Weclome to 'From Words on Paper', where we get to know some of our favorite authors, and learn more from them beside what they create for the fandom.

Tonight on the show, we're joined by GreySlate. Someone who's very well known for his harem stories, his best known being 'The Silver Eyed King', and his new stories, such as 'Drifter', 'Trace', and his newest story, 'White Fang For Life'. And we're glad that he could join us here, tonight.

Artomix: Before we start off with the questions, I want to thank you for participating on this 'show' of mine.

Grey: You're welcome, seemed like a pretty interesting thing to take part in.

Artomix: I want to let you know that you're not forced to answer any questions if you don't want to and that you're free to ask anything as well.

Grey: Hopefully I'll be able to answer everything.

Artomix: Alright, the way I usually start my interviews is, who are you? So why don't you tell us a bit about yourself?

Grey: Well I'm an eighteen year old guy from Ireland. Spend most of my time either working, writing or gaming. Really enjoy listening to music, any type at all.

Artomix: Similar to me I guess, although I'm mostly stuck with my studies.

Grey: I know how that feels, thankfully I finished with school last year.

Artomix: The next question I got is about your artistic name, what does it mean?

Grey: Truth be told it doesn't really mean anything. I had been using random names for years for whatever I needed it for but my friends convinced me to try and think of one to stick with, GreySlate ended up being that one.

Artomix: Well, I think that it's an interesting name that you've chosen then.

Grey:  Thanks, took a lot longer to come up with one I liked than I'd like to admit.

Artomix: That's normal, really, stiking with a name you takes a long time, but it's usually worth it.

Grey: I agree, I used to be extremely indecisive about my online names. I think I had like three of four different names for my PlayStation account when I was younger.

Artomix: Anyway, the next question I got is, how did you discover RWBY?

Grey: It was actually through Wattpad. I was just stumbling through books one day, then I fell across a fan fiction from RWBY. Really liked the characters and the world it was set in so I decided to check it out.

Artomix: I discovered it the same way. From a RWBY x Assassin reader, odly enough. What boredom can do sometimes... but I don't regret it.

Grey: Neither do I, I've had insane amounts of fun watching the show then writing and reading fan fiction.

Artomix: I have to agree, especially today with the start of Vol.6.

Grey: I actually haven't been keeping up with the show itself for a while now, most of my time has been sucked up by writing and work so I still haven't gotten a chance to watch the full show. Embarrassingly enough I've only watched to Beacon's fall.

Artomix: I can't really blame you there. It's been a while for me as well since I watched the show. As for the 'Fall of Beacon' it was one of the first truelly heart breaking moments in RWBY. Especially after the death of Pyrrha.

Grey: Yeah, that one hit hard, I wasn't even that big a fan of Pyrrha and it still hurt big time.

Artomix: Same here. I still miss Penny as well. I still think that RWBY has something agaisnt redheads. And it doesn't help that I'm ginger as well.

Grey: I have brown hair so luckily I'm the clear.

Artomix: Anyway, the last question before we start with the more serious question is, do you have a favorite author or favorite story?

Grey: Oh that's a tough one. My favorite author would probably have to be OneInconsistentBoi but my favorite story would have to be RWBY 5-0 by Ninjamain

Artomix: You're one of the few that answered both questions on that one. Anyway, we're going to start with the 'author related' questions.

What inspired you to write fanfics?

Grey: Other fan fictions were the main thing for me. It seemed like it could be a lot of fun to write stories and be able to interact with your readers. I always had a small passion for writing but I've never really picked it up until I started with fan fictions.

Artomix: Have you ever writen something before RWBY?

Grey: Apart from writing stuff for school I haven't really done much else. My first real attempt at a story was the Silent Killer story I started into RWBY with but before that it wasn't anything past short stories a few hundred words long.

Artomix: Everyone has to start from somewhere. Even me, and I quickly noticed how I was improving.

Grey: I feel like I didn't really start improving until I moved away from RWBY's main storyline. Looking back at it I really don't like the Silent Killer book

Artomix: But you still keep it around, because it's your first book that you put a lot of effort in, correct?

Grey: Yeah, I've moved on to harem stories mainly since they're more fun to write but the first book will probably always be there. I like to go back sometimes just to see how much I've improved.

