Meet The Authors Showcase Edition #3 (3 of 3)

A showcase with @Olvaaarrdd author of: The Boy With Strange Blood"

*Winner of General Fiction in the Pretty In Punk Awards*

1 what inspired the idea of your story?

I was going through a period where I was fighting for independence from my family in a lot of ways. So I took the racial, religious, and economic tensions and thought back to things me or my family members would say about it. I just set out to tell a story in my voice accompanied by the prominent voices around me.

2 what is something you struggled constructing with your story?

Turning this into a novel! These were just disparate short stories at first, so I struggled to find a chronology and expand the stories properly so they linked.

3 what did you enjoy writing most of your story?

My part 4 character Leon. Because his presence is huge. It's just a ton of fun writing loud, unashamed characters. And it's fun writing highly emotional characters because I'm a sensitive Virgo.

4 what's the overall response of your story from your readers?

That the voice is strong and the characters are stronger.  I've been really fortunate that readers appear taken with the dynamic characters, and that they're accepting of the obvious flaws/missteps of their favorites. They treat my characters like real people and it doesn't get any better than that for me.

5 is your story a stand alone novel or a piece of a series ?

It's a stand-alone! I may write other parts/stories that fit in the chronology of this tale. I do have further content planned, but it's fluff! I wrote a lot of drama and so I want my casts to relax.

6 what would you like your readers to take away from your story?

That a good life takes a lot of work—and a lot of luck. But you've got to accept that the world works against you sometimes, so you've have to be thoughtful and figure it out. 

7 what advice would you provide to fellow writers, when it comes to focusing on their own story?

Totally subjective, totally just what works for me but: Build out the dopest characters you can! Give them humor, give them hobbies, let us know the things they like even if they happen to hate life right now. All the other elements like plot/setting/theme can be edited in with a second pass. 

8 does your main character share any similarities to yourself?

Practically everything to be honest. I wrote Efren as my younger self. I'm an emotional, emotional being! 

9 what is something about your story you believe would draw in new readers?

The unapologetic voice, the drama, and the dope characters. 

10 do you have any future projects?

Heart of Straw! It's a dark fantasy about a heartless scarecrow who realizes that friendship and fun grows his heart—but he soon realizes that his summoner seeks to steal it for their own ends. I'm about 24K words into it and update weekly. The most apt comparison I've heard is Oz + Howl's Moving Castle, but my favorite comparison is Oz + The Chronic. 

 Other than that, I plan to update my Shatterstar and Other Cataclysms short story collection on an irregular basis. There's a cool 16 fairy tales, dark fantasies, and gleeful apocalypses in there.