While Victoria Aveyard never intended to become an author, much less a New York Times bestselling author, she has become one that many recognize for her Red Queen Series and her recently finished trilogy Realm Breaker.
Book Stack of the Red Queen Series
Born in 1990 and growing up in a small town in Massachusetts, Aveyard decided to attend the University of Southern California for a degree in screenwriting. Film school, while a scary choice for her, allowed her to follow her love for telling stories. This is no surprise, as she grew up in a home surrounded with the classic stories we all know and love. On her social media channels, Aveyard can frequently be seen speaking about her love for J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, as well as so many more, including but not limited to: The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Indiana Jones and Star Wars.
Her dog is named Indiana, but goes by Indy frequently.
Upon graduating college in the spring of 2012, she decided to follow her dream of writing a novel, it had been the first way stories had made their way into her heart. Aveyard chose to move home and spent the next year writing the first draft of Red Queen. She debuted his novel in 2015, and has since continued to write. Now her full time job, she works to maintain a “job-like schedule” with her writing.
Victoria Aveyard with a copy of the first novel in her Realm Breaker trilogy
Her creative process for writing differs slightly depending on her mood. However, once she has finished a series, there is always excitement in getting to “play in new sandboxes”. The idea is that it is a brand new story that is free to be molded in any which way. She also frequently uses Wikipedia for research and information. I found her “sandboxes” to be similar to the idea of “seeds” that Rick Rubin talks about in his book The Creative Act: A Way of Being. The “seeds” grow in different ways from the original idea, and that is something that seems to happen during the sandbox phase. It could be argued that this happens in the editing process too.
https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/victoria-aveyard-2015585332680
https://victoriaaveyard.com/about/
https://www.pageafterpage.org/an-interview-with-victoria-aveyard
https://victoriaaveyard.com/faq/
I remember really liking these books in high school so I was excited to read more about her creative process. I find it interesting that she didn't think she was going to be a writer and I wonder now if she would ever write a screen play and help create a movie or show around her books.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering why her name looks familiar. I remember how big a deal "Red Queen" was in 8th grade. That's crazy that she wasn't even planning on being a best-selling author! Some people just have that natural gift. And the fact that she was just a regular post-grad who came from a small town gives the rest of a chance to follow our dreams too.
ReplyDeleteI loved these books in highschool and I was really interested to see how her creative process worked. It is really interesting that she used Wikipedia for her creativity, I feel like that is a very uncommon route,
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