Ask a Writer! This Week - an unmatched sock!

[Tengukami]

I think nominations from others is probably better than a first-come-first-served system where folks nominate themselves. Just like the Nobel Prize.

[Joveus Molai]

I think nominations from others is probably better than a first-come-first-served system where folks nominate themselves. Just like the Nobel Prize.

Well, the issue I had with a nominations-only system is that I was worried some people might not get nominated at all, ever. The intention of this thread was to give exposure to anyone who wanted it, not just people who were popular.

Regardless, PM to Ruro will be sent out shortly.

Edit: I've received a reply from Ruro: she is unfortunately busy for this week and is unable to participate. I'll be accepting any other nominations, self or otherwise.

[Hello Purvis]

I figure that you could just pick one some weeks, if you feel someone important is overlooked.

Also: Ammy.

[Alfred F. Jones]

Yeah I'd love to do this sometime but I just don't have much time to sit down at a computer an' give thoughtful answers to questions right now, apologies.

[Joveus Molai]

Alright! Our next guest will be Tengukami! I will be sending him the list of questions in the next couple of days, so sit tight!

[Tengukami]

What got you into writing fiction?

When I was in the 8th grade, I had to go to the hospital shortly after Christmas break. My English teacher sent me a box of books, most of which were school-related, but for whatever reason he just decided to add the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe. Reading Poe blew my mind. I wanted to write stories like his, and so I did - a series of cheap, transparent, and embarrassing Poe-ish rip-offs. It wasn't until the following year, when I started high school and was introduced to modern literary fiction, that I decided this is what I want to do.

What sources outside of Touhou do you draw inspiration from?

Ex-girlfriends, work places, something I heard someone say on the bus, conversations with friends ... anything really can give a person inspiration. The whole inspiration for Haruki Murakami's epic The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was, the author said, imagining a guy in his kitchen cooking spaghetti when the phone rings. 600 pages later one of his masterpieces was born.

However, I think one of the biggest mistakes a writer can make when they get that flash of inspiration is to immediately begin writing (related to your question about the Burroughs quote, later on). The best thing you can do when a blinding light of brilliance hits you is to let it settle inside you. Consider the core story idea, and the possible permutations it could take. Most of them will lead to dead-ends, some will lead to promising stories. That's when you start writing.

I like to think of inspiration as the seed of an idea that grows within you, changing into something more viable and healthy, before it is ready to be born.

Which Touhou character is your favorite to write? The most difficult to write?

My "favorite" depends really on what kind of story I want to write. But I have to admit that writing Cirno into any story is the most fun, anyway - and she isn't even really among my favorite 2hus. She's just so dynamic as a story character: she's reckless, oblivious to her own faults, and has a huge spectrum of emotions, but can also display a more charmingly naive and tender side.

The most difficult to write about, or has been anyway, is Reimu. She's the straight-man. It's hard to do things with someone who plays pretty much the same role all the time. Very challenging.

Aya is also difficult to write about, but only because of how similar we are. This makes it hard to give yourself the necessary distance between yourself and your character to do them justice.

Out of all the stories you've written (Touhou-related or not), which one is your favorite?

Are three-way ties allowed? Because I cannot decide a favorite without a way of talking about favorite for what. But these three immediately come to mind as the best mix of my satisfaction with the work, and the reader reception.

Down On The Corner was my first Touhou fanfic and still probably one of the weirdest stories I've written, Touhou or otherwise. Trance did a dramatic reading of it, Suikama even made it into a VN. The whole thing was inspired by an image of Cirno discovering the corner of a table that I saw on Danbo. I posted it in IRC, and we all had a good laugh, with Purvis speculating that Cirno likely thinks she was the first person to discover this form of self-gratification. I thought he was probably right, and so the rest of the story just had to be written.

Permission was my first Touhou-specific erotica. This came up after a heated discussion on these forums about the difference between "porn" and "erotica". Rather than continue arguing examples, I decided to provide one. I was a bit nervous about sharing a sexually-themed story on PSL, but I was very pleased with the final result, as well as the reception it got.

