Tag: Uncharted

Please welcome Alli Temple today. She is celebrating the release of her new FF romantic fantasy, Uncharted!

First question then! What started you writing?

Boredom? Lol. I’ve always been a writer. I have old journals full of terrible attempts at writing a “novel” from my middle school and high school years. But I started writing seriously as an adult when my husband changed jobs and was working a lot of nights and weekends. I needed something to do and since I’m an introvert I wanted a hobby that didn’t involve talking to people. Writing’s great because I only talk to the people in my head.

Where do you write?

Do you want the pre-Covid answer or the current one? Either way, I mostly write at home. In the summer, I like to spread out on the back porch. We have a big tree that gives just the right amount of shade. In the cooler months, I mostly write in the living room on the couch.

When it’s safe to go out, I love writing in Starbucks. I don’t actually care for their coffee, but the people watching is top notch. Throw on a pair of noise cancelling headphones and let the words flow!

What do you like to read?

I’m an audiobook fan and like 95% of my reading is audio. Good narrators are key for me. Recent favourite audiobooks include Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall, Manners and Mannerisms by Tanya Chris, and The Last Sun by KD Edwards.

What are the three books you’d take to a desert island? Why would you choose them?

That’s so hard! I’d take The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater because it’s the kind of book I’d love to write, Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier because it’s my all-time comfort read, and Honeymoon Sweet by me because it’s my sweetest happiest book to date and if I’m stuck on a desert island, I need a sweet happy escape I know I can count on.

Writing is an intrinsically solo occupation. Do you belong to any groups or associations, either online or in the ‘real’ world? How does that work for you?

Nothing formal, but I’m in a bunch of different Slack and Discord groups. There’s always someone to help you work through a plot hole, listen to you vent when your book doesn’t sell as well as you want, or sprint when you need to get words down fast. When we could go out and about, I also loved to go on writing dates with writer friends. We’d either meet up at someone’s house or at a coffee shop or bar and chat and write. It’s so important to have writer friends. No one who doesn’t have a writer brain really gets it.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I’ve adopted two rescue pets in the last year. Manny is a mutt from Mexico. He’s a goofy neurotic love bug who just wants a soft place to nap. Maud is a farm cat who is learning how to be a house cat. She rules the roost and eats anything she can get her paws on.

In the before-times, my husband and I loved to travel. We took an amazing trip to Mexico City for his 40^th birthday and I can’t wait to go back and explore more!

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

Uncharted is my first fantasy novel. It started out as a silly tweet about changing one word in the title of your favourite movie to “lesbian” and I tweeted “The Princess Lesbian”. And then a bunch of people said they wanted to read that and it kind of took on a life of its own.

Uncharted took forever to write. I started in the summer of 2018 and now it’s 2021. Part of it was learning the conventions of a new genre, part of it was making sure George and Lou’s story was as strong as it felt in my head. While it was really time consuming, I loved writing about adventure and exploring how to redeem someone who has done very bad things, as well as about the love story at its center.