Interview with a book character

Today I decided to give you an inside look at one of my WIP characters with an interview. 

This character is from my WIP titled project hideaway

 1. What is your name?

My name is Anastasia, but I go by Anna.

2. How old are you?

I am twenty human years old but I am really 60.

3. Where were you born?

I was born in a small village called crescent which was wiped out when I was eight years old. 

4. What did your father and mother do for a living?

My father was a slaughterman for one of the local farmers and my mother was a stay at home mum. 

5. Were you well off? Middle class? Impoverished?

We were neither impoverished nor middle class; we did okay for ourselves but couldn’t say we lived any sort of luxurious life. 

6. Do you have siblings? If so, what are their names and ages?

I had an older sister named Camilla who would passed away from illness when she was fifteen. 

7. Where do you fall in the birth order? The oldest, youngest? 

I am the youngest. 

8. Which one of you is your mother’s favourite? 

Camilla was my mother's favourite. 

9. Why?

She was always the golden child and the most intelligent if only she could see me now. 

10. How did you feel about that?

I wasn’t too happy about it, I went out of my way to try and impress my mother but it never worked which was my downfall. 

11. When you were a child, what was one thing you could always be sure of?

When I was younger I could always be sure that I could get away with anything I wanted because no one paid attention to me; not my family or the town. 

12. What was something you were never sure of?

I was never sure if I would ever be noticed by someone until I was ten years old when I was noticed by Jacob. 

13. Where did you grow up? Is this a place you’d go back to now? Or avoid?

I grew up in the town over from Crescent called moonlight I would avoid moonlight at all costs now because if I ever went back I would be stoned. 

14. Do you still have friends there? Or family?

Everyone from my past died a long time ago. 

15. How did you do in school? 

I never actually went to school, I was told I didn’t need to because I would never get anywhere in life but once I grew up and got away from my family I started to teach myself everything I needed to know. 

16. What was your favourite subject?

I loved to learn math it was my favourite thing to learn once I started to teach myself things I needed to know to survive with the ever-changing world. 

17. What was your greatest talent?

My greatest talent is running, I’m like a lightning bolt in the night you see me one second and the next I’m gone. 

18. What did you do badly?

I was never one for art. 

19. What is your life like at the moment?

My life at the moment is something I have pride in, I built myself up over the years to be someone I am happy with. 

How to stay active online while having time for your books.

Staying active between writing and your social media can be extremely stressful, especially if you are a mother like me or working full time and writing, and this is just the thing you do in your spare time for extra money or time to yourself. 

It has been extremely difficult for me to be able to keep up with social media and my books. But I’m going to let you in on my secret on how I manage to update my Twitter six times a day, upload three blog posts a month, make numerous Instagram posts and stories a day, and my weekly YouTube videos while still having enough time for my daughter, housework and writing/ editing my books. 

The first thing to remember is we all have the same 24 hours in a day, and I just make sure that I use mine wisely with the limited time in that 24 hours I get.

Every month I make a note on my phone which outlines everything I have to do in the month. Appointments, what post is going up when on my different Instagrams, every YouTube video I have to film, edit and upload, and every single Twitter post. 

To do this, I put it into sections. The first section is YouTube with the date that it has to be uploaded by and the video title. 

The next section is Twitter. I put every single date of the month in and then under it I write my Twitter posts out for the month. I then write what I’m going to post on my writer's Instagram and on which days and then my main Instagram and the posts I post on my Facebook pages which there are four a month. 

Once everything is planned out, I go on to Twitter online, not the app. the one downfall with Twitter is you cannot schedule tweets on the app. You can only do it on the website. 

I then copy and paste every single post I’m going to make for the month onto Twitter and schedule it for the day I have planned, and just select a random time for each one. 

 I will occasionally have something like a retweet planned or something like an update about my day for them what I do as I go into my phone calendar and put it in for what time I want to do it and then every night before going to bed, I check my calendar and if I have a retweet or an update about my day I then put it in the back my mind to remember to do it the next day which takes a lot of work out if I only have to do it say five times a month.  Every night I also reply to the tweets that I get through the day. I also like every single comment, even if it’s very time-consuming, but that’s okay because my daughter takes an hour to get to sleep on me, so that’s my time to reply to comments and all that kind of stuff across my social media. 

