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 HeideHunt, the author of The Wattys 2023 shortlisted Daracka Volume 1: Head Hunt.

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Tell us a bit about yourself!

I'm a Filipina living in the Pearl of the Orient Seas, the Philippines. I'm a full-time engineer and part-time financial literacy advocate. I used to be a sugar and coffee addict, always a bookworm, cinephile, anime otaku, and usually wasting away playing MOBA.

I've always been a writer, passionately creating uniquely inspired worlds, plots, and characters. My stories on Wattpad are all Fantasy-inspired or influenced by Filipino culture, with flavors of sci-fi, romance, action, and adventure. 

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

I'm more of a plotter, but I'm also partly a pantser, especially with my initial drafts. My skeletal outlines are mostly bare, with simple notes about the essential things that should happen in each chapter. Draft 0 could deviate from the original outline based on what the characters feel or how they react in certain situations. I think that's my pantser side, allowing my characters to tell the story. My revisions are usually more strict, where I re-outline everything referenced to how Draft 0 went, making sure I have story beats, plot twists, reveals, worldbuilding, and character developments in place. Then, I'd revise based on the new outline. That's my plotter side, I think. I know it seems like a lot of work, and I'm still trying to refine it, but this process works best for me right now.

What are some things that influenced your story?

The idea of Daracka started when I first read the Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson. I wanted to create something massive like one of his chunky books. Then I thought of writing a Peter Pan retelling, but the only thing I got from that was the flying boy. The first draft was heavily influenced by medieval settings. But at a certain point, I realized I wanted to put forward something from my culture. So, I drew inspiration from the cultures in my hometown, a city in the Philippines situated in the northern mountains and inhabited by an ethnic group, the Igorot people. I took some influence from their practices. The inspiration expanded then to take from the Tagalog culture and ancient classes like the Maharlika and the Maginoo. Most of it was the pedestal of the worldbuilding.

Daracka was meant to be a standalone with 250K words until I decided (at the suggestion of a Wattpad friend) to turn it into a tome. So, it's now two volumes with about 120K words each. It's still pretty chunky but no longer as huge as one of the Stormlight Archives novels. 

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

One of the main characters of Daracka is Jiro, a boy suffering from anxiety. The main inspiration for his character, aside from Peter Pan, is me. I've been suffering from anxiety since college, and in 2020, during the Covid pandemic, I had my first panic attack. I took that experience and turned it into an inspiration for Jiro's development, showing how he struggled and how he would be able to overcome those complications to achieve his goals.

What were some challenges you experienced while writing the story?

Most of my writing disciplines and processes were built on Daracka. So, the biggest challenge for me was the heavy editing I did while I wrote before I even completed the Draft. I would go back to previous chapters and almost rewrite the whole thing, taking so much time with edits and leaving the current chapter hanging.

Another challenge I had was the POV of my characters. Most are male, so I wonder if they were convincing. So far, no one has noted that I don't get the male perspective, so that's good. I also had difficulty distinguishing between Jiro's and Reiji's voices because they were teenage boys of the same age. Eventually, when I had a better grip on both their backgrounds, it became easier.

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

I hope to showcase some of my Filipino culture to the world. That was the main message. It's really written to entertain. But as the story grew, I learned that I also wanted to inspire in so many different ways. I want readers to have their own interpretations of the concepts that I used in the story, like anxiety, gray morality, careless enthusiasm, or entitlement. It's an exploration of reality (in a fantasy world) and a discovery of possibilities. 

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

I would explore cautiously and take notes for my next story. :)

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?

It would be the talent for keeping a calm and clear head under pressure.

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?

This question reminds me of Fallen by Lauren Kate. It's the novel that inspired me to start writing Fantasy. :) Well, I don't know what life would be if I didn't meet my husband or any of my past loves that built my emotional maturity and, despite the heartaches, gave me so much inspiration for my stories. But life would be bland if I didn't go through the teenage emotional roller coasters or the mature lifetime romance, my forever. So, I would fight through several lifetimes for my love. The adventure of going through it all (multi-timelines or multi-universes) would be a bonus. 

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

I always thought it would be a dragon since it's so popular. Even in the Philippines, we have dragons in our myths called Bakunawa. But I was writing one of my stories, The Marks of the Engkanto, inspired by Philippine folklore, and I found one of the creatures most fascinating. It haunted my childhood dreams because adults told stories about them to scare us from being naughty. This creature called Dwende (also spelled Duwende) is a small humanoid that likes to snatch women and children and bring them to their homes underground, never to see the human world again. They are also tricksters and like to steal things. If you lose something inside the house, like a sock, it's said to be stolen by a Dwende. 

What is your favorite Asian myth? Why?

One of my favorite myths from my childhood is the Ibong Adarna (Translation: Adarna Bird). It's a tale written by a Filipino, with heavy influence from Spanish culture due to the Philippines' colonization by Spain for over 300 years, but the roots of the story are from the pre-Spanish era. It originated from Indigenous Filipino Folklore. It's a story about a magical healing bird with the power to turn people into stone and the prince who would use its power for good and save princesses to be wed and live happily ever after. It represents heroism and chivalry. It was taught in my elementary school, and it's one of the most memorable stories I've heard.

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

Until the next chapter, fellow disciples!