S. G. Blaise - From Nightmare to Series: SG Blaise's Writing Journey

In this inspiring interview, SG Blaise shares her remarkable journey from childhood in Hungary to becoming a prolific sci-fi author and storyteller. Discover her unique approach to writing, world-building, and the creative process behind her series, comics, and animations, along with insights on collaboration, prompts, and self-discovery through storytelling.

Takeaways

• Your writing journey may be long, but it will take you to surprising places
• Writing helps you to recognize, rediscover, and heal yourself.
• Writing prompts play a key role in your writing process
• Having an open mind when writing and collaborating yields amazing results 

Quote

"The second adulthood was writing that allowed me to grow up even more, if that makes sense, to embrace who I am, and now, I don't have the grief overshadowing that person. I don't have it, it's still there, but it's been put in the place it was meant to be.”

Resources

Seven Galaxies Chronicles - https://sgblaise.com/

The Last Lumenian Series - https://sgblaise.com/the-last-lumenian/

Mariano Nicieza - http://apexcomicsgroup.com/how-it-all-started/the-team/

Chase A Cloud - https://www.chaseacloud.com/

Tongal - https://tongal.com/ 

Guest Links:

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08GH7TP9N

Author Website: https://sgblaise.com/

Company Website: https://lilacgrove.com/

Social Media Links: 

https://www.instagram.com/lilacgroveent/

https://www.instagram.com/sgblaiseofficial/?hl=en

https://x.com/SGBlaiseAuthor

https://www.tiktok.com/@sgblaiseofficial

Transcript

Jane Jones (00:31)

Welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Today, we're sitting down with SG Blaise, and she's a storyteller whose journey with writing began in unexpected and powerful ways. SG Blaise, she's a storyteller at heart. Someone who has carried imagination with her through very real and often complex chapters in her life. She's the creator of the Seven Galaxies Chronicles and the author of the award-winning The Last Lumenian series. Her relationship with writing began long before she named it as such. Growing up in Hungary, during a time of political restriction, stories were simply not entertainment. They were a quiet refuge. With outside influences limited, her father found ways to bring stories into their home, offering moments of wonder and possibility.

Her journey eventually brought her to California, where she continues to write and create. Through all the shifts and seasons, writing has remained a steady thread, a place to return to, to process, to imagine, and to reconnect with herself. In our conversation, we'll explore what it means to stay close to that thread, how writing evolves over time, and how even a few moments with the page can open something meaningful.

So welcome, SG.

S.G. Blaise (01:59)

Thank you, Jane, and thank you for having me.

Jane Jones (02:02)

It’s totally my pleasure. Thank you. We'll begin with the opening question, tell us about your writing journey.

S.G. Blaise (02:09)

Jane, my writing journey started very early on when I was nine years old or 10 years old, and I had a nightmare. And it was so powerful. I remember taking control of it to become the hero of the story. And the next day, I wrote it down, and I had this urge to share it with my class. So I asked permission from my teacher. She allowed it. She made me wait the whole day, Jane.

S.G. Blaise (02:38)

So at the last 10 minutes, I read the little short story I wrote, and I remember my class applauded. They were laughing at the jokes, and I was hooked from that moment. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I didn't know that my writing journey will lead for me to write in English. So that meant when I came to America in 2001 to get married to my husband, I didn't know a word in English

So I had to spend 10 years to learn the language and become fluent in it. Then I had another dream. There is a pattern here, Jane. During 2012 cross-country road trip, I was in Austria, I believe, when I woke up in the middle of the night with this burning idea that I wrote down with the only illumination coming from my phone. And that was the beginning of The Last Lumenian book series.

Took another six, seven years to write the first book, and now I'm on book seven. Can you believe that?

Jane Jones (03:43)

Whoa, when did the first book publish?

S.G. Blaise (03:46)

The first book was published during COVID, 2020 summer. Nobody heard about it. It didn't make a splash. It was very quiet, soft launch. And it gave me time to learn how to be a writer, how to be an author. What does it mean to write a series? And I'm very grateful for that, Jane, because the first book took about seven years.

The second book took about two years, right? Even though the books were published one a year, I started earlier, right? So by book three, I got into a routine that was meant for my writing style so that book four and five came easier. And I learned what it means to develop a book, what it means to develop a series. And this is a sci-fi fantasy. So, what it means to develop the world for this series.

