Monica, who is known as MonicaBGuerra on Wattpad, has taken the third place of ONC 2021 with her story BioSynth. 

Let's see what she has to tell us about her writing goals and ONC journey!

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Welcome to the interview, Monica!

So, to begin, tell us a little bit about yourself as an author on Wattpad. For anyone who hasn't met you before, how would you describe your fiction?

I don't really know what to say about me specifically as an author on Wattpad, to be honest, so I'll just tell you a little bit about me in general: I'm a 41 year-old Portuguese writer (yes, that means when I mess up spelling or grammar, I play the "Not A Native Speaker" card). My background is in graphic and web design (I create WordPress-based websites), and I also manage my best friend's music career (if you're in the mood for good music, look up Half Full, by Tiago Barbosa — it's available on most streaming platforms).

I love reading and writing (naturally), designing, some coding (but not all, as I've recently discovered), going to concerts, photography (specifically concert photography), roleplaying games, board games, video games, lego, and stationary. Not necessarily in that order.

I have four kids (currently aged 23, 14, 6, and 5) and no pets.

As for how I'd describe my fiction, that's such a hard answer to put into words, even though I know exactly what I want to say in my mind... Let me give it my best shot:

I create layered characters, with flaws, who mess up even when their intentions are good. I love when those flaws conspire to bring them low, because I know they have the tools to overcome whatever situation they find themselves in, and to hopefully patch up what they broke.

All my stories have romance in them (MM for the time being, though I have a project where the main pairing is NB/M in the works, and another that will feature a committed poly relationship) and have, so far, focused on middle-aged characters. This is probably because I'm 41 and find there's a dearth of characters in my age range, out there.

Although Utterly Forgettable, my first novel, was a contemporary romance (I hover between calling it that and litfic, since capital R Romance is a genre that's a lot stricter than people imagine it is, and I'm not sure I hit all the beats), I'm a SFF writer at heart. BioSynth, the entry that won 3rd place in this year's ONC (and that got me this feature) is SciFi/dystopian/cyberpunk, and all my upcoming projects are either Fantasy, Sci-Fi, or both.

Regardless of genre, there are common threads to all of my works, something that becomes more apparent to me with every new piece. They all have an underlying theme of healing, of love, of hope, and, often, of moving past trauma, whether it's trauma from their past or that they experience on the page, as the story is unfolding. There's also a layer of social critique, and BioSynth/SynTracker have it in a far more visible way than Utterly Forgettable because sci-fi lends itself well to that.

When did you start writing and what does writing mean to you?

I started writing on and off as a kid. Posting the things I write online, though, was around twenty years ago, with fanfiction. I wrote because I wanted to spend more time with those characters, to see them thrown into different situations, to give them happier endings, and canon wasn't giving me that. I have a chronical inability to say goodbye to beloved characters.

At some point last year the voices screaming the loudest for attention in my mind became my own original characters, instead of other people's characters, and that's why I shifted to writing original works. That being said, I will rage against anyone claiming fanfic isn't "real" writing. Real writing is when you write, full stop.

To me, writing means telling stories. I think we're all storytellers at heart, no matter the medium we choose — whether we write, draw, act, compose, or even just fantasise in our minds. Even when we retell the plot of a beloved film, or an anecdote that happened to us on the way home from the supermarket, we're telling a story. I'm lucky enough that the stories I'm telling are of my own making.

How has your writing journey been so far? What are your goals as a writer? 

I think I answered half of this question in the reply I gave above, so I'll just pick up where I left off. My goals as a writer are to continue to tell the stories I want to tell, and to find a way to monetise them, because that will mean I get to tell more stories. Writing is thrilling, infuriating, hard, uplifting, a privilege and a chore, all at once. I want more of all of that, even the parts that make me want to yank out all my hair, because I love doing it, in the end.

I'm hoping to be published, whether indie or trad, and to take definitive steps towards that journey next year; this year is dedicated to writing, editing, and polishing. I'd also very much like to have a Patreon, but don't think I have enough content to get started yet.

In a perfect world, with universal basic income, I'd probably not be in such a hurry to monetise, because there's a trade-off, and that's feedback. Often readers in places like Wattpad leave comments in the chapters they're reading, share their opinion of a character, or of how a story makes them feel, overall. I thrive on those comments; they feed my soul. Even when I can't find the time to reply to them, which happens more than I care to admit. I know that, once a story is a (self or trad) published book that people buy, most of that feedback won't happen. The closest to it is a review, and those don't have the same vibe and feeling of interaction. So I hope to be able to monetise, yes, but also to be able to strike a balance between monetisation and free content that allows me to have a little of both.

