and even then you need to keep producing product to keep from becoming obsolete. I started my first novel February 1st last year. I will have FIVE completed by February 1st of this year. I'm shooting to average a book every 3 months this year at least. It takes me roughly six to eight weeks to write it and the remaining time goes into editing, formatting and submitting for ARC reviews. Quality AND quantity are the name of the game to earn money. In GRRM's defense though, my books average 75k words and one of those five was a novella at 40k words. And my books are romance centering on two individuals which are far less complicated to tell than his enormous fantasy opus with a cast of hundreds.
How did you like your covers for your original works? Did it take long to pick out?
Yes, I love them! The cover of your book is the single most important part of your passive marketing and you want your book to be as to-market as possible to attract readers in your genre and niche. My niche involves hot guys in suits on the covers and my dear friend made them for me except one which I paid a graphic artist $75 to do an illustrated cover for. Anyway, we would tinker and talk about the color or font, the placement of the title, etc. but, for me at least, this was a simple process. Some self-published folks spend far more time working on theirs or might pay hundreds of dollars on them but mine seem to draw eyes just fine. Maybe once I'm making bank more steadily I'll consider farming this out to a pro.
Any chance there's a minor red headed character with her dark haired partner?
Absolutely!! In fact, my first book includes a pairing that looks suspiciously like Jonsa (I changed the eye color for her and gave him Kit's brown eyes though). Partly, that's because the original idea for the book was going to be a Jonsa story until I decided to switch gears. My third book has a guy that fits Jon's description and my novella includes elements of Sansa's love of songs and such in the female lead. It's fun to have bits of the characters I love in my books even when they're my own creations.
Thanks so much for this delicious ask! Lots of fun to answer <3
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In the mood for a tragic film, any recommendations?
Unfortunately, I'm probably not the best person to answer this question. My tastes run more to the bittersweet end of tragic rather than the truly tragic, if that makes any sense? Also, I'm not a hugely knowledgable movie person, so if we're talking movies I've personally seen, it's a limited list.
So I'll toss Titanic (1997) your way, along with my best wishes in finding a tragic film that suits your mood and tastes!
Any of my followers have any tearjerker recommendations?
A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI
And quick as that, Marillion was gone. The other remained, looming over Sansa in the darkness. "Lord Petyr said watch out for you." It was Lothor Brune's voice, she realized. Not the Hound's, no, how could it be? Of course it had to be Lothor . . .
That night Sansa scarcely slept at all, but tossed and turned just as she had aboard the Merling King. She dreamt of Joffrey dying, but as he clawed at his throat and the blood ran down across his fingers she saw with horror that it was her brother Robb. And she dreamed of her wedding night too, of Tyrion's eyes devouring her as she undressed. Only then he was bigger than Tyrion had any right to be, and when he climbed into the bed his face was scarred only on one side. "I'll have a song from you," he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. "I wish you that you were lady'
This is one of my favorites forshadowings. Sansa dreams of her wedding. And it's with someone taller than tyrion "had any right to be" and has on one side of his face, plus she wakes to find a BLIND dog and she wish the dog was lady. A wolf that's dead but there is a direwolf who's name ghost and he's partner may go blind in one eye. Leaving a scar on one side of his face...
Man Sansa and her dreams, how can you read that and not think jonsa? What's your not that often mention jonsa favorite foreshadowing? Or underrated/controversial parallel?
It's hard for me to find Jon in situations where Sansa is experiencing or processing her trauma.
Here Sansa dreams with Joffrey's wedding, where he died, and that's why she associates it with Robb's wedding, because he also died during a wedding. Then she dreams with her own wedding night with Tyrion and then Tyrion morphed into cujo, because both med tried to rape her in her own bed. And of course when she wakes up and finds that old, blind, toothless dog, she wishes for her lost fierce and loyal Lady.
In a previous similar nightmare, she dreamed that she has to marry Joffrey but then her ex betrothed morphed into Ilyn Payne. Both men participate in Sansa's father execution, then the association. It is possible to find Jon here? Yes, Joffrey and Jon are a case of switched at birth, bastard disguised as prince, prince disguised as bastard. And Ilyn Payne wielded Ice, Eddard Stark's Valyrian steel sword, similar to Jon who wields Longclaw, another Valyrian steel sword with a white direwolf shaped hilt.
That's why I prefer to search for Jon in positive situations for Sansa.
But if I have to mention one of those traumatic experience where we can find Jon hidden there, I think it was @occupyvenus the one that found this one: During the night of the Blackwater Bay battle, cujo's white kingsguard cloak is described as soiled with blood and fire. A snow white cloak soiled with blood and fire it's almost like saying there's a fire and blood Targaryen hidden under a Snow cloak.
Great to see you pop back here, love the update btw! Also idk if you've heard but Jon is apparently getting an update thoughts on that?
Also, how'd you been? Any new fandoms and hobbies you wanna share or skills you want to flex?
Awww, thank you!
Yeah, I saw that! I'm... not sure what to think, honestly? Other than that HBO wants that $$$, anyway. I'm highly skeptical about how good a story they could tell, but I'm willing to reserve judgment.
I've been doing well overall, albeit better some days than others. I'm not a huge fan of the summer heat, but I do love the increased daylight hours! You?
No new fandoms as of the moment, though I drifted briefly into the Grishaverse over the early winter; I have a WIP canon divergence Nikolai/Alina (potentially Nikolai/Alina/Zoya) one-shot sitting in my drafts folder that's currently around 5,000 words. We'll see if it ever sees the light of day!
