It's been a long time. I miss doing these things :')

I actually was tagged a loooong time back by elenrith, but I have not felt the luxury of time for a while now. My life finally feels like it's slowing down (haha who am I kidding), and I remembered this and wanted to do it. So screw life and adulting and responsibilities, I'm gonna do a tag.

Now, do I actually have fanfics? No, at least none of any substantial length. Definitely not any worth trying this tag on.

So I get to be a little rebel and do my own books. >:)

*thirty agonizing seconds later* I CAN'T PICKKKKKK

Y'know, I'm just going to do it for the Ceristen Series as a whole. "fic" will be replaced with "series" or other term as appropriate.

1. What inspired you to write the books this way?

Every book in the Ceristen Series started out as a story improvised verbally by my sister and me (eight years later and we're still doing the talkplays). Talkplay was just a part of our life back then. We did it day in and day out, like breathing. Some of the stories were better than others, and we agreed mutually that I needed to write them down.

I still remember analyzing the Thorne's journey late one night, and bolting upright in bed as the revelation seized me. "Mercy, it's so good! I should write it!"

It was always the people that made the stories what they were. I wrote for the people. I still do. They're so, so real to me.

2. What scene did you first put down?

I'm gonna do this one book by book.

The Journey: I just grabbed a notebook and started exactly where the talkplay had started: with Fred's soliloquy about his missing siblings. Only then, it commenced with him tiptoeing out of the house to deliberately avoid Great-aunt Bridget, and she nabbed him afterwards to remind him of his birthday.

*nostalgic sigh* Fun times.

The Village: The moment where Fred punches Arwinar Stafford in the jaw. Ah the inspiration and righteous passion I felt as I scribbled down the words. Yeah, you're wondering why you don't remember that part? It's because it didn't make it into the final cut. It didn't even make it into the first cut.

Fred The Jerkface will not be missed. (except by me in a weird author-love way)

The Claw: Fred reading his letter and asking Fiona's opinion on whether he should take a vacation. Because back in that trashcan of a first draft he didn't love any of his siblings enough to ask their opinion on going down to Delgrass.

The War: The dragon battle scene. Alllll the trauma mwahaha.

3. What's your favorite line of narration?

Idk man. *skims The Claw since that happens to be my favorite of the books*

Here's one I likey:

"Cold, blinding anger formed a rod of steel in Mordred'scenter."

Here's another:

*

"Corian was dead, the fateful claw-mark across his features and no trace of the murderer to hand. Inspector Dickson rode swiftly home, every beat of the hooves making a desperately resolute chant: I – shall – find – it – I – shall – find – it – Shall –find it – Shall – find – it – Shall – find – it...

His frustration flowed, his resolve intensified, his hope dipped and rose. It was at its low point as he approached the silent and unwelcoming house."

*

Gah y'all I like every single line in The Claw *sobs quietly because I will never be able to write anything that good again*

*

"He turned his thoughts to home, to his family, and to Fiona, but they seemed very far away, bitter, tasteless as shells, grey and unbeautiful, filling him not with longing but with a dead darkness. He thought of young Hedron, and the fleeting smile that made the world seem right again, and he began to weep, because now the world seemed to have turned over into endless wrongness, and there was nothing that could make it right."

*

I'm sorry I'm spamming you with these but I've never had a chance to spam people with The Claw before and this is literally the best 75,000 words I've ever written so you'll forgive me if I let you see 500 of them

*

"They brought them down into the quarry, stumbling over the uncertain, craggy paths formed into the depths, the slubbed mossy surface an unstable and often steep purchase. Beautiful, Mordred thought it, as he looked at the vast, lonely monoliths and lumps and crevasses, cracked walls and tumbled broken slopes, all dark and blue-shadowed and moss-grown. They seemed to him sad and proud and very fair in their forgottenness; and it awoke something freshly living inside of him, that began to hurt."

4. What's your favorite line of dialogue?

I almost picked something from The Claw again, but I've bombarded you enough. Have an exquisite Jeddy line.

*

"Wonderful," grumbled those irritable tones above him. "You would choose this moment to come out of it. Hold still, little fool. You do realize you're on a tree, and now that you're awake it's entirely on your own head if you crash to the welcoming soil below." -- Jedediah Crayes, The War

*

5. What part was the hardest to write?

I would say The Village gave me the most grief in terms of trying to piece all the bits of plot and character development together in a way that made sense. I had writer's block a million times on The Journey, but the middle chapters of The Village were the real struggle in the Ceristen Series.

6. What makes this series special or different from all your other books?

This series focuses, more than anything else I've written, on the "small people" of the world. It's ultimately about Ceristen, a tiny village on the slopes of a tiny mountain, and about the people of Ceristen, and how they break and love and hurt and get up again. It's highly character-driven, and it's somehow cohesive and perfectly thematic without me ever trying to make it so.

