TEA ROOM TALKS: BLACKBIRD
Note: This Tea Room Talk was originally published in June 2022.
Hello and welcome to my first official Tea Room Talk!
Today I’m delighted to introduce my first Tea Room guest: Blackbird, author of the fantasy web serial Shadows Rise, available to read on her website or over on Royal Road.
Blackbird is a Brazilian author and one side of the coin that is the Shadows Crew, an international writing duo established back in 2010 on a roleplay forum. She serves as the primary writer for five stories that all take place in the fictional country of Valcrest and is currently fleshing out a couple solo projects, as well.
My tea of choice today: Fortnum & Mason’s afternoon blend, which happens to be one of four teas gifted to me from London!
HARPER: First of all, thank you for volunteering to be my first Tea Room guest! I appreciate the interest. I've got myself a nice, mild black tea....so naturally, I have to first ask: what is your tea (or hot beverage) of choice? And do you have any favorites specifically for writing?
BLACKBIRD: I like peppermint tea, or chamomile tea with honey. I'm basic lol. Full disclosure though, my writing beverage is usually Coke, even in winter (or as much winter as you get in Brazil anyway).
HARPER: Hey, those are soothing! Nothing wrong with that. And don't worry, I won't judge on the Coke...
So, ideal writing atmosphere. What's yours? Do you prefer the bustle of the tea house, so to speak, or the quiet solitude of a tea room? Can you write with other people around?
BLACKBIRD: I prefer to retreat to my writer cave by myself, though I don't do too well with silence. I need to have music. I can't focus very well with other people around, even if they're quiet because the thought that they might pay attention to me is enough to throw me off.
HARPER: Yep, I'm the same way. I don't know how other writers manage to write in public places... I do welcome the silence, though. Most times!
What would you say is your primary motivation for writing? Is it purely for fun? Is it more of an escape? Or something else entirely?
BLACKBIRD: I think it's primarily an outlet. I've always had a hyperactive imagination. Even before I could effectively write I was always coming up with stories in my head. I'd play pretend with my friends and I'd always be the one driving the narrative. But it's also definitely an escape and a way to process and explore emotions in a safe environment. And also connect with other people in a way through sharing it; nerve-wracking as that part may be.
HARPER: Oh wow, that's wild. We have a lot in common, it seems! I never played pretend with friends; it was usually with my brother or just by myself with a host of little plastic animals. I definitely feel you on the escape/processing bit. I feel that's very true for a lot of writers these days...
I think I can guess the answer to this next one, but do you see yourself writing for the rest of your life? Or do you potentially see yourself moving on to other passions?
BLACKBIRD: I don't think I know how to stop. The only other things I've been nearly as passionate about were music and archery, but I wouldn't trade writing for either if that was somehow a choice I had to make.
HARPER: Yeah, I don't, either. I've already lost one passion (drawing); I'd hate to have that happen with writing, too. Also, archery is a badass passion.
Are there any pieces of media that have influenced your projects?
BLACKBIRD: Shadows Rise: that world in general, that's existed for so long that I'm not sure I can even pinpoint where the ideas were born. I was very into the Diablo games as a kid (the first two at least) and that was my first contact with a medieval world that was more bleak and gritty. And I think that highly influenced the tone I took when I created Valcrest. For Shadows Rise specifically I drew some inspiration from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Walking Dead comics for how, you know, how to develop character and how I wanted to pace it because it was my first venture into writing something in a serialized format. As for my other WIP, Chosen? I can easily pinpoint things like Arcane and She-Ra as direct inspirations. But also my love for the traditional “Chosen One” fantasy adventure format, as well as my frustrations with it. Things like Lord of the Rings, the Wizard Books I don't wanna name, the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, etc.
HARPER: What a fascinating blend of media. I love hearing stuff like this; it really goes to show how important it is to explore all sorts of media for writing—not simply books. Also, you've reminded me that I really need to sink my teeth into Arcane...
So, speaking of inspirations, I understand that Shadows Rise was born out of roleplay? At what point in the roleplay journey did you decide, "Hey, we should serialize this?"
BLACKBIRD: Absolutely do watch the fuck out of Arcane. It's amazing and will destroy you emotionally. And yeah, SR is technically a prequel to the storyline of those RPs. It's the backstory to some of those characters. I'm really not sure how it started; I talked to a couple friends about the roleplay. I was GMing and much like with play-pretend I was responsible for driving the narrative a lot of the time, so I'd often just ramble at them about my characters and plot points. And at one point they started reading it and sharing it around until it happened that we had a readership of about 20 to 30 people for this roleplay that was horribly written and terribly paced because it was supposed to be just a game for us.
