Embark on an enthralling odyssey as you immerse yourself in the imaginative realm meticulously crafted by High_Priestess_Elena, the ingenious visionary behind the mesmerizing saga, Five Cursed Witches. Prepare to be spellbound as you venture behind the curtain, exploring the enchanting fantasies, heart-stirring romances, and otherworldly tales.
What inspired you to become a writer? When did you first start writing?
I've always written, or at least always told stories. It's been such a big part of me since always that I don't think I can stop. When I was a kid, I used to have major issues with falling asleep. To help me, I would either listen to audiobooks or I would tell myself stories in my head. By now I don't have those same issues with falling asleep, but I still often end up thinking about stories to write as I lie down in bed.
Then I also am a bit stubborn and the type of person who if told I can't do something ends up wanting to prove that wrong. That fact and that I have dyslexia have likely played a major role also. I didn't get the diagnosis until I was in my early twenties, even though I suspected it since I was about ten years old and learned about dyslexia for the first time. Growing up I heard my fair share of "you can't learn how to read/write because you're stupid". And, being the way I am, that only pushed me to want to prove that I'm not stupid and that I can read and write better than anyone else. It in turn has resulted in where I am now and that people tend to not believe me when I tell them I have dyslexia. Although, there are words that I can't spell even if my life depended on it and I've written "hear" when it should be "here" (or the other way around) an embarrassing number of times. But my stubbornness and my passion for telling stories have made it so that I haven't and never will stop writing.
How do you balance your personal life and responsibilities with your writing? What strategies do you use to find time to write?
At the moment I'm lucky in this due to an annoying situation. It takes me 1,5-2 hours to get to work. Of that time I spend almost 1 hour on a train, so about 2 hours in total per day. Though I hate the commute and am looking for a job closer to where I live, that time on the train is perfect for writing. There isn't much else to do, so minimal distractions, and it's also the perfect way to start the day on a good note, or relax and fill my head with other things than work on my way home. I don't always spend that time writing though, but most days I do. Other than that, I just make sure to find moments during my day when I can write. I never do put any pressure on myself to write though and I think that helps also.
The book I currently have published on Wattpad, I finished the whole of it before I started to publish. There are a lot of reasons for that, but what that means is that I don't have the pressure of needing to finish a chapter so I can upload it on time. That means that every time I sit down to write, I do it because I think it's fun which also means that it's something that I always look forward to and do my best to find time for. I know that if I would have the added pressure of needing to finish a chapter so I can upload it, then a lot of the fun would disappear and I would have a harder time finding those moments when I can write.
Can you discuss the role that feedback and reviews play in your writing process? How do you handle negative feedback or criticism?
Feedback definitely has played a major role in my development as a writer, as it should. We can't get better without feedback. I have been in writing circles (basically what book clubs on Wattpad are) in real life for many years. The feedback I have received there has helped me with identifying my weaker points in writing (*cough* environment descriptions *cough*) and helped me find ways to improve. When it comes to feedback I've gotten on Wattpad specifically, there's been some that's made me edit to clarify things in the story. But feedback on grammar is what has played the biggest role so far. This is my first time writing a book in English and reviews especially have been very helpful in making me realize certain grammatical things that I've never considered beforehand (like passive verbs).
When it comes to negative feedback, and by that, I mainly think of non-constructive feedback, I do first of all try to find something in it that can be constructive. If I can't do that, then I try to be happy that at least something in my writing motivated them to read and comment on it. What I think also is important about feedback that might end up upsetting you is to never answer, if at all, when emotional. Always sleep on it and look at it later with a fresh pair of eyes.
What do you do when you encounter writer's block or feel stuck in your story? How do you get unstuck and keep writing?
It depends a bit on why I get stuck. I would say that the most common thing is that I don't know how to continue. I would identify myself as a pantser, though I do still outline a little. However, that outlining is limited to maybe 5 major plot points and a clear idea of the MC's backstory. So there are times when I get stuck because I don't know how to continue. In those cases, I brainstorm with a friend. I don't actually usually expect her to answer me or give input when I brainstorm, but doing it "with" her still helps to get all the thoughts floating in my brain organized. If it's a block due to more of a burnout, then I know I need to just push through. I have tried letting it rest and wait it out, but that's never worked that great for me. So I basically force myself to write until I'm out of the block, and yeah, those chapters that are forced never turn out that great. But that's what editing is for!
Can you tell us about a character from one of your stories that is particularly meaningful to you? - What inspired this character, and how did you develop their personality and backstory?
Oh gosh, I find this question extremely hard to answer, not because I don't know the answer, but because the answer is certain characters from books I've written that will never be published, well, anywhere, but I'd rather pick a character from something that is or will be published on Wattpad. The reason why those characters are meaningful to me, though, is because they are my favorite characters from the first book series I ever wrote. It was a series I wrote on from when I was 14 until I was maybe 20 and it meant, well still means, a lot to me. But now that I have more experience writing and have gotten better at it, there's too much editing needed to be done for me to ever want to show it to the world.
