Author Interviews

One: @GreyZone

The Five Standard Questions:

Question One:

What inspired you to research and write the tough topic(s) that your novel centers around?

My inspiration for the world of Skin Deep came from a cheesy ad that was supposed to guilt you into being nice--what would your world look like if everyone had a list of everything you've ever said? I had never had an idea smack me that sharply in the face (and still haven't), and my brain started churning. What if those words appeared on your skin? What if you die if you talk too much and run out of room? Wouldn't people unable to talk be considered outcasts? It blew up from then and the world still consumes my thoughts almost two years later.

Question Two:

Has writing said tough topic changed the way you view writing, or the world in general? How has it impacted your creative aesthetic?

Writing Skin Deep has undecidedly changed the way I view everyone. I've never been a self-harming girl who got locked up in an insane asylum because she was mute, I've never been lead to gouge words into my skin to fit in with society. I've never been abandoned by my mother because I couldn't speak. I've never been in foster care, or abused due to something considered a physical handicap. It took a lot of work to put myself in the mindset of someone who had been, and I emerged a much more compassionate and understanding person. I have had my battles with mental illnesses, but my monsters are internal. To portray those characters sensitively, I had to create realistic demons to attack them that were also external, something I had never gone through personally.

Question Three:

How do you hope to help people with your writing?

I grew up in the church and I love Jesus passionately, but I'm also a dark reader. I love sensitive topics, I love dark themes, I love unlovable and demented characters that I have to fight with. For me, it always seemed like I couldn't win--something was either too inappropriate due to unnecessary add-ins, or some cheesy predictable Christian fiction that I hated. With my novel, I wanted to write a serious story that doesn't baby the readers, but also does not include any language or sex scenes. I was writing the book that I craved all of my life.

Question Four:

What does your writing process look like?

It's sadly been a few months since I've been working on a novel, but one of the most important aspects for me while writing my first book Glitch, and then later Skin Deep, was music. I was always writing on the go: in the car, at school, before dance class and during theater rehearsal. If I had my headphones, I was golden and could work anywhere. Vital artists during my writing were Lana Del Rey, Arctic Monkeys, Bastille, Chet Faker, Damien Rice, Daughter, Ed Sheeran, Hozier, Iron & Wine, Lo-Fang, Margot & the Nuclear So and So's, Marina and the Diamonds, Mumford & Sons, Panic! at the Disco, the Neighbourhood, and Sleeping at Last. I always plan everything out but never stick by any of it; although, characterization has always been a vital, vital part of my writing process. I never start a serious project unless I know the character like a best friend.

Question Five:

What are your long-term goals with writing? What are your long-term goals outside of writing?

I'm currently talking to an editor and looking into either self-publishing or traditionally--it's all up for grabs right now. My gut is just telling me that this current novel could go far and that I can't give up on it. Outside of writing, I would love to be a certified ASL interpreter, and eventually an English professor. I love words and language too much; no wonder I learned a new one for my novel.

The Five Unique Questions:

Question One:

To write Skin Deep, you did an incredible amount of research. What inspired you to start it, and how did you go about compiling all the research you needed to properly write the book?

It was never even a question that Skin Deep would feature Deaf and mute characters to me. I was planning on just learning the language enough to fake it, but I ended up falling in love with it and still study ASL every single day. I've publically interpreted music five times now! Another huge component of my research (which earned me a bookmark folder called 'medical crap' that was way too huge) was Josephine's disease, and the reason behind John's muteness. With the mental illnesses, self harm, rape, and foster homes, I've personally interacted with victims of all, or really had to dive deep into myself to put my mind in their bodies to understand what real people have to go through. I was so very careful of handing the dark topics sensitively, and no one can give me a better compliment in regards to Skin Deep then when they say I represented it very well; particularly if that person told me they had too gone through it.

Question Two:

In your novel, one of the topics your characters face is self-harm. Lately, it seems that there has been a lot of controversy about self-harm becoming a "bandwagon" issue – i.e., groups of friends inspiring one another to hurt themselves. How do you think this has impacted the cultural, and literary, mindset concerning the seriousness of self-harm?

When I was creating and working with Josephine (my character who self harms, and yes, I did just refer to her as a real person because to me, she is) I never even considered her a self-harmer, ironically enough. I saw her as a desperate girl who had gone through some horrible circumstances, to the point where she physically hurt herself to feel normal. When someone messaged me asking if I self-harm, and if that's why I handled it so delicately, I was shocked. I wrote a self-harmer? It was news to me, surprisingly enough. It hurts me that people discredit those with mental illnesses so severely. While writing a character like Jo, I never saw her as a 'self-harmer,' I saw her as a person.

Question Three:

For a lighter question: who is the best character you have ever written?

Everyone on Wattpad always hears me talk about how I'm editing, editing, editing... You could never tell this from the Skin Deep that is published online, but Annabel Lawson, the mother of Jenna and Josephine, is what I believe to be my strongest character yet. Not in that she's a great role model and a physically strong person--no, she's incredibly weak and that's the only side of her that was apparent in the first draft that was published. I can't wait to unveil the deeper version of her because she truly is an amazing woman.

Question Four:

Will your future works be tinged with contemporary meeting paranormal? Or are you looking to move in a different direction?

The only paranormal themes in Skin Deep were the words on the skin, and I made that much more prominent in the second draft I'm working on. It was an experimental genre for me, but it's currently listed as general fiction because I believe it is misleading. There are no ghosts or goblins in the novel, at least obvious ones, anyway.

Question Five:

Favorite quote concerning writing?

"Don't expect the puppets of your mind to become the people of your story. If they are not realities in your own mind, there is no mysterious alchemy in ink and paper that will turn wooden figures into flesh and blood."

—Leslie Gordon Barnard, WD