About A.
Hello there! I'm Anna (now you know what the A. stands for). I'm a 30 something person that's previously self published two short stories and a novella. You can read more about them (and read 'em!) here. I'm currently finishing up the first book in my (darkish) YA fantasy series House of Moons (aka HoM).
I went back to school to get my Creative Writing degree and I'm finishing that up. While it's not the right choice for everyone, it's one of the best and kindest things I've done for myself.
When I'm not writing or studying, plotting how to build the best blanket/pillow fort (you are never too old to make a blanket/pillow fort), baking cookies or trying to master the art of bread. If I'm not doing those things, then I'm probably playing with some sort of animal, reading, or exploring the woods.
I'm very blessed to work in a bookstore. I absolutely love it. Not only do I get to help people get into reading again and introduce them to new authors, I get to work with amazing people who love books just as much as I do.
I'm hard of hearing (HoH) with my hearing aids and deaf without them. I'm learning ASL so that I can y'know, communicate. Also because it's fun and it makes me feel more connected to my culture. I love helping people learn about deaf/hohness so don't be afraid to ask me any questions!
"Ok, that's cool, but what do you write?"
Stuff. So. Much. Stuff. I'm a morbid soul, but I'm also a hopeful one. So I write darkly appealing stuff. I typically stick to fantasy, but toss in dark/horror elements.
My first short story "Roses for Cassandra" is about a stagehand that falls in love with a dancer. Victorian era vibes with a tinge of magic. There's a little darkness wedged in there too. I wrote it because I thought it was what people wanted to read, what I was supposed to write. While I don't think I would write it today, I'm glad I wrote it. It's brought happiness to a lot of people, and that's beautiful to me.
My Secrets of the Lion series (ongoing, currently on hold) is a historical fiction series (currently a short story and a novella), where I really chose to embrace the darkness. I also embraced my love of epistolary writing. Victorian era with secrets, letters, lions and shenanigans! I love my little Victorian era dorks. The novella, Of Secrets and Sound is the first time I wrote my disability into a story.
But my true love, the thing I am deeply passionate about is House of Moons. It's a YA fantasy series with dark elements in it, and the main character has the same sort of hearing loss I have. It's the book that I always wanted to read as a kid, (and as an adult), but I've never found a book with enough space for me. So I'm writing it. My biggest hope is that those who feel like outcasts will be able to find a bit of shelter in it.
"Cool! What is House of Moons about?"
Here, have a synopsis:
Mark Featherguard should have it all. He's heir to the most powerful family of fire mages in the world and about to start high school at House of Moons, one of the most famous and prestigious magical schools in existance. To ice the proverbial cake, Mark and his best friend are going to be roommates.
Things would be going great if Mark wasn't plagued with nightmares of a world ending black phoenix. Or if his family wasn't one of the ones who lost their item of Close Power (which they were supposed to guard) years ago and now have to find it and claw their way back into their social standing in the magical community. Oh, and that roommate plan? That's not happening after all.
And then there's the problem of someone, or something, destroying magical schools around the world. Mark just wants to be able to change his hearing aid batteries and pass his classes in peace.
But it seems like the magical world, and his new found friends, might need him to do a little more than that...
TL;DR:
Anna
She/They
30 something because it's a good age to be!
I went back to school to get my degree in Creative Writing (minoring in business writing)...almost there!
I write a variety of fantasy stuff, often times tossing in horror elements
I like writing dark, but hopeful stuff (thus "an appealing darkness")
My main WIP is House of Moons: The Phoenix Mirror which is the first in an upper YA fantasy series.
Deaf/HoH #ownvoices writer because sharing is caring.
One of my back burner projects is a horror short story/screen play combo
Another back burner project is a horror short story collection
Another 'nother back burner project is a collection of short stories that go along with the HoM series.
So that's me! Welcome! As I like to say, my teeth are sharp, but I rarely bite. While I'm quite shy, I do love being tagged and asked things, so if you think something might tickle my fancy, or have a question of any sort, tag and ask away!