Jane Jones (04:46)

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. think they call the, this friend of mine calls it world building. Is that the phrase? That's correct. In the lingo of the writing environment, world-building. So I'm really interested in this, this quiet, this you, like COVID has got so many negatives, but you just, you just skip right over like it, so it didn't make a big splash. Well, like, no kidding. But you experience that as a as a benefit.

S.G. Blaise (05:18)

Yeah, it really was, Jane. And it was truly interesting because in the beginning, when you're learning who you are, how you write, you truly are recognizing and rediscovering yourself. You can't be a writer without being authentic to yourself. And that often means opening up doors on memories that you thought were locked away and healing from those experiences.

And writing is a tremendous way to approach that. And so in this time, in this quiet time, I had the luxury to spend as much time I needed on discovering my personality, of facing some tough memories and working through them and having my character face similar situations that allowed me to almost...write out those feelings, write to the page that makes the readers very involved and yet your soul can be clean again or renewed again.

Jane Jones (06:31)

Renewed. Yeah, it's resonating with me on a different level. The how you express this is in an experiential way. And the listener is free to walk around the words, walk around what the what this what you've painted, and the feelings that you've got here, and they're free to bring in to themselves whatever it is that kind of sticks to them as they're walking through.

S.G. Blaise (07:02)

Exactly, Jane. And that's that beautiful human connection that connects us through countries, through culture, through everything, because we all experience grief in one way or form. How do we deal with this? How can we learn if we're feeling stuck? How can we learn to get out of that space, that stagnation? What can we do to inspire our own life? Maybe, as you said, there is something in the back of the mind for the reader that they haven't truly dared to face, but when they see a fictional character embrace that thing and embrace that experience, embrace that side of who they are, they feel the freedom to do it themselves, to follow their dreams, to step out of that comfort zone. It truly is a magical experience, Jane.

Jane Jones (07:57)

Yes, in my mind, the question comes is, some people, we often, it's used in therapy for the purpose of healing, the purpose of self-discovery. It feels to me, and help me clarify if I misunderstood or if I got it wrong in any way, but that experience of healing, of self-discovery, that wasn't something that was intentional; it was just something that you found happened.

S.G. Blaise (08:31)

That is very true, Jane. It was almost shocking to me at that time when my research on characters, on personalities, on who you are, allowed me to learn who I am and become a better person step by step by step. It's still a journey. It's not over. But it was such a magical time because it was organic.

I was looking into how to help my character to round them out as a person to to know how they can grow and find their true place allowed me to find my true place. And I want to say that was my second adulthood because I felt I was growing leaps and bounds. You know, the first time I entered adulthood when my dad passed away at 13, it was too early, you know, and it felt like someone grabbed the rug and just tore it out of under my feet. And I felt reeling for a long, long time, struggling how to put this in place because there was no real grief consultation at the time. There was not a lot of support outside. So what I did is I dove into reading, and it allowed my soul to calm down a little bit, to let time do the healing.

Jane Jones (10:04)

Mm-hmm.

S.G. Blaise (10:05)

The second adulthood was writing that allowed me to grow up even more, if that makes sense, to embrace who I am, and now, I don't have the grief overshadowing that person. I don't have, it's still there, but it's been put in the place it was meant to be.

Jane Jones (10:24)

Let's go back to when you were nine or 10 years old, and you had this dream, and you wrote it down. To go back into just the kind of some mechanical stuff, a little bit, what did you use to write?

S.G. Blaise (10:38)

 I grabbed the first available paper and pen that was near me, and it was this branded little ugly notepad. I still remember it had a yellow frame, and it was truly the ugliest notepad you can imagine, with some letters, jumble of letters that made no sense. I grabbed a pen, which is unusual because at the time we're writing in pencil.

So I grabbed the pen, and I hurriedly wrote down. No censor, no criticizing, no editing. I just wrote everything down. And I only did one side because I didn't want to ruin when you write on the other side. And I had about six of these little pages. I still have them. And somewhere.

Jane Jones (11:25)

Hahaha!

S.G. Blaise (11:27)

I was holding it like a treasure, Jane. It was like this little sacred treasure that I had that was making me so happy and excited and nervous at the same time. It was almost like an emotional roller coaster every minute. And the idea of sharing this felt very scary, very...you know, almost like crossing a boundary that I didn't know was there. But at the same time, I had to do it. I had this urge. I wanted to do it. I had to do it. I had to see what other people would think. And I had that opportunity when I read it to my class, and it was better than I could have imagined. I'm so grateful that they received it well. It was a horror story, Jane. don't know where that came from because it was about a crab, spider, creature, but I saved the day, so it had a good ending. I had the beginning, middle, and ending, and that's all I knew how to write. And that was enough.

