@7Bloodfire is the author of the 'Leviathans series' which is a triology and is one of the most unique vampire stories I have come across. This lady has such a detailed plot planned out (she actually has a whole board of notes dedicated to her story >-< ) and some of the characters that go beyond amazing ! She is one of those authors whose brains I would love to pick lol!

*ahem* You should seriously check out her books and also the prequel to the Leviathans series called 'Born of Water' ! It's great ! She had also written guide called 'Writing Tips' which covers the main points you need to focus on while writing. The link to this guide is provided in the external link!

Enjoy !

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1. What do they call you?

A. My pen name is Senna 7Bloodfire.

2. For how long have you been writing?

A. Around 11 years now.

3. Which part of writing a story, do you enjoy the most? (Creating characters, the plot and the subplots, the beginning/ending or the middle)

A. What I enjoy the most in writing is seeing the dark sides of tragic characters as they strive to come to terms with who they are, watching them fight the worlds and evils they must face, and witnessing each one overcome debilitating madness and crippling terrors. I love the emotion that is coiled inside of them, washing back and forth like a violent tidal wave rising, waiting to be unleashed with the right event -- and when that cataclysmic event comes along, all hell breaks loose and the characters reveal a hidden strength and ferocity within themselves that both shocks me and takes away my breath. I love seeing the worlds bloom around them both because of the characters, and because of how the characters are tied to one another. The danger and the sadness, the laughter, the relief... The best is when there is no such thing as a sure footing-- you never know how a book will end, or if it will continue to another book. Like my Leviathans series. Every character has history and family, friends, enemies, fears, wishes. The readers won't ever know as much as I will as the writer, but being able to watch the characters come to life, identify with them, feel what they feel? That is a terrible gift which we writers become addicted to. I cannot give that up easily.

4. Have you faced any embarrassing moments, in terms of writing?

A. Haha! YES!!!!! I have an entire list of things that I shall forever recall with a red face -- but it's okay! I'm not ashamed to share this. I love making others laugh over it. When I first began creating the worlds for my Leviathans series, my evil characters were whiny little sissy-boys, my main female lead was so depressed my brother said people would need to down a bottle of depression medication to get through her story, and my attempts at humor were ridiculous and senseless. Meaning knock-knock jokes and other kiddy devices. When my characters got into arguments, it was over stupid things, like stealing the sister's T-shirt, and everyone in the house would YELL IN CAPITAL LETTERS THAT WERE SOMETIMES ITALICIZED. And sometimes I would end those with just one exclamation point or three. Other times? It would be this many: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, for my favorite part? My intimate scenes. When two characters begin to delve into the romance section. Um. "Oh, hell-no." Yeah. Seriously, yeah. I was the girl who grew up refusing to watch TV if there was just kissing on-screen. I didn't approve of relationships between students up until I was a reluctant 18, and I was VERY reserved, and VERY hormonally and emotionally behind my age group. (Still am, hahaha.) So....I knew NOTHING about how to write a good sex scene. Would even skip past it in books I read. This all came to one climactic solution: My characters were comedic in bed. "Oooohs" and "aaaahs", and five-year old writing coming out of an idiotic 15-year old girl's brain. THANK THE LORD this was never on the internet, hahahaha! (Psst. For those of you out there who have created similar embarassments? You are not alone. We are many!) The good news? I got better, and so can you. All of us start badly. We simply improve with time.

5. Which is your favorite color? Have you made any reference to it in your story/stories?

A. My favorite colors are: Black, Red, Glowing neon burning flame-blue, emerald and violet.

6. Out of the stories you have written on Wattpad, which is the most memorable one?

A. My favorite right now is The Dark Ones' Halo Gate. The imagery in that one, and the action, gets REALLY strong once it begins to turn chaotic. You know that cliché "The shit has hit the fan" right? Yeah. That one is much more pronounced than The Vampire's Memory Keeper. By the end of it, I am nearly breathless. However......I think, when I finish Born of Water, the new beginning of the series, that Born of Water will be my best work ever. Gonna be a while on the unfinished stuff, though, I'm concentrating on college right now. I want my skills sharpened by college.

Plus, I LOVE the Draconia character Idarius. OMG!!!! He was a beautiful creation!!!! Very primal, playful, protective, mysterious, hahaha. Everything rolled into one that I like in a character such as he.

