#loftus

Thanks so much @petalsandspiderwebs !

Questions:

1. What is your absolute all-time favorite idea you’ve ever had?

For a story, I would say probably this one! (Lambswool, the WIP this blog is all about) It's why I have stuck with it to the degree I have.

2. Is there a question you’ve been asked in the past that really stands out to you, and you still think about sometimes?

I can't think of a real one unfortunately. A silly one I think of fondly nevertheless is from when I went to a reenactment of Edgar Allan Poe's funeral, and the actor playing? Lovecraft? I think? Pointed into the audience directly at me and asked "Could YOU be the next great horror writer of the 21st century????" and I was like

I like to think that was destiny calling lol.

3. What is your favorite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?

I love imagining up fake people and worlds and being able to think of them/rotate them whenever I need to escape or cheer up. I love the feeling of writing when the words flow and there's the magic of making an ephemeral scene in my head exist in solid matter on the page. Or discovering the scene as I'm writing! I could take or leave the complication of crafting a whole ass plot. (Although I do enjoy that too to a degree.) I could take or leave my issues with perfectionism and tendency to get easily frustrated, and my struggles when I don't know what to write or can't seem to get myself to write.

4. What is your greatest motivation to write/create?

As mentioned above, bringing the people and worlds in my head into the real world, making them "exist" to be experienced by others. A morbid thought, but I don't want these characters and stories to die with me. If I write them down, I give the phantoms of my brain immortality.

5. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever read or been given as a writer?

Hmm I'm not sure what the best thing ever is...Off the top of my head I remember reading the advice to tell yourself or write at the top of the page "the shitty version" or something to that effect before writing, to lower the stakes. I feel like I have to tell myself that a LOT.

6. What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?

I wish I knew more about plot! How to finish a story, the follow through. If I figured that out earlier, I'd save myself a lot of the headache I'm currently dealing with.

7. What is your favorite story you’ve written to completion? Link it if you’d like and can!

I've never finished a whole story before. :P Due partly to my struggles with Plot. I've started many a story, though. Okay so there were a few times I wrote complete short stories for creative writing and English classes in grade school, but that's it.

8. Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so, and how do you personally feel about their ideals?

Hmmm still developing some characters, but right now? Probably Loftus, the father of one of my main characters Tristan. For main characters? Tristan.

Loftus is a member of the landed gentry in England in the late Georgian period. In order to create an artificial lake on his estate he flooded a village and evicted its inhabitants. He likely has investments in horrid things like the East India Company or plantations in the West Indies. Like many men of his age, he is a classist, an imperialist, and a capitalist. He sucks. As seen in the novel, his selfish elitist mindset leads him to treating even his own family as fodder for his own advancement.

Tristan, his child, has been raised with a lot of these values. Although Tristan has some more progressive...ish viewpoints, he definitely looks down on the lower orders (the working class) and thinks he is inherently superior. He isn't shocked or disgusted by many injustices we today would be, as they are normalized to him. Tristan also holds a low view of humanity in general, and considers most people stupid and below his notice, which I would say is certainly controversial. He kind of rejects morals wholesale and just does whatever serves him personally. Other people are like playthings to him or a means to an end.

I personally abhor Loftus' ideals, and by extension any of his ideals Tristan has absorbed. I certainly don't approve of Tristan's lack of consideration for others, but I understand his worldview on some level. His nihilistic judgment of society is in part inspired by my own when I was his age. Some of his harsh views of people have to do with some sense of the cruelty of his culture, which he is subtly rejecting.

9. If you, when you first started writing, met you now, what would younger you think?

I first started writing when I was like 8 lol. I think she'd be impressed by the amount I've committed to this current project, but disappointed that I wasn't a famous author yet. Or famous something. Get on that already!!!!

Tagginnggggg: @onirique-writes, @traderotales, @wildgeraniumwrites,