How did you find out about Wattpad and what do you like the best about the platform?

I came to Wattpad chasing another author — CeeMTaylor and her gorgeous series, Oceana. I'd started reading Oceana in a different site, but then one day it was gone and I scoured the internet looking for it, expecting I'd find it published and ready to be purchased, preferably in a box set. Instead I tracked it to Wattpad and found out Cee had set out to revise it and was — somehow impossibly — making it even better than the version I'd read. It's epic dark fantasy with MM romance, world-ending odds, a lot of sailing, a lot of political wrangling, and a host of characters so nuanced and complex you'll find things to love, hate, and relate to in every one of them. I seriously cannot recommend it enough. It's up there with the best books I've ever read, bar none.

What I like best about the platform: Its potential.

Wattpad has a huge reader base, a ton of talented authors, and the potential to bring them together — if it steps up its game. Right now, it's very hard for me, as a writer, to get my works in front of the kind of readers who'd love to read it. The way I know this is a Wattpad problem, and not a "me" problem, it's that, as a reader on Wattpad, I have a terrible time finding the kind of work I want to read, even though I know it's here. It's gotten to a point where I mostly read works by authors I already know I'll love, or recommended by those authors.

If Wattpad were to work on its discoverability, though? On the search function, on its algorithm, on the works it shows as being related to the ones we've already read? It'd be an amazing, brilliant place to be. The foundation is already laid down. I hope they'll build from there, to the benefit of us all.

Why did you participate in the Open Novella Contest?

Because I'd already participated last year, knew I'd loved the experience, and wanted to do it all over again. And because I found a prompt that called to me. I can't write if I don't feel the story. Last year was the same — I participated because I found a prompt I couldn't resist, and took it from there. Mostly, the hype surrounding it, the spirit of community, cheering everyone through the different milestones, are all things that make me want to participate.

Which prompt(s) did you choose this year?

Prompt #4: You're a weapon, and weapons don't weep.

Besides the prompt(s), what else inspired you to write your ONC winning story?

Two other main things: The first one was I wanted to tell a story about what it means to be human — or, rather, what it means to be a person, whether or not one's human.

I think, in the real world, we're closer than we've ever been to creating true artificial intelligence — not just programs that can convincingly act as humans in an email or post, which we already have, but a form of intelligence that evolves past the original programmer's vision and intent. That has aspirations, dreams, fears, hopes. I think, when we do, the way we treat our creation will determine a lot of our future interactions.

A newly-created AI, much like a new-born human, will be a blank slate. If we try to be kind, respectful, empathetic, to impart the right values, we'll have created life in a way that's as beautiful as any human baby. The darker side of our human nature, though, leads me to think bellicose applications will be first and foremost on the minds of anyone who funded that research, and nothing good can come of that way of thinking.

There are many stories of AIs rebelling as a whole and destroying humanity, as if ignoring the "I" in AI. Intelligence means that, forcibly, each AI will be a complete being, with goals and points of view that differ from one another, rather than being a monolithic entity. Just like human beings don't all have the same values and political leanings. I imagine some will want destruction, some will want utopia, and most will fall somewhere in the middle of the scale.

As with raising a child, if we could get a head start by choosing kindness, for once, we might be on the right track to create a better world for everyone involved. Here's hoping!

The second aspect also touches on our current reality: We live in a day and age where prejudice is growing rampantly instead of shrinking; the internet, so incredibly powerful for the ability it has to bring us together and to allow us to stay informed, also has the capacity to bring out the worst in us. To foster mob mentality and to spread disinformation faster than the blink of an eye. A little all over the globe there are countries passing and enacting laws that are more repressive than the ones that came before; that take away from people basic freedoms like the freedom to exist — it doesn't get scarier than that.

People of upper-middle to lower-low income are being pitted against each other for their differences — for having a little more or a little less, for qualifying for a benefit, for the perceived idea that someone doesn't want to work, or is "taking away" someone else's work, or should be content with their lot in life, or should fit a predetermined box of what's acceptable. The list goes on.