Throughout the month, once I have the plan, I take all the photos from my Instagram, and then I use the Facebook suite app because my Instagrams are linked to Facebook pages.  I schedule all my posts that way, including what I’m going to be posting on the Facebook pages themselves.  You can schedule stories, but I don’t. I just do three stories a day on my main Instagram. I like to get them out in the mornings so that I don’t have to worry about them for the rest of the day. They are just part of my life; if I go for a walk, I take a photo, dishes, I take a picture, I just take whatever I’m doing, and I don’t really care too much, but I have noticed that stories have improved my engagement. 

Now that’s all done and scheduled, I don’t have to worry about posting anything other than whatever I need to on the day for stories, TikTok's, which are pre-filmed, and then the occasional Twitter post. So for the rest of the month, I just write and edit my book each day.  I don’t put pressure on myself if I can’t get it done. I don’t push myself, but I make sure to write my blog posts first because it is the most important part, and then I can focus on the rest. 

I do a week of writing and a week of editing to keep it separate, and each week is working on a different book until it’s finished, so at the moment, I am editing my endometriosis story and writing one of my love stories. 

It can be hard work, but most months have 30 or 31 days except for February.  But having only 30 to 31 days to get everything done is really easy, and I can get everything done in 15 days. I only spend maybe 10 minutes on it each day, so the rest of the time, I have plenty of time for writing or whatever I need to do when my child is allowing me to while still enjoying time with my child and getting all the housework that needs to be done and me most crucial time you can’t neglect yourself in this if you are then you need to take a stand back from social media because it can ruin your life if you let it. 

I hope you enjoy this blog post. Let me know how you keep up with all your responsibilities and comments, so other people for who my method might not work have different ideas. In the writing community, we value our work, but it can be time-consuming. 

I hope you have a wonderful day, and I’ll see you next month for a fantastic blog post. 

How I did with my 2021 goals

Back in 2020, I made a list of everything I wanted to achieve by the end of 2021 to do with my writing, and I decided to come back and look at how well I did with my goals. A lot has changed since I made these goals, I spent a lot of 2021 pregnant and then had a baby to care for, so I had to do my best to achieve what I could. the goals I had set were:

1. Finish writing and editing my books from 2020
2. Publish Three books
3. Write 200k by march (June at the latest)
4. write a total of 500k in the year
5. get at least ten sales on Wrongful Love
6. upload at least one blog post a month on writing blog
7. keep twitter and writing page up to date on my work
8. upload twice a month minimum on Wattpad to get more exposure.
9. Make my writing blog more appealing to readers.

I will now go more in-depth over each goal with how I did.

1.) Finish writing and editing my books from 2020: I had started and been working on a lot of books in 2020 and I knew I wouldn't be able to write and edit twelve projects especially since seven were part of different series; so instead I made a list of all the books I did want to finish in 2021 and decided to completely finish my hybrid trilogy (Project Curse, Project Choice and Project Hybrid) I also wanted to finish Project sisters, Project Endo, Project Hope, Project Love and my short story collection.

I was able to finish writing Project Curse, get half way though editing project hybrid and endo and got a few thousand more words on project hope & love.

While trying to finish my short story collection I started to wonder what the rush was; I started that project because every now and then I would get a short story idea and I wanted a place to put them. so I had to decide if I just shared them online or just kept slowly writing stories as they came to me until one day I had enough short stories to publish a whole book. In the end I decided to just wait to write it and instead focus on my other projects. 

2.) Publish Three books: This was going to be one of the hardest ones and I knew it. I had been trying to get my trilogy taken on by an agent since 2020 with no luck and I had no idea how I could publish three books when only one of my projects I had planned to self publish and after the disaster with wrongful love and everything going on in my life that was added stress I didn't want to deal with.

In the end, I decided to scrab this whole goal and instead just focus on my family and writing and editing so that come 2022 I would have more time to try and deal with it.

3.) Write 200k by march (June at the latest): this definitely did not happen. by the end of March, I had managed to write 18,942 words which was way under what I had wanted. up until April, I had been barely writing and I knew there was no way I would manage to write an extra 181,058 words in three months and I was right because at the end of June I had only written a total of 50,000 words.

4.) Write a total of 500k in the year: Because I had failed so badly by the halfway mark I knew I wasn't going to make it to 500k especially since in this last half of the year I would have a baby to look after and my writing was to be put on the back burner. It's not the end of 2021 yet but I don't plan on doing much more writing this year but I did manage to finish the year off with 150,000 words.

5.) Get at least ten sales on Wrongful Love: It's hard to make it as a self-published author no matter how much discounted sales I had on my book, how many hours I spent advertising over the year it seemed impossible to get any sales. by April 15th I hadn't gotten one actual person to buy my book. But by December 31 2021 I had sold three copies of wrongful love and even had a review. 

