Short stories, novels, or poems? All of them, but short stories are the easiest foe me to write.
What genre do you prefer reading? Adventure, thriller/mystery
What genre do you prefer writing? Also adventure/thriller/mystery, though slice-of-life is the easiest to write.
Are you a planner or a write-as-I-go kind of person? For oneshots, I just wing it, but anything longer than a oneshot, I plan out a full outline.
What music do you listen to while writing? I have a writing playlist with assorted things from my ipod list, which is a mishmash of Rockapella, 80s music, and video game soundtrack music.
Fave books/movies?
Robert Vaughn’s books, Clive Cussler novels, MFU books and movies, Adventures of Tintin…
Any current WIPs? Ha. Haha. Hahahah. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Lost count a looooooong time ago…
If someone were to make a cartoon out of you, what would your standard outfit be?
Blouse + skirt; my cartoon self would basically be my PoGo avvie–
Create a character description for yourself: A US-born woman of South Indian descent, aspiring writer, and Pokémon-training bird keeper.
Do you like incorporating people you actually know into your writing? I do on occasion–but 9 out of 10 times, though, it’s an unflattering portrayal of someone who wronged me, and my petty self getting satisfaction for it.
Are you kill-happy with characters? Absolutely not!
Coffee or tea while writing? Nope
Slow or fast writer? When I get the time to write, I can write quickly, but the time I have to write is limited, so both fast and slow. 😅
Where/who/what do you find inspiration from? Oh, gosh, from everything–songs, random events, offhand quotes and prompts, discussions about tossing ideas around…
If you were put into a fantasy world, what would you be? Some sort of scribe. Or magic bird tamer. Or both. Both is good…
Most fave book cliche? Least fave book cliche?
Favorite: Undying Loyalty, True Companions, Power of Love/Friendship, Earn Your Happy Ending
Least favorite: Downer Endings
Fave scenes to write? Scenes where you can see just how much two characters mean to each other and how loyal they are to each other.
Most productive time of day for writing? Evenings
Reason for writing: I love strong character relationships and all the associated tropes
with them–Undying Loyalty, True Companions, etc. And so, I almost
always want to explore these relationships, whether in fandom or my own OCs, and so I write.
So I tried that “plan a romance novel and see what kind of muse you have” quiz thing for my Lionheart & Kid novel (as best as I could–not all of the questions worked, but I answered to the best of my abilities) and…
“The more drama, the more heartbreak, the more satisfying the eventual happy ending will be.”
1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean? The rose part is based off of one of the first long stories I wrote when I was a kid (and also because my real name literally means “flower”), and the Pollux part was based off of a relatively recent novel I started in my undergrad and finished in 2012.
2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/subscriptions/hits/kudos). I think going by hits is inaccurate, as multichapter fics will, inevitably, have more. On FFN, my most popular fic based on feedback is and probably forever will be an old YuGiOh fic I wrote called “Folgen Sie Ihrem Traum.” On AO3, it was the slash version of “Heroic Resolve,” which was a short vignette where Illya looks after a hypothermic Napoleon.
3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it? It is a stock/public domain pic of a rose to fit in with the penname; it’s my default icon on almost all of my accounts across the internet. It was my icon here, too, until last year, when @ksturf figured out how to photoshop the rose into Napoleon’s hand and I just adored it to bits.
4. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most? …Vampire AUs, lately. I don’t post these, but there was a slight taste of one in the last chapter of last year’s Halloween fic, “The Jack o’ the Lantern Affair.”
5. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)
….That’s… a lot more than I thought there would be 😮
6. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!) If you’d asked me this a year ago, I would have said writing romance/slash. Now, I love it.
7. Is there anything you would like to be
better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments,
updating better, etc. I wish I could update better…
8. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often? Prior to MFU, it was rarepairs; Napollya is the main ship here, so that’s a fun switch from writing rairpares. 🙂
9. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)? 239 on AO3 (185 are MFU, soon to be 186/240).
10. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program? Everything that I wrote from 2010 and onward; I should probably make backups of the YuGiOh DM fics prior to 2010 in case FFN ever goes down… 11. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head? I keep most them in my head until I’m ready to outline; I log the really good ones.
12. Have you ever co-authored a story? Yep, I once co-wrote a fic for the Hogan’s Heroes fandom 13. How did you discover AO3? One of my followers convinced me to get an account, and I finally caved.
14. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3? I was part of the Monkees Ring of Misery, and before that, was cited as “one of the good authors” by someone in the Hogan’s Heroes fandom, which was a definite “Wait, what?” moment, but a thrilling one (especially since the person in question was someone I’d considered a well-established writer in the fandom)! Both of those were before my venture into AO3; for MFU it’s mainly me in my own little corner with a few regular readers, but every so often, one of my fics takes off.
15. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers? Not really…
16. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write? First it was Georges “Hergé” Remi, who basically was the single-biggest influence on my writing style. And though he’s not an author per se, it was Satoshi Tajiri’s open Pokémon world that gave me the chance to test that writing style. I’m fond of using the metaphor that Hergé gave me the tools, but Mr. Tajiri gave me the workshop.
17. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author? Basically, practice and keep writing. Writing is an art, and with all arts, you get better with practice.
18. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go? For short ones, I wing it, but for anything multichapter, I have to plot it out.
19. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do? The only bad comment I ever got on a fic was on a mystery fic for Hogan’s Heroes, where someone complained that they “didn’t read the whole thing, but jumped in the middle of the fic and it made no sense.” Like… I don’t know what they expected jumping into the middle of a mystery fic. I just ignored it.
20. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? I don’t like writing characters–especially characters that are usually close–at odds with each other.
21. What story(s) are you working on now? I’m hoping to write more of the Lionheart & Kid project I started for NaNo, do my weekly MFU short affair, and soon start an MFU mystery fic.
22. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)? HAHAHAHAHA *pushes several WIPs behind a door* 23. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself? I did during Fictober and NaNo; for other months, I usually don’t.
24. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started? Oh, absolutely. I used to be terrible at the whole “show, don’t tell” thing and relied mostly on dialogue to drive my stories because descriptions were too difficult for me. This was evident when I started posting fics in 2008, and someone even critiqued my first YuGiOh mystery fic regarding it. But I practiced and got better and better until, 4 years later, I got this as part of a review for one of my Hogan’s Heroes fics–
“The scene in the woods is marvelously tense, as Newkirk summons all his
skills to elude the hunters as he searches for their shared quarry. You
do a great job with evoking all his senses (which he’d have on high
alert): the sounds of boots vs. shoes, the smell of grass and soil as he
lies hiding on the ground, the feel of his “pencil-sharpener” at his
back.“
Everyone improves with practice. Everyone.
25. What is your favorite story that you’ve written? At the moment, it’s probably my last Halloween fic, “The Jack o’ the Lantern Affair.” I had way too much fun writing it. Close second would be “If Wishes Were Cats,” which was my first full-fledged slash fic.
26. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written? I really regret a super-angsty Carmen Sandiego fic that is now locked away on LiveJournal and no longer visible to the public. I don’t have the heart to delete it, after putting so much work into it, but mannn, what was going through my head when I wrote that, I wish I knew…
27. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years? Hopefully having published some original stuff, including the first Lionheart and Kid book!
28. What is the easiest thing about writing? Getting ideas/inspiration. At least for me, the story ideas just keep on coming.
29. What is the hardest thing about writing? Actually sitting down and putting what’s in your head into words.
30. Why do you write? I grow attached to certain characters, and in several cases, these characters’ official stories have so much more that could be added to them. And I want to tell those stories.
Only Seven Acres of Rose of Pollux's Musings & Daydreams 