If I am to pick someone from what is or will be published on Wattpad, it'll have to be my second female lead in volume number 4 of "The Five Cursed Witches". A lot of this is because she is a character whose story I felt passionate about writing before I even came up with the idea for this series. She is my retelling of a Greek myth and it's one of those myths that has me angry because a woman is punished for a man's wrong-doings while the man walks away without any consequences. What has me even more upset is that she is almost always depicted as a villain when she appears in modern stories with little, if any, regard for her backstory. So my desire to write her is to give her the story she deserves and show her as more than the monster that she is almost exclusively described as.
Can you tell us about a particularly challenging scene or chapter in one of your stories, and how you tackled it?
The ending of "Zoe, the Witch of Innocence"... Honestly, when I wrote it the first time, I really had no idea how to go about it and it was so, so bad. It became boring and anti-climactic and just blah. To fix it, my first step was to write the bad end-fight and just finish the story. I do live so much by the idea that you can always edit a bad page, but you can't edit a blank page (Jodi Picoult) in my writing. So once I had finished the story I started tackling other things that had popped up while writing that I knew that I needed to edit. For instance, there were two of the characters that were basically the same character in the first version, so I knew I needed to either remove one of them or change one of them. As I made my decision on that, my idea for how the end-fight would happen completely changed also, so really in the end it wasn't so much editing as that I completely removed what I had written and wrote a whole new scene. But if I hadn't forced myself to write that bad scene first, then I would have been stuck much longer without finishing the book.
Can you tell us about a writing project that you're currently working on? How did you come up with the idea, and what can readers expect from it?
So what I'm writing for Wattpad is my series "The Five Cursed Witches". I got the idea after I had spent maybe 2-3 months reading way too many werewolf books. I did find the concept of mates intriguing and enjoyed the subtle differences all authors had in their take on it, so I wanted to try and make my own thing. Now witches and magic are, however, much more my thing than werewolves - I grew up with "Charmed" as my favorite TV show - so it was obvious to me that the story would revolve around witches instead of werewolves (not saying there won't be any werewolves at all in the series though ;) ). I also do myself like the concept of several "chosen ones" that come together to defeat the big bad evil. But the book I mentioned before, which will never be published anywhere, is sort of one of those also and the main issue with that one is that it's too many characters and it jumps between them too much. Thus, to avoid that, I decided on the idea of giving all of the "chosen ones" their own book, so the reader can get to know them one at a time, before bringing them together.
I do love myths and magic and all things fantasy a lot, so obviously there is plenty of that and plenty of different magical creatures in the series. The more common ones such as witches (duh), vampires, werewolves, faeries, and dragons. But also ones that you might not come across as often such as chimeras, necromancers, centaurs, and flagaes (ten bucks to whoever knows what a flagae is without googling!). There will also be a lot of difficult-to-handle emotions and heartbreaking scenes. I am not one to go easy on my characters and love to write about characters that struggle with inner demons.
What do you think are the benefits and challenges of writing on Wattpad? How has the platform influenced your writing and career?
Well, if it wasn't for the fact that sites like Wattpad exist, I wouldn't even be publishing my series. It is such an easy and nice way for anyone to just get their story out there. Apart from that, what I really love about it is the comment function. It's such a nice way to get more direct feedback from the readers and also provides the ability to interact with them. However, I do have a hard time answering comments at times because of fear that I'll end up saying something that will spoil things.
The main challenge though is to have your book be read. There are so many books on Wattpad, which is good, but it also makes it hard for a new writer to get people to read your book. It is a wonderful community though with a lot of people that do different things to help new writers. Project_Athena is among those ;) But it still means that you have to spend quite some time marketing your book in various ways, and I was not really ready for that when I joined. But that has also been a fun learning experience and has gotten me to read things I otherwise wouldn't have.
What are your goals for your writing career, both in the short term and long term?
I have always dreamed of being traditionally published and I do have other stories that I am working on that aren't for Wattpad but that I hope I can get traditionally published one day. But for Wattpad, my main goal is just to finish my series and have fun along the way. For me, this is more of a hobby and I don't want to set myself any specific goals other than finish it. I started writing this series as entertainment for myself without any plans of ever showing it to anyone, and I don't want to taint it with expectations. If more comes of it, then that's great. If it doesn't, then that's also great because I had fun while writing it.
Can you share any writing tips or tricks that you've found particularly helpful in your own work? -- What advice would you give to other writers who are just starting out?
I would say that I have two that I live by and both I've touched upon earlier. The first one is that you can edit a bad page, but you can't edit an empty page. No one writes a perfect first version and trying to do that will only risk stopping you from writing at all. The second one is to write for yourself. Don't think about your audience or what a potential publisher or agent will think when you're typing out your story. You can do that later. Instead, write because you think it's fun, and write what you think is fun. There is so much pressure and expectations in society so let your writing be something where you can escape all of that.
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