Roxana-Mălina Chirilă

On Writing

Re: Re: Boss, here’s my not exactly a pen name (Roxana Kiril)

Jim McGovern, the big boss of the small publishing house I’m writing for, wrote this blog post, musing about authors and their mysterious pen names. Why do we have them? Well, he proposes the obvious: going for the other gender’s target audience, or hiding your true identity, or there already being someone with your name writing stuff out there. And then I got to this part, which I’ll quote: Some of our authors at BigWorldNetwork.

The author is not physically dead

The moment I found out that JK Rowling went ahead and said that she ought not have paired off Hermione and Ron, but Hermione and Harry, I felt angry: she has a history of dropping anvils on people during interviews. You know, Dumbledore is gay. The arm on the Weasley family clock dedicated to Fred fell off when he died. Dumbledore is gay. Whatever. So now I thought, „publicity stunt”. I thought, „shut up, Rowling”.

Flight from Hell – the end of season 2

There’s still a bit to go before the last episodes of season 2 of Flight from Hell are available online, but I’ve already sent them out. (which reminds me, a new episode was posted today) For the past few days I felt lost. I’ve written 2 seasons of Flight from Hell – 12 episodes each, so 24 in total. About 3000 words/episode, give or take. About 70-75 thousand words, I think.

Writing, video games and so forth

I don’t often write blog posts because somebody says „Be part of this! Write about this topic!” And yet here we are, because I find a certain topic interesting. Cathy Day, whom I’ve occasionally mentioned on this blog, wrote the following: I’ve never played a video game, but I recognize that it’s a narrative experience that lots and lots of people value. No judgement. But in my fiction-writing classes, I often read stories and novels that read as if I’m watching someone else play a video game.

Flight from Hell – the end of a season

I’m currently uploading the audio for episode 12 of Flight from Hell. That’s the last episode of the season – seeing as I won’t be taking the opportunity for a prolonged holiday, season 2 will start on the tail of season 1, with just one week’s break to mark the change. I’ll be offering little quotes and teasers in a post on Sunday or so (tomorrow I’ll be visiting this Turkish city, forgot its name, with a bunch of Erasmus students, never knew their names).

The mystery of the 1-star rating

Currently my rating for Flight from Hell over on the Big World Network is of 4.6/5 (with 9 votes cast). You can see it here. But not so long ago it was 4/5 (with 4 votes cast). Reverse it and try to figure out what the possible votes could be: 4*4 = 16, therefore the 4 votes amounted to 16. Possibilities: 4 ratings of 4; 2 ratings of 5, 2 of 3; 3 ratings of 5, 1 of 1.

Discussions on literature (consider us drunk)

Linda’s come over, all the way from the other side of the country. Which is really cool. And conversations are getting really weird. We were talking Flight from Hell and we got to incubi and succubi. Linda: Do you remember how incubi and succubi used to be so rare in fiction? And now they’re all over the place. Me: I swear to God I didn’t know Amanda had a series called Incubus before submitting to the Big World Network.

I love swear words

Swear words do this amazing thing in language, that no other category of words does quite as well, or with as much versatility. I’m not referring to insults here (although that’s supposedly their main function), but to the fact that they intensify the meaning. If something is awesome, then it’s awesome. If something blew your mind and made you feel very enthusiastic about it, it’s fucking awesome. If you’re awed and a bit shocked, then it’s bloody awesome.

Presenting: Flight from Hell by Roxana Kiril (coming next week)

My novel is nearly here. Just a bit over a week and, on August 4th, the first chapter/episode will be launched on the Big World Network. Until then, I’ll be procrastinating with you and sharing little tidbits. Let’s see… where to start, what to say… About 9 years ago I realized being a writer was an option. Picture it: somewhere in Transylvania, there is a village. It has a castle (a very tiny castle) and the castle has a domain.