Vintage | Phoenix Interviews (𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐃)

Potato_Man9001

Dayeon, from CLN, had the honor of interviewing very talented author, Potato_Man9001.  Potato is the author of several books on Wattpad including The Silver Fox's Guide: A Story of Uprising, The Fractured Empire: A Tale of Downfall and several more.

Anyway, I'm Dayeon from Crazy Late Nighters, feel free to call me DY, and I'll be holding your interview today.

What name or pen name would you like to go by and what pronouns do you use?

My pen name is potato_man9001, but you can simply refer to me as potato. My pronouns are he/him.

Sweet! Great to meet you! I'll get things started

Why and how did you get into writing in the first place?

Geez, that's a tricky question to answer. I enjoyed writing when I was a little kid, but I got serious with it when I was in seventh grade. (I think I was fifteen or so.) When I was a freshman in highschool, I canned this original series and started a completely different one. As for why I got into writing, I'm a sucker for science fiction and fantasy. I enjoy coming up with stories for people to read, so I wrote to my heart's content.

Hmm...the "how" of your question is also tricky. I read books like the Percy Jackson series and the Harry Potter series when I was younger, so I got inspired to the point where I picked up a pencil and started writing.

Haha, I guess it is. But that's really cool—fantasy and sci-fi are some of the best genres (I'm also very into them).

What inspired the Haze Trilogy?

Heh, ah yes. I have a feeling krippy told you about it. Honestly, I wanted to write a science fiction book with a main character who wasn't exactly "good." Since I was watching The Mandalorian around the time I started writing book one of the Haze Trilogy, "Dead Men Have No Legacies," I made my main character a bounty hunter. I grew up with movies like Star wars, so I loved the idea of exploring a vast galaxy.

Yes, Krippy did. That's actually quite an interesting concept. Not many main characters aren't the "good guy" in their stories. And Star Wars is amazing—so iconic!

Did you plan out the trilogy or are you more the kind to just jump in and see where the writing takes you?

Um, yes 🤣

In all seriousness, I did both: I jumped into book one when I wrote up the prologue, and I planned out important scenes while improvising along the way.

I wanted to keep this series small, so I decided on writing a trilogy early on. Everything else followed

Best of both worlds! It's good to have some fluidity, but it's also important to know where the story is going.

What about the genres of fantasy and sci-fi appealed to you?

I think the main detail about both genres that appealed to me the most was the wonder you could capture with your story. With words, you can paint a mythical forest with faeries fluttering though the dense foliage or a booming city in the sky with ships flying around it. With worlds like these, you can create such awe-inspiring worlds. For me, that makes all the planning and moments of writer's block worth it.

I definitely agree with you there. There's something about creating a world and a culture so different from our own that really satisfies the imagination.

You mentioned writers' block—how do you overcome it?

I step away from my writing. Sometimes, we as writers become so entangled in our work that we lose where we're going. Rather than trying to power through the writer's block, I take a break-it doesn't matter if I work on another book or play animal crossing, I allow myself to calm down and sort through my thoughts. After that, I go back to the book I was working on and see if I can continue.