I watched the Kenobi miniseries, but I wouldn't call that a new fandom per se, since I've long been a part of the SW fandom. I also fell back into Tamora Pierce's Tortall and Emelan universes, but as with Kenobi, I don't currently have any fic to show for it—just a lot of feelings.
Hmmm, hobbies and skills... I DM'd for the first time in May. It was definitely nerve-racking, especially since I belatedly realized I wasn't remotely familiar with the 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons rules! (As a kid, I played a weird mishmash of earlier editions, and I played different tabletop RPGs in college.) But it went well, and I'd consider running a game again.
Hi! I was trying to stalk your tags so I don't bother you with repeated questions but after a little over an hour I couldn't find it so forgive me if this has been asked before: Have you read asoiaf, do you think jonsa could be canon and do you read asoiaf metas?
No worries! I always enjoy talking to people, so don't hesitate to shoot me a message in the future, @7thkarma. You're not bothering me!
To answer your questions in order:
Yes, I've read ASOIAF.
Yes, I think Jon/Sansa could be canon. However, I'm not convinced that it absolutely already is or is going to become canon, either; as much as I enjoy theorizing, I tend to be a skeptic about these things. Either way, I don't think it's likely that GRRM will finish the ASOIAF series, so even if he had planned for Jon/Sansa to be canon, I don't think we're ever going to see it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But hey, that’s what fanfiction is for!
Yes, I've read some ASOIAF metas, both gen and ship-related! In fact, blindspot's (now well-known) meta, "A Time for Wolves", was one of my first introductions to Jon/Sansa as a ship back in 2013 or so, alongside justadram's A Winter's Tale. (I periodically lurked in the ASOIAF and GOT fandoms for several years before I started to engage with either. That said, I didn’t read metas on a very wide range of subjects until early 2019ish, so I was a weird blend of hyper-aware of some topics/theories/attitudes in fandom and completely oblivious to others.)
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I agree that Jon's sequel sounds like a money grab but apparently kit was the one who brought his own writing team to grrm so I'm hopeful however his vision of Jon doesn't really aline with mine so idek anymore. Will you be watching it or any of got spin offs? what do you think about the recent influx of fantasy adaptions (dune, shadow and bone, lord of the rings, etc) and have you watch any of them, if so what are your thought
Yeah, that's one of my many concerns. Show!Jon was always different from book!Jon, but GOT's (somewhat flat) characterization of him became worse than a flanderization of itself by the time we reached the final seasons. And while I don't have an issue with Kit Harrington or the other creative powers-that-be having a different vision of the characters, it doesn't make me eager to see what they create, either. More than anything, I dread The Discourse™ that will inevitably come with the show, particularly surrounding Sansa. Because you know haters will jump on the smallest of statements to vigorously bash her all over again. *sighs*
Eh, I might watch the Jon Snow sequel/spin-off; not sure at the moment. If I do watch it, though, I'll do what I always have: mentally put the show in its own little separate box in my head. Just as GOT and ASOIAF are two largely separate entities to me, Snow (or whatever it ends up being called!) will be its own entity. I know some fans use "fanfiction" in a pejorative sense when discussing GOT and its spin-offs, but I try to see the whole thing in a "two cakes" way. If nothing else, we'll get some more visuals fan artists can use for their manips!
Having said all of this, just because a show is in development doesn't necessarily mean it will make it to our screens. Bloodmoon is a perfect example of that. ;-)
I'm still going back and forth re: watching HotD. On one hand, it looks like it's going to be a delicious visual spectacle. On the other hand, I don't especially like any of the major characters of the Dance—at least, not as they've been depicted in GRRM's written works. Which to be fair, is kind of the point, but if I'm going to get into a story, I usually prefer to like at least one of the main characters. But you never know, I might end up stanning a HotD main character in the way Cersei fans often stan her; in a 'this character is the worst, isn't that great, they should definitely win over all the other terrible characters' way lol. It's also possible that HotD will manage to infuse some of the characters with a bit more humanity and nuance than we get in GRRM's novelettes/novellas and fake histories. So we'll see!
Re: the latest influx of fantasy adaptations, the genre has been on the rise for a while now, so it doesn't surprise me that we have so many of them. These things sort of ebb and flow in pop culture consciousness. I’ll be curious to see what happens next when we eventually reach the saturation point.
I haven't seen The Rings of Power series (I don’t think it’s even out yet?) or the newest version of Dune. While I love LOTR, I'll freely admit that I never got especially into the indices or The Silmarillion, and the trailers I’ve seen for TROP haven’t done much for me. Likewise, though I've read the first few Dune books and watched the 1984 TV movie adaptation, I never got majorly into the series, so I didn't feel an urge to see the latest remake.
I did watch the S1 adaptation of Shadow and Bone, and I enjoyed it for what it was; there are some elements that I think it handled well, and some that I think it handled not-so-well. Either way, I'll probably give S2 a try whenever it comes out.
What about you? Have you seen any of those adaptations, and if so, what did you think of them?
do you walk on any Jonsa hill fan theories? If so what are the ones you believe is canon and what are ones you badly want to be canon but probably isn’t?
i will be able to answer this as soon as i finish the books or the show, whichever comes first!! or at least get further in them. i started the first book last night and im on s3e1 of the show! i had watched the show a long time ago but i never finished it so im starting it from the beginning :3
may I just say how much I enjoy scrolling through your blog? I haven't been on in awhile coz life. But I love the range. Goes from Seren photos to crazy stories to fandom loves. Etc. Like you've got great taste
Awww, thank you so much, @7thkarma! I mean, obviously I think I have Taste™, but don't we all? 😂
And I totally get what you mean; I haven't been on tumblr properly in about 2 months (as can be seen by the abysmally late response to this sweet message).
