#liambaeyne

I am the eternal trio: write fic, read fic, or read a published romance

Bb. We are our own worst critics. I know that I often criticize myself as a writer because I’ve been unable to produce chapters quickly. But that doesn’t mean I’m not a great writer! We tend to get caught up in our comparisons to others and it makes us feel smaller in our talent, but it’s not true. You are plenty talented. Own it, madam. I adore you.

drive to San Antonio to see me

binch whatchu up to ������

hmmm idk 

Sunflower: what is the best feedback/compliment you’ve ever received regarding your writing?

That… is a really tough question to answer. I have been so incredibly lucky to have such wonderful readers, and I actually have a document saved on my computer with the pieces of feedback that meant most to me. I don’t know that I can pick just one, to be honest!

I don’t share a lot of my writing with my friends and family, so it always means a lot to me to get any sort of feedback from them. I remember when I was going to camp in grade 7 and before bed every night they had us journal about one topic or another. We had to hand in the journals at the end of the week to be reviewed by the counselors. I remember the counselor handed mine back and said, “Yours was my favourite journal to read - you made me feel like I was talking to you and we were having a real conversation.” That felt pretty cool.

When I was in Tanzania, I started blogging for my fam and friends to see what I was up to. My nana, who’s 98% blind and uses a large computer-shaped machine from the CNIB to magnify her crosswords and such, read the print out versions of my everyday blogging at home. When I got back to Canada, she told me, “I got out of bed every day excited to read what you’d written that day. You should have gone into writing.”

Those are just a couple of stories that hit me in the heart, and they might be simple, but I’ll never forget ‘em :)

Water lily: what helps you get through writer’s block?

Finding music that inspires the piece I’m working on, going for long walks without headphones so I can be alone with my thoughts, doing menial tasks that keep my hands busy but not my brain (e.g. the summer I was a student painter was the most productive summer of my writing life because I had so much time with my thoughts to plan scenes that when I got home, all I had to do was sit at my keyboard and the words practically just fell out of my fingers onto the screen), and going back to read my first notes on the work in question to remind myself what intrigued me about the idea and why I felt it HAD to be written.

And if all else fails, like Brianne said, BICHOK - butt in chair, hands on keyboard. Sometimes you have to absolutely SLOG through 100 or 1000 or 10000 words before you finally feel like you’re getting somewhere, but writing routinely really does help get the words flowing freely again.

Hydrangea: what inspired you to begin writing in the first place?

I’ve always had problems falling asleep. I have an overactive imagination and I’m also afraid of the dark (hey, no shame) so as soon as the lights were out I was 1000% positive there was a monster under my closet and a murderer under my bed, which perpetuated the sleeplessness. When I was about 4 until age 7 or so, my dad would tuck me into bed every night and tell me a story - something nice and funny and lighthearted to put my mind at ease, usually revolving around my cat, whom we called Whisky Hiss-Cat, and her adventures with her fictional cat boyfriend (my dad named him He-Cat).

Once I’d outgrown these hilarious short bedtime stories, I still employed the tactic of telling myself stories to fall asleep at night. Usually it would be a long saga and I’d pick up the story where I left off every night before falling asleep. After a few years of telling myself bedtime stories, I started to get so involved in what I was creating in my head that I began to write things down so I wouldn’t forget. 20 years later… here we are. (And by the way, I still tell myself fictional stories every single night to fall asleep).

Lavender: As you know, I covered this one 😊