A whimsical New Adult fantasy adventure set in a queernormative, mysterious world begging to be explored ➱ Book Tour with Guest Post and giveaway
A war. An escape. No time to lose.
The Chase Begins
Catastrophe Incoming Volume 1
by Aimee Donnellan
Genre: New Adult Epic Fantasy
"She's escaped. Gods help us all."
The Theocracy of Izirm is losing a war against dragons. While the Bishops scramble for a solution, the holy city of Kequm faces a more immediate crisis: the murderous mage, Nightingale, has escaped prison and only one person can stop her.
Lark is a devoted follower of the Scholar god who searches for adventure around every corner. Ever since apprehending Nightingale three years ago, they've done whatever they can to forget the hole she ripped through their heart, and can think of nothing worse than facing her again. But when Nightingale's meddling leaves Kequm vulnerable, Lark has no choice but to act.
A whimsical New Adult fantasy adventure set in a queernormative, mysterious world begging to be explored.
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The Collection Awakens
Catastrophe Incoming Volume 2
"Well, you have armour. It's the lyre and the goose that have me a bit confused."
The Dragon War has left its mark on everyone, and Reverie Rosetia is no exception. After her brother is struck down in a skirmish, it is on her to take up the family legacy of greatness – no matter what her plans might have been before that. She must find his sword and bring it home.
With no better place to start her search, Reverie arrives at the Collection, an isolated place full of magical oddities and artifacts. Soon after her arrival, the eclectic visitors to the Collection and its owner find themselves trapped inside. A magical force has broken free and is determined to break them, one by one. Can Reverie solve the mystery of how their attacker manifested and put it right before it is too late?
Reverie meets adventurers Lark and Wren as the trio are trapped in this claustrophobic and irreverent fantasy mystery, which may have more to do with Lark and Wren’s chase than they think…
** New Release! **
Excerpt from The Chase Begins
(chapter 1 opening):
The first shimmer of magic through the
sky interrupts a mouthful of fried bread and a convoluted story about a drunk
wyvern.
“Did you see that?” Lark asks, to check
that the flash of blue hadn’t been their dragon eye playing tricks on them.
“See what?”
Gravy stains Wren’s chin from how quickly
she has devoured her own bread, and her face is still caught in laughter. It
should be a crime to look away from something so wonderful and yet —
Lark glances up. The sky is clear now,
and they mourn the days when they could trust their first impression of the
world around them. The market they are standing in is full of people who
haven’t paused and are continuing to shop and chat.
“Come on, what happened after it got
kicked out of the vineyard?” Wren asks.
“Oh, I offered it a lift, wherever it
wanted,” Lark says, snapping back to attention with a grin. “It didn’t exactly
have faith in my mode of transport, but it told me about its home nest in
specific detail. And off we went.”
“And that’s
how you ended up in a snowbank.”
“And that’s
how I ended up in a snowbank.”
Wren shakes her head as another laugh
rocks her body. “I don’t know why I believe you. Ever.”
“Because you know it’s true!”
“But it shouldn’t be! So why do I believe
you?”
Lark blinks at her. “Well, I’m told I
have a very honest face. When people aren’t put off by the dragon eye, that
is.”
“One day, you’re going to tell me how you
got that.”
Lark grins, if only to hide the sting of
the memory in question. They push down the voice that had coaxed them into it, any
and all memory of that voice and the person it belongs to.
“Oh, Wren. You wouldn’t believe me if I
told you,” they say. That part is truthful enough.
A flash above them — magic like crushed
sapphire in an arc, revealing the dome shape of the city wards. Horns start
blaring and a hush falls over the marketplace, followed by a wave of
uncertainty and hesitation. A moment later, people begin to disperse at top
speed. Fearful whispers of dragons linger in the empty spaces.
“Alright. That one, I saw,“ Wren says, gaping. “Are they right? A dragon,
incoming?”