Artomix: I know how you feel. I sometimes go back to my own first book that I ever wrote that isn't RWBY related.

Grey: It definitely helps with motivation, for me at least seeing how far I've come really keeps pushing me to stay writing so I can keep getting better.

Artomix: I also remember from quite some time ago that you left wattpad for a while and removed some of your stories as well...

Grey: I did, I was going through a rough patch with some stuff happening in my life so I felt it best to step away for a few weeks to clear my head.

Artomix: That's understandable. There are always things that we need to just need to take a step back and calm down for a while.

Grey: Yeah, it was a big problem for me. I was forcing myself to a schedule. People had come to expect daily updates for the stories and I think I had like four going at once and I felt like if I didn't get those updates out every day I'd be letting people down, so I kept pushing and pushing and eventually I just had to cut it off.

Artomix: It is a shame that you deleted your discontinued stories, in my opinion at least. If I remember correctly, one of my favorites was called 'The White Death', where you were Weiss brother and helped protect her when she was younger but ran away, only for him to turn into a almost unstopable sniper that never misses.

Grey: Well I have planned to rewrite it and bring it back as I have the White Fang For Life book, but I don't know when that will happen. I enjoyed writing that immensely so I can guarantee it will be back at some point.

Artomix: Well, I hope that you at least not strain yourself with all these stories at once.

Grey: There's no need to worry about that now, I'm only writing if and when I feel like it, I'm not going to force myself to upload daily anymore.

Artomix: Well, I'm glad to hear that. The next question I have is... Have you ever colaborated with another author on a story? If so, what was it like?

Grey: Well there has never been a 'concrete' collaboration before, but the closest to that was probably the insane amount of help I got from rwbyfan722 when I was writing the Silver eyed king. I think there was like three weeks where we would be bouncing ideas back and forth every day for like an hour at a time.

Artomix: That's quite interesting to hear, but I also know how huge of a help that can be. Especially for 'Harmonic Heart' on my part.

Grey: Yeah, they were an insane influence when I was writing. The harem part of my story was only meant to be a few girls but we kept coming up with ideas of how to add more and more girls and I think there's more than 20 girls in the harem at this stage.

Artomix: The next question I got is... What is your prefered writing program?

Grey: I actually solely use Wattpad itself on my phone. I occasionally use it on my pc but that's only once or twice every few weeks.

Artomix: Wait... on your phone!?

Grey: Yeah, all my writing is done on my phone.

Artomix: And people call me crazy at times...

Grey: Yeah I've had a few people tell me it's odd for someone to be writing on a phone but I've never really understood why, if it works it works is what I say.

Artomix: Well, given on some of the lenghts of the chapters of your stories, I can understand. But if it's comfortable for you, who am I to judge?

Grey: I'd actually say I'm even uncomfortable to a point doing it on a laptop. I like to be able to just pick it up and write a small bit then put it away when I need to. I do a lot of my writing on the road as well so that's a big factor.

We're going to take our musical break here. You're listening one of my favorite songs, 'Another Day In Paradise' by Phill Collins.

https://youtu.be/DffbA1ITSEE

Artomix: Alright, now I understand it. Anyway, the next question I got is, do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

Grey: I feel like it's a little bit of both. I have a way I want the story to go and that's the way it'll go, but I'll add some stuff in as long as it doesn't tamper with what I want to do. The girlfriends in the Silver Eyed King is a good example, most of those weren't originally going to be a love interest but I was able to find a way to do it without messing with how I wanted the story to work.

Artomix: That can be a chalange from time to time if you have a story already planned out, but you did an incredible job with it so far. What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching for a book?

Grey: I'm not going to lie, I actually don't do any proper research for my books.The most research I've ever done is probably just making sure I have a characters weapon or semblance right, other than that there's nothing.

Artomix: Alright, and that's understandable, some semblence's are quite hard to remember or understand. As for weapons... they can get creative at times like the hover board that can turn into knives.

Grey: Yeah, some of them do get pretty crazy

Artomix: The next question I got is, how many hours a day do you write?

Grey: Well that varies quite a bit really. For one chapter I would spend about forty five minutes writing and fifteen reading over it. I normally write three chapters a day over all my books so it's somewhere in the range of three hours a day.

