Interviews

Sep 2020 - Interview with Liz P Tvorik

Hello everyone! ESHurricane here, and today I have the utmost pleasure in speaking with lptvorik, September's author of the month! She's an established author on Wattpad, with her own novels and also short stories in anthologies such as The 12 Days of Hawtness. She's published on Amazon with her book Treading Water, and she's also a freelance editor! 

Take a gander over at our Book of the Month to read all about her book The Melody of Silence, then join us here for a cup of coffee and chatting about writing!

Emily: Hi Liz! Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing journey.

Liz: My name is Liz. I am a dog spinster, which is like a cat lady but with less stigma. Like most folks, I've been writing since I was very wee. But if I had to identify when my real writing journey began, I'd have to say it was the short story I wrote when I was twelve about a man named John Deere (an accidental trademark infringement, but a trademark infringement nonetheless) and a woman named Linda Brown. John built a rocketship and he chose Linda as his copilot and the rocket "takes off" and there are a lot of "vibrations" which give both parties a "strange feeling" in their bellies and the innuendo, like the trademark infringement, was utterly unintended but nonetheless the start of a beautiful journey.

Emily: That is the best. The absolute best.

So since your foray into rocket ship innuendo, how has your writing process evolved over the years, and what would you say your process looks like now from the inception of an idea to completion of a draft that's ready for posting?

Liz: To be honest I don't think it's really evolved at all. If anything it's regressed. For a while I was trying really hard to plot and plan and do character sheets and all that jazz and it was just making me sad because I never managed to follow through. So I scrapped it all and now I just write what I feel like writing. I don't really draft. I just kinda sit and daydream for a little bit and then sit down at my computer and write what you see. It's a backwards, immature process but that's what I do. I think if I wrote plot heavy stuff it'd never work, but luckily for me all my crap is character driven and my plots are thin as tissue paper so it hasn't backfired too bad on me yet.

Emily: I don't think there's anything immature or wrong with just letting go and writing without careful planning. I read a book not too long ago called Writing Into the Dark and the author brought up a lot of great points about how it's so much more raw and passionate to experience the surprises of a story as they come.

I used to be a total pantser and it's so exhilarating to just get into that flow and see what comes out. Sometimes terrifying!

Liz: And frustrating. Like biiiitch why did you have to go and do that?!

Emily: I can think of at least ten points probably more in what I've read of your work that you probably had that reaction!

Liz: *laughing*

Emily: I love character driven stories because it's such an emotional ride, feeling so close to their lives. And especially with Melody it's like I'm living it with the characters. What inspired you to start exploring Alex and Nate's story?

Liz: Sorta a bunch of different things. I was a sad bitch baby about a lot of the stuff that was happening in my life, and my sad sorta deteriorated into an existential crisis. All I'll say is the entire series is just a way of getting to the epilogue.

Emily: Well now I'm super excited to read the epilogue!

I find writing super cathartic for a lot of things, whether I realize it at the time or after, it feels like every story is kind of a release or at least I can generally tie something back to something specific I was feeling at the time. It's such a personal experience putting things on the page, and especially with such an emotionally-driven story.