7. Are you planning on publishing soon?

A. Sometime in the future. Right now I am working on an Associate's degree in English, so that I can become a teacher. Maybe even a professor in college someday.

8. Which is your favorite book/series on Wattpad?

A. Favorite series are definitely the vampire series that do not reflect Twilight fandom. I love the books and series that have psychotic undertones and lots of complex characters with dark secrets and frightening pasts. The ones that give you that tingle of fear and at times make your fingers quiver when turning a page. Very few so far have done that here, but those that have are awesome.

But the one that still gets me the most is @taliciaem's Vampiric Interdiction. Very vivid, very memorable, believable characters. Incredible world-building through the characters, and beautiful story arch. Her imagery is superb. It's been about a year since I've joined Wattpad, and that was the first book I crossed that I couldn't get enough of. Still, its imagery gets me, stays with me. It wasn't just for one scene, it was the entire book. It had a very cultural feel to it, a world that had been set in stone and had existed for years -- and yet it was entirely make-believe.

9. What kind of help do you provide - critiques, free advice or editing?

A. I have a Writing Tips book, and I occasionally offer free advice, critiquing, and editing. (Though the editing is more of a structural and plot-hole edit. I find the tedious spelling and punctuation edits to be too early for most writers on Wattpad. Most seeking advice are in critical need of other edits, though not all.)

(you can check out the book mentioned above by clicking the external link!)

10. Which author do you idolize (off Wattpad)?

A. I don't idolize anyone anywhere, except the Lord and Savior, Jesus, haha. As a writer, I find looking up to and worshiping others' writing dulls your own abilities and hinders carving your own path, your own writing voice. However, enjoying others' works is fine. Every writer has had something they've loved reading. Now, when it comes to writers I look up to? That would be@Ctyolene. I have a very healthy respect for that woman. She is very helpful and very blunt with her critiques. She has made the bestseller's list several times now, and still makes time to work with other writers here on Wattpad, showing us the ropes and giving us information that we really should look into. Her comments are not meant as rude, but as a wake-up call. I know this, because after 40-something rejections on "The Vampire's Memory Keeper" from agents, she took a look at it and told me what was wrong.

There were multiple things: some agents don't agree with prologues, the book was (and still is) far too long to be commercially publishable because of the cost of production and the time it would take to edit it, it is far too complex with too many characters and much too much backstory woven into it (they like the simple arcs), it was revolving from first person to third person and from past tense to present and back again, etc. That was the main list. However, she did say the reads numbers stopped dropping by chapter 8, so I had obviously hooked those who'd read up until then, because by then they had discovered the juicy underbelly of what it had to offer. With her tips, I got a better picture on what to do to fix the Leviathan series' weaknesses. So, I've decided to restart it, did a lot of research on story arcs and plot development, themes, dramatic questions, etc., and I figured out a way to begin the series at a much earlier stage. It is a project I will be continuing to work on in my spare time, when I am not working on my college assignments. The woman is a genius, I tell you. I didn't want to believe her at first, but I put aside the love of my book and analyzed why she said what she said about it -- she was right about most of the weaknesses. And I am becoming an even better writer than I was.

11. If you were a newbie, which part of the story would you focus on most?

A. Well, I've written and rewritten my stuff for eleven years now. As a newbie, focus on streaming it. Going with the flow. Developing the love of your stories and learning how to describe things better with analogies. Learn how to avoid using police descrips, the word "smirk", extra adverbs (as many as you can delete for purposes of learning not to lean on them at all so they only pop up when necessary), etc. Improve your dialogue by reading it aloud, experiment with where your punctuations should go and read that aloud so you can feel where the pause of breath is proper, and get rid of as many exclamation points as possible. This is only done by lots of practice. You only realize you do these things after some time has passed, wherein you will find it highly annoying and slightly embarassing. But it is no reason to fret. By seeing something horrible or imperfect in what you have written, this means your writing intelligence has improved -- you are developing an editor's eye. Often, I read traditionally published books and examine the descriptions of buildings and people. Sometimes I made lists to try to keep in mind, but I usually get tired of doing those. I have a few tips in my Writing Tips book, here again, which might help by going more in depth on how to create villains and realistic scenes.

