Following up from our interview with Romina_Stephanie, another recent Author of the Month, AndrinaBlack, has been interrogated interviewed. Thanks to Annina for the interview! Enjoy :)

1. Do real life events often inspire your stories?
I don’t know about bigger events or anything like that, but small things in real life often inspire me. It can be a feeling I have or how I suddenly realise the weather could be described in an interesting way or something else. But sometimes I use more specific events too or parts of them if they seem to fit in somewhere.

2. Which of your stories is your personal favourite?
That’s a hard question. Maybe at the moment “Seeing Through You” because it’s the one I have been writing at more lately and I really like the ideas and feelings I have about it. I’ve always loved my idea for “Frisland” though it has been on a bit of a hiatus for quite long now. And of my one-shots (which means actually finished stories) I think my favourites are “Transparent” and “Solid” which are a kind of a pair.

3. What would you consider to be your best story?
That’s even a harder question. That would be a one shot because my longer stories are not that far yet. Maybe “Transparent” or “Strange Encounters”. They have both quite good reviews and I quite like myself how they turned out. With Transparent I’m especially proud about the fact that some people liked it who said that they don’t usually like song fics. With “Strange Encounters” I’m quite proud of how I managed to write the romance from Ronan’s point of view. Haha, it’s funny that I chose two stories that I wrote from a unusual male point of view.

4. How much of an impact do reviews, positive or negative have on your stories?
In that way they influence me most that I sometimes correct mistakes based on them. But I try not to let any change my plans of my stories. I might however think of writing a pairing sometime later again if I get good feedback on it. Perhaps the time I have been most influenced by a review was when I got a review that they thought the sexual content felt too mature for a 15+ chapter. I toned it down a bit because it was only in the second chapter and I wasn’t planning to write much sexual content in the story in the future and I realised that that scene might stand out too much.

5. Have you ever received criticism that you thought was particularly harsh? How did you deal with it?
No I haven’t really. I haven’t got any flames, just nice constructive criticism. One that irritated me a lot was one to “Solid” where I had requested for a review on the forums and the review went: “Yeah, well I'm not a fan of OCs, like it say in my reviewing rules, so I wasn't likeing the Luna/OC thing, but still, I thought it was okay, Luna and Nick was going really good, you could explain more, but it's cool.” The thing is that there is not a single OC in the story. So that wasn’t really criticism on my story but on my ability to read their rules, which I had done. So that review didn’t really answer the question, but it was a particularly irritating review for me. :P In the response I apologised if I had been too confusing about the people in the story.

6. Which of your stories was most difficult to write?
Of my chaptered fics “In the Eyes of the Beholder” is at a standstill right now because I seem unable to get a long enough chapter written in Mad Eye Moody’s pov so that’s one. For “To Find the Way” I seem to have lost the grasp of how to get on with the plot and I just change my mind about it all the time, so that is another hard one. With some one shots I have had times when I just didn’t know what to write at some point, leaving big holes in the middle until I came up with something. Those I have however usually fixed by getting out of my lazy gear and simply made a bigger effort to think about it or just written some random description and then got an idea with that (examples of this would be The Road to Christmas, Through the Gate and Strange Encounters.)

7. What made you start writing fan-fiction?
I stumbled upon HPFF, read some and after about two months I decided to try to write myself as I got some idea.

8. What would you consider to be your proudest moment in your fan-fiction writing?
So many hard questions. Hmm… Maybe when I actually posted my first fic and it was accepted. Then also when I got my first review and then my first really thought out good review. I was also proud when I became trusted. But let’s say when I had my first story posted.

9. For you, what is the most important element of your writing? Ie characterization, plot, descriptions, emotions etc.
Emotions. I write a lot through the emotions of the characters, though that also has to do with the characterization as I kind of try to understand them through their emotions.

10. You have been arrested for killing twelve Muggles and a wizard, a crime you did not commit, and you have been thrown in Azkaban without a trial. However, unlike others suffering under similar circumstances, you are not an Animagus. How do you escape Azkaban and the Dementors?
I just can’t imagine how I would really escape. I guess my parents would put up a fight for me. They would arrange that there would be held a trial after all and they would make the most amazing defence for me. They are just cool that way! *huggles awesome parents*