🐰 Rabbit - does your character prefer peace and quiet, or do they thrive in busy, loud environments?
and
🐶 Dog - how does your character respond to injustice? do they actively fight it? are they loyal to their causes, big or small?
for whoever you want :)
Doing this for Mark cause I'm going back and doing some first chapter edits/re-writes, so I'm pretty deep in the guy's head right now.
🐰 Rabbit - Mark is the exact opposite of me XD He needs peace and quiet to do his homework and to study, but he's an extrovert. Sometimes he does get overstimulated due to his hearing loss if the environment is too noisy but he enjoys being out and about and being with people. He tends to thrive in busy environments and navigates them well. He prefers busy environments, but busy doesn't always have to be loud (in fact, he hears better when it's not so...).
🐶 Dog - Mark has seen a lot of injustice in his life. His family is judged for their ancestor's mistakes, despite the good the more recent generations have done for the magical community. He's deaf/hard of hearing, and while the magical community can be pretty progressive, it's ultimately a hearing world that's just not designed for him, and that's pretty unfair. It's not like he chose to have a hearing loss. He wants to fight injustice. He sees what's fair and unfair and he knows that things should change, but because of what he's been taught, to be polite, keep his head down, and not make a fuss, he doesn't take a stand like he wants to. But maybe he'll change that in the future...
I am very curious to know your response too so I am going to ask you the same question back!
What do you enjoy most about the revision process? Are there some things you enjoy more than others? How does the revision process compare to the initial drafting process for you, do you prefer writing a first draft or would you rather skip to editing?
Thank you! A lovely set of questions!
So I'm going to answer all of these questions in a slightly disordered way but I trust that it'll make sense. If not, feel free to send me more asks for clarification!
When I write, I typically bang it all out in one or two goes (for shorter works), or over a week, or a month or so. My current WIP is an exception as I hand wrote it as a young teen, typed it up and completed it during NaNoWriMo in my late teens and as an adult I've been world building, rewriting, adding and now finally going back and writing the book as a whole.
There's a lot of different parts and elements from a lot of different places that are all making it into this cohesive "final" draft, but I really do enjoy it! I enjoy those rapids like flow of inspiration and getting in the zone, but I also really enjoy this process.
Typically the whole editing thing for me goes
Draft hand written or typed up
Type up draft (if hand written) or print the typed draft and then type it up again into a new document. This let's me re-read the story, flesh it out, and get a new perspective. This has been so tremendously helpful for me!
Take a break from it (no, seriously, step away from the computer, self!!). This break also typically involves rambling about it to someone or another (my close friends, my family, my cat, my dog), getting new ideas and jotting them down.
Go back and re-read, print out what's typed again (I use cheap paper and always front and back especially for the longer stories), take so many notes on it, then just kind of marinate in the story. This also involves a lot of talking to my cat, dog, parents (Bless them half the time they have no idea what I'm going on about but they give helpful advice and encouragement either way!), friends, and then I go back aaaand....
Type it all up again! By this point the story is looking pretty swell, and it's close to it's final draft, if it's not already at its final draft.
I really love all of it, especially the parts where I can just take notes on my story, write all sorts of odd things and just let inspiration come at me in a new way. I think that's my favorite part, seeing how I can build upon the ideas I already had, making them stronger and more detailed. While the grammar stuff always feels like a drag during the editing process, editing beyond that is a delight for me. I get a lot of inspiration for sequels or spin-offs or new ideas altogether.
I do sometimes skip to editing like with what I'm doing with HoM. Because the book is coming from so many sources that I've written over so many years (and I've been using this as my project for school), I'm going back and re-reading a lot. This is in part to remind me what I wrote, and to help me keep the flow of the story as I go into the next part. So I'll do tweaks here and there, add in more details, fix a run on sentence, but it's more light edits.
I do jump around a lot though when drafting. If there's a scene I wanna write, I'm gonna write it and trust that I can get myself to connect it later on. When I edit I tend to go straight through the whole thing.
for the chinese zodiac ask game: 🐉 Dragon , 🐴 Horse , 🐐 Goat
Oooh! So many critters! I'm actually born in the year of the Horse so I'm delighted that I got to answer it XD
Still in a Mark headspace as I'm re-writing/editing the first few chapters, so I'll stick with Mark for this.
