For the fanfic questions, I obviously have to ask about Athena and Percy! I can't pick which questions to use, so I'll leave it up to you--answer as many as you'd like (I'd love to know the info for all of them if you're feeling up to it, but I also recognize that you're sick and that's a lot haha)
Oh, you know how to get on my good side! I live to talk about these two! Going with the series that started it all, What Almost Was
1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?
TRR in general started the series I liked the story but we all know I have a thing for older men and let’s face it in book two Liam is a dipshit for making MC a mistress and hiding her. So I was like “what if there was an older Duke as an option and make things more interesting?”
Fun fact: What Almost Was was meant to be the prequel to In Their Hearts my first Poly series. Between Liam behaving like an ass and Percy being his perfect self and the plan that came up to get Liam out of his engagement to Madeline the plot changed and Athena no longer fit into the In Their Hearts world so I actually changed the MC to April in that series to avoid confusion.
2: What scene did you first put down?
For the most part the entire series was written in order. I will say that Complications was written several chapters before I was ready for it but mostly it was written in perfect order so the first scene put down was Athena and Percy meeting at the bar on the Royal train.
5: What part was hardest to write?
Dumping Percy. *hides face in shame* Yes, I actually wrote it, before you get upset let me explain!
Okay, so I mentioned that this was meant to be a prequel series but then Percy messed up my plans about four chapters in and things started to change in my head. Between the characters starting to take charge (it always happens to me!) and Percy and Athena being so damn perfect together I started to make plans which included two endings to the series. The first ending is the one you got, Athena realizing she belonged with Percy and she tells Liam, the alternate ending (which I think only two maybe three other people have actually read) Athena just shatters Percy, I mean she was kind but by the time I wrote that scene I knew Percy didn’t have another option for a happy ending Athena was his endgame so writing it nearly destroyed me. In the end I decided to scrap that ending and the alternate series that would have come from it.
6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?
I think it is the first fic that the main character ended up with an OC. Percy himself makes it special because the way (almost) everyone loved him.
7: Where did the title come from?
I mean it was meant to be a prequel about the almost love that Athena didn’t choose ...
9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?
Just the alternate ending that I will never publish.
13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?
I wrote this four years ago, I don’t even remember the playlist I was listening to. I know that I was listening to a mix of pop and country but beyond that I don’t even remember.
15: What did you learn from writing this fic?
I learned that planning doesn’t always work, your characters will do what they want and trying to fight them is futile. (Seriously, I pulled out my hair a few times trying to get them to do what I wanted instead of just letting them be.)
