Tell us a little about your writing background. How long have you been writing?

I began my writing journey at twelve years old, and by thirteen, I’d finished the manuscript of my first novel. Over the next ten years, I’d write nine other manuscripts, all of which are gathering metaphorical dust on a flash drive. I attended UCSC and got a degree in Creative Writing, but the pandemic hit six months before I graduated and my momentum faceplanted. So, for the four years following, I battled writer’s block. Until last year when the clouds parted and inspiration for a new novel struck me. Since then I’ve been working on Rot & Ruin, which is now in the hands of my editor and soon to be queried!

What inspired you to start writing?

Pettiness and the desire to be a demi-god. Around the time I gained an interest in storytelling, my stodgy English teacher told me I wasn’t very good at writing. So, I decided to write a novel just to spite him. At that same time, I was obsessed with the Percy Jackson series and I started posting fanfiction about it. The fanfiction gained enough traction online to garner a small fanbase, fanart, and even a translation into spanish by a reader! By the time I was sixteen, that fanfiction was a complete novel trilogy, and I was ready to set out into the world of original fiction.

How did you come up with the idea for this story?

The idea for this novel came to me while playing a fantasy rpg video game. The dialogue options did not allow for a morally ambiguous character, so, my inherent, rebellious nature spurred me to take matters into my own hands. I wanted to explore the psyche of a down-on-their-luck criminal trying to make a better life for themselves. Especially, since that criminal gets shoved into the center of a world-ending cataclysm and is forced to make hard calls to protect everyone around her.

Where can readers find more of your work?

At the moment, most of my writing is locked away in the vault (AKA my hard drive). However, if you’d like to follow me on my journey into the publishing world, and see some cool costumes along the way, you can follow me at @kategraycosplay!

What advice would you give writers on writing a great first chapter?

I like to give my MC an immediate goal and a distant goal. In this chapter, Anya’s immediate goal is to steal from the sanctuary, and her distant goal is to pay off her debts. The first goal facilitates the second. Even when the first goal is complete, and the readers derive satisfaction from its accomplishment, they will still have a throughline of the distant goal to carry them into the next chapters. These goals should always hold emotional weight for the MC, and it’s important to establish the negative consequences of failure to achieve these goals. Additionally, as a fantasy writer, I like to use worldbuilding only as a tool to create atmosphere and tension for the chapter. As fun as it is to detail paragraphs of in-universe history, I try to streamline my worldbuilding to the most relevant information and introduce it in small segments throughout the chapter.