After you reach Level Three of the Newbie rank and believe you've graduated into the next step? You have actually only begun the Phase One of Newbe Level 2.0. It sucks to think of it like that, but really, you are only working on the next phase. This is where you think you are better at descriptions. You are beginning to broaden your horizons in looking at the plot events in the stories you are writing. For me, mine kept expanding and stretching because I kept adding to the Leviathans series (10,000 pages worth of writes and rewrites over these 11 years, my friend, and it still excites me). At this stage, you will begin to delve into the first steps of refining character reactions and considering true character psychology - how would YOU truly react in this situation? Would you REALLY slam a door or shout at a baby? Nah. You might actually get a bit teary-eyed but bite back any reply while taking it as someone yelled at you, because something…..SOMETHING is holding you back, holding you in place. But what is rooting your feet to the ground and making you listen to someone who is breaking your heart? You love them? You are terrified that if you walk out, you may never get the chance to redeem yourself? Some part of you feels like you deserve this? Or are you spacing out because you cannot deal with it emotionally? These are deeper, more mature thoughts. This comes as you get older. It's a developmental thing based on age. Every generation concentrates on different things.

Later, you will begin to see plot holes, where things didn't make sense that you never caught before. Like it is Tuesday night, raining, and there are three white snakes tattooed to the bad guy's forehead --- then in the next chapter, it's four years later, the bad guy was actually holding white snakes in his hand because he was immune to their bites, and … um …. Whatever else your brain threw in there, like he was on a volcano on Mars, and … um … Oh! Now he's changed from a white guy to some Phillipino guy because that was cooler, but then he goes back to being some white guy because it wasn't so cool after all. Don't worry. Don't insult yourself if things don't make sense at this stage. The first stages to every book involves letting the create-a-bubble genie loose. The internal, scrutinizing editor should NEVER be let out of his cage until AFTER the create-a-bubble genie has made a wonderful crayon-melted mess all over the pages in front of you. Then, there are those who enjoy moving on to planning ahead and getting everything set up beforehand (some of you skip the create-the-mess-first process and start here). I have reached this stage very recently, and it was difficult to change how I write. I've always done a little bit of plotting because my stories needed it? But they were too unfocused. Just a string of events that went from lazy to chaotic to lazy again. Like a blind chick who can see if she has glasses…but she's too lazy to look for them behind the dresser and decides to go out blind every day. :P Bleh. I'm tired of wasting my time doodling, when I want to become a commercial writer (as well as an English teacher).

So, research, setting everything up first, then writing. The creativity is still there, and if something changes when I begin writing it, it's perfectly fine. I have a way home: my arc board is filled with the next events that should, but don't HAVE TO come next. And those are just the single-sentence summaries of what happens in that scene, so there is a LOT of freedom for creativity there. Like "Love scene with fire - bad guy dies" -- this could represent two characters romantically involved in a volcanic chamber when the bad guy happens upon them, (some psycho stalker), tries to kill the love interest, blows up the chamber and gets killed though the other two escape…..OR, it could be a woman being accused of being a witch and about to be burned at the stake, the bad guy instead gets shot with a burning arrow, diverting the attention of the crowd as the lover rescues the woman and they flee together …. OR anything else involving "love" and "fire" and "bad guy dies". So, again, this is the stage where writers begin to plan first in order to look for weak points and focus their books / skills. The stages of improvement continues on from there, my friends. Experiment as you will. Just never give up writing.

12. Which is your favorite character (off Wattpad) ?

A. Right now? Vin Deizel as Riddick, and Robert Downy Junior as Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. Those two are really freaking tied. Then, any and all characters in the HBO series Game of Thrones. BOOYAH!!!! That series is kick-ass.

13. If you were given a choice to become one character (of your story posted on Wattpad) which one would you be and why?

A. Marie is me, and I am Marie. Namely because she and I have had a very long-lasting story, though rewritten over and over again as I have attempted to perfect and finish her story….It only keeps growing. The reason? This character has had the essence of my soul for the longest period of time -- though all of my characters have a piece of me.

With Deputy Archer, I see my husband's sweet but investigative, scrutinizing personality. With Ashley, I see my own ditzy side. With Jamie, I see the conflicted sibling I both had and was (complicated sibling relationships growing up). In the Fallen, I see myself struggling through the worst things any human being should never have to face -- coming out broken, but unable to quit fighting.