A dragon would make the most sense in the
current war climate. Lark’s hometown, being in fact the holiest city of the
Theocracy and the most westward city, is a crucial and dangerous location. And
in their entire time in the city, they have only heard the horns once, when the
first dragon attack had seen a massive creature of ocean blue scales decimate a
quarter of the city.
“It can’t be a dragon,” Lark says,
licking their lips, their hands beginning to gesture excitedly, “by all logic,
the only danger should be a dragon,
but… they’ve just changed the wards to inward.”
“So it’s not just not a dragon,“ Wren says, voice slow, “it’s something serious
enough… they’re leaving us exposed to dragons.
What could that even be?”
“I have no idea!” A laugh escapes Lark’s
throat, inappropriate and delighted. “I love not knowing.”
Wren snorts. “You hate not knowing.”
“I love the not knowing that comes before the knowing, Wren, or else there
would be no cause to be excited about knowing anything in the first place.
Although there is something to be said for the acquisition of knowledge you
never knew you were lacking—”
“Lark,” Wren says with fond amusement,
“possible crisis. Do you have a plan?”
Lark runs a hand through their chin
length dark hair, eyes darting around the city and mentally mapping routes and
destinations before returning to Wren’s face. “Well, we could head to the ward
hub and see what additional information was passed on with the order to invert
the wards. The temple of War is bound to know something, and my own temple is
of course in the know by nature—”
Wren’s eyes have drifted beyond Lark’s
shoulder. “Or we could ask that city official who seems to be headed straight
for us.”
Lark whirls around. A well dressed person
bearing the city office crest is striding towards them with purpose, flanked by
a pair of guards. They are talking animatedly to the guards as they walk and
getting little in return. A long braid of white blonde hair comes past their
partly elven ears and hangs over their shoulder, while their red and cream
robes mark them as a follower of the Everflame, God of Summer and Fire.
“Seeker Lark!” they call out. “Wonderful
to meet you in person.” They offer a hand in greeting, and when Lark takes it
they shake vigorously. “The name’s Cillian. Emergency admin.”
“Good to meet you,” Lark says, returning
their hands to their trouser pockets. “What can I do for you? There must be
something going on if you’ve inverted the wards.”
Cillian grins as an odd, possibly nervous
laugh escapes them. “One could say. I’ve been asked to escort you to the Tower
of Justice. Your assistance is required.”
Excerpt from The Chase Begins
(opening of chapter 3, introduction of antagonist)
Lark has spent many rogue moments, many midnight hours, and countless forbidden allotments of time imagining what it might be like to see Nightingale again. What it might feel like to hear their name roll off her tongue, soft and tender and like a kiss in the dark.
The reality is visceral; a chill rolls
down their spine, trembles their entire body every inch of the way, and it is
apprehension and desire and a battle for restraint all at once. Their stomach
is meanwhile choosing violence.
They try to speak her name but cannot —
she hasn’t turned around. The magic instilled in Lark’s being demands a strict
protocol and will not release their voice until it is followed. A little choked
noise comes out instead.
“Oh, darling, I’m sorry. I forgot.”
Nightingale turns. Violet eyes, rimmed in
large round glasses, meet Lark’s and light for a moment like the pulse of an
amethyst. Then her gaze flicks to Wren and narrows, the light dying as her lips
purse.
Her right hand begins scribbling in the
notebook she has strapped to her right thigh, face up. How many has she gone through?
Naturally, now that Lark can speak to her, their mind conjures no
words whatsoever.
“How have you been?” they ask, without
meaning to.
Nightingale laughs. “Oh. You know.
Incarcerated. Thank you ever so much, darling.” The sass slides from her face
and voice as she adds, “Thank you for the notebooks. Truly.”
“Of course. I wasn’t sure how much you
would need them, but I know you can’t—”
“Guards talk. I filled four.” Her eyes
flick to Wren and she smiles, prettily, like a venomous snake. “Introduce us?”