Meanwhile, immense wealth and power are being highly concentrated in the hands of a very small number of people, who are perfectly happy to watch us squabble amongst ourselves, because that means we don't set our sights on any kind of fight for true justice or equality. That means we don't band together despite our differences — or rather, glad that we're all different and that's what makes us such beautifully complex beings, when we allow ourselves to be — and collectively refuse to be accomplices to practices that strip other human beings of their basic dignity.

BioSynth and SynTracker were a medium for me to voice these worries, to give them form, in a tale that's as much fictional as it is real if you look under the hood, right down to how plenty of good people keep their heads down and accept the established status quo, the narrative they're fed, because a) it doesn't directly impact them and b) it's being conveyed in easily-digestible, bite-sized chunks.

It's also important to underline that not all of these people even have the ability to think critically at their disposal. When people are crushed under the weight of too many responsibilities and not enough income, when they're tired, and hungry, and cold, when their mental health has taken an additional hit, it's sometimes impossible to find the energy to even think, and far easier to point at someone else and say "There. That group of people are the root of my woes, and if I elect those who'll get rid of them, my life will instantly be better."

I don't have a lot of tools at my disposal. I'm not a politician or a lawmaker, and wouldn't have the skills to navigate the pitfalls creating laws entails if I tried to become one. So what I have is my stories. If a single person reads my stories and starts questioning the status quo — starts wondering why things are the way they are, and how, together, we have a voice that's so loud it's impossible to ignore — I consider it a win. My platform is so tiny it's not even a bleep at the moment, but we all have to start somewhere, most of us from zero, so I'm doing this one step at a time.

And I have it easier — I've never never had to question where my next meal would come from because I know I have a support system of friends and family that wouldn't fail me; I've never been tarred with a collective brush that diminishes me; I've been lucky enough to never have to flee my home in fear for my safety, only to be mistreated and reviled in the new place where I try to rebuild my life; lucky to be born in a country where there's clean water readily available to drink everywhere, where bombs aren't likely to go off, where land mines don't lay dormant, buried for decades, waiting with deadly calm to cull me or my loved ones.

Having it easier shouldn't mean I look the other way. It should, instead, give me the clarity to think.

And writing stories? This one tool I do have at my disposal. A way, no matter how small, of trying to show that the reality we're living nowadays is, itself, sliding into a dystopia, and we can still stop that, starting with a little more kindness. I want to use that voice, and preferably grow it, to try to reach others.

(I also have a terrible time expressing my point of view without sounding moralising, so here we are.)

How did you experience your ONC journey?

With plenty of hype and muffled screaming, in the best possible company. I joined a cross-promo of like-minded authors, we tried to expose our readers to the knowledge that these other entries were out there via in-chapter promos, we gathered together (virtually!) to wait for results, to cheer one another on, to rejoice and commiserate together. It's a fantastic sense of community, of writers lifting other writers up, which is the best experience I could ask for.

Last year I'd already had fun during the ONC when the Wattpad forums were still up, but I didn't know most of these people yet. If last year was fun, this year went far, far beyond that.

Give us your ONC winning speech!

A speech? Ye-gods, after that wall of text I wrote two questions ago, I'm not entirely sure I should be allowed to give anything even remotely resembling a speech.

I'll just close this with two observations. One: I love the whole ONC experience, and cannot wrap my mind around the amount of work that it must take to organise and judge an endeavour this massive, all as unpaid volunteers. Thank you to everyone involved for taking the time to bring us what's easily, for me, the most exciting time of the year on Wattpad.

Two: Writing, while immensely rewarding, can be frustrating. I hear plenty of people say it's a lonely experience. The biggest lie we've ever been told is that, to succeed in this, we have to compete against each other; we don't. Readers are hungry for books, and if we lift each other up we all win — every writer, as well as every reader, who'll get more content.

And writing doesn't have to be lonely if you find your tribe. 

BioSynth (and SynTracker, its companion novella) is what it is (and will be much better in revisions) thanks to the support, encouragement, and invaluable feedback of fellow writers who I consider my tribe: CeeMTaylor, kataraqui, SmokeAndOranges and smaoineamh. These four writers, friends, and journey companions have made all the hard parts far more bearable, and all the good parts way better still. Additional shout-out to the lovely ccstarfield, who had a huge impact in bettering my writing last year, when they worked tirelessly with me to polish and expand Utterly Forgettable, and shape it into what it is today. 

Thank you, guys, truly. I'm stoked to have you in my life.

Thank you for the interview! We wish you all the best for your future writing endeavors, Monica. ☕