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- meet our participant: Sera Maddox Drake -

meet our next participant SeraDrake <3

1. What inspired you to participate in the Cloud Awards contest on Wattpad?

Entering contests is a great way to learn about other writers, and an easy way to get word out about my own work (I've actually acquired a few followers and readers after leaving a description of Ancilla on the entry form of whatever contest I've entered - people read the content warnings and think, "Ooh, this looks interesting." Go figure). I also liked the contest graphics. I wanted a chance at winning a pretty sticker that I could display.

2. Which book(s) are you participating with in this contest?

Ancilla (my debut novel), Wild Is the Wind (a portfolio of art and graphics from Ancilla, most of which I post on my Instagram account to promote the novel because hey, it's free to post art unless I pay to boost the post), and Excavations (a book of poetry that is also a portfolio of art, because I illustrated the poems).

3. Can you share a bit about the creative process behind your entry?

Ancilla was born from some love letters and short stories I wrote my then-girlfriend and sub in 2013, and a desire to stick it to E L James, whose misrepresentation and terrible prose I found offensive (and still find offensive). It became a much larger project once I actually started writing it.

4. Did you face any challenges while writing your story? If so, how did you overcome them?

Lack of time was a challenge, at least when I was writing the rough draft - my children were a lot younger, then, and I was taking my turn as stay-at-home parent, so I didn't have much time during the day to write, except on the weekends, when my husband could watch the children and I could therefore shut the computer room door to write.

5. What aspect of your story do you think sets it apart from others in the contest?

There are no proper names, except occasional nicknames or use-names that the characters claim for themselves. The book spans so many genres that it's practically genre soup (BDSM erotica! Magical realism! Dark academia! Mysticism! Literary and philosophical discourse! Vampire story! Tragic love story! Bisexual bildungsroman! Autistic "own voices" literature, because I'm autistic and write about autistic main characters! Litfic!) The tropes I use are not the tropes usually found in genre fiction. The characters are stereotype-wreckers. This is probably one of the oddest novels readers will ever encounter.

6. Are there any specific authors or stories on Wattpad (or outside of it) that inspire your writing?

On Wattpad: Jordyn Saelor. Their writing is AMAZING. Off Wattpad: Neil Gaiman, Donna Tartt, Jacqueline Carey, Mary Gentle, Robin McKinley, Sylvia Plath, Mary Renault, Pauline Reage, Galway Kinnell, William Butler Yeats, T S Eliot, Rainer Maria Rilke, Theodore Roethke, Percy Bysshe Shelley, W H Auden, Wallace Stevens, and Donatien Alphonse Francois, the Marquis de Sade.

7. How do you typically approach character development in your stories?

I carefully and painstakingly craft a plot on a frame of structures and devices, throw my characters into the plot, and let them develop and react however they want. Basically, my characters develop themselves. I only give them skeletons and some DNA.

8. What's your favorite feedback or comment you've received on your story so far?

Any reader that says they get sucked into my novel to the point of binge-reading and re-reading overjoys me, especially if that reader also says the last chapter of Ancilla made them cry. 

9. Do you have any rituals or routines you follow when writing?

Not really, aside from meditating and praying before writing the rough drafts of chapters. 

10. What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to enter contests like the Cloud Awards?

Keep writing. Practice makes perfect. Don't get discouraged if you don't win anything - judges are human beings, all of whom have different tastes, and personal taste is a major factor in whether or not a judge likes something. This is especially true if you write romance, or if you write poetry or make art. Also, keep reading, because your writing, whether you realize it or not, is a dialogue with the writers you love (or hate). We don't write well when we're just talking to ourselves.

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cheers,
thetranquilityteam!