The Sound Of The City was the first multi-chapter story I wrote in its entirety before posting one chapter at a time with a few days in between. This was an experiment to see how a story would progress without reader input between chapters, and that was pretty revealing in itself. SotC was a story idea I had for a long time, and I spent a lot of time trying to make the story alive inside me before even writing it. It took a lot of work, and although the reception was mixed, I thought the overall result was great.

Outside of Touhou fiction, what other works have you written fiction for?

I have not had fiction, Touhou or otherwise, published anywhere else. Some poems in a couple literary magazines, but that's it. I do, though, continue to shop my short fiction to publications around Europe.

What do you find to be the most rewarding aspect of writing? The most challenging?

I'd say the most rewarding part about writing is also the most challenging: making the story come alive inside your reader: moving them, making them laugh, root for a particular character, and so on. Making that happen takes a lot of skill, because you need to build and balance two separate systems at once: the physiology of the world and its characters, and the internal world of the characters themselves. I think most writers get the physiology early on - how to describe settings, facial expressions, body language, the weather. Bringing these elements to life is critical to good descriptive narrative.

The internal world is the more challenging one to construct. This is because the paradox of a good story is, in my opinion anyway, what the characters choose not to say or do is always the real story. Describing for the reader the thoughts and feelings of the characters is generally not recommended. If all motivations and courses of action are predictable, the reader will not engage with the character. The reader has to wonder about what your characters say and do; to speculate on their hows and whys. You want them to ask themselves questions about the deeper layers of knowability of your character. To do this well you need to send out whispers in the dark in the general direction of the truth, but leave the reader to follow.

So this world and these characters you create in a reader need to be vivid and recognizable, but there also must remain depths that not only can be explored, but almost compel the reader to do so.

If there is one aspect of your writing you would want to improve, what is it?

Pacing. This is why my first love is the short story, because while also delicate and complex to manage, they still give me the freedom to breath life into the smaller details of the story. The longer the story progresses, the more difficult it can be to be able to step back, and look at the pattern of the pacing as a whole. This is why novel-length works, I have learned, are monstrous challenges.

When writing Touhou fiction, how do you usually approach official canon material? Do you build on top of it; do you go around it; or do you try and stay within it as much as possible? Something else?

One of the good things about fanfiction in general is that your readers already know loads about your characters' official backstories. Stories resonate with readers better when characters are believable to the reader, so there's an argument to be made there that sticking close to canon is a good idea. I try to give my characters thoughts, feelings, words and actions that could fit within the boundaries of plausibility within a Touhou context. Not always, of course, but enough at least to make some room for suspension of disbelief.

What are some of your favorite things to read, including but not limited to books?

I like reading short stories most of all. And longform investigative journalistic pieces. Or essays from people whose opinions I respect (Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky, Zizek et al.) But mostly books of literary fiction.

What particular genres do you enjoy reading? What particular genres do you enjoy writing?

I'm not really a fan of genre fiction. I like literary fiction. There's more freedom there, to create any world you want and do things with language that are impossible in any other medium. By the same token, this is also what I like writing most of all.

Do you have any big projects we can look forward to on the horizon?

No big projects, no. The last Touhou fanfic I wrote, Sprung, was in September. I think I might get into doing SoL comedy one-shots, as that seems to be my strong point and is also a lot of fun. But some day I'd like to finish this story I wrote about Eirin and Kaguya on the run from the Lunarians, having never actually found Gensokyo and so living like fugitives for centuries. I think that could be fun.

What would you say is the main purpose of journalism? Relatedly, what would you say is the most important thing for a journalist?

First we have to bear in mind that journalism and the journalist operate in very different ways. Journalism in its purest form is the collection, organization and distribution of data to the general public. A journalist does this job most effectively by having not just a passion for the job itself, but also the stories they cover. For journalism and journalists to be effective, we need to address two problems. (See next question.)

If you could change anything about the state of journalism as it is today, what is it and why?

First is the tendency for journalists to mimic, rather than utlilize, social media. Social media can be a fantastic tool for getting in contact with people over wide distances, having instantly on-the-record interviews, picking up scoops dropped by some obscure blogger who turns out might be on to something. Unfortunately, many media outlets instead opt to mimic viral media sites like Upworthy in order to get those precious clicks, and fast. Being able to do research faster is being sacrificed for doing no research at all, and that needs to stop.