🐉 Dragon: ...uh....define lucky? He's really fortunate in a lot of ways: his parents love him, he has technology that helps him hear and was allowed to/encouraged to learn ASL to help him communicate. He's also from a very wealthy and prestigious family (I could go on, but I won't). But he's also got a lot of things that he would consider unlucky like chronic nightmares, his family is blamed for something they had nothing to do with, having to be the one to restore his family's legacy....yeah, not fun stuff. But he doesn't really believe in luck or fate. He doesn't spend too much time dwelling on that sort of thing.
🐴 Horse: While Mark might not be the most elegant person out there (granted he's 15, most teens aren't all that elegant), he 100% cares about how he looks. He puts effort into being clean and well groomed. He's not a clothes horse, but he knows how to put an outfit together and how to clean up for sure. He for sure cares how others think he looks. You don't have to like his outfits, but you do have to admit that they're well put-together and that he looks nice. He's got an image to maintain and a family name to uphold after all.
🐐 Goat: Mark's not a super artistic guy like painting or drawing, but he knows how to put clothes together. If you're struggling on putting an outfit together, Mark would be surprisingly helpful!
hello! random question, feel free to ignore. tell me a random fact that may or may not be plot relevant about one of your ocs but you love about them.
Oh! I love this question, thanks for the ask!
Mark knows a ton about goth culture even though he's not goth himself. He just wears a ton of black and thinks it makes him cool he's not entirely wrong. Although he's not a part of the goth community and never will be, he has a deep respect for them.
It's such a random little thing about him, but if someone is complaining about him being goth because he wears so much black, he will go into TED talk mode and educate the person.
hey! this is chance & here’s week 3’s prompt. share an excerpt that you’re very proud of from any of your wips.
Thanks for the ask! I always look forward to your prompts! This is from my current WIP House of Moons: The Phoenix Mirror, usually I don't share something this long(ish) it is really rather short in the grand scheme of things but I really do love it:
======
He jogged down the stairs, not caring if he made enough noise to wake the dead. It wasn’t like anyone else was in the house. Mark felt the tension ease out of his shoulders as he pounded down the carpeted stairwell, the steps feeling sturdy, real, safe.
Normal.
Just like his dreams.
Cause it’s totally normal to have bad dreams when you’re nervous, he told himself for what felt like the hundredth time. If only he actually believed it.
But maybe, maybe if he told himself more firmly and more often that it was just nerves, that the nightmares would all be over once he started school, maybe he’d actually believe it. Maybe the rest of him would finally catch up with his mantra and then it really would be just nerves. Just fourteen more days until he moved into House of Moons. Fourteen more nightmares, and then it would be over.
hey! this is chance & here’s week 2's prompt. when you write or create an oc, do you like to reference elements from your life? if yes, name a few. if no, why not?
Howdy! Thanks for the ask! Sorry for the delay in answering, life tried to eat me again rude.
Short answer:
Oh boy do I!
I typically pull inspiration from my personal struggles such as my mental/physical health/disabilities (been chronically ill, am deaf without hearing aids), and other elements.
Long answer (most of which is under a cut):
Oh boy do I!
As I said, I typically pull inspiration from my personal struggles, the biggest ones being my physical/mental health and my disability.
This is a huge change from when I first started writing. I would either go full on self insert mode (which I view as cringe now, but I was learning the ropes and it was helpful to my growth as a writer), or I would be like "omz it's so tacky when authors pull inspiration from themselves, that's so cocky!". I was rather extreme when I was a kid XD
I used to avoid writing about my disability simply because I had:
Never seen it done
Thought that it was what I was "supposed" to write, and that my disability had to be written about in a certain way or no one would read it or allow it to be published
And I wasn't interested in stories that people wanted or expected me to write about deaf/hoh people; we aren't tragedies. Give me a deaf person running around a magical world making friends!
And then I realized I could write it*. It wasn't egotistical to pull inspiration from my life. That's what all creators do, intentionally or not. I'm one of those creators that purposefully pulls inspiration/traits from my life and puts them into my characters.
But, with some caveats:
Does it add to the character?
