@ShortClover
1) I'm a 28 year old guy studying history. It's been my passion since childhood, but so has writing. Within my work, I'm inspired by historical events and grounded realism.
2) My favourite author has to be Ken Follett. His 'The Pillars of the Earth' is a true masterpiece in my opinion. But authors like Tolkien and Lewis also inspire my own work.
3) Since grade school, but earnestly since middle school, when in 2019 I won my first Watty Award.
4) I write because I want to deliver another message to the modern literary landscape, where things like duty, beauty, restraint, vows, spirituality, goodness and sacrifice matter. My inspiration is real history, my faith and lived experiences.
5) My preferred genre is historical, I think, or historically inspired literature.
6) My first serious story was 'Wayrest', which won the 2019 Watty.
7) My writing process is that I have a general red thread of where the plot is supposed to go, but many characters and events organically grow from the story. Ariana Delmaris for example from 'LUMEN' was first intended as a sidekick, and then grew into her own element.
8) My current writing project is 'LUMEN: Rebirth', the firsf of two intended books. I can tease little but this: attentive readers will be tremendously rewarded in later payoffs ;)
9) I unpublished some because frankly, I wrote those when I was younger and now they embarass me a bit
10) Hm. I think not caving to popular culture and writing the story YOU want to write, with your own voice. Stay true to your beliefs and your own story
11) Hopefully as an author seeing physical copies of his books on store shelves. A man can dream, no?
12) Like I said before, write the story YOU want to write and don't edit anything just to harvest more clicks. Be authentic, even if it causes people to flame you. And most of all: never give up. Continue writing, and finish that story!