Jane Jones (12:35)

Mm-hmm. And did you share it with your family?

S.G. Blaise (12:40)

Oh, yes, I had multiple smoke pieces that I wrote. I had a really bad experience in PE. They always made me take my glasses off, Jane. And I was blind as a bat. Played basketball, and as my 14-year-old mind struggled with that experience of, you know, making mistakes because I passed the ball to the wrong girl, because it was only girl, you know, PE.

And so I wrote these things down, and I read it to my mom, and then my mom's friends, and they were laughing their head off. And of course, that made me feel really big as a kid. Like, look at me going, I have humor.

Jane Jones (13:21)

Hahahaha

S.G. Blaise (13:25)

Who knew?

Jane Jones (13:27)

So hilarious.

S.G. Blaise (13:33)

Thank you. They were hilarious pieces. I read the other day, and it was cute because they were hilarious and free. They were just a brain dump of what happened, how I experienced it. It was visceral. was funny. It was funny because it was true. I was extremely uncomfortable and awkward, and embarrassing, so I wrote it down.

Jane Jones (13:56)

So, so, so you what it comes to mind is this experience of writing isn't didactic, it's the experience is an experience. It's the purpose that now you approached it just as a child, because you were

S.G. Blaise (14:15)

Yeah.

Jane Jones (14:15)

And you weren't injecting any like you said earlier in the conversation, no judgment. No, just this is what I'm going to do this. And you just did it. And I just I, that's a gift that you had or the end that you gave to yourself and then shared with other people when you wrote and then told the stories. Because that's then your mom and her friends get an experience of what you have. And that's a lovely thing for them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

S.G. Blaise (14:55)

It's a connection. It’s a small connection of sharing the same experiences, they and their imagination, and myself, me as reading it and reliving it, and now putting it in the right place.

Jane Jones (15:10)

Yes, yes. So I love that putting it in the right place because other people, like you said with your writing, that the characters when we read it, we see somebody overcome, and that works really well, but it helps us to actually kind of go through it and put things where they belong. And so for the women, when you were young, is their embarrassment, their processing, their things, your laughing, they’re laughing, and everybody's... It helps relieve them of maybe, and that's inside their hearts and their souls that we don't go. We don't go. But in that interaction, you can see it all coming out. It's just in my mind. It's so clear. It's like I'm a fly on the wall all those years ago.

S.G. Blaise (15:56)

Exactly, and it's important to understand that ordinary events can create extraordinary reactions. What may seem to someone as just a simple point in your life could be traumatic to you because of the way you experienced it and the feelings it evoked. And that's why I loved writing, because it allowed me to take that extraordinary reaction and look at it from a different angle, almost as if I got a new perspective. And that took the sharpness, the bite out of it. And it was, again, healing. Yes, yes. Being the only one without glasses who fumbles around, and people think I'm stupid or klutzy or just something not right in my head. It was not fun as a 14-year-old when I already felt an outsider because I was the only one who lost her dad, and nobody at 14 experienced grief on any level, let alone losing a parent. So that just made me felt like it pushed me farther out of this, this circle of teenagers, you know, and almost I was looking in from the outside.

Jane Jones (17:09)

Thanks.

Yeah.

Yeah, experience of processing that, and it's maybe almost, and I don't want to be disrespectful to anybody that goes through this process, but in this instance, it may be actually a good thing that there wasn't somebody to kind of guide you through, because you'd have gone in a different direction. You'd have gone in a direction that somebody was leading you to. They're leading you to healing. And it's of necessity, it's their experience of this and guiding you, but you...and as a teenager to process all through that, through that, there's a gift of intuition and a gift of grace that you have for yourself. That is just a...I don't have any words for how to describe how I experienced what you're telling me.

S.G. Blaise (18:15)

Thank you, Jane.

Jane Jones (18:16)

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so now I gotta, because I like to sort of be in control more.

S.G. Blaise (18:23)

And if I may get to one of the points that I would like to emphasize, if I may allow, is, as you said, sometimes you start out not knowing how to write, not knowing who you are, not even knowing what the story is, and that's okay. I don't ever tell anyone that there is only this way to write and everything else is wrong. I highly encourage to ignore those kind of advices.