Second is the tendency for the general public to misunderstand what "bias" means. A reporter is not biased solely for showing a great deal of interest in a particular politician, region, or social issue. They are biased if they deliberately or unconsciously use misinformation (misquoting, citing poor or no sources, and so on) in order to forward an agenda. All great journalists, from Edward R Murrow to Janine di Giovanni, have been openly and strongly opinionated on the stories they cover. This doesn't make them any less right about what they report - facts have the final say. In fact, without passion for a story, a journalist doesn't commit to the quest for vital information. This does the public a disservice. A reporter is not a camera and microphone with legs, and never should be. We ought to be grateful there are still reporters who actually do care about what they're covering. They're the ones most likely to break whole new levels of information.

Some of your stories discuss very powerful themes that can strike at the reader?s heart, from what it is to be a journalist to the role of sex and sexual relations in one?s life. What are some other themes you?d like to write about?

Wow, everything really. I think I'd like to try my hand at everything, and see what comes of it.

What are your own thoughts on the quote you had given Roukanken?: "If you've just finished writing something and think it's brilliant, tear it up immediately and throw it into someone else's garbage can."

Pretty much what I told him: great stories are usually the result of repeated re-workings and re-writings before they reach their final form. That's why authors have editors. The chance that something you just finished banging out is a work of brilliance is close to zero, and if that is not immediately apparent to you when you read the story over a second time, then you've probably got some blind spots here and there. Don't necessarily burn it, but definitely hand it off to another set of eyes for their take.

The majority of your works published either here or on your blog are one-shots and short stories. Have you given any thought towards producing a longer work?

I have, and did write three awful novel-length pieces between 1998 and 2004. I'd love to get back into writing a novel, but for me this is something done most effectively by being able to free up everything else in my life, i.e., not working. So we'll see.

Is there a word of advice you'd like to give to aspiring fiction writers?

Never stop reading, never stop writing, and never stop reading your writing. Developing your own voice, a strong story-telling skill and a critical eye are all part of a continuous process.

[Joveus Molai]

Let's get things rolling!

Q: How do you know when you've written something well/written something that 'works', especially when you don't have reader feedback to work off of?

[Tengukami]

Q: How do you know when you've written something well/written something that 'works', especially when you don't have reader feedback to work off of?

You don't! Without having at least one other pair of trained eyes read it over first, even less so. I don't recommend writing in a vacuum. You really need outside input to get around your own natural blindspots. Without it, you're pretty much adrift and insulated until you do get reader feedback. I think the time has come for other eyes to look at your story when you're done reading it over yourself to the point where you can't see what else to change.

Basically, all great works of fiction have been group efforts. Don't be shy about letting others read drafts - the payoff is tremendous.

[Hello Purvis]

-Why am I the best writeman?
-What do you struggle with the most when writing a thing?

The internal world is the more challenging one to construct. This is because the paradox of a good story is, in my opinion anyway, what the characters choose not to say or do is always the real story.

Says the guy who criticized Prog Rock as "No you have to listen to the notes they aren't playing!" WHICH IS IT YOU FUCKING ROMNEY!

[Tengukami]

-Why am I the best writeman?

The "to-do lists" was an elegant, imaginative and hilarious mode of storytelling.

-What do you struggle with the most when writing a thing?

Apart from the aforementioned pacing, probably everything except dialogue. Writing how people talk is something I'm fairly confident I'm good at. The other stuff is always a struggle, some more so than others.

Says the guy who criticized Prog Rock as "No you have to listen to the notes they aren't playing!" WHICH IS IT YOU FUCKING ROMNEY!

I have a binder full of King Crimson albums!

Actually, that music criticism was jokey, and a Simpsons reference. If anything, prog rock DEMANDS that you listen to the notes they are playing. Because you see, you cannot appreciate the subtle nuances of Yes and Tool without paying very close attention to changing time signatures, the use of pentatonic scales, and a whole lot of other mathmathmath. This isn't a dig on prog rock; this is what prog rock fans actually believe.

When it comes to storywriting, though, yeah - leaving room for unpredictability and unanswered questions about your characters gives them humanity and depth, and encourages readers caring about the characters. Real people do leave you with unanswered questions - you will never fully predict them or know them. Giving your characters these same qualities gives them more viability.