Artomix: Geez... I wish you good luck with it. The last questions I have for the 'author related' question. What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

Grey: Coming up with good dialogue between characters. At times it comes really easily but other times it can take me ages to come up with lines that won't just ruin the part they're in because they seem really forced.

Artomix: That is a chalange at times, I agree. But I usually write my stories improviced, at least before 'Fate Worth Dying For'. So I'm learning that hard part now.

Grey: Yeah, improvising stuff can make it easier but when it comes time to move towards a plot point it can become difficult.

Artomix: Anyway, we can relax now, since the interview is almost done. I just a couple of small question left. Like this one, what's your favorite under-appreciated novel?

Grey: Paint And Flame by SuperJediWizardDude is one. It's a pretty long one and it's well written but it's only at something like 9,000 reads. I only discovered it recently thanks to my followers but it really deserves to have more reads

Artomix: Alright, I'll make sure to link his name so that people can go to his account.

Grey: He definitely deserves more recognition.

Artomix: The next question I got is, what is your thoughts of the RWBY community?

Grey: Well the community on Wattpad is awesome, rarely see big fights going on and loads of people join in RP that happens in comments on fan fiction and stuff, which can be really funny to read, but outside of Wattpad... I'm not caught up with the show so I can't say how the later volumes were but I see a lot of people throwing unhelpful hate at RoosterTeeth. There's a difference between constructive criticism and just hating something because others are doing the same.

Artomix: Yeah, I've noticed that too that the RWBY Wattpad community is fairly calm. But I'm not too caught up outside Wattpad either.

Grey: A lot of people are saying it's gone downhill in recent volumes, which might be fair, but there's also a lot of people who don't have a reason to dislike it and just do because everyone else is.

Artomix: I can understand where they are coming from, but I'm not complaining. They at least should be happy that the series is at least continueing after the death of Monty, even if it's a bit different, we also have to remember that a lot of people do put a lot of effort making the series as well.

Grey: I agree, it might not be the same as it was when Monty was around but it's better that it coming to a complete stop after his death.

Artomix: Anyway, do you perhaps have any questions in mind for me?

Grey: How did you come up with the idea to do this 'podcast' type thing? It's a pretty cool idea that I haven't really seen be done on Wattpad yet.

Artomix: I've actually answered this question on the 'anniversary special' but I was/am a brony.

And there was a podcast on youtube called 'The Elements of Harmony' where they interview with other brony music artists. During the vacation, I was listening to one of their podcast and an idea came to mind to try and do the same for the RWBY community, at least for the authors as is right now. God knows how this will evolve in the future.

Grey: Well it's interesting being able to read about other authors, kind of shows a more human side to them. So far anyways, I've only finished reading Zairrif's earlier.

Artomix: That's actually my intention with this 'show'. Before I created 'From Words on Paper', we knew very little about the authors, aside from the ocasional conversation posts, the author notes that they would leave in the stories or if someone was close friends with that kind of author.

So I though that doing this would show the world the more human side from the authors that work so hard for our entertainment. And for free no less...This is my way to show that we really appreciate what they do and to show that there is more to that person than the stories they write on their screens.

Grey: I agree, you don't really get to see too much about an author unless they do a QnA or something like that, but I've yet to see an author actually do it themselves.

Artomix: I tried, not many people are interested in it apperently... Anyway, do you have any tips for the rest of the public?

Grey: Make sure you're writing because you enjoy it, not because you want reads or want loads of people to read your stuff. No point in doing it if it's not for the right reasons.

Artomix: I couldn't agree with you more. Any last words before this is over?

Grey: I just want people to remember that I'm happy to talk to them about whatever they want. I've had people really apprehensive about asking me for advice etc and it's a shame because I try to interact with my followers as much as I can, so yeah, don't be afraid to message me. And I just wanted to thank you for having me on Creator, it's been a fun ninety minutes.

Artomix: No problem, Grey. And ninety minutes? That's not the longest interview I had, but I'm not complaining either. At least people will learn more about you this way.

And it's been fun and interesting to have you here, Grey.

Grey: It's been a good time Creator, hope we can talk again in the future.

This has been 'From Words on Paper'. We hope that you guys learned something from one of your favorite authors.

If any of you are interested to join this little show of have suggestions who should come up next, please tell me via the comment section or through my Inbox. Until then, take care fellow readers!