It's not meant for you. It's for competition and for a different reason. What every woman writer needs to understand is that your writing style is unique to you. Your structure, your method, is unique to you. You may borrow from this structure, that structure, whatever it is; there is no wrong way to tell your story. We are all readers, and because of that, we are an understanding of what a good story looks like and where instinctually start to write those stories. And then you're going to reach for the tool you need. And I always recommend open mindset, Jane, because in the beginning, you're going to learn about a lot, right? You're going to go wide, and you're going to learn a lot. And then you're going to start narrowing it down of this didn't work, this work, this didn't work, to get that understanding of let's call it a blueprint. That's gonna be your blueprint to tell your story. And it's okay if it have tables in it. It's okay if it has bullet points in it. It's okay if it's something jotted down on a napkin. It truly doesn't matter. What matters is that as you grow who you are as a writer, your storytelling naturally grows with you.

Jane Jones (20:14)

Yes, yes, yeah. Excellent, perfect, perfect. Thank you. We could finish there, that's totally wonderful. But however, I have some questions. On your website, you've also written comics. You've also explored the art of writing comics. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience of either, when did it come and tell us about that?

S.G. Blaise (20:42)

Jane, when I started writing the first book, I had this grand idea, grand hope that one day all the stories will be in as many formats, as many mediums as possible. Because to me, it felt natural that when you have a book series, you're going to have a comic book series. You're going to have animations. You're going to have TV shows. You're going to have movies, video games. And I love that idea to show the world in multiple ways because not everyone wants to read a book, not everyone wants to listen to a book, not everyone wants to play a video game. And to me, it was important to find the way the readers have an easy entrance, an easier understanding of these stories, because I really wanted to share the magic that made me excited with the hopes they will feel excited.

So when I started writing the comic books, it was a very unique approach, Jane, because writing a novel is extremely complex. There is just no other way to say it. It's layered. It's complex. So I had to take something that's complex,put it in a very visual format where the first level of storytelling is the illustration. The second level

Jane Jones (22:03)

Yes.

S.G. Blaise (22:05)

is the dialogue or the format, the panels, right? And then the third is the dialogue. So had to switch gears, like in a car, you know, and start looking at the story. I always see it as a movie, but now I describe the movie very much as a spoken word, as opposed to prosaic method.

And going from there, I added a very complex layer of how can the dialogue deepen that story? We see someone being chased on in the panels, right? I'm not going to tell you that this girl is being, you know, hunted by this guy. It's obvious because you see it. But then what is she thinking? What is she feeling? Is there a backstory? I can give you a hint. Just enough story that now you have a deeper understanding, yet it doesn't take you out from that experience. And it was a wonderful way of storytelling. I'm very grateful for Mariano Nisiza, who was a great mentor and spent a lot of conversations with me of how to adjust my thinking, which is always a case. You first adjust your thinking when you start the novel or short story, and then you have to adjust it again when it's comic books. And... I just love the experience, Jane. It was phenomenal.

Jane Jones (23:35)

Nice, nice. Excellent. Because I think there's that whole genre of comic books that is so much a part of young people's lives. to have the freedom to engage in that. I think when you were talking about the individuals, everybody engages slightly differently. And so it's we all learn differently, and what our personal preferences are, even. So I really liked that, I was intrigued by that. So, I'm interested in, and now the next question would be, are you gonna do more comic books with the more books, or how much do these comics, they reflect the series, or are they different little explorations of things that weren't in the book?

S.G. Blaise (24:30)

Jane, to give you an understanding is my story world is called the Seven Galaxies Chronicles. And that's because it plays out in seven galaxies, both in time and in location. And because of that, I have the opportunity to tell a story in this timeline, in this location, with this set of characters. But then I have a hundred, maybe a thousand more stories that can go around it.

100 years earlier, 100 years later. It's their children's children, or it's their grandfather's story. Whatever it is, I can jump around and yet still connect these stories because they play out in the seven galaxies. And the comic book, The Mythical Hunters comic book series, is the origin story of a character you met in book three and then in book six. And I love that there is a loose connection.

I also have another comic book called The Hollow Healer, which is the prequel of the animation I just premiered in April. And I wrote that animation as well. I had a great collaboration with Tongal and Chaser Cloud. And it came from the short story, which is the origin story of the whole book series and the comic books. Everything starts with that animation.

And the beauty of it, Jane, is you can watch the animation and say, I'm OK with that. I just going to watch the animation. And that's OK. You get the stories. They're technically standalone. But if you get hooked on it and you say, I want to know more about this Arch God, then you can go to The Last Romanian book series and see where he is. I'm going to create so many stories that allows the reader to go down the rabbit hole if they want to. If not, then just follow that line. It’s going to have a beginning and the end and be satisfied with that ending.

