Hi everyone!
I hope your reading is going well! Today I am joined for another interview by the wonderful SOPHIE GONZALES, author of Only Mostly Devastated and the recent Perfect on Paper! I encourage you all to go purchase it from your local indies now!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sophie Gonzales was born and raised in Whyalla, South Australia, where the Outback Meets the Sea. She now lives in Melbourne, where there’s no outback in sight, but slightly better shopping opportunities. Sophie loves punk music, frilly pink skirts, and juxtapositions.
Sophie has been writing since the age of five, when her mother decided to help her type out one of the stories she had come up with in the bathtub. They ran into artistic differences when five-year-old Sophie insisted that everybody die in the end, while her mother wanted the characters to simply go out for a milkshake.
Since then, Sophie has been completing her novels without a transcriptionist.
ABOUT PERFECT ON PAPER
Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off.
Darcy Phillips:
• Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes―for a fee.
• Uses her power for good. Most of the time.
• Really cannot stand Alexander Brougham.
• Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke…who is in love with someone else.
• Does not appreciate being blackmailed.
However, when Brougham catches her in the act of collecting letters from locker 89―out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service―that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach―at a generous hourly rate, at least. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back.
Darcy has a good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some things she’s not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again.
Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s already fallen for him once? What could go wrong?
THE INTERVIEW
Hi Sophie! Thanks for being a part of LGBTQMonth! Since your publication of Only Mostly Devastated, you’ve released another book, with another two coming soon! What is the drafting process like for you as an author?
I’m a total plotter, so before I do anything else I write down the entire synopsis, beat for beat. Then, I separate the synopsis into chapters, and decide roughly how many words each chapter should be. Then, when I write the chapter, I envision exactly what happens in what order (ie, Ollie sits at the kitchen counter, trying to compose a text to Will. His mom joins him and tells him about the move) and write that out. Then, and only then, can I write it! It helps focus my mind, which very much likes to flit around getting distracted if I don’t.
That’s really interesting, it’s always so fascinating when doing these interviews to see how each writer’s process differs so much! In the spirit of LGBTQ Month, what are some of your favourite LGBTQ+ books or TV/films?
TV: Please Like Me (it’s so so good, if you haven’t watched it, you must!!!)
Books: Some Girls Do, Trouble Girls, The Dangerous Art of Blending In, Cinderella is Dead, The Love Interest (and one that doesn’t have a publishing contract but give it time – Ernest Byrd, Typical Boy by Page Powars)
What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
These days, I love to draw on my iPad! I wish I got more time to do it, but when I get precious moments of down time I usually catch up with family and friends (often because I’ve been neglecting them for a month or two due to a deadline), or play PC games. My current favourites are Subnautica Below Zero and the Forest, and as a reward for my next deadline I’m going to buy myself House Flipper!
It’s always great to have other hobbies to reward yourself with! Do you feel it’s important to write queer representation in young adult fiction?
Of course! It’s important for everyone to see themselves represented, and for us to read about people who aren’t exactly like us, too. It fosters empathy and allows us to grow as people.
So true! If you could have a character from Only Mostly Devastated meet a character from Perfect on Paper, who would they be?
I would have Lara meet Darcy. Not only do they have some shared experiences they could bond over, but I don’t think Darcy would let Lara get away with her shit the way Ollie and the other roses do.
What was the biggest challenge you faced when collaborating on your upcoming book, If This Gets Out?
To me, the biggest challenge was when Cale and I realized his character, Zach, shared an awful lot of personality traits with Cale!! I went through a period where I couldn’t stop picturing Zach as Cale when I wrote, which made kissing scenes, uh . . . mortifying for me to write. Like, shrivel up and die mortifying. Luckily, as the book went on, Zach became Zach to me, and things became a lot easier!!
Haha, that made me laugh! What is the best piece of advice you’ve learned for aspiring authors/artists?
Write for yourself first, and don’t focus on getting published as the only goal. Once you do get published, some of that freedom and joy you get from writing does go away, replaced by expectations, the market, paying rent . . . etc. You need to know that this is something you would happily do for free if you never got published, because there’s no guarantee you will! But if you enjoy it, and it brings beauty to your life, that can only be a good thing. And the more you do it for fun, the better you get at it, and the higher your chances of being paid for it.
How do your character names come to you? Have you ever used a name from someone you know in your own life?
9/10 I get my character names by browsing a baby name website! So much so I get targeted pregnancy ads…. And yes I fairly often use names that belong to people I know in real life. The one non-negotiable rule I have is, I won’t name my characters something I want to name my future children. Those names are reserved until I’m done naming children. I don’t want to have a child grow up sharing the name of one of my main characters.
And finally, can you tell us a little bit about what to expect next?
My next book after IF THIS GETS OUT is going to be a sapphic rom com currently titled The One That Got Away.
Bisexual eighteen-year-old Maya dumped her cheating ex, Jordy, two years ago—and good riddance. But when Jordy’s sister marries the crowned prince of a small European country and he shoots to fame, Pippa Middleton style, reality show producers approach her to appear on a Bachelor meets second-chance-romance show, along with all his other exes.
Maya agrees, but she’s nursing a secret agenda: use the show to make sure the world knows what kind of person Jordy is. When her manufactured “enemy” on the show, Skye—who happens to be the girl Jordy cheated on her with—finds out about Maya’s plan, the two make a pact; they’ll help each other make it to the finale by any means necessary, and whoever wins will expose Jordy on national television.
But as Maya’s relationship with Skye start to change from co-conspirators to something more, she discovers just how hard it is to watch the girl you’re falling for seduce the guy who broke your heart.
Even if it is just for show.
Think The Bachelor, if two of the girls fell for each other while trying to expose the Bachelor as a fuckboi!
Well, that just sounds amazing!! Thank you Sophie and thank you again for joining LGBTQMonth in an interview! I’ve loved having you!
THE ROYAL BOOKSHELF 