[Hello Purvis]

Okay let's say I never read your stuff ever. How would you recommend proceeding through your works?

[Joveus Molai]

Ok, I think it's been about 1 week. Purvis' question will be the last one for Ammy.

The past two weeks has also been kinda slow, which is making me think about putting this thread on hold for a few weeks to generate interest again. Thoughts on this?

[Hello Purvis]

Dead threads tend to do the opposite of generate interest.

[Tengukami]

Okay let's say I never read your stuff ever. How would you recommend proceeding through your works?

Simply put: go to my blog, start with the earliest entry, and work your way back. Although if you just wanted a quick overview to get the general feel of what and how I write, I guess the four previously linked stories will do just fine.

It's been fun answering your questions, Joveus and Purvis. Thanks!

[Joveus Molai]

  That is it for this week's...

**~ASK A WRITER!~**

A big round of applause for our guest, Ammy! 

*Hearty applause, cheers, bottlenose dolphin wistles*

Good luck, Ammy!

Indeed, we wish Ammy the very best of luck in all future endeavors.


---

And now it's time to pick our next guest!

On...

**~ASK A WRITER!~**

Again, if you'd like to be the next guest on our show, let us know! Remember, first come first served! We are also accepting nominations on behalf of other writers!

However, any nominated writers must fully agree to be part of our show before they are interviewed.

So with that out of the way: step right up! And be our next guest on...

**~ASK A WRITER!~**

*Applause*

---

Joveus' note: Thanks for being with us, Ammy!

To reiterate the instructions:

If you'd like to be the next person interviewed, please make a post saying so.

Furthermore, I will now be accepting nominations made by other posters on behalf of other writers. Such nominees must, of course, fully agree to being interviewed!

The next post or nomination will be chosen.

[Hello Purvis]

Nominating Rurot again, since she's back from vacation (I think?)

[Tengukami]

Seconding Ruro

[Wolfsbane706]

I may come to regret this, but I'm volunteering for an interview.

[Joveus Molai]

Ruro has accepted the nomination, so she will be our next guest! I will be sending her the list of questions soon.

[Alfred F. Jones]

And now, for an interview with the vampire Ruro.

What got you into writing fiction?
What I think of as my introduction to fiction was when I was learning English. Spanish is my first language, so as part of my ESL education, both my teacher and my mother (who is herself also a teacher) encouraged me to read a lot of books in English. In particular I liked the Madeline children's book series, written by Ludwig Bemelmans, and my teacher was more than okay with it when I turned out to like it so much, that I asked him for permission to sit in front of the class and read aloud to all my classmates. I distinctly remember those reading sessions as the moment that I realised that I like telling stories that interest my audience.

Writing them myself, though, would have to wait until I could actually write in English!

What sources outside of Touhou do you draw inspiration from?
I draw inspiration from.... oh man, that's pretty hard. I never have drawn inspiration from Touhou exclusively. Hmm... I like literature from across cultures a lot. Mythology too. History, of course, which tends to come up a lot. That last one is probably the single biggest inspiration to anything I write.

Which Touhou character is your favorite to write? The most difficult write?
My favourite Touhou character to write is almost certainly Utsuho. She's so wonderfully straightforward and simple, and just wants to help her underground family out. She's also super powerful and, in SA, very megalomaniacal and destructive. She's perfection.

The most difficult to write is probably Satori. I have such a hard time writing loners, because it's been a very long time since I was last emotionally alone the way she is in canon.

Out of all the stories you've written (Touhou-related or not), which one is your favorite?
White Rose is one of my favourites if only because I've gotten so much writing done for it (even if I have to pick it up again sometime and dust it off). I really got into it when I was writing the end of part one.

For non-Touhou stuff, my favourite is probably Apple and Cinnamon (PMMM), because it's got a recurring plot hook that actually works in context, one of my favourite ships, and it won me two small Kyouko and Mami figurines in the contest I wrote it for. I also think it's good for being so short, since it clocks in under 10k words; by far my shortest complete work that I really enjoy.

Outside of Touhou fiction, what other works have you written fiction for?
Hmm... Puella Magi Madoka Magica (also Kazumi Magica), Sailor Moon, and Precure. I'd like to branch out more, but I'm not the sort of person who thrives writing many projects at once; I have to focus on one or two.