For example, Mark originally was such a pain in the butt that when I went back and read my very first draft of the story (back in high school), I had to stop because Mark was just that hateable.** He was angry, self centered which stemmed from his anger, and I just couldn't relate to this guy. The problem is, House of Moons without Mark as the main character, isn't House of Moons at all. So for years, I put the story on hold, and just kind of hoped that one day it would come to me.
When I found out that I could write about my disability my way, I realized Mark needed my hearing loss.
When I was Mark's age, I was furious with the world for a number of reasons. And one of them was because of how horribly the world treated me as a disabled person. Sometimes I was mocked or excluded because I wasn't able to hear. Sometimes it was because the world treated me as special, just because I couldn't hear.
Anything good I did was "Oh wow! You're hearing impaired and you did that? That's so brave!". While in hindsight I know those comments probably came from a good place, it still hurt, and it still hurts to feel as if my accomplishments are intrinsically tied to my ability to hear.
Getting that from everywhere but your family is exhausting. Over time, infuriating. Once I gave Mark his hearing loss (which is the exact same kind of hearing loss I have), his anger made sense. It also gave me a starting point to explore more reasons why he was so angry. So Mark is now angry at his parents for never being around. The magical community for simultaneously fawning over and ostracizing him and his family for something he can't help. His neighborhood and (at first) school for treating him as something breakable because of his hearing loss.
Mark isn't angry at himself for being born with a hearing loss which gradually (for whatever reason) got worse over time. He's angered by how he's treated due to that hearing loss, and a lot of other things too.
Mark sharing my hearing loss adds to his character. Now I love writing him, he's relatable and even though he's angry and can be a jerk, there's a reason behind it and the possibility for growth.
Can I make this trait the character's own?
While I make sure the trait I'm giving the character makes sense, if it doesn't actually help make the character the character, then I nix the idea.
For example (moving the spotlight from Mark for a moment here), Harris and his siblings have PTSD. I have PTSD. Harris and his family have PTSD for very different reasons than I do. If I were to take away the PTSD from any of those characters their story would literally make no sense. They all lived through an unspeakable trauma. For them to not have some sort of physical or psychological scarring makes no sense and is a disservice to the reader.
But how Harris deals with his trauma is different than how his sister and older brother deal with it. They all have PTSD, they all have a shared trauma, but they all cope differently.
And because their PTSD comes from a different place than mine, their coping strategies are different too***. And because in real life, people with shared traumas will still have different coping styles. So how Harris deals with his PTSD (physically hiding often times), is different than how Acida, his sister does (building a blanket fort or stress baking). And of course, their older brother Fanggore copes by making sure his siblings are accounted for and then reads a book.
So typically, I use some part of myself to give myself a starting point in helping flesh out the characters. But I make sure that it's relevant to the character and actually makes sense for them to have that positive or negative trait.
While I focused on my struggles, I do like slipping in positive traits too! I have one character that's very into music and writes lyrics (which I do), another who has my zany sense of humor (I work hard to make sure each character has a unique sense of humor, rather than just everyone being snarky).
Overall, I'm one of those people that really draws inspiration from my personal experiences. I use it more as a starting point and then let my imagination make something new from it.
Thanks for the ask! :D
~
~
*Cannot tell you how mind-blowing it was to realize that not only was I completely capable of writing about my disability in stories that I would want to read, but also that people would be interested in reading it. Still blows my mind some days.
**I will note here that autocorrect was overly enthusiastic and corrected "hateable" to "hittable" and I'm quite sure everyone felt that way. I also had to stop reading what I wrote cause I was good enough of a writer to know when writing was bad (and at the time it was) but I was also not strong enough of a writer at the time to fix what needed fixing.
***If I were to give Harris and his siblings my exact kind of PTSD (the cause and how I react) that would also make no sense...it really, really wouldn't. That would be silly! /derogatory
I was tagged by the wonderful @i-can-even-burn-salad (thank you!), and I'm gently tagging @macabremoons, and @holdmyteaplease if y'all would like to join in!
Of course, if you'd like to be tagged, please consider yourself tagged!
rules: share something (text, photo, song lyric) that could be a spoiler for a wip but without context it’s not
"It was fitting that this would be one of the first things that visitors would see."
