Hello, fellow disciples! We've been searching far and wide for individuals who have cultivated for a long time. This month, we bring you an interview with luscious_sky, the author of The Moment Between Flying or Falling.

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Tell us a bit about yourself!

I'm a high school student who loves watching historical, ancient, or xianxia cdramas and reading danmei novels, as well as writing novels with a mix of themes from both Western and Chinese literature.

What is your writing process? Do you outline everything or write as things come to mind? Why?

Inspiration usually comes to mind for me in the form of an image—a couple sitting underneath a willow tree, with thin yellow leaves scattered on the ground, the bitter betrayal of one to another, etc. Once I come up with this image, which is usually some critical turning scene in the book, or even the climax or the ending, I start constructing the story around it. How did these two people meet? What happened to force the betrayal to occur? How can I make the story more logical and reasonable, so that every step towards the ending of this story can be understood and even sympathized with by a reader?

I tend to lean towards heavy outlining, mostly because I feel that whenever I write on the fly, I will end up leaning on clichés, stereotypes, and plot twists that I've seen many times before as a crutch, which is definitely not representative of how creative and gripping I hope my stories to become.

What are some things that influenced your story?

The Moment Between Flying and Falling was conceived of around the time I read TGCF (天官赐福), an excellent book by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, one of my favorite danmei authors. Some readers may see the connection in the ideas of "stealing fate" that occured in both my novel in TGCF, but I think the first image that I had of this novel was a young woman, accompanied by flaming paper cranes, and a younger girl who looked up to and almost idolized this young woman, striving to reach her and be worthy of standing side by side, but also stubborn, headstrong, with her own goals and values and morals.

Another image that I also came to me was one of a magical sword, forged with the blood of the owner, a weapon sharp and unbeatable, yet useless against the ones in the owner's heart. I imagined a moment when this young woman drew her sword against someone she didn't recognize, yet found that the weapon was completely useless against this stranger, then recognize the person in front of her to be the person she'd been looking for for years.

Tell us about the main character of one of your stories. What inspired their creation?

Once again, the conception of Lin Jinghe mostly arose from an image of a young woman surrounded with magical flaming paper cranes. Later, her personality and character developed as I planned out the arc of the story. I would always start by marking big events, and then thinking about what each character can do to help make this happen, and then I would ask why this character would do that. Once I had the answers to these questions I would be able to better understand the personality of each character.

What were some challenges you experienced while writing the story?

It's been a while since I wrote The Moment Between Flying and Falling, but I think one of the main challenges was that it was the first xianxia story that I've written. There's a lot of Chinese terminology that I have to find English translations for, and even though there's already a sort of common base of knowledge out there about xianxia worlds, I had to do a lot of worldbuilding. It was also my first fantasy novel, so I had to do a lot more worldbuilding than my previous realistic fiction novels.

What message do you hope your story will tell your readers?

I don't think I write my novels as much for a message as they are for a feeling. I hope that readers will be able to come away from this novel with the warmth of Lin Jinghe and Cui Yanbo's relationship in their heart, and the joy of surmounting struggles together.

If you woke up in a time or place that was very different from reality, what would you do?

I think I would first be a little afraid, if I'm being honest. Involuntarily being transported to a foreign place would be tough, and I think the first question I would grapple with was how I could get back home. If I can get over that stage of fear, I would try and explore a little and hopefully collect some great writing material.

If there was something you could learn (i.e., some spell, some martial arts, etc.) like the main character in your book, what would it be?

I think that learning how to control flaming paper cranes would be so cool. I tend to design my characters after some of my wildest imagination and wishes, and I think it would be really cool to be able to manipulate fire the way Lin Jinghe can.

Would you rather go through a lifetime of never finding love or be willing to go through several lifetimes of hardships just to save your love? Why?

I would rather go through a lifetime of never finding love. Call me pessimistic, but even though I write romance novels, I've been rather skeptical of its characteristics in real life. Of course, I'm always open to the possibility of finding someone I could truly love, but I think that in real life, loves isn't as unwavering and persistent as it is in novels. While at the height of passion, we might really cross seas of fire to save a beloved, I think after I get tired, I might start to regret the choices I made and ruin the image of my love in retrospect. As opposed to watching a flower bloom brilliantly and slowly deteriorate, developing distaste and disgust where there had once been love, I would rather never see it bloom.

What is your favorite creature from Asian mythology or folklore? Why?

I love the idea of spirits, or 妖, human versions of different things in nature, like flowers, animals, plants, etc. I think it's really fascinating to personify things that aren't considered people and to imagine what it might be like as a person.

What is your favorite Asian myth? Why?

My favorite Asian myth is more of a legend, but it speaks of two people, one of whom is a guqin (a Chinese stringed instrument that usually lays horizontally on a surface and is plucked) master. This other person is the only person who understands their music, and they consider each other 知音. Countless people have tried to translate this phrase--some say soulmates, some say bosom friend, but I think it doesn't really encapsulate the feeling of two people who know each other as much as they know themself, or perhaps even more. When this person dies, the guqin master breaks his instrument, for there is no one else in the world who will ever understand his music again. I think the loyalty is really admirable in this story, and this kind of timeless bond is something I always want to create between my characters.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, luscious_sky! We wish you the best of luck in your writing endeavors.

Until the next chapter, fellow disciples!