“Oh!” Lark claps their hands together.
“Yes yes yes, Nightingale, this is Wren.” They glance at Wren and gesture
wildly. “Wren, Nightingale.”
Wren has perfected a new art of
expressing bafflement with impeccable rigidness of body. As Nightingale waves
with a waggle of fingers and a disturbing giggle, Wren gives a polite nod in
return.
“So, it’s official, then, that you like
redheads?” Nightingale asks with a smirk.
As Wren’s pale cheeks glow pink, Lark
sighs. There is genuine, threatening curiosity veiled in the question, paired
with burning in Nightingale’s eyes of who
is she to you? Is she what I was?
As if anyone, ever, could be anything
close.
“Wren is a friend,” they say.
“How nice,” Nightingale says, and Lark
hears it as how nice that she can
continue breathing. “So, tea? Dinner? A night on the town?”
Down to unfortunate business then.
Opening excerpt from The Collection Awakens:
Reverie’s morning begins with an argument with a goose. Breakfast entertainment – or rather, annoyance – is not something she had ever thought to need, and now that she’s had it for six months, she would happily return it.
Unfortunately, fate has other ideas. She
and the goose are stuck with each other.
All
I’m saying is, once you kill someone the first time, it gets easier, the goose is saying now as she packs the saddlebags and prepares for
the day’s ride. So you might as well get
it over with.
Their telepathic link has its uses. But
mostly it means he can spew bile for her mind only until she commands him to
shut up.
“Is this from personal experience?”
Reverie asks, out loud so as to not let Melora, her mare, feel left out. “I
doubt you ever found it difficult to begin with.”
Ferdinand did not begin his lengthy
existence as a goose. His previous form had been capable of much greater
violence, she has been assured.
Of
course I never did, Ferdinand says indignantly. This is all of your ancestor’s nonsense. But
if you don’t want their advice, then sure.
“Oh, well if my great-great-great-uncle
Stefaric thinks so, then that changes everything! Why didn’t you say so?”
Reverie exclaims, as if it’s a revelation.
Ferdinand lands on the saddlebag while
Reverie mounts. Smugness radiates from him as he settles himself as if atop the
finest cushion.
A moment later: an almighty, indignant
honk.
You’re
making fun of me! He screeches in her head. Bitch!
Reverie pushes him off the horse and
relishes the sound of his squawk as he hurtles to the ground and barely catches
himself in time. Melora snickers. Reverie is not the only one already tired of
this company they did not ask for.
The glorious victory is brief. As Reverie
turns her eyes ahead, she swallows at the sight of the mountain range that
looms before them. Leaving home had been the dream, for several years, and now
that it has become reality… she feels so small. So insignificant.
It
wasn’t supposed to happen this way, she thinks,
wistfully.
The mountains cover this part of the
border between her home country of Qelandia and Izirm, the Theocracy to the
east. Going to the Theocracy had once been an exciting prospect, a country
governed by the worshippers of the Higher Pantheon, so familiar yet different
to her own Republic and its ruling council.
But then the dragons had attacked. Fear
and flame in the air, blood and ash on the ground.
Things can change in a moment. The
immovable force of change laughs at the idea of destiny. What a joke.
Reverie glances at the goose, who has
resettled himself with a ruffle of feathers and a glare. She squares her jaw
and takes a deep breath to calm the seething and poisonous resentment in her
chest.
Onward.
Grena’s Collection has long lived in her
grandmother’s stories as a wondrous, peculiar place to visit. An essential stop for any Rosetia, she
had said. It had always been an eventual destination in the back of her mind.
Even nearly a decade on from the last story, every crucial detail remains.
Which is fortunate, given that now, it is
the only thing between her and weeks of travel and danger scouring
battlegrounds for the family greatsword. No one knows which skirmish took her
brother — reliable communication across distance is so difficult without magic,
and no one close to her family possesses such an ability.