What do you find to be the most rewarding aspect of writing? The most challenging?
I really love reading back over my stuff and seeing how the story flows together, it's so cool. Seeing other people's reactions to my stories is also right up there, I just love seeing people affected by it!

The most challenging aspect of writing, on the other hand, is forcing myself to ignore things like historical inaccuracy for the sake of continuing to push forward, and knowing when to stop researching and start writing.

If there is one aspect of your writing you would want to improve, what is it?
I wish I could learn to write with less words and still be as effective. It's not even that my writing is purple prose-y, I think, I try to be concise, but they're just really involved, detailed stories.

When writing Touhou fiction, how do you usually approach official canon material? Do you build on top of it; do you go around it; or do you try and stay within it as much as possible? Something else?
I used to try to stay within canon as much as possible, but then Symposium of Post-Mysticism happened. No, seriously, I long ago read most of the canon works that existed at the time on the wiki, but more and more often I ended up reading a lot of material and just ended up ignoring a lot of it in my writing. And yes, then SoPM was published, and now I just tend to forget it ever happened. Now I'm at a place where I care very little for recent canon stuff, since my ideas are based in earlier roots.

What are some of your favorite things to read, including but not limited to books?
Books, naturally, but especially history ones! I have lately been very interested in the Silk Road (or rather, silk roads, the many trade routes that connected the old world of antiquity), the Byzantine Empire, and old-school Hawaiian mythology. I used to read the newspaper a lot, but I don't make as big a habit of it anymore, though I do try to stay caught up on global happenings. And yes, I love reading other people's fanfiction.

What particular genres do you enjoy reading? What particular genres do you enjoy writing?
My answers for both parts of this question are near-identical so assume they go for both: historical fiction, epic-scale grand aventures, magical girl stuff. I enjoy reading comedy and I wish I could say I enjoy writing it, but I'm not any good at lighthearted stuff for the most part; I fully admit to preferring the dark side in the stories I read and write. Conversely, I don't enjoy reading romance, which is part of why my own writing is largely devoid of it.

Do you have any big projects we can look forward to on the horizon?
Well, come NaNoWriMo I'm going to pick up Weave the Stars again and get another 50k words poured into it (which will hopefully finish it off!). I've also been working on a top secret Precure fiction thing, but I don't know how many people here would be interested in that.

PC-98 characters seem to feature prominently in your stories. What draws you to the PC-98 crew? Do you have a particular preference towards either PC-98 or Windows games over the others? Do you find the PC-98 characters harder or easier to write than Windows characters?
You know, I've had this question in mind for years and I have never been able to find an answer to it that satisfies me in full. That said, I think it was partially because few other people really cared about PC-98 characters when I started out in the fandom. If I had started to write Remilia going against the grain of her fanon self, it would be hard for my own mind to accept, much less fans I'd like to read my story. With Yumemi, there's not really so much resistance; the PC-98 characters have even less canon material to go off on than most of the Windows characters, and it's easier to get into it and just keep writing without having to worry about getting tripped up.

If I recall correctly, you have a degree in Psychology. Given the emphasis on characterization in modern fiction writing, do you ever find yourself drawing on your Psychology knowledge when you write? If so, to what extent?
You recall incorrectly! My degree is in International Relations. That said, I have studied psychology quite a bit! Not only was it one of my preferred elective subjects, I actually attended a few lectures here and there held by the Jung Society of Colorado, as research for White Rose.

I definitely have found myself drawing on my psych knowledge when writing, particularly when it comes to unhealthy relationships. I have this thing where all my personal relationships are actually pretty damn healthy and good, and yet I love seeing really unhealthy, messed-up relationships in fiction, because I think that's realistic too. Plus it makes for some delicious conflict.

I also have thrown a smattering of neuroatypical characters into my stories, as both heroes and villains, because I think it makes narratives more interesting if they reflect reality in small, detailed ways like that. So to use examples, the minor character Komeiji Miyani from White Rose has depersonalization disorder (you try resisting the urge to give satori characters mental issues like that!) and the main character of Weave the Stars has agoraphobia and associated anxiety issues. I have OCD myself (the sort that obsesses over patterns and repetition), and I always wanted to see characters like that myself.