But people got invested. And we were also very attached to this world and these characters. So we debated often, extensively, what to do about that. It was mostly just talk, to be honest. We'd say, "Oh, we should make a novelization”, "We should make it into a comic/animated series/audio drama…” We'd daydream, but...I didn't feel like we'd be able to keep the same voice and storytelling style we developed with any of those mediums. Like, I was unhappy with the thought of making it into a traditional novel series. I didn't feel it would work.
It wasn't until we were in the middle of our third RP installment that I decided I wanted to write that backstory on the side and I discovered things like Worm and The Wandering Inn and started reading up on the web serial format and I realized... Yeah, this fits our style perfectly. It allows the same freedom and the same level of reader interaction we were already accustomed to. The RP was dying down at that point. People have lives. We were together for several years; it happens. But Plotstains—my then co-GM—and I weren't prepared to give Valcrest up just yet, so...I decided, it's time, we're gonna do it. And three years later, here we are.
HARPER: That's incredible! For a long time, I thought about doing the same with my current series, but I longed to hold a physical book in my hands, so the craving for novelization won in the end. I, too, stumbled across Worm and The Wandering Inn and marveled at how many people were willing to not only read such a sprawling work, but also spend money to read chapters ahead of others. Truly remarkable stuff.
Are there any sorts of feelings, emotions, motifs, or aesthetics you want readers to associate with you and your work?
BLACKBIRD: It's actually surprising to me how not only are people willing to support Shadows Rise on Patreon, but also there have been people wiling to support my solo projects in development because of how much they want to see them come to fruition. Readers are amazing.
If we're talking my entire body of work, I'd say I'd like to be known as an author who explores the human condition as much as possible. What are the psychological and emotional aspects involved with going on a revenge path? What toll does that realistically take? What are the personal implications of being dubbed the Chosen One, expected to be a savior and having your entire identity built up around a role you didn't have the freedom to choose for yourself? The mental and emotional toll that takes on a young child being brought up this way? What kind of a person do they become really underneath all those expectations? That's the kind of stuff that really gets me going. I like to delve into that side of things with anything I do.
HARPER: I definitely like that approach to the "Chosen One" theme. It's a refreshing take and one I hope to see more of in the fantasy genres.
Just a couple more questions for today! First, do you include any hobbies, interests, or fascinations in your work (like archery)? I love spotting stuff like this; it really adds a bit more personalization to an author's work.
BLACKBIRD: Yes. I like to include music in my work. I write to music a lot. I always have at least one character in my stuff who plays an instrument. In Shadows Rise, it's Gabrielle; in Chosen?, it's Farene (Rae has an ocarina and tries to play it, but...that's debatable lol), and Fae in general, their language is essentially music. My third WIP—which I didn't mention until now because it's very much on the back burner right now—Wasted Youth, revolves around music a lot. It's about my musicians; the chapters are gonna be named after songs… It's gonna be entirely self-indulgent in that way.
The archery thing is funny. Because the protagonist of my first attempted novel was an archer, I started doing research; this was back when I was 17, and I found a course that was pretty inexpensive in my city... And I went and learned it. So kind of a reverse situation there: it became a hobby because I wrote it.
HARPER: Ohh, I love that—the archery bit. The same thing happened to me with language learning. I delved into Finnish to help me plot a future conlang and ended up falling in love with the language to the point where I really want to become fluent someday. That's awesome.
I am so with you on the self-indulgence. I feel like there's no better way to express who you truly are as a human being than to inject those types of elements into your art.
One final question: what is an unexpected element or event that has come up in your writing/publishing journey in the last year? Good or bad, just anything that came as a surprise?
BLACKBIRD: Chosen?… Just having solo projects at all, to be honest, because I've always been a very one-track mind writer. I'd been working on the Shadows Series for a full-on decade and nothing else. Chosen? though, it gripped me in a way that shocked me. Like a random thought of "I want to take the ‘Chosen One’ format and bend it in some way," and usually these ideas come and go, but with this one... It took just a little bit of a nudging from one of my best friends and in the span of one afternoon I had a handful of characters and a whole damn magic system. I wasn't ready to work multiple projects and I'm still adjusting to that notion, but it's been immensely fun to worldbuild an entirely new setting for the first time again.
HARPER: Are you still in the worldbuilding stage or have you started drafting that one?
BLACKBIRD: I did start a bare-bones chapter one for it, but officially right now I'm outlining. I don't usually outline, but at least a loose one for this I feel would be helpful. Worldbuilding never ends because I figure out a lot of stuff as I go, but I've done enough that with enough time and energy available I can start thinking about actually drafting.
HARPER: Wow. Sounds like you've got a lot of pots on the stove, then. I'm so happy you've found a readership eager to sample your solo work!
I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me today! May your projects treat you gently going forward...
For more information on Tea Room Talks, please read this post!
