Ancilla's Awards and Reviews

INTERVIEW: E L P I D A (rough draft)

As with the Brumous interview, this is just a copy and paste of the interview questions and my replies to them. Due to the fact that I am long-winded and full of hot air, I'm expecting  my interview to be edited. 

1. Tell us a bit about yourself as an author and as an individual.

I'm a middle-aged, genderfluid, pansexual, polyamorous, kinked, demisexual, autistic, Muslim nerd. Probably the most emphasis should be put on the word nerd.

I was reading before I knew how to walk - I actually can't remember a time that I did not know how to read. My mother says I learned how to read from watching Sesame Street when I was a toddler, but I think I had already half figured it out from looking at the books she read to me when I was settled on her lap. It didn't take me long to start writing. The very first books I wrote were love letters to God that I put under my bed every night for angels to collect. I eventually graduated to writing stories about talking animals, stories about plucky Girl Scouts who solved crimes in Nancy Drew style, and stories about summer camp. Oh, and weird science fiction and horror stories that were inspired by the writings of Ray Bradbury. I spent most of my high school years working on a 600-page handwritten fantasy novel about two teenagers who were transported to a magic land that they had to save from an evil wizard...

My stories were all dreadful - yes, including the novel. (We won't even get into the matter of my early poetry).

I got better. Eventually. A few decades of nonstop practice can help even the worst of us.

When I'm not writing, I'm selling insurance, puttering around in the kitchen, tending my gardens, making graphic art collages on Canva, or spending time with my husband and family. I'd love to say I'm actually interesting, but the last time I did anything worth talking about (say, medieval reenactment or epee fencing) was an awfully long time ago.

2. How long have you been writing? And what influenced you to start writing?

I've always wanted to write. It seemed like the natural thing to do as someone who enjoyed reading. Sometimes, after reading something wonderful, I'd find myself lost in a dream, and then I'd have this burning urge to say something. It was also a great way to entertain myself if I was bored and had run out of books to read. No books at hand? No problem, I'll just write my own!

3. Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I am an extreme plotter when it comes to everything except for my characters. My characters mostly write themselves after I've put together vague ideas of them in my mind. They grow more from the plot I throw them into than they do from me.

The plot itself, though? Structure, structure, structure. I decided to theme my Magnum Opus trilogy on different fields of esoteric study (Ancilla on the Kabbalah and on Thelemic magick, Soror Mystica on alchemy, Adept on the bardos of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and on Tarot cards that I plan on drawing before writing each chapter, to determine the events in that chapter) and on different types of love as discussed by C S Lewis in The Four Loves (Ancilla on eros, Soror Mystica on philia, and Adept on storge - not that all three won't have ample amounts of eroticism in them, but the relationship foci will be a little different in each. In Ancilla, the protagonist's relationship with her mentor/dominant/soulmate is central. In Soror Mystica, the focus is going to be on the complicated friendships and romances among a polyamorous love dodecahedron that develops within the protagonist's tabletop gaming group. In Adept, the focus is on the protagonist's close relationship with her chosen family). I research everything, then I outline like mad, determining plot by the components of whatever esoteric field I am using for structure. Oh, and I meditate and pray before writing the rough draft of each chapter, asking for guidance... There is absolutely no room for pantsing in here.