Your NaNoWriMo novel Weave the Stars is a particularly unique take on a Touhou fic. What inspired it? Do you do seamstress-work yourself?
This is such a great question, it's going to take me a bit to unpack it.

What inspired it? A few main threads.
The first is minor: remember that fan theory that the multiple lives in Touhou games are actually representative of the changes of clothing the characters have on them, based on Sakuya's line in PCB against Alice that she has four changes of clothes (and, as the player sees, four lives)? Then also the recurring question of "who the hell makes all these characters' clothes, but especially the fairies'?" that comes up in Touhou fandom? I'm not the first person to get the idea of a Touhouverse tailor of clothes by a long shot, but I do think I'm the only one that took it in such a wildly different direction.

The second thing that inspired it goes a lot deeper.

I don't do seamstress work myself, but one of the people who has had a big impact on my life did. That was my great-grandmother, Rita Morales. My stories of her largely come from my own mother, who knew her and listened to her own stories when she was young. During the time of the Mexican Revolution, her family was fleeing south to escape the chaos of the north, and after settling down where they did, Rita found a man she wanted to marry. Now, my great-grandmother (just call her Abuela, that's what I do) Rita's family was pretty upper class and well to do; the man she wanted to marry was an ordinary farmer. Her father told her that if she married him, he would disown her. Naturally, she married him, and he did indeed disown her. The man turned out to be a useless drunk and Rita quickly had to learn how to support herself. The lady, however, had a lot of steel in her spine, so she learned how to sew.

This was in a country and time period in which women sewing was considered unfeminine, which is why the present day connotation of sewing being something extremely feminine makes me laugh so hard. You have to understand, women sewing dresses for money to support themselves was considered too aggressive: they needed to rely on men to bring money into households. But Abuelita didn't care; she went to a sewing school and got her certification, and quickly became one of the best seamstresses in town. By the time my mother was my age, her great-grandmother was the best seamstress in the city, after 50+ years of experience. Her dresses were amazing, and while she never became rich enough to earn back all the inheritance she lost out, she did quite well, and while I never met her, my mother tells me stories of how rad she was, and just how good she was with a needle and thread.

The third thing that inspired it was my learning about more Mexican history at the time, and history of all Latin America. I was interested in Asian immigration to the continent, in particular, and, well, Peru has the Incas, the other great pre-Hispanic civilization aside from Mexico's Aztecs and Mayans. At some point while reading about the Kasato Maru and Incan quipu, some threads crossed in my head and, well, I ended up with Mari Soledad Saihoushi.

There are also other threads that were drawn on for inspiration for the story, but those are



Is there a word of advice you'd like to give to aspiring fiction writers?
I think it would be to just write. Don't worry about how trash your first story is, how you're not living up to your own ideas of how you want to execute your ideas, we all sucked too at first but then we just kept pushing. Even now, no one is as good as they think they are to pull off any given idea successfully, but you have to just grit your teeth and keep going, because if you wait until you're good enough to take on your story idea as well as you'd like, you'll NEVER be good enough. Learn from your mistakes, seek out resources and advice and support, and don't stop until you reach the end. And then take pride in how far you've come and how much better you've gotten.

[MatsuriSakuragi]

Dang, your great-grandmother sounds rad

What do you consider your most brilliant writing idea to be?
Are there any authors or written works (fanfic or otherwise) in particular that you draw inspiration from currently?
What do you do to break writers' block?
What other series do you think you'd like to try writing fiction for that you haven't looked into yet?

[Tengukami]

Can you write while listening to music? If so, what do you listen to?
Is there a story idea you've been wanting to write but have been too chicken to try?
Do you think artists are the most qualified to say what the "meaning" of their own work is, and if so, why?

[Hello Purvis]

Why am I the best writeguy?

Let's say I never read a thing you wrote, how would you recommend approaching your stuffs?

What is the hardest thing for you to write?

Answer the question I am thinking of right now.

[Wolfsbane706]

What do you think of some of the other opinions presented, thus far?  Do you share them, disagree with them, or a bit of both?

[Jana]

What kind of music do you listen to when you're writing.brainstorming, if that's a thing you do?

[Tamer Anode/Cathode]

How much do you feel the rest of the Touhou fanfiction community influences your work? How much do you feel like you influence them?