Jane Jones (26:33)

Gotcha. Excellent. Excellent. I'm looking forward to this. This is going to be fun.

S.G. Blaise (26:37)

Thank you. It's a blast.

Jane Jones (26:40)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You mentioned the collaborators that you have interacted with, and tell me about how you interact with them. I know they're important, but how does that collaboration go? How does that feel to you? How does that work?

S.G. Blaise (27:02)

Collaboration was very interesting, Jane, because this was the first time I ever did anything in that level. And I never wrote an animation. I did my research. I had some basic ideas, but it was different from experiencing it yourself. It's kind of like reading a recipe in a cookbook, right? Yes, it makes sense in theory, but when you start cracking the egg, all goes to hell, right? Because the shells and everything. And pardon my French.

Jane Jones (27:30)

No, that's okay. The recipe doesn't tell you. Make sure the shells don't go in the exact.

S.G. Blaise (27:35)

I learned that the hard way when they were cracking under my teeth, note to self. And it was a wonderful experience, Jane, because we were all creatives. We were all loving what we were doing. Tongal was the production, the producing company, and Chaser Cloud was the animation company. I was the writer. So we all knew what our job was. We all were very creative, very excited about this.

And everyone put their talent, their skill set to the table, and we'd sat down, and we had conversations, and it was, it was like someone opened up the creative gates. It was just flowing, went so well, Jane, that we were done in three sessions. They average at 12 sessions on the script. And we were done in three, and then they went into the animatics, which is they start animating.

Jane Jones (28:25)

Wow.

S.G. Blaise (28:32)

Sketches so you can get the idea. And that was the longer process of looking at how the story translates into visuals. And this is where Chaser Cloud and Tongal shined because they went above and beyond Jane to make sure the colors look right. The shading was perfect, the movements, the facial expression. They pay so much attention. You could watch just the mouth of the characters and read the dialogue from their mouth. It was just a brilliant engagement and experience, and I learned a lot during this time.

Jane Jones (29:13)

Nice, nice. And the collaboration is something you just said that was that it took what normally took about 12 went to three because it was it just opened up, and there was this open communication and the creativity.

S.G. Blaise (29:27)

Exactly. So Jane, one of the things I learned throughout my career and especially in this collaboration with the Tongal and Chaser Cloud for the animation is having open mind. I cannot emphasize the importance when you approach something and open to other ideas, open to inspiration, and you don't come from a place of I will not allow this, I will not allow that.

I will not cut a line. I will not change. A lot of creators get bogged down by these inflexibilities, if you may. They're often detrimental to their art and to collaborations. So what happened is I expressed my expectations. You know, the storyline as a whole cannot change because beginning and ending is given. But how we get there?

That's where you have the flexibility. If there is a better idea, why wouldn't I take that better idea so that the story can get better? And that was my approach from day one, Jane, is that I'm going to listen to that critique. I'm going to listen to that feedback because if there is anything in it that can make my writing better, that's so much good for me. It's, it's, I win. Whatever you want to look at it, it's, it, makes you a better author. And your art gets stronger.

Jane Jones (30:55)

Yes, the intention is that you're actually creating something that is it ends up being what you wanted to create.

S.G. Blaise (31:03)

Exactly, if not better.

Jane Jones (31:05)

Yeah, and it's a, and I'm gonna say this in a kind of a funny way, but even though the initial idea was to do something and it ends up being different, that's the way it was supposed to go anyway.

S.G. Blaise (31:19)

Exactly. It truly is, Jane, because you never know. And when I looked at that animation on the big screen, we had a movie, a small movie theater. It fit there, Jane. And I know that's because it took three groups of people to get it there. And it was worth every second.

Jane Jones (31:44)

Do they ever, and we're going a little bit sideways, but do they ever show comic books? Do they ever display or show comic books in a movie theater? Like, so people sit and they could read it? They could read as it goes?

S.G. Blaise (32:05)

Absolutely, Jane, you can do pretty much anything you want. This is where creativity shines. I had the prequel comic on the table because we had a six-and-a-half-minute animated short film, that's the correct term, to tell a story. So I started in the middle. And when you start in the middle, you miss out on the backstory. You really don't have a lot of chance to have expositions, to have fillers, to have backstories when you are doing a six and a half minute animation. You want to be very much on point that every word, every visual has a meaning. We're not accidentally doing something. It literally every second, was planned out. Every word was dissected until the meaning was having multiple layers. So the comic book gave us that breathing room that’s okay, we can take a step back, we can show you that this is what led to that point where the animation started. So it allowed us to tell the whole story in two different formats.

