Along with other young writers in the UK, I attended the Wicked Young Writers' Awards in June. It was a fantastic afternoon which inspired me to kickstart this blog -- albeit it took me a while! Luckily, some of these talented writers agreed to let me interview them to get an insight into their motivation and aspirations. Finalist entries can be found here: http://www.wickedyoungwriters.com/downloads/Wicked_YWA_2015_18-25.pdf . And Sugar Scape finalists can be found here: http://www.wickedyoungwriters.com/downloads/Wicked_Sugarscape_Award2015.pdf
Interview with Emma Findley-Wilson
Tell me a little
about your writing journey. When did you start? Why? How many pieces have you
written so far? Have any of these been published? Where are you hoping your
writing will take you?
I think I've been writing for as long as I remember really -
I used to adore making up stories for Literature class at primary school, and
typed and printed out my very first story on my parents' laptop when I was
about ten.
I always tell people that I write because I need to rather
than anything else. It sounds bizarre, but writing is something as natural as
breathing to me; I will always be writing something, even if it's as mundane as
an essay for university or long emails to friends. Writing is my best way of
expressing myself, and losing myself in the worlds inside my head is my
favourite form of escapism.
So far I've written all sorts! I used to write a lot of
poetry, though I've stopped of late - possibly because I've begun to realise
that a poem is more than "deep thoughts" splashed artily across a
page... I have, however, won a couple of awards for poetry in the past. Other
than that and a couple of short stories that have either won or been runners-up
in competitions, I've never had anything published. When I was thirteen years
old I posted a 100-page story to a publishing company with a hopeful heart, but
nowadays I'm content in the knowledge that nothing I've written so far (in
terms of novels) is actually good or original enough to grace anyone's
bookshelves.
This doesn't mean, though, that I don't intend to publish
something one day! I've half-written a few novels, and also fairly recently got
into fanfiction, which led me to starting and finishing (over the course of
nearly eighteen months) a 121,200+ word monster of a story. This was a huge
breaking point for me, and proof that I can actually finish a story provided I
put my mind to it and have sufficient inspiration! At the moment I'm happy with
my blogging, fanficcing, and occasional short story writing - I have a few
ideas swirling around in my head for the next novel, but only time will tell if
they'll be useful or not. After all, I have the rest of my life to be the next
J.R.R. Tolkien......
Where did your
inspiration come from for your WYWA piece? What’s your favourite thing about
the piece? What did you struggle with?
As cheesy as it sounds, I do genuinely believe that there is
some real gold to be found in the world of fanfiction if you dig deep enough
past the badly spelt and completely unoriginal ones! Some people put so much
effort into their work and gain such large fan bases that it seems sad it's not
recognised as a genuine form of fiction. When I came across the Sugarscape
Fanfiction Award, it was like seeing the light - I thought I had to write
something for it just because I thought it was important to acknowledge
it.
My inspiration was mainly that I've always thought it would
be hilarious to have two of the most unlikely characters - the villain and the
hero, for example! - end up in a ridiculous situation and discover that they
have more in common than either of them ever dreamed. I like writing pieces
with a sense of humour; it's easier to avoid sounding pretentious than if
you're writing in total seriousness and with lashings of drama! Snow White was
my favourite film when I was four years old, so I thought it was a good
candidate for being teased.
The thing I really struggled with was the word count. I'm
generally quite a wordy person, so it was frustrating in the extreme to have to
limit myself to 750 words! In the end, though, I was pleased with the piece on
the whole, and hoped people would find it as amusing as I did!
What do you think are
the main problems you face when writing? How do you combat this?
Honestly, my biggest issues are time and space! I'm fairly
busy, as a blogger, president of a society, and final year student; finding
time to sit down and write, especially given that it usually takes me an hour
or so to actually get anything decent out, is nearly impossible. I find that I
write best at night, around 1am, which is also very irritating because I'm not
much of a night owl and would much rather get some sleep...
Then there's the fact that during holidays, which I always
hope will be much more productive, I'm at home. There are seven of us and I
share a room with my eight-year-old sister who goes to sleep at 9pm - not
exactly conducive towards creativity! And there's nowhere else for me to sit
and type without people wanting to know what I'm doing or giving me chores to
do which are obviously far more important than whatever you're doing on
that laptop, Emma, the screen is probably hurting your eyes, get out in the
fresh air once in a while!!
My best bet for getting writing done is basically to be
really inspired. If a scene or a story is really clear in my mind and just
begging to be written, I'll write it, regardless of whether I have an essay due
or I should be cleaning the bathroom!
What are you working
on at the moment?
Ahh... no... don't remind me of all my unfinished projects!
Currently I'm turning a lot of ideas over. I've just
finished that one big fanfic, which left a bit of a hole in my life, so I've
started some sequel-ish chapters to follow it up. I also have a bit of a
weakness for Frozen - yeah, I know... - so I may one day get round to writing
more fic for that.
In terms of original fiction, I do actually have some very,
very basic ideas... but I'm sitting on them and seeing what hatches for the
moment. Give me a couple of months, I might have something worth
writing!!
Is writing solely a
hobby, or would you like it to lead onto something else in the future?
It's definitely both! Is that okay? I love to dream of
writing an instantly successful book and getting rich of the proceeds, but
realistically I know that my writing will probably take second place to a lot
of my plans for the future. Having said that, I'm really hoping to find a job
when I graduate that will revolve around publishing or editing, as I adore
working with other people's writing as well and helping them craft it into
something beautiful (and get rid of grammar mistakes!). If all goes well,
fingers crossed, I'll end up having a bit of my foot in the door when it comes
to wanting to publish something. We shall see!
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