[Alfred F. Jones]

Dang, your great-grandmother sounds rad

She started a long and proud tradition of the women on my mom's side of the family giving up a lot of what they grew up with and chasing their dreams and succeeding beautifully, yes.

What do you consider your most brilliant writing idea to be?

Probably Weave the Stars right now! I've heard a lot of people tell me that they had never considered that kind of angle to a Touhou story, and that makes me really happy to hear. Wanting to be original is not a particularly driving force in me (all stories are just mashups of other previous stories, aren't they?) but I do take pride in people considering my delivery of it to be very unconventional.

Are there any authors or written works (fanfic or otherwise) in particular that you draw inspiration from currently?

I actually had not read Frank Herbert's Dune before I started White Rose; the stuff on ecology and biology and psych is definitely not from his work. That said, after reading the series, I've decided that his style of epic writing, on literally global scales, is one of my favourites. I like a lot of YA writers as well, with Kirsten Miller at the top of the bunch. Her Kiki Strike book series was so good. Also Wendelin VanDraanen, who actually writes for children and not YA or adult stories, but I've never seen a kid detective series as good as her Sammy Keyes series. Since her stuff also counts as YA, Fuyumi Ono is also another top writer I take inspiration from.
Among fanfic writers, I really enjoy Satashi's old Nanoha work; her Sixth Division series was what got me interested in the idea of retellings of anime seasons. SailorPtah is also an amazing writer and has written some of the best stories in magical girl fandom, but especially PMMM, as well as one of the only Sailor Moon fics that had original characters I could actually get invested in.
In more serious nonfiction stuff, I adore Naomi Klein's stuff, since I do have a strong interest in political economy topics. She's also just a really good writer. The satirist Tina Dupuy is also a hilarious joy to read. As I consider myself to be very religious, I also drop by Richard Beck's Experimental Theology blog from time to time, he's got a way of thinking about faith from a psychologist's perspective that I think is extremely valuable.

What do you do to break writers' block?

I go draw! In fact, they usually trade off; when I have artist's block, I can write just fine, and vice versa. That usually shakes the block.

What other series do you think you'd like to try writing fiction for that you haven't looked into yet?

I've pitched the idea of a Taishou Yakyuu Musume and Sakura Taisen crossover. For that matter, I've been in the Sakura Taisen fandom for over a decade and I've never had any good fic ideas for it! Someone recently suggested the idea of a Mermaid Melody rewrite with things like diversity among the mermaid kingdoms, creativity, and a functional plot, but I'm not invested enough in MerMelo yet. Also, I've never written proper Sailor Moon fic, and I think I'd like to try that sometime.

Can you write while listening to music? If so, what do you listen to?

Yep, I can! I've mentioned it before, but not recently, so: when I write, I have to listen to something dissonant from the mood I am writing. Most writers listen to sad music to recreate a mood of sorrow and have that reflected in what they write, but I have to have upbeat music when writing tragic scenes, and tragic music when writing happy scenes. I've never understood why the mechanics of this, exactly, but I know how to work with it.
The only exception is fight scenes, where it doesn't matter what music I am listening to.

Is there a story idea you've been wanting to write but have been too chicken to try?

In a sense, White Rose, because it's just so intimidatingly large, but now in the same vein, I have an idea for a magical girl mega crossover that would require years of commitment from me that I'm not sure I could manage, but I want to try even if I get overwhelmed. I'm just scared by how big any given section of it would be. >.<

Do you think artists are the most qualified to say what the "meaning" of their own work is, and if so, why?

Man, that's a tough question! You've got writers who are deliberately vague, and then you have authors like Ray Bradbury who go back and forth on the meaning of their stories. The latter example is particularly interesting because a class of UCLA students once told him to his face that Fahrenheit 451 wasn't about how television killed creativity, but that it was about government censorship instead. I gotta say, I admire the nerve to take death of the author to that extent. At the same time, I also feel like authors might, in fact, know more about what they were getting at with their stories than readers. And then I feel like readers' emotional reactions to things matter.
In the end I think I prefer the notion that the author should have the loudest voice when it comes to interpreting their work, but it's just that it's not the only voice, y'dig? Once you've released your work into the world, it's no longer just your story.

Why am I the best writeguy?