Jane Jones (33:14)

Nice, nice. In my picture in my mind, it would be, because you wouldn't want somebody else's voice to be reading in a theater, but if you was on a device, kind of like when my kids were little, we had a little record player, a little tiny, and then we had a book, and it was about a dinosaur, and it would beep, and then we would change, but it had that audio thing, the audio there. But if it was visual instead, and then you press the button and then went to the next one, or it scrolled and you could slow it down or speed it up or something so that the person still got the experience of reading the comic themselves. But it was something that moved. It was something that there was an additional sensory  engagement there. And one of the things like for me, and specific interest is that this idea where people are engaging and that's one of reasons for this writing is so important is that you're engaged and it's what you think and there is some silence inside and that you're touching parts of yourself that you just kind of bring up and it comes surprises you comes on the page and this and it allows for an introduction to self-reflection if it hadn't been there previous, but it also allows for a deepening of self-reflection without purposefully doing it because when you purposefully do it, gets in the way. Like you use the illustration of a recipe. I have a cookie recipe, and I'm a good baker. And I gave the recipe to my girlfriend, and she came in to next door live, near me and she came to my house with this cookie sheet. She says, if you didn't want me to have the recipe, she'd say to, because they were a mess. They were like, God. And so I went to her house, and we made them, and I made them in front of her, and it was exactly, but she didn't interact with the ingredients the same way. We, you, it was, so this idea of writing, everybody's gonna, and you've explained it in a really beautiful way. Everybody has their own experience. It's solitary, but not lonely. And comics is an is another form of engagement, where the person owns it in so much now, where it's other people coming in and having influence and and owning our engagement and controlling our engagement. like a little video will stop, and then the mind wants to finish, but it doesn't finish. And so it kind of gets hold of it right in there and grabs you. This form, writing and everything, it allows this freedom that it gives up that we walk into it, and the words start to fail because  I was writing yesterday, that words kind of lose their value. They lose their importance by people using them all the time. And it feels like people are doing it on purpose. Yeah, or that, but then no, it's a little like, I figured this out. And this is the word that came to my mind. So I'm going to use that.

S.G. Blaise (36:31)

You never know.

Jane Jones (36:42)

But I diminish it when I say it too much because people don't understand it, and you know that kind of stuff. So there has to be some silence, the person has to come in to and in the reading, and then the comics the same thing they produce that opportunity for that to happen. And  I find it fascinating that you can, and maybe you can, that what happens in your head, or what's it like to go from writing this complicated world, this novel, this series, now just in your head, in terms of a writer, to now do a comic script.

S.G. Blaise (37:27)

Jane, it was truly nothing I could have predicted, nothing I ever expected. When I write, I always see a movie in my head. And then I'm in front of my computer, usually by that time, with my keyboard. And I almost go into a meditative state. I see the monitor, I see the blank page, but at the same time, I'm in this movie. I'm right there with my characters. So I am...writing down as I see this play out, and it's very rough. The first version is very, very rough. It has just enough details to get the story on the page. And then I keep adding layers of dialogue, layers of world-building, of scene exposition, backstory, whatever I need to do to deepen that scene. And it can get very complex, right? So when I started writing the comic book, I struggle to understand how do you go panels. How many panels can be on a page? What does this mean? And truly, the answer is was it depends. It depends on you. Yes. No, seriously, it was as helpful as it sounds.

Jane Jones (38:45)

No, no, I don't I'll explain later why I laughed out loud about that

S.G. Blaise (38:51)

I can't wait to hear it. And you know, you have to read the comic books and see how other people did it. So I did that. I dove into more comic books. I tried to absorb what they did. And I read books on how to write comics. And then I realized I just have to let the story play out. And I used the first comic book, Mythical Hunters, as an example when I wrote the second one. Excuse me, and I was able to go from not knowing how to do the panels, not knowing how to describe the story, to go jump over that hurdle and have an outline. And it's complete with everything. It's because the brain switches. And sometimes it takes time. Sometimes it's instant. Sometimes it takes years. You truly never know. But if you are truly that vested in, you're truly that committed to telling your story in a comic format, it will happen. You just have to be kind to yourself, patient, and persevering.

Jane Jones (39:56)

Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. And it's a all through the medium of writing.

