FAQ

I tend to get this question a lot, especially since I’m a young writer. I’m 14 as of January 🙂

If you’ve ever heard of the terms ‘pantser’ and ‘plantser’, I’ve done a little bit of both, but I tend to shift to the first. I wrote my first draft of The Rapping Astronaut completely experimenting and going with where the wind took me. Definitely a rollercoaster, yet a lot of editing to do! I tend to fly blind rather than have every seed planted before I start my work, as I seem to get more work done this way.

I find ideas mostly everywhere, and if I don’t have something to jot them down, they’ll most likely pass by like gushes of wind in front of me. The most normal every-day thing can spur my curiosity, have me questioning why, how or what. If we’ve only discovered 5% of the ocean, what lies in the unknown? If the laws of science didn’t exist, could we see time? Could particles colonize and take a completely different form? The possibilities are endless. The principal is pitching an idea that really has me floating in the clouds, enough to have me diving deep, searching for answers, revealing a character’s secrets. All juicy stuff.

My first poetry book, Oracol, took about 3 years for me to write, as I’d managed to have around 300 funny sets of rhymes, of which only 16 if I’m not mistaken made the final cut.

My second book, The Rapping Astronaut, took around 6 months to write, plus another 6 for editing it. At the time, I didn’t know how to edit my work thoroughly, especially grammatically. Juggling school and my social life was new, and I had yet so much to learn. I was captivated with the idea of a world where I could completely escape reality, and my ideas for this book were flooding the page with a lot of words.

I think the book which I’ve managed to write the quickest was my latest release, Bucharest City Tour, a Trip with Sonia. I had a lot to learn, and if there was anything I learnt from this project, it was not to rush it. I’ve never tied myself to the chair, forcing me to write, yet I definitely kept an eye on that ‘hourglass’ while I was writing it. If there’s anything that I’d take away from that, it’d most likely be to scratch the idea of time and just write because you want to. It needs to come naturally.

Stick to writing as frequently as possible. There’s no cheat code to it; practice makes perfect. I definitely look back to the first legit writing projects I’ve worked on and think my work was so different from today. And it is. The more you write, the quicker you find your style and your own character and personality. Do it for you; no one else. Write because it brings you happiness and you love it. Oh, and read A LOT.

Hold on while I mount my high horse… Genres are a really debatable topic, and I write what I love to read. I think my work can be labeled as sci-fi, space, action, adventure and a bit of humor. I love reading sci-fi thrillers with twisted romance, but I’ve still got a lot more reading ahead of me before I can actually write good stuff.