You're highly unconventional in your storytelling and I like that!

Let's say I never read a thing you wrote, how would you recommend approaching your stuffs?

Man, that's a hard question. I guess there's a certain benefit to starting with my oldest work to see my style develop, but to be honest, I'm kind of ashamed of the oldest stuff; I've grown as a writer and as a person since then, and I'm not always proud of the stuff I wrote before. It's not in any specific chronological order, though, so I would suggest telling me the kind of genres you're interested in and I could point you in a direction from there!

What is the hardest thing for you to write?

Man, I was trying to decide what's harder for me to write, romance or comedy, and I think the answer is "both". Romance is hard for me because I am so frustrated with how other people write romance; people fall in and out of love easily, saccharine love at first sight, worn-out situations that drip of treacle, all that nonsense. Romantic love has also never had any real appeal to me, and I prefer narratives that don't have it. Ironically, Apple and Cinnamon is a yuri romance written specifically to win a KyouMami shipping contest, and from my frustrations was born their fraught relationship in that story, which multiple people have praised me for in terms of writing realistically how hard it would be to fall back in love with someone who betrayed your trust once.
Comedy, on the other hand, is really hard because I don't think I'm any good at being deliberately funny. I've written up a 4koma series for Precure called Pretty Cure in Small Doses with over 120 comic ideas written in meticulous detail, I am not even joking. But they're 4koma ideas, meant to be drawn, because I just cannot be funny in prose for the life of me.

Answer the question I am thinking of right now.

Yes, I will totally have a katana versus rebar match with you someday.

What do you think of some of the other opinions presented, thus far?  Do you share them, disagree with them, or a bit of both?

Opinions on what?

What kind of music do you listen to when you're writing.brainstorming, if that's a thing you do?

When I write, my music is dissonant, but when I brainstorm it's a bit different. My ideas tend to flow no matter what music I listen to, so I put my music on shuffle and just think with the flow, mostly!

How much do you feel the rest of the Touhou fanfiction community influences your work? How much do you feel like you influence them?

I feel like I gave up any chance to influence them when I stopped writing Touhou continually, since I had pressing real life stuff that took time away from writing.
As for how much the comm influences my work, I would like to say that I don't care what others think, but I know that a certain Touhou fic pretty much sapped my will to keep writing White Rose years ago. It's not a fic written by any author here on MotK, don't worry, but the discussion I saw surrounding it and the community it came from was really soul-poisoning and I just kinda ground to a halt. I'm trying to get back into the swing of things with Weave the Stars, and that story I would like to influence more people once the work is completed, because I'm genuinely proud of where I want it to go and how much better it is planned out than White Rose's impossible-to-manage long sprawling epic.

[Tengukami]

Yep, I can! I've mentioned it before, but not recently, so: when I write, I have to listen to something dissonant from the mood I am writing. Most writers listen to sad music to recreate a mood of sorrow and have that reflected in what they write, but I have to have upbeat music when writing tragic scenes, and tragic music when writing happy scenes. I've never understood why the mechanics of this, exactly, but I know how to work with it.
The only exception is fight scenes, where it doesn't matter what music I am listening to.

Interesting approach! I was curious about this because I've noticed that writing written while listening to music that fits the mood of what is being written about tends to come across as really forced and rushed (my own included). So I usually write in total silence. This Opposite Day approach might be a good idea.

Man, that's a tough question! You've got writers who are deliberately vague, and then you have authors like Ray Bradbury who go back and forth on the meaning of their stories. The latter example is particularly interesting because a class of UCLA students once told him to his face that Fahrenheit 451 wasn't about how television killed creativity, but that it was about government censorship instead. I gotta say, I admire the nerve to take death of the author to that extent. At the same time, I also feel like authors might, in fact, know more about what they were getting at with their stories than readers. And then I feel like readers' emotional reactions to things matter.

Thank you. It's a question I'm trying to answer myself, and have made some observations where this is concerned, many of them based on basic human psychology. Maybe you already see what I'm driving at. But I like your fluid, egalitarian approach to this question.

[Wolfsbane706]

Opinions on what?

  I meant about some of the answers given by the other authors who've been interviewed.

[Joveus Molai]

Q: Are there any books in particular you'd recommend for learning how to write, or for learning how to improve your writing?