But all weapons in the Rosetia armoury
possess basic enchantments for durability and effectiveness. And anything
magical and intriguing may find its way to the Collection.
If she’s lucky —
Reverie snorts before finishing the
thought. Luck has never been kind to her, but it would be ridiculous not to
stop by. The Collection is on the way.
The path up the mountain has the audacity
to be simultaneously treacherous and tedious. To preserve her sanity and focus,
Reverie composes a song about the stormy sky, about lovers meeting under it,
braving the wind and rain for each other. By the time it has cohesive lyrics
and a halfway decent tune, Reverie is grinning to herself even as her hair is
plastered to her head, horns, and neck. The wind is determined to hammer its
chill right into her bones, though, and poor Melora is drenched. They had
better find their destination soon, or they'll catch their deaths out here for
sure.
To her relief, something ahead rings a
bell in her memory.
“Follow the path up until you find a rock
face that looks like a pair of tits,” Reverie recites, in Ama’s words exactly.
Staring at the pair of round rocks with central indents, she has to laugh. “You
asshole, it couldn’t be a lie, could it? It had to be true. Of course it’s
true.”
Excerpt from The Collection Awakens
(opening of chapter 4):
Reverie has heard the applause of a thunderous, ecstatic audience. She has heard the swell of an orchestra and the chaos of a string section aiming for discord. She can never quite forget the awful, wretched noise that had echoed through the forest, despair given sound, and the nausea of realising it had been herself.
The quiet murmur around her is more
powerful than them all. The shifting of shoes on the floor. The almost uttered
sentences never leaving the tongues that begin to form them. It is nearly
silence, but the gap where it falls short is deafening in its implications.
There is something about fear. An emotion she had thought she had
understood, until now. In reality, she had never thought to lose that which she
held dear until it had already been ripped away. Imagination is so much of the
danger.
And yet, emotion feels too small a word
for the energy in the room as Lark announces that they are all trapped with
this mysterious, malicious magic.
Fear is a force. An entity. And it can
possess people.
“Trapped?” Ernest cries. “No way. You’re
a fancy Seeker, get us out of here!”
“I’ll try, absolutely, I promise,” Lark
assures him, and double checks his name, as well as Bela’s. “I’ll do everything
I can.”
“What if everything you can do isn’t
enough?” Bela asks.
“This is my Collection, this thing has
some damn nerve,” Grena is grumbling.
Their voices overlap and weave until it
is awful, chaotic noise and gestures and little else. A horrible honking
laughter joins the din.
It
would be so great if you died here, Ferdinand cackles,
that would be hilarious.
“We’re not going to die here,” Reverie
mutters. ”Shut up. Seriously.”
Ernest gapes. “Who said anything about dying?”
“No one, just the goose, ignore him—”
More pleased honking. More arguing. Lark
grabs the Wayfinder back out of their bag and waves it above their head.
“Now, we’d have to wait for the charge to
come back, and that won’t be until dawn, but that’s at least one way out if
nothing else—”
There is a crackling sound and Lark cries
out. They shake their hand with astonishment and suck on the hurt skin of their
palm.
“Hey!” they say, muffled by their own
hand, blinking at the Wayfinder, “what are you—”
Another attempt to touch it results in
another zap.
Colour floods Lark’s cheeks.
“This…doesn’t usually happen, I swear,” they say to Grena. “You saw it before,
it was fine!” They smack their palm against the metal, as if to shake it out of
its nonsense. “Stop embarrassing me! Some mystical, prestigious award you are!”
“So we are stuck,“ Bela says, wiping at the blood under her nose. “And you
have no idea what attacked me.”
“I wouldn’t say no idea,“ Lark says. “It was an illusion that seemed to target
something deeply personal and painful within your psyche and then used that
link to harm your mind directly. If it weren’t so awful, I’d call it genius.
Who makes magic like that?”
Stuff about you:
Can you, for those who
don’t know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an
author?