And then there is Marie. Caught up in a world where the unimaginable happens, where some want to twist who she is into something evil, where others try to hold her up and keep the light in her alive, though they cannot remain near her without being broken themselves. She is a person who tries so hard to be strong and in control of her deepest fears, trying to protect them for the love of them and fear she has for them -- only to fail again and again to protect them from the darkest part of herself. Marie is so very frail, and yet so very strong. Lesser people would break. If I were really her, I would not have survived in her shoes, so I am glad saying "Marie is me, and I am Marie" is not a literal statement. I suppose she has been my shield from the worst things in this life, as well as window into another life. This has saved me from losing my mind when I was growing up in a horrible family. Creating her character enabled me to place all of my pain, fears, hopes -- all of those -- somewhere that couldn't be destroyed. Somewhere that couldn't be broken. Another me, untouched by evils in this life. Instead, she has worse things to face, and that gave me strength in my own life. This is what I love the most in writing: real and personal demons brought to life in writing. You cannot hold a conversation with another human being and convey this level of thought or emotion. You can't see a movie and grasp it as deeply (though you get quite close). These are the things you can ONLY get from writing and from reading. Epiphanies that abound by the hundreds, things that open your eyes to who you are, and shut your eyes from what you don't want to see. It's beautiful, and it's forgiving. It makes us stronger.

14. Do you prefer dark romance or the usual?

A. I very much prefer dark romance. Things with dark emotions, dark atmospheres, dark everything. The feeling that the light in the world could forever go dark -- yet does not. Being able to prevail in the end is SO satisfying. When you get into that "usual" vibe, that, to me, means chick lit. That crap makes me bawl my eyes out when watching it on TV, but it bores me to death when reading it. :P

15. Where do you look for your inspiration?

A. Dreams. Nightmares. Experiences. And the phrase: "What is the worst thing that could happen?" I have a dream book (albeit, in pieces), where I note different dreams or nightmares, and I write down all that I can remember them. To this day, reading over some of them either makes chills crawl down my spine, or makes me cry so hard I can barely gather breath. (Especially the one where my best friend died, which, yeah, had actually happened. In the dream, she was cursed and turned into some kind of dragon vessel, and she felt cold and numb, and hated me because I had accidentally done it to her….so I'd sworn I would free her. Things went downhill quickly, though.) As for nightmares, they are absolutely, terrifyingly realistic. And wickedly inspiring. Nightmares are what inspired the entire Leviathans series. When I complete it, it will be well over 40 books in the making, I believe. There are that many characters and races, and each important character has an incredibly profound tale that must be told….some through multiple books. By experiences, I mean a horrible life growing up. Not as bad as it could have been, but definitely not perfect. I use those memories to fuel the psychological aspects of my stories. Fears, shattered hopes, determination to be better than before or to prove one's self, etc. Things that stop the heart or bring forth tears. Laughter in the midst of the bad, even. There is always a ray of happiness, if you look to the sun.

Other than that, you can grab magazine clippings, etc. They can inspire backdrops for your story.

16. What’s your favorite TV show?

A. GAME OF THRONES!!!!! Justified is okay, Helix is getting interesting, Faceoff rocks, and a few others.

17. Do you prefer more reads, votes or comments?

A. I don't think it should really matter. I used to care a lot about each, but looking at reads just makes my anxiety get out of whack, and worrying about votes gets me depressed because I don't feel like I'm good enough, and even fewer comment, so I would pester my readers by trying to dig farther into their brains and ask them more questions than they care to answer because I'm extremely curious as to the reactions of my readers….yeah, I'd probably run those off, haha. :P I try to refrain where I can, so I try to not focus on that. What I care about is how my writing affects people. I have my own moral values, as do each of my characters (sometimes the characters' values differ from my own.) My goal is to get people to laugh, cry, hold their breath, love the characters, NEED the next book. I want to be good enough a writer that the characters stand on their own. It is my creation for all of you, my gift.

18. Imagine the world is collapsing around you, what would you choose to save – technology or books?

A. Neither. People are what matters. Books will come around again, and so will technology. It is in human nature to experiment and create. To question.

19. What is the best advice you have given and received?

A. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Doesn't matter where that came from. It's guided me as a person. I write for others what I would want to read, if I want others to help me, then I help others. It makes people nicer, etc.

20. Any extra tips for our young writers?

A. Write until you are sick of it, then figure out where your passions lie, and follow them with the pen. But never encage them. They are delicate muses and can be wrung dry.

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That was a looonng interview lol! But I hope you guys liked it and the advice this author gave was helpful :) !