Casual Fridays with Cate – Robyn Nyx – March 20, 2021

We’ve had a couple of weeks off as the release date for Tusked rolled around, but we’re back today with an interview I’m very excited about. We’re talking gorgeous writing retreats (I’m seriously jealous), living in the moment, and soulmates.

Biography

Robyn Nyx lives in England but enjoys traveling all over the world in search of inspiration. Robyn is an avid shutterbug and lover of all things fast and physical. Her writing often reflects both of those passions. She lives with her wifey soul mate and fellow scribe, Brey Willows. They run the community interest company, Global Wordsmith, helping aspiring authors to achieve their dreams and working with marginalized groups to get their stories heard. Robyn loves to create complex characters to weave into stories that remind us of the darker side of human nature in the hope that we might cultivate the light.

Speed Dating Round

Coffee or Tea? Green or grass tea.

Book you’re reading right now? The Archive of the Forgotten by AJ Hackwith

Book you’re looking forward to reading? Song of Serenity by Brey Willows

Favorite color? White

Favorite movie? The Gentleman (at the moment) or maybe Venom

Favorite actress? Charlize Theron (The Old Guard? Oh my…)

A joke? I invented a new word…plagiarism!

Last thing you ate/drank? A cherry Twizzler

Favorite thing to cook? Fajitas

Word you can never spell right? Ooh, with a secondary career as an editor, I have to say I can’t think of any.

Favorite season? Summer

A bucket list travel destination? Hawaii

Would you rather be cold or hot? Hot

TV show you’re bingeing right now? Blacklist season seven

One feature you want in your dream house? A music studio

Favorite beverage? Cherry Pepsi Max

One random thing about you? I’m a lapsed lifeguard.

The one app you always end up opening? Instagram

A nostalgic TV show? LA Law (when Amanda Donohoe was in it as a bisexual character)

Best decade? The one I’m in, no matter what stage of life I’m at.

Favorite romance trope? Soul mates

Playstation, Xbox, Switch, or PC? I used to be a big PlayStation fan but now I don’t have the time.

PC or Mac? Mac

Horoscope? Leo

Your favorite pairing? Me and my wife

The Tea and Biscuits Round

Let’s settle in with a cup of tea (coffee, whatever you like to drink), pull up a comfy sofa and talk about books and writing.

Tell me about your favorite place to write? (if you’d like to include a photo make sure you have the rights to it if it’s a public place and attach it to the email you send through to me).

The summerhouse I built last year, which we call the Scriptorium. We’ve fitted it out with a gas heater, bookshelves, writing quotes, comfy chairs, and I even installed laminated flooring. It’s perfect no matter what weather we get – and the extra benefit is that our local fox likes to pad around on top of it!

Brey and I also like to get away on personal writing retreats once or twice a year. We got to lots of different places, but they have to have a view of the water and huge comfy couches since we write from 10am to 5pm every day. This is a photo of our view from a little place in Looe on the south coast of England.

What is your writing software and hardware of choice for each phase of writing (Planning, writing, editing, formatting, etc). PC? Laptop? Phone? Mac? Windows? Scrivener? Word? Google Docs? And why do you love it?

Word, all the way. It’s simple and easy to use, and it makes the editing process nice and collaborative without having to export and mess everything up. But in the planning stages, I’m a big fan of paper. I have a ton of leather notebooks, special pencils, and fountain pens.

When you start a new project, what’s the very first thing you do?

Get to know my characters inside out. Who are they? Where have they come from? What do they look like? What’s their family like? What’s their baggage?

How do you get to know your characters?

I sit with them in my mind for a start. Then I begin to free write their story and who are they are, and why they’re like that. I fill pages and pages, a lot of which never makes it into the manuscript, but knowing who your character is means you know exactly what they’ll say and how they’ll act in almost every situation you put them in… but they can always surprise you too!

Do you prefer to plot or see where things take you?

I plot out a basic storyline. Sometimes I create a chapter by chapter storybook. Occasionally I don’t need any of that because the story is so clear in my head. And I create the story arc so I know where my beats and pulse points and the crisis moments are.

Do you like listening to music when you write? If so, do you have a playlist you’d like to share (include a link), or an artist you’d like to mention?

Nope, I can’t listen to music because I get carried away with the stories they’re telling. I can’t just have music on in the background, I have to listen to the words.

What’s your number one piece of writing advice?

Sit down and keep writing. Even when it feels like what you’re putting together is complete crap. There’s nothing to edit if you don’t write the words. Oh, and write what you love. There’s no point writing romance just because you think you’re going to make money – you have to love romance to put it on the page or it’ll fall flat and the reader will know you’re faking it.

What do you love about the genre you write in?

I’m a genre hopper, and I love so many of them for different reasons. The sense of adventure and getting from A to B in adventure books, the element of soul mates in a romance, and the anticipation in a thriller.