MysteryMixtapes

1) "Name?"

My name is Kiera, it's not actually Jane. Cats out of the bag with that. Although I don't think anyone actually thought my name was Jane Doe, what an incredibly morbid name for a child if my parents had done that. (Can't lie, I kinda would've dug that though)

2) "Age?"

I'm 30. I'm in the process of buying a rocking chair so I can sit out the front of my house and yell at kids to get off my lawn.

3)" What are your hobbies?"

I have far too many hobbies, Jack of all trades and master of none kinda deal I guess.

I draw and paint, which I've done since I could hold a pencil, mostly tattoo style artwork because most of my life I've intended on being a tattooist. I do digital art as well, mostly in Photoshop.

I do makeup, both beauty and SFX and dabble in modelling occasionally (rarely) but I'm more comfortable on the other side of the camera doing makeup and pose coaching.

I do YouTube videos, I like video editing as well and teaching myself to use different editing software, I'm self taught with pretty much everything I do.

I do hair, if it's styling I mostly do a lot of vintage pin up type hair. I also dye hair, usually only bright unnatural colours (make it look like a unicorn vomited on your head) and dabble a bit with styled hair cuts (usually the alternative styles), I also mess around with making and installing synthetic dread locks as well as hair extensions.

Aside from that, I write (as you all know) and pretty much just do anything I can creative, art or craft related.

4) "When did you start writing and why?"

Well you see, it all began one fateful night back in December 2018 when drunk Kiera was all "I'm gonna write a book, no idea what I'm doing but I'm gonna do it anyway"

I started writing as a way to entertain myself, found it really cathartic and fell in love with it. Never even had the faintest inclination to write a day in my life before that and didn't even know I could write.

I also wanted to write a story, I'd be interested in and want to read, had things in it I found interesting and also the humour I like.

5) "Which was your first story generally?"

I started Unforgettable and Stall around the same time and both are my first, I started Unforgettable maybe a week before Stall and wrote them both at the same time. But Stall is my first completed story ever.

6) "Do you write in some other website except Wattpad?"

Nope. Never wrote before I found wattpad and I wouldn't have a clue if any other sites like this one exist. I didn't even know wattpad existed or was a thing until a year ago.

7) "What has given you motive to keep on writing?"

That's a tough question for me, because I can't seem to stop writing. My issue has never been being able to keep writing, it's being not able to stop. I'm pretty sure I have some kind of compulsive writing problem at this point.

Definitely developed a writing crack habit.

8 )"Have you ever wanted to give up everything? (writing I mean)"

Nope, never. Writing saved my sanity and my life when I found it and I think if I stopped I'd end up back in a very dark place. It makes me far too happy to ever want to stop, whether people read what I do or not.

9) "Which is your favorite story on Wattpad?"

Awe man, that like asking to pick a favourite child. I can't do that. All the stories are love are in my reading lists and they all have their own special places with me.

10) "Have you gained any friendship from Wattpad? If yes, which are your Wattpad friends?"

Absolutely. I've found some of the most precious souls on here. I'm a pretty reclusive person and a hermit crab, and I keep to myself mostly but I've really found so many sweet little honey pies on here that are the best humans.

11) "Do you relate with any of your characters from your books? If yes, which one and which characteristics are similar?"

I relate with most of my characters (aside from the 'villains') I guess all of them have some facets of my personality. Both the male and female characters.

I think I relate the most with Drew from Perspective as a whole, but honestly there's parts of all my characters personality that I relate to heavily.

I mean, Jimmy (from Stall) is basically my dips**t sense of humour in a nutshell.

12) "What do you want to study?"

I have no idea. I left school at 16 and haven't had any formal education after that. I love learning, and spend a lot of my time researching and learning about things I'm interested in but I tend to be bored out of my damn mind in rigid schooling scenarios.

I guess, if you class a tattoo apprenticeship as study than that's the closest I'd get.

13)" Describe yourself in 3 words."

Sarcastic, Empathetic and Slapstick. (I'm struggling so hard not to swear in this, because half of my vocabulary is cuss words and that's how I'd describe myself, ha)

14) "What do you advise new writers?"

This is a hard question for me when I've been asked it before, because I AM a new writer. I've only been writing for 5 months so I feel a bit like a fraudulent twat giving advice on that.

But, if I had to give any advice - get ready because it's gonna be the most hippy dribble ever, it would be:

Write because you love it, and love what you write. Don't do it because you want to get popular, or famous; there's enough people in the world doing things they don't give a crap about just to be popular.

Write what you want to say and not what you think people want to hear, write what you'd want to read and what brings out emotions in you.

You're never gonna please everyone, so you may as well just say screw it and write exactly what you want regardless if people like it or not.

*peace sign*

15)" Questions based on ' Stall ' : How where you inspired to write this book?"

The idea for the start of the book actually came from a real life experience I write about in the authors note at the end of the story.

But for the story as a whole, I wanted to write a story where I made a character who should by all rights be a villain and unlovable, someone you could ultimately care for, empathise with and in the end have compassion for.