S.G. Blaise (40:03)

Mm-hmm, always. Writing is magical, Jane. Whatever genre you're writing, it truly is. You create magic. Because what you're saying in your head, you put it into words, and you hope the readers see the same movie in their heads. And it's truly magical.

Jane Jones (40:10)

Mm-hmm.

Nice, nice. Do you, when you said you come to the computer and you start writing, and then there's a really rough draft, do you have an additional writing practice? Do you just sort of note-taking or journaling?

S.G. Blaise (40:37)

Absolutely, Jane, Absolutely. I started with jotting down notes from day one. I always write it down. I use notepads. I used just paper out of the printer, folded in half, because there was nothing available. I use my phone once smartphones became stronger, and then use the notes option. I always write down every thought. We cannot watch a TV show in my house without having it pause 17 times.

I hear something, there's a thought in my mind, and I go stop. And I write that thought down. You can go now. I hear something, I stop, and I write it down because that's how inspiration works. And so I train myself to be very welcoming to all these inputs because book four came from two writing prompts, Jane. And it was randomly picked by my husband in 2020 March. He picked a writing prompt as I wrote it. I usually do 50 minutes, it ends up 45, but that's okay. I went, oh my God, this is the beginning of book four. And then he picked another one a couple of days later. I finished the prompt, and immediately it went into the ending of that book. And I those random stories two or three years later when I was writing book four, and of course I changed it to fit because the stories evolve with time. Writing prompts are, I swear by them, Jane. That taught me to write in a free-time constrict manner. Just write. Don't think about it. This is something crazy. I don't care. I once wrote a story about a person who wakes up in the middle of a hay field, lying on a surfboard, wearing an astronaut outfit - go. And I wrote a story about it. And that shows the power of brain when you let go.

Jane Jones (42:46)

When you're writing those prompts, what's that like? Is there terms of criticism or in terms of getting it right, what's that experience like of writing a prompt for you?

S.G. Blaise (43:01)

Jane, writing a prompt feels like doing improv. I don't know if anyone ever had a chance to participate in improv. Highly recommend if you have a chance. I took two improv classes, level one and level two. And it felt like that. You basically start writing without having any idea what you're going to write. You literally just write the title. Just start typing the title.

And then suddenly a thought pops up. You type down that thought, and then another, and then you keep chasing that thought. And at some point, the thought changes into a story. And that's when you grab it. It's almost like fishing. You wait, there is a couple of false ones, but when it starts pulling, I never fished, so I don't know what happens afterwards.

Jane Jones (43:40)

Yes, yeah.

S.G. Blaise (43:49)

You just grab that thought, and you follow it, and it doesn't matter if you went from first person to third person to your grandma. Whatever is the story that has to come out comes out. That's why when a character of mine pops up, I don't care. It's gonna be this character's point of view. That's okay. It's gonna be a point of view of a pencil. That's okay too. Whatever you do, it's meant to be. You have to allow your brain freedom so that you train that muscle, and then when you're ready to write, it will get more effective with every every piece.

Jane Jones (44:28)

Gotcha. And you mentioned that the prompts were a few minutes, but then sometimes you could write for 45. Is there generally a time limit that you would write a prompt?

S.G. Blaise (44:37)

Absolutely, Jane, and there's very important the time limit. I only set the time limit to give my mind a break. This is not gonna be a six-hour process. This is only 10 minutes. This is only five minutes. Here is a very important secret. You do not stop until you finish that because it's not about the time. It's about sitting down and doing it on the fly. You're doing it without editing. You're doing it without prepping. You're just writing.

To me, that was very resonating, Jane, because I spent three to four months on my structure. That's my blueprint. I have a very specific style of creating my stories. So by the time I get to writing, I know everything inside and out. And I'm using my scene details as a writing prompt. And because of that, I read it, and I write. And it works for me. If this is something that's not feeling natural, it puts a burden on you. creates anxiety. Know that that's okay. That means it's not meant for you. Not everyone's brain works the same way. And now we're going back to knowing who you are will allow you to be the writer who you are. If you're the type of writer who needs a table for structure and you're trying to avoid it, you're gonna struggle. But if you embrace that, that's great. If you don't want a table, you just want to fly by your pants, and you force those tables. You're going to struggle. It's very interconnected, Jane.

