Coffee Talks

With Christine Bottas

With Nyhterides

Hi Christine, thank you for taking the time to get involved with Coffee Community. It's great to hear from authors like yourself and get to know a little bit about what motivates you to write longer works of fiction.

Hello, my friends!

So, to begin, tell us a little bit about yourself as an author on Wattpad. For anyone who hasn't met you before, how would you describe your fiction?

I've always enjoyed writing, even as a kid. If I was getting restless, my mom would hand me a piece of paper and a pen and I would be amused for hours. When I was in school, I spent a lot of time scribbling poetry in my books, oblivious to what the teacher was saying sometimes. Writing was just something I always did.

I've been on Wattpad for about 4 years now. I was searching for writing sites one day and came across Wattpad. I created a user-name and began exploring. I thought it was a lovely site so I decided I would share a collection of poetry called Goblin Garden. I never expected anything to happen with that collection, but a few years later I sent in some of the poems to a publisher and my first book got printed. Goblin Garden went from me believing only a handful of people would ever see it, to a book that's now been read by people all over the world.

After Goblin Garden, I began writing short stories and eventually novelettes and novellas on Wattpad. My writing is dark and very descriptive. I'm one of those people who you'd call 'flowery' in my way of writing. But I love to darken everything up, make it heart-breaking and chilling, as in my supernatural story 'All Lips Turn Blue', which is quite dark. It's full of vampires, wolves, and demons. I guess I'd describe it as a mix of The Crow, Poppy Z Brite fics, and White Wolf as written by a poet.

I mainly write Gothic horror, yet one of my novellas, Q, is actually a far cry from my usual work for it's a fantasy/sci-fi story with Biblical elements incorporated throughout.

Since you mainly write novelettes and Novellas, you are the perfect person to ask this question, writing for sustained periods is a hurdle that every writer, beginner or experienced, faces from time to time. What powers you through those longer bursts of creativity and keeps you focused?

Silence keeps me focused. I need to be alone and have no distractions, apart from music, then I am OK. Then I can search through the maze of my mind and pull out a story.

Through that same maze, can you pull out some top tips and advice for getting a novella or a longer piece of fiction off the starting line? What kind of story developments motivate you to see it through to the end?

Have an idea for a story in your head and a rough idea of what's going to happen to the characters. You don't have to have the whole thing planned out, one lil' thought is enough to get a story going. After all, it's a tiny spark that starts a fire, right? If you hit a slump, open up a book and read, it's where your Muse sometimes takes a break.

Once that spark is lit for you, and you've begun writing, how much of it do you edit on the fly? Or do you prefer to edit after you've finished the initial draft?

I have edited on the fly in the past and I found that it messed up everything. I kept going back, rearranging things, and that stopped me from moving forward with the story. It derailed my train of thought. Apart from the odd spelling mistake, I won't edit till I'm done.

Personally, what kind of novella -- be it any style, theme, or genre (psst... Gothic Horror) -- would you like to see emerge from the Open Novella Contest?

Gothic horror! There are a lot of stories that portray the maniac killer of today or modern-day monster horror (like Stephen King or Dean Koontz, two authors who I think are brilliant!), but I also adore horror that can incorporate Gothic elements in it, which focuses a lot on the psyche. I enjoy being scared in a way that makes my mind tremble, and that's where the psychological part needs to reign. For me, if you marry Gothic (the psychological fear) with horror (the monster or monster within fear) then you have something stellar, something that leaves imprints on your brain.

Lastly, because we're always curious... What was your ever first experience with the power of the written language?

Though I have played around with words, creating little stories and comics since I knew how to spell, that Eureka! moment was when I was in my early teens and began writing poetry. As a lil' kid I sat for hours scribbling away on paper, but when poetry entered my life I saw stars and suns exploding in my brain and everything changed. Writing became a present I opened every time I created something.

I strongly believe that writing, and being creative, is part of my DNA. My uncle Gus was Assistant to the President of the IATSE, my uncle Vasilis is a famous painter, and my dad Peter was, in his youth, a writer and president of the Poetry Association in Kavala Greece in the 40s. So, I'm one of many in my family who are drawn to the arts. Even if I wanted to, I doubt I could stop creating, it'd be like asking me to stop being.

It's been great hearing from you, Christine, and thank you for sharing your valuable knowledge in storytelling.

Thank you so much for allowing me to share my thoughts with you, darklings. And a big THANK YOU to everyone who has supported me these past 4 years! I appreciate it. x

Best wishes for your future endeavors from Coffee Community.

Thanks. You, too, my friends. :)