Author Interview with Sparking Citrus

Last month Rosalynn, who runs Sparkling Citrus asked me if I'd like to do an author interview and a character interview. She also did a rec of Coffee and Cigarettes. I said sure, why not. Yeah, it's shameless self promotion, but whatever, you have to put yourself out there sometimes.

So, anyways, that being said, this is the interview.


1. I saw in the A/N of chapter 1 that this started as a one shot as original fiction? Why did you decide to continue it?
It did start as an original story, and with each chapter has continued to be an original story. I post two versions of it. One with my original characters and one with Paul and Leah. I decided to continue because I felt like there was more there, a story that needed to be explored and told. On the original side, there was a lot of feedback and people wanted to know what happened next, so I kept going.

2. Do you have any desired to be published?

I do want to be published, but I don’t feel like the stories I have to tell are very good, or original. I’m a big scaredy cat and will probably never even attempt it.

3. How did you find Twilight?

Back when Myspace was cool, they had lists of the top 100 hottest books at the moment. Twilight was one of them. I saw the cover and read the short description they had, and I wanted to read it. Little did I know how irrevocably it would change my life.

4. How did you get into Fanfiction?

It started with the ever popular fic by Psymom, Stranger Than Fiction. Everybody was talking about it; raving about it. I jumped aboard the band wagon and read along. After I finished reading it, I read a few more and thought, Hey, I can do that. At the time, I was going through some stuff and feeling downright depressed about my own writing. I figured, I’d write one story and see how it turned out. I never expected anyone to read it, but they did. And as they say, it was all downhill from there. Lol.

5. What made you decide to be on the pro-wolf side of the fandom?

When I started writing, it felt like the fandom was flooded with Edward and Bella or Jasper and Bella stories. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it wasn’t really something I wanted to read. I wanted to read about Jake and Bella. When I decided what to write, I wrote what I wanted to read, what I wished more people (at the time) wrote.

6.  What is your favorite canon fic?

It’s a tie between Wide Awake and Master of the Universe.

7.  What is your favorite non-canon fic?

Second Chances by AugustBlack.

8. Is Capeside a real town or molded after a real town?

Capeside is a fictional town modeled after the very real town of Seaside, Oregon. Some real places of Seaside are in Coffee and Cigarettes.

9. What made you decide to have be the town for the heartbroken?

It seems like whenever you have a broken heart, everyone around you is happy and all too ready to tell you that everything will be okay, that it will work out, that one day you’ll be happy again. No one wants to hear that when they’re suffering. They want someone to sympathize, or even empathize with what they’re going through, to tell them, “You know, that really freaking sucks. Want me to kick the bastard in the nuts for you next time I see him?” After my ex and I split, my sister didn’t tell me it would be okay, that I would be fine. She offered to drag his stuff into the street, set it on fire, then mail it to him with a note that said, “Happy anniversary, shit head.” That made me feel so much better than hearing that I would be fine. In a way, a town for the heartbroken was what Leah needed because it brought her to Paul.

10. How would you deal with a broken heart?

Get really, really drunk, watch sappy chick flicks and cry until I was numb. It sounds pathetic, but it’s what I did, last time I had my heart broken. Then I tossed out everything that reminded me of him and left town. Then one day I found that it didn’t hurt so bad, and eventually it didn’t hurt at all.

11 Do you have plans for more fics?

I always have plans for more fics. Whether they work out or not is a different story. But I do have a few ideas rolling around in my noggin.

12 Of all your fics, which is your favorite?

Full Circle. Writing that fic took soo much out of me, emotionally, but it was worth it. Taking the characters from teenagers in Disenchanted and throwing them into the situations they went through was challenging, but so worth it.

13. If you could give one piece of advice to new authors, what would it be?

Write what you know and be yourself. Don’t give in to what other people want. There are going to be people out there who don’t like what you are doing and they’re going to tell you. Take it with a grain of salt and keep on trucking. For every one person who wants to break you down, there will be ten more willing to build you back up. Don’t forget that this is your story. You imagined it, you own it. Don’t be afraid of that.