6.) Upload at least one blog post a month on writing blog: I passed this one with flying colours. I posted a minimum of once a month here on my writing blog and this month alone I will have posted three times by the start of 2022.

7.) Keep twitter and writing page up to date on my work: This I definitely passed. I was keeping twitter and my facebook page updated weekly on what was going on from word sprints to just general parts of my books looking for advice. 

8.) Upload twice a month minimum on Wattpad to get more exposure: I definitely failed at this goal but that was because I slowly started to realize that sometimes the books I think won't make good books for publishing can and will be a good book even as a short story. I still did upload a bit just not as much as I wanted to.

9.) Make my writing blog more appealing to readers: I wasn't sure how I was going to even know I had done this. I made sure I was writing better blog posts which definitely made me feel better about my work but how I was to know if it was more appealing to you guys, the readers.

I decided to look at my 2020 stats and then compare at the end of 2021 to see if views were up which would give me a good idea if people were drawn to my blog more so now than before.

In 2020 I had 0 followers, 0 comments and 624 views across my blog.

In 2021 I had 0 followers, 0 comments and 525 views

Character Traits and cues

Character traits help the reader learn more about your characters and connect with them on a personal level. Traits can also help a reader understand why the character does certain things throughout the book.

Cues work the same way, except they help let the reader know what is going on inside the characters head and can actually work in with the traits by showing the traits in action. for example, your character trait may be shy and you have put your character in a situation where they have to ask someone a question. They can show they are shy by rubbing the back of their neck. 

In this blog post, I am going to list the different categories of character traits, talk about the different cues and what they can signal and then finish it off with a list of Character traits. There are thousands out there so I will only list a few.

Types of character traits

• Values, morals and beliefs
• Phyical and emotional
• Personality

Some cues and what they could indicate

• Being tired, Restless, Breathing rapidly, Sweating, Trouble concentrating (Anxiety)
• Pacing, Fidgetting, Swaying, Wandering (Nervous)
• Avoidance, Changes in mood, (PTSD)
• Unable to concentrate, Tired, Unhappy, Lacking confidence, Loss of appetite (Depression)

Different character traits. (Rember characters need good and bad traits)

1. Humble
3. Leader
4. Loyal
5. Selfish
6. Hard-working
7. Independent
8. Honest
9. Poor
10. Neat
11. Messy
12. Mischievous
13. Tireless
14. Patriotic
15. Dreamer
16. Quiet
17. Shy
18. Bright
19. Respectful
20. Mature
21. Untrustworthy
22. Calm
23. Rough
24. Neglectful

There you have it, I hope this helped in some way. Let me know what you think your biggest trait is. 

How to write a good villain

 "A villain is just a victim whose story hasn't been told." -Chris Colfer

Writing a villain seems like hard work. You want to make them believable but also want the reader to relate to them in some way. Sometimes the villain isn't who you would expect either.

No matter which way you decide to have your villain swing, you need to have some sort of idea on how to write them well because character development is critical to either making or breaking a story.

There are different types of Antagonists in fiction, and working out which your villain is should be the first step.

 

The main five are:

1. The malevolent villain- A villain motivated by Malice, hunger for power or other negative impulses
2. The ally- antagonist- Friend or ally who betrays or makes a bad choice and becomes an opponent
3. The interfering authority- Uses or abuses power to impede character progress towards the end goal.
4. The force of nature- An opponent that creatures challenges without any motivation
5. The inner saboteur- Internal opposition like addiction 

When writing a villain, you need to remember certain things.

• Good and bad traits: Every villain isnt all that bad they have positive characteristics too, so don't forget to write them as such. 
• Motive: Everything we do in life comes from a reason, even if we don't realise it. What is your villains' justification for being this way and doing what they are?
• Villains are real people: what happened in their past to make them this way? creating a back story can be really helpful to understand them better. {my favourite way to do this is to write a flashback on a separate document on the part of their past that really made them like they are; this helps me be able to refer back to the list when I'm writing bits for the villain because I know why they are like that}
• Put yourself in their shoes: what would you do in this situation and why?
• Play into the reader's feelings: It sounds mean, and that's because it is. Play into your readers' emotions by making them believable. Everyone has gone through hardship in life at some point and in some form, so play into that.
• Weakness: Everyone has a weakness; what are your villains?
• Character and story development: How does the villain develop over time? How does the villain make the story progress? How does the villain make the main characters develop and grow?

I don't think you can plan every little detail out, but hopefully, this helped you. Let me know what you're the main tip is for writing a villain or what your favourite type of villain is. 