I, like many others, wanted to be an author from a young age,
and got into writing when I was about twelve, with fanfic. My first fanfics
were Twilight, but then branched into Doctor Who and a few other fandoms. I
went on a bit of a hiatus when I discovered Dungeons and Dragons and got into
story creation through that medium, and eventually realised I had created
stories I wanted to write down. I started learning about the publishing world,
and ended up deciding the freedom of indie publishing was going to suit me and
my fantasy world the best.
What is something
unique/quirky about you?
I am an avid video gamer, and love to try my hand at
challenging games like Bloodborne with the help of my partner, who is like a
living walkthrough and thus can provided the closest thing such games have to
an easy mode.
Where were you
born/grew up at?
I was born in Tauranga, New Zealand. It’s a lovely place that
has a good mix of rural, town, and beach. It’s changed a lot since I left,
though, and going back isn’t quite the same.
What are you
passionate about these days?
I’m passionate about education, as I’m an early childhood
teacher for my day job. I’m constantly working to do my part in the
revitalisation of the Māori language here in New Zealand, as we work towards
some really significant goals for the language through the population by 2040.
I also continue to hope for the freedom of Palestine, and for the rights and
happiness of my trans friends in the LGBTQ+ community all around the world.
On a lighter note, you can never quite find me shutting up
about Dungeon and Dragons, either.
What do you do to unwind
and relax?
I love to either curl up with my kindle to read or to jump
onto a button-smashing roguelike game with my partner.
Describe yourself in 5
words or less!
Energetic, kind, chaotic, eccentric, sparkly.
When did you first
consider yourself a writer?
I think from the moment I was publishing my fanfic and
getting reader comments, I felt like a writer, but it’s certainly another level
now having books out.
Do you have a favorite
movie?
Knives Out is the one that really inspired me to try my hand
at mysteries, both with The Collection
Awakens and with my free novelette The
Curious Matter of Myron Manor. For the latter I was obsessed with the idea
of how to capture a screenplay style interrogation scene with multiple
suspects, but in book form. I’m really happy with how it turned out.
I’m also a huge lover of Stardust, Ever After, the Princess
Bride, and Rosaline. Something about that old-fashioned and/or fantasy romance
just always hits beautifully.
Which of your novels
can you imagine made into a movie?
I think I’d love to see Catastrophe Incoming as a limited
series. It would be such fun.
Stuff about the
Book:
What inspired you to
write this book?
I wanted to start off in the indie author market with a
series made up of shorter stories, and once I realised that was the approach I
wanted, the idea for this series started to form – and then we already had the
perfect historical event in the history of our world for the end of the series
to culminate on, so things fell into place quickly.
(When I say we, I mean myself and my partner Ty, who helps me
with the worldbuilding and story creation.)
What can we expect
from you in the future?
I’m a romance writer at heart, but someone who cannot resist
mixing adventure, romance, drama and comedy all into one. I have plans for a
whole lot of fantasy romances set in Aboria, and I am hoping that I might be
able to put out the first in about a year’s time – a sapphic vampire/werewolf
story with a lot of angst and pining that I am having a blast drafting at the
moment.
Do you have any “side
stories” about the characters?
I do! Most of them are made available as preorder goodies, or
in the case of The Collection Awakens,
release week goodies. If people are interested, for this week you can fill out
the form on my twitter with proof of purchase and get the prequel written from
the POV of the evil goose Ferdinand. I had a blast writing that one.
Can you tell us a
little bit about the characters in Catastrophe Incoming?
What a group of disasters they are, in the best way. Lark is
a genius who is always making the wrong decision, Wren is made of common sense
but is a fish out of water in the Theocracy and
in any setting full of magic. Reverie is… drama and spite incarnate, but
trying to be better.
And then there’s the goose. Who would love to see them all
choke and die.
So, you know. Fun group.
How did you come up
with the concept and characters for the book?
