Fantasy Authors Interview

Meet Monica

We've got another awesome Fantasy author for you today. Hailing from Portugal, please welcome, MonicaBGuerra. Let's hear what they've got to say.

What is your country of origin?

Portugal

What other languages aside from English can you speak fluently?

Portuguese (my native language)

Are you writing under a pseudonym? Is there a story as to how and why you came up with it? Please tell us about it!

I'm writing under my own name. I used to have a pen name when I wrote fanfiction but, when I started writing original work, I decided I'd like to go with my actual name.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer? Why do you want to be a writer?

This is such a complex question, because, here's the thing: to me anyone who writes is a writer, and I will go to my grave maintaining that fanfic writers are as valid as any other kind. And, while I've always held this view for other writers, it took me many, many years to consider myself a writer.

In fact it wasn't until 2020, after twenty years of writing fanfic online (and another five before those twenty writing on a notebook and not sharing) that I wrote my first original novel and thought to myself "well, you're a writer now." Which was immediately followed by "you blithering idiot, you've been a writer for a quarter of a century, why did it take you this long to see it?"

So I'm not entirely sure there's a "first realised I wanted to be a writer" moment, since I always have been, but there's definitely a "first realised I eventually want to turn this into a career" moment, which was 2020. (Still not there, but that's the plan.)

Please tell us about your story/ies on Wattpad so that readers could find them.

My first original novel (that started life as a novella for the 2020 ONC) is Utterly Forgettable. It's a contemporary love story (which surprised no one more than myself, since I always pictured I'd start with either Fantasy or Sci Fi) between two men in their forties. One briefly worked for the other in the past, there was a rift between them and, as the story starts, the erstwhile employer, who used to be a millionaire, has been homeless for months. And the other guy couldn't leave him on the streets to fend for himself if his life depended on it, which means they'll have to find a way to coexist, even as it becomes clear both have feelings for one another.

Then, last year (again, for the ONC) I wrote a Sci Fi duology of novellas that tell the same story from opposing points of view. I called the duology Syn, with one novella being BioSynth, and the other one SynTracker. The premise is simple: there's a happily married couple (again, two men in their forties), one of them is an android hunter and, after ten years together, it comes to light that the other one is an android. Things get complicated after that.

BioSynth follows Quentin, the android who'd forgotten he was an android, and who's now on the run from the one man he'd give anything to run towards; SynTracker follows Ian, the android hunter who's convinced he has a human husband, and that this android is merely a copy—one he has to hunt down at any cost, so he can trawl through his memories and figure out where his "real" husband is.

These novellas can be read one after the other, in any order, or they can be read in tandem, chapter by chapter, for a more complete picture of what's going on. It was an incredible experiment, writing them this way, and I loved every moment of it.

BioSynth placed 3rd overall in 2021's ONC, to my utter delight.

This year, even though I didn't officially enter the ONC, I was following along with a Fantasy novella called Singular, about a man born without magic in a world where magic is the norm, which means he thinks of himself as lesser. Because magic is always cast in pairs, he hasn't even been able to bring himself to risk a relationship with the man he's loved for twenty years (who, coincidentally, is the realm's king), having decided he'd never be an equal partner. Except, once he finds himself stranded with just the king on a deserted island, the king can't cast (he'd need a pair) and our main character realises he's accumulated a wealth of skills and he's not useless at all. There are other things thrown in there, some in the background because there'll be a follow-up novella, and these include a conspiracy, the threat of war, and a secret cabal of—nope, not telling!