World building- The easy way.

Worldbuilding is one of those things that aren't essential but can be very helpful if you are a fantasy writer or like me and you struggle to describe places from looking at photos on the internet because you have never been there.

When I created my world, I had no idea what I needed to know or how to even put it together; I looked at templates, blogs, youtube videos and I spent hours on something that was an utter failure; But it doesn't have to be that hard, in fact, it can be quite easy to make your own world if you have the right information and sadly just like everything everyone has their own ways and ideas on how to world build which can make it difficult.

When I was doing my research, I found so many apps to create your world on; I personally never tried any of them, but I have heard many good things about them.

In the end, I took to Pinterest to help, and I am glad I did. I found a pin that was liked to a website that came in handy. http://www.writerswrite.co.za/world-building-for-every-genre-the-ultimate-setting-list/ It had an amazing picture that was very helpful in getting a rough idea of what I needed to know.

Some of the things you will need to know about your world are:

• World name
• Weather conditions
• Era/ time
• Laws, crimes and punishments
• Events
• Mode of transport
• Important buildings and structures
• Accommodation
• Currency
• Wildlife/animals
• Family dynamics
• Careers and education
• Religion and magic
• Politics
• Social structure
• Economics
• Science and technology
• Setting/location
• Culture and society

Questions to ask yourself to make It a bit easier 

• Where is the story located? 
• Who are the inhabitants? 
• What social differences exist between them?
• What historical events happened that shaped this world
• What type of technology does this world have
• What is the standard of living
• Does magic exist?

There is so much that goes into world building and so many different resources out that not only to help but also stating that you need to know different information. Worldbuilding isnt one size fits all, and you can have a world that's as complicated or as simple as you like, and you can always add onto it as you are writing and realize you need more information.

I have One world that covers any book I could ever dream of writing, and it's straightforward. I just added dimensions for the different supernatural species and portals to move from one world to the next.

I hope this was at least a little bit helps to get you started on your world.

Is there anything else that's a must-have in your world-building? Let me know down in the comments.

Ways to not loose any work

 The worst feeling in the world is you are halfway through a chapter or a book and your computer crashes, you didn't save the last four thousand words, and now you have to rewrite it all over again, or god forbid your laptop dies, and you can't get any of your books back, all those months spent writing for nothing. 

This has happened to me more times than I can count, tears are shred, and sometimes I never rewrite that book again. Because of this, over the years, I have made a system to make sure I never lose any of my hard work, and I am going to let you in on how I make sure not to lose any of my work.

I thought after years of my laptop going flat or completely dying on me while I was writing that I had it completely under wraps on what to do to best protect my writing. Still, during Camp NaNoWriMo 2021, I found out how wrong I was when three times throughout the thirty days, my wifi glitched out as well as google docs. Google docs refused to save my work because I was writing so fast it couldn't keep up. My wifi would glitch right as it tried to, so it would come up with an error message, one that if you dismissed it would refresh the page, but you couldn't even copy and paste any of the words before they disappeared; it was a writer's worst nightmare.

That was the real reason I decided to make this blog post because when I went searching for ways around it, It in the past and even now, I could only find one other blog post touching on this topic which really surprised me; I don't know if I was using the wrong search terms or what but whatever it was I knew I needed to let you guys in on how I protect my work.

So now, let's get down to the real answer on how to protect your work as much as possible as to not lose any words.

The answer comes in many different stages, from the saving process to the backing upstage.

The backing up stage I have completely figured out, it sounds extreme, and it can be, but since doing this, I haven't lost any of my books.

I invested in a hard drive, and I make sure after every writing session my book gets backed up to that, so if my laptop was to die, I have my work not only saved but easy to put onto my new laptop when I get one.

I also back up to google docs/google drive; that way, I can work on my books on the go as well as when my laptop blows up and not have to wait ages or lose motivation.

Now the saving process is a bit harder because you never know when you will lose work, and if you were to save your work after each word,, you oud get nothing done, that's why I thought google docs was the good place to write because it automatically backs up your work.

Now I automatically manually save my work whenever I stop writing, if that's because I am thinking of what needs to happen next or whatever the reason I stop is. There are plenty of websites you can write on that will save your writing for you, but after my experience with google docs, I don't trust it. I will also copy and paste any work I have just done onto a note pad on my laptop and save that, so if something was to happen, I have a backup.

Sadly no way is foolproof, and I know I will still lose work, but I try and do everything I can to prevent that.

How do you save your work? let me know in the comments