Some characters, especially Lark and Nightingale, came from
my love of some characters in Doctor Who but have certainly evolved into their
own characters as I wrote. Wren and Reverie are totally original, though
Reverie did originally belong in a different story altogether, set about 150
years later. I think I’ll write that book at some point, and release it as an
‘alternative history’, because it goes into the politics and mess of the city
state Skarn where the adventuring guild is based, and that’s just too much fun.
What did you enjoy
most about writing this book?
The Chase Begins
always comes back to the Lark/Nightingale relationship, I think, and everything
around that was the most fun no matter how much I enjoyed Palla getting
frustrated all the time. The Collection
Awakens always has to be the back and forth between Reverie and Ferdinand,
the mutual hatred that fuels them so well.
Who designed your book
covers?
I worked with the amazing Katelyn McNeely to discuss poses
for the characters on the cover, after giving her an idea of the character
design, and she brings the characters to life. Then, I handed the art and
information to Marten Norr, who chose the typography. I am so stoked with how
they have turned out by the end of the process.
What is your favorite
part of this book and why?
For The Chase Begins,
it might be where Lark and Wren are preparing to rest for the night and Lark
ends up explaining some of the unknown magic lore that they’ve uncovered, that
the average person has no idea about.
For The Collection
Awakens, I think it’s a tie between Reverie’s turn with the illusions, and
the entire scene where the culprit is revealed.
If you could spend
time with a character from your book whom would it be? And what would you do
during that day?
I think I’d love to go to some theatre workshop with Reverie
and sing all day. It would be wonderful.
Do your characters
seem to hijack the story or do you feel like you have the reigns of the
story?
I think the best thing is when there is a balance between the
two. My characters absolutely have the power to hijack the story and take it to
new places, but I also know them inside out, and can often predict where
they’ll move, so I tend to outline more or less in the correct places. I’m
always delighted to be taken for a ride, though. My characters are always hot
messes trying to act like they’ve got it together, in different ways.
Have you written any
other books that are not published?
I have a fantasy romantic-comedy adventure that was the first
original book I finished when getting back into writing, and its working title
is A Whisper of Mischief. It is set
in Cypethus, the city mentioned in The
Collection Awakens and goes into the guild dynamics of the Blades and the
Whispers, the assassins and thieves of that capital city. It’s got Hannah
Montana-style double identity shenanigans and the most chaotic bisexual romance
plot you could imagine, and one day when I get it tidied up the way I want I
will unleash it unto the world.
Stuff about
Writing/ Reading:
What are your top 10
favorite books/authors?
In no particular order, these are some ones that have really
stood out as I have gotten back into reading in the last couple of years.
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
A Song of Silver and Gold by Melissa Karibian
Dragon Queens by Kathleen de Plume
Don’t Hate The Player by Alexis Nedd
Babel by RF Kuang
Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
Sacrilege by TN Vitus
A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall
The Gideon Testaments by Freydís Moon
A Ruinous Fate by Kaylie Smith
What book do you think
everyone should read?
With everything going on in the world, right now? Babel, by
RF Kuang.
How long have you been
writing?
About 11 years now!
Do you see writing as
a career?
I’d certainly like it to be, one day, if I can find the
audience that I know is out there and hold their attention. I know my books are
fun and full of heart, and I know that is exactly what some of us need right
now and will continue to need.
What do you think
about the current publishing market?
I think that people should be seeking out authentic stories
from authors of colour, maybe three or four for every white author you find
yourself reading. The market is still oversaturated with white authors, and
while there’s nothing wrong with us publishing our stories, we need to be sure
to use our platform to try and boost others whose voices need to be heard all
the more.
Do you read yourself
and if so what is your favorite genre?
I love to read fantasy, either adventure or romance or both,
but also love a good contemporary rom-com. I have dipped my toe into queer
horror a bit, but mainly because Freydís Moon is such a genius. I need to
continue to branch out.
Do you prefer to write
in silence or with noise? Why?