Also that not everything is what it seems at face value, and context and circumstances are important. Just because something is dark doesn't mean there isn't softness there as well and it can coexist.

I also wanted to show the profound effect that kindness, compassion and empathy can have on a person, especially someone that hasn't received a lot of it and how much of a strength having those qualities are.

Plus I wanted to write something where I could include my dark sense of humour.

And in the end, Stall is the result.

16) " Harry is/was  obviously a troubled man unroll he met Abby. You story is really well put together so the only thing I can ask about the storyline is... If someone ,someday told you that you have to change somehow the whole storyline by changing just one single thing and nothing else , what would that be?"

I think the only thing I'd say there is that Harry is still troubled, regardless of meeting Abby and she will never fix that for him; it's something he needs to get help for and the most she can do is support him through that.

And the one thing I would change, that would change the whole story is that Abby never went to the apartment that day he messaged her because then she wouldn't have seen him again.

Or would she have still crossed paths at another point? Guess we'll never know.

17)"Was it in your plans to create a sequel from the start or the thought that you wouldn't write about Harry, Abby, Jimmy, Steve and all those amazing characters anymore saddened you and it encourages you to make the decision?"

I knew from the start I would most likely have a sequel, but it depended on how much I could cover in the first book because the intention was always for it to end when the tapes came out.

It was more so seeing if I had enough goals to work through it the second story, after the tapes and it quickly became apparent to me that I do with so many issues that need to be worked out.

I think if I decided not to do a sequel, I could have always decided to write small short stories from different P.O.V. 's or one shots with the same characters if I missed them.

I don't like dragging things on for the sake of it, everything I do has a goal, moral or purpose behind it so I never would have just continued the story just for the sake of loving the characters.

18) " A phrase or a scene that you write and you'll never forget.(and why)"

Oh man there's so many from all my stories.

"I want to f*ck your heart" from Stall seems to be pretty heavily tied to that book.

The scene in Unforgettable where Joey and Harry stay in her bed, and he starts talking about an Oily Danny Devito and she starts referring to his penis as big foot is one I was thinking I was nuts for writing (if you've read it you know what I mean, it's a very... Unique scene where Joey wants Harry to show her something she's never seen before and it gets worse from there)

It's really hard to pick. Honestly.

19) " How much time did it take to plan the whole plot? "

That would imply I plan my plots, or know how to haha. I honestly just start writing (I don't know anything writing, story structure or planning plots and I didn't know I was just doing it naturally. I was just telling a story) , I get the idea in my head of the story and it essentially stays in my head the whole time, I really do essentially no planning for my stories WHICH I feel like I should and that alone should make me an awful writer because I don't.

The closest I come to planning is jotting down brief notes to keep track of time lines, dates and important points to touch on that I don't want to forget.

20)" How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?"

Everything that I've ever written is published, Unforgettable and Perspective are unfinished but with ongoing.

I do have two smallish stories I played around with, but just left them as ideas for future stories if I wanna use them though, so I dunno if that counts.

21)"Which is your favourite a)  funny,  b) dramatic,  c) romantic, d) sad scene in the series ,  until now? "

My favourite funny scene is probably the double date scene with Jimmy, Steve, Harry and Abby or the scene where Jimmy hides behind Abby with a frying pan OR when Harry tries to google his feelings and it tells him he has heart burn.

Dramatic scene would be when either Harry and Jimmy goes to David's office or when Steve, Jimmy and Abby go to David's office..OR the scene where Jimmy confronts Andy at Abby's work.

Ugghhhhh the romance ones are hard. I think when Harry takes Abby to the aquarium and takes her picture and what he says to her there. The scene in the pool between them, or when they finally say I love you. But honestly there's so many sweet moments with them...that really should not be romantic, but have their own odd way of ending up that way.

Sad scenes are hard because I dread writing them and I don't have favourites, I write those scenes in a way that absolutely guts me emotionally. I'd say the scene where Harry was 7 was one of the worst for me. Or the one in the hospital chapter in the hospital, I don't want to spoil it but yeah that one ripped my heart out. So did the scene in the pool. Ugh.

22) " Any spoilers? "

Yeah the sequel is going to be as much of a roller coaster as the first book, have fun with that cause I'm gonna be putting my emotions through a blender throughout it.

23) " Choose- 'challenge' two writers that you want to know about to do this interview like you."

I'd hit up @kissable_brits and @chanmapan

But honestly there's so many that would be so great for this!

CRITICAL QUESTIONS

1)"What's the best inside joke you've been a part of?"

The best inside joke I've been a part of, has probably been an ongoing joke with my American friend where I've just made up a bunch if lies about Australia (where I am from) and told him, and I'm waiting till he comes to visit so I can watch it all unfold when he realises I've basically told him fairy tales for two years.

It's an inside joke between me and myself, we think it's hilarious.

2)"How many chickens would it take to kill an elephant?"

Look I'm just imagining a single chicken dressed like Rambo and shooting eggs at an elephant out of itself like a machine gun, so I'm just gonna leave that there.

Thank you so much MysteryMixtapes !!❤

All the love,
M.