Jane Jones (46:12)

Yes, yeah, it's very, very, really clear and it's beautifully set. I hope that it is useful for anybody listening. It certainly is for me, because it connects a lot of things that things I already know and it reinforces those. It kind of goes, there's something that you said about you're actually using the story that you're the book you write, the characters, some you're actually reusing that as a prompt source of prompts, helps to develop you developing your story, right? And so, and having it a time limit. So like you say, it gives your brain a break, but you keep when the time limit goes off, because for me, the timer goes off and you stop. And I used to teach little children. And it was funny. was like, clicker, click it, and they put the pen up, and they would laugh, and they would be funny, but their minds would continue to write the story.

S.G. Blaise (47:10)

Yeah, you don't stop it. You cannot stop. And that's why I always say that if you start with a 15 minutes and you end up 45 minutes, that's okay. If you spend an hour and a half, that's okay. The reason I recommend to not cut off that story is because I'm I'm a believer of writing the story from beginning to end. Doesn't matter if it's not a good story. You write it down because it's an achievement. It's kind of like making your bed.

It's an achievement. You need that because if you start, say, 20 stories, and now you look back on your writing journey and you go, I have abandoned 20 stories, that's not going to make you feel good about yourself. But if you say, I wrote 20 stories, they were, but I did it. Now you have this amazing achievement because you're still learning. You're still looking for those patterns of what makes you a writer. What is the theme that grabs you, that pops up in your stories over and over? Well, you won't know until you have these little stories and you start recognizing the pattern of grief, the pattern of love, the pattern of whatever.

Jane Jones (48:24)

Yep. Just a quick word of clarification. To write prompts and the timer goes off, the story keeps going. Are you suggesting to come back and finish that?

S.G. Blaise (48:38)

I highly recommend. So, say when you're at home, and you do the 50 minutes, I just stop the timer, and I write, and I don't look up until I'm done. If I'm in a workshop setting, that's clearly a 60-minute workshop. They tried to do a five-minute prompt. You try to go, excuse me, I'm not done. That's not going to work. So if you have the chance, you have the opportunity to finish that story, please do. It will make you feel great.

Jane Jones (48:54)

Mm-hmm.

S.G. Blaise (49:07)

If you have to go back and finish it, that's okay, too. If you go back and finish it five times, meaning you rewrite it, that's okay, too. That's how you know that there is something there that caught your interest, because Jane, when we write a book, we sentence years of our lives, right? So, it's very important. In fact, it's vital to pick the story that makes you so excited about writing, so excited to tell that story that you get up every morning for three years and you want to write that story.

Jane Jones (49:42)

Yeah. So do you, when you're, we're going to write a prompt this five or 10 minutes. Do you try to end that story within the 10 minutes? Is that a strength or a muscle that you develop that the, that in the 10 minutes that it starts, middle, and ends.

S.G. Blaise (50:01)

What I developed Jane, is 45 minutes, actually. need the 15 minutes for the idea. It's not going to take long, but I average 45 minutes, and that was okay. And then  I took it to another level because my son was participating in it. He was done in 10 minutes. And then we read it out loud for my husband. And then it was phenomenal to hear what my son wrote. And it was amazing to see the reaction for something I wrote just right at the gate. And then I revised them, and they became blogs on my website because if you can have multiple functions, why wouldn't you? If you can finish it, please do. If it takes five minutes, that's okay. If it takes 10, great. If it takes 45, that's okay. Don't, the ending of the time is not as important as the starting. When someone says go.

Jane Jones (50:56)

Yeah.

S.G. Blaise (50:56)

We have one second after you heard the title, maybe you took it to write it down, then they start the clock. That's the one I train my brain, Jane, is go. And I still do that. When I write down, I either have music or not, but I go.

Jane Jones (51:12)

Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. Okay. Excellent. There's something really beautiful about returning to the page and learning and doing what you need to do and finding your way through that. And I am, there's not a lot of words, but I thank you. I appreciate very much that who you are and your journey and your honouring and respecting yourself and your stories. And finding a way and getting those out there, and the multiple ways that you do, and taking the time to chat with us today. I really appreciate you.

S.G. Blaise (51:54)

Thank you, Jane, and I'm so grateful for this opportunity. I love supporting other writers. I love supporting women writers. And if I can help one person, that made my day. So please don't hesitate to reach out if you need to have conversation on one specific topic or just in general, I will be always available for you.

Jane Jones (52:14)

Thank you, S.G. I really appreciate you. Take care, and thank you for being in touch.

S.G. Blaise (52:19)

Thank you, and best wishes with the move and all that.

Jane Jones (52:23)

Thank you.