I can only really focus when I have headphones to zone myself
in, but I can write to a playlist of pop music as easily as instrumentals.
Do you write one book
at a time or do you have several going at a time?
I’m always working on the next novella as well as a romance
novel, or at least that’s the plan! Just gotta keep working on that writing
routine. Because it’s all in the same world, even if the stories might be 150
years and many miles apart, it’s easy for me to keep everything straight.
Pen or type writer or
computer?
I’m a laptop and phone writer! I’m always at my best and
fastest with a laptop, but until this week I’ve had an hour commute to work and
I would do my best to make the most of it by writing on my phone. It was
surprisingly effective!
Tell us about a
favorite character from a book.
The first two that come to mind are Keladry of Mindelan from
Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small series, and Gideon Nav from The Locked
Tomb series. I guess I love tall, buff women who mean well but don’t take shit
without giving some back.
What made you want to
become an author and do you feel it was the right decision?
I have stories in me I am itching to share, and I’d love for
those stories to be able to help me get by financially one day, so I have no
doubt it was the right decision.
Advice they would give
new authors?
Be kind, love your writing neighbours and boost them up, and
write what makes you happy and excited more than anything else. Your love for
your stories will shine through.
Describe your writing
style.
Whimsical, irreverent, maybe rambling in places. The close
third-person POV means I like to let the characters take control of the prose,
which I think can be delightful.
What are you currently
reading?
I’m currently reading three wildly different books:
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (historical
fantasy)
Elemental Ruin by Alx Chan Yee (romantasy)
The Dos and Donuts of Love by Abida Jaigirdar (contemporary
romance)
What is your writing
process? For instance do you do an outline first? Do you do the chapters first?
I like to do a rough outline that falls somewhere between the
four act structure and Save the Cat, which works pretty well. These are nowhere
near the only structures that work but they work for my stories, and I don’t
get too caught up in them, they’re just good starting guidelines. I might just
make a few bullet points or I might try to match some beats. It depends on the
story. I almost never go down to chapter level in the outlining stage,
personally.
Do you try more to be
original or to deliver to readers what they want?
Ultimately, I always write what I want, what brings me joy. I
know that there will be readers who have similar tastes to me. It’s always good
to try and have a fresh spin on something, but chasing originality can be a
path to madness. It will be original because of how you did it, down to the
details and context, and that’s all that matters.
Besides, some tropes are good every time, so long as they’re
in a context fresh enough.
If you could tell your
younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Keep going. You’ve got something good going, and I need you
to keep it up so that I get to where I am now.
How long on average
does it take you to write a book?
I could knock out a novella first draft in a month, with the
right routine and no big hiccups. I can write 1k in an hour, easily, and 2k in
an hour on a good day.
The real trick, for me, is the consistency. That’s the tricky
one. I’m about to start a new job that I am hoping will allow for me to build
better routine, but I’ll believe it when I do it.
Do you believe in
writer’s block?
Absolutely! And there’s so many supposed solutions. I think I
have heard one neat piece of advice that if you’re blocked on a scene, the
problem likely lies with the scene BEFORE. I haven’t tried that myself but I
can see how it would apply.
My advice for writer’s block is what no one wants to hear:
push through it, no matter how agonsiing. Write shitty sentence after shitty
sentence, one an hour if that’s what it takes. Eventually, you’ll break through
into a different part and you’ll get back on track. You can go back and edit
that shitty part, but right now moving forward is more important. That’s my
process, but I also firmly believe in everyone finding their own things that
works for them.
Aimee Donnellan is an author of whimsical queer fantasy for new adults. She is proudly bisexual and on the aromantic spectrum, and loves to write bisexuals even more chaotic and disastrous than herself.
She lives in Wellington, New Zealand with her fiancè — who helps her write and worldbuild — and dreams of dog ownership when not playing video games or Dungeons and Dragons.
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I would enjoy reading this story. Thanks for sharing.
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