And sibling stories. Because siblings.

7. Where did the title come from?

Oh noooooo not my pathetic titles...

It's not that they're unfitting titles. In fact, they're so perfectly fitting that as hard as I've ever tried to think of more attention-grabbing ones, nothing comes to mind.

The Journey is all about journeys. Outer, inner. The Village is, at its core, the village. That's the whole point of the book. The Claw... well, we don't really talk about The Claw because the full explanation gets a bit spoiler-y. The War is about a freakin' war, what do you expect. It seemed like the obvious choice after the preceding three.

8. Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

*scratches head* An IRL friend's laugh inspired the character of Marhon, a nice dude who appears for three paragraphs in The Journey. That's all I've got for ya.

9. Were there any alternate versions of this series?

*starts laughing*

*can't stop*

*chokes*

The first draft of any of these books would not know itself. If you mean, was The Journey originally a farcical book with a satirical, jerkface protagonist and towns called Purplesville and giants who married their children off to unwilling passersby and people sailed over waterfalls and came out none the worse... then yes.

10. Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

*blinks* this is assuming that every fic out there is romance?? Pfft.

Anyway, if you want me to talk about my cute couples, I don't object. Fred and Fiona are so stinkin' cute I have to squeal every time they get a scene in my edits. I don't even know how we ended up pairing them originally, but they're one of those couples that actually work because they're similar in a LOT of ways, yet dissimilar in ways that don't show up on the surface.

For instance, Fred is fairly empathetic, but he lacks the huge intuition that Fiona has. Fiona knows instinctively how to deal with people, and what they need, usually without even knowing she knows it. Fred struggles with opening up about his inner conflicts, but Fiona will open up to someone, even if she waits for a bit to find the right moment. Fiona is mega-shy, whereas Fred, as quiet as he is, doesn't actually find people bothersome. Conversely, Fiona is a fluent conversationalist when you get her talking about something she cares about, whereas Fred's words are careful and few.

But they both love beauty, and little, helpless things, and literature and learning. They're both immensely thoughtful souls who like to contemplate and discuss things. They're both very genuine people who understand the importance of frankness and truth in a relationship. They're both mature for their age.

Therelane and Mirda were a funny pairing. I'm not even sure how they happened, either. Mirda's character was definitely nothing like it is now. Therelane's the "quiet dreamer-boy", as Irene calls him, and Mirda is the happy, bubbly person who makes everyone in the room feel more cheerful. She pulls him back to earth. He gets to be a hero for her. She loves having a hero. They're just all around adorable.

11. What do you like best about this series?

I kind of touched on this earlier, but the fact that the books are all pulled together with common themes that I didn't even try to weave in. I also love that each one of the books is, on its own, completely unique. If you tried to classify them by subgenre, they'd become a mess. The Journey's a coming-of-age adventure, The Claw is detective fiction meets high fantasy, The War is political drama + high adventure, and The Village... how I'm even supposed to classify The Village, I don't know. It's Mitford in Legea.

Anyway, the other best is Mordred. Mordred is always the best. (Any of the characters, really, but then Mordred.)

12. What do you like least about this series?

The Journey is currently my bane. I will probably get over this someday, but y'all it's three years old and it's really not my best writing and IT'S GOING OUT INTO THE WORLD AND THE WORLD WILL NOT GIVE IT BONUS POINTS IT WILL RIP IT TO SHREDS r.i.p. my heart

I never thought I would say this but I almost want another round of edits XD XD T_T T_T

13. What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn't listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

I will always and forever stand by GerithorDunedain's self-compiled soundtracks. If I need an uninterrupted hour or two of variegated, thrilling fantasy music, I know where to go.

For The Journey, it was mostly my sister's Return of the King soundtrack and a Celtic music CD. I didn't use YouTube to speak of at that point.

The Village: All the above plus some Vindsvept.

https://youtu.be/nO3jTWxziaI

The Claw: Brunuhville, especially Herald of Justice

https://youtu.be/TpxKvy5T9Uo

The War: A little of everything... but this is definitely the song for it. I listened to it so many times on the last few chapters.

https://youtu.be/29EuEolofQI

14. Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this series?

Mostly just to know the characters. They mean so much to me, I have to share them with the world.

15. What did you learn from writing this series?

A) That I can write fast, for extended periods of time. I want those days back now T_T

B) That Mordred is my baby more than anyone else in the world

C) I defined my style and solidified it

D) What I love to write about

And probably more, but I'm about burned out now.

This was fun, and took me almost two hours. Two glorious, well-spent, recklessly squandered hours.

Now to finish the Swirls of Sand chapter...