Questioning reality (EMILIA)

[Deleted]

Hello,

@emilia

I am a fan of your books; I think they are excellent reading material. I am sorry if that comes off very professional, I am not great with compliments. However, I did want to send you this letter, and I figured it was only professional did give you praise for your hard won work.



It is nice to have that one author that I can repeatedly go back to when your books come out. Some authors end up losing their style after awhile, but so far you seem to just be getting better. Maybe it’s because you are younger and still experiencing new things, as well as experimenting with your writing.



However, I did not want to send you this letter to talk about your books; I wanted to ask you why you chose your career path. I understand everyone has their passions and what not; I have followed mine just as you have. However, writing seems to be one of those things you could easily do as a hobby, as a side job of sorts. So why have you chosen to work full time on your writing? It does not seem like an exciting job, but maybe you aren’t one to get your hands dirty so to speak. This letter is not to insult you, but merely out of curiosity. Like I said, everyone wants to follow their passions and I don’t judge those who do.



Yours sincerely,

Kamillia

[Deleted]

I don’t think it sounds too horribly professional, and even if it was, I like all my fans – even the professional ones! I have to say it’s certainly the most…interesting compliment I’ve received. I normally don’t get such well-structured compliments as ‘excellent reading material’ – more often it’s incoherent rambling.

If you’re interested, my newest book should be out sometime this summer – I’m still ironing out the details of the timeline with my publisher, since the book isn’t exactly finished yet, but…I’d like to attribute my continued success to the fact that writing is something that you can get better at no matter how old you are. You get new insights from people’s reactions to other books, and also just living more. Writing is not perfectable, which is refreshing.

I chose my career path because I was always chasing adventure, and since there were a lot of adventures I could never get to experience myself, I thought I’d find a different way to experience them. I also had a bit of a mystery thrust upon me when I was rather young. I never solved that one, so I like to pretend that by making up mysteries and solving them, I can get closer to the answers that I never got when I was younger. Writing is more exciting than you’d think. I get to talk to a lot of people and experience a lot of things in the interest of making a more accurate book, and I also get to talk to fans like you ever day, so it’s interesting!

@kamillia

[Deleted]

Dear @emilia

I guess you could say I’m not your normal average fan, while I have no issues with those types of people, I do not fangirl over celebrities like most people do. Either way, this is also a letter; while I do appreciate the time you spend replying to me and other fans this is not a face to face conversation. Because of that, it loses some appeal, because in all honestly I would rather have this conversation in person than through letters, but I appreciate the ability to send these letters.

I am certainly interested in your next book. I will wait for more details about it, especially the date it will be published. I am glad to hear you are getting better at writing. While I never thought you bad at writing, not at all; it’s always good to hear when someone is still learning new things no matter what that subject may be. Maybe that’s why I currently like to teach, because my students are always learning something new, and I get the gratification on being the main reason they learn about this certain subject. I personally don’t think anything in the world is perfectible, there always seems like there’s a different method, or style so to speak for well everything. There always seems like there’s something new to learn, which might even throw a wrench in what you already know which could create a problem.

I can understand the need for adventure, I feel much the same way about my own like. However, I guess I get more of a thrill from things that I find more challenging. While, I am not saying writing is not challenging in it’s own right. I just found other things more appropriate for my talents. I had became an employee of the ministry as a beast tamer, I will admit that working with animals is not as challenging as working with humanoids because you can learn to predict creature’s behaviors and reactions. I know this because I am now a teacher like I have mentioned before and working with students is much harder than working with animals, I have a hard time predicting their behavior.

I hope you find the answers you have been searching for. It’s always difficult knowing there has to be answers, however, you don’t have the ability to find them. I have had the same issue many times, however, I’ve chosen to ignore them because I don’t think I could ever handle the answers, because I know they aren’t going to be what I want them to be, and sometimes that is the most heartbreaking.

Sincerely Kamilia

[Deleted]

You’d be surprised how few people actually fangirl. Most who send letters know that they ought to send more than incoherent gibberish. Currently I’m talking to a Hufflepuff at Hogwarts who fancies photography and an ice cream parlor assistant whose father just passed away. There’s not anything fangirl-ish about them; we’re just two people who love the same thing and are connecting and sharing our lives with each other via letters. If you’d like to converse with me in person, I’m considering having a book signing event in Hogsmeade. If I can get one or two more people interested I think my publisher would let me go forward with it, and then we could indeed converse in person.

As soon as there are details to give, I’ll let you know. Then again, my publisher will probably want to announce it in The Daily Prophet first. I hear that’s the premiere newspaper over on this side of the pond. I suppose I should subscribe to it…though I’m not entirely sure how I would go about doing that. I guess I’m going to have to ask my British tour guide (aka my childhood best friend) how to do that. As for learning, I quite agree. I don’t think I’d be a good teacher, since I’m not very patient, but I admire you for doing it. Being perfectable generally means that the subject isn’t complicated, I think, since it’s easier to perfect something simple.

When I was younger I used to go on a lot of adventures, both in my childhood home and at school. Writing is challenging, but it’s nothing like going out and doing things. I wish that there were more opportunities to get out and do things. I guess I need to ask Rory – my best friend – if he can find something crazy for us to do together. Being with humans definitely is more complicated than being with animals. Just when you think you’ve got someone figured out, they do something totally unexpected and you have to rethink everything.

I don’t think I’ll ever find the answers I’m searching for, but part of my journey had been accepting that I won’t ever get answers. As soon as I wrapped my head around that, I was a lot happier. I mean, if I do get the answers, that will be even better, but I’m not betting on it.

@kamillia

[Deleted]

Dear @emilia

I guess when you have time to think of a response, you lose the nerviness you first had. Such as when you are in person you only have a few seconds to say something before the other person moves on. Not to mention when it comes to letters you can’t really tell if they are actually fangirling, you don’t know how they are reacting you just have written words that could have been well thought out, something that could have taken hours to write. Ah, that sounds like it would be an interesting evening, I would very much consider going and meeting you. Hopefully you get those few extra people, and I hope that I will help you with that situation.

I would greatly appreciate it. I will keep tabs on The Daily Prophet, I usually try to stay on top of the news here anyways. I might help you to keep tabs on it, not only would you be able to relate to your British fans a little bit more by keeping track of the news, but you can also make sure nothing is being said about you negatively. I know you probably have people to keep track of that stuff, but it wouldn’t hurt to be aware of it, I guess.

Teaching is not for everyone, not at all. There are certain skills that a person would need to teach, and not everyone has that. Not to mention you have to be really passionate and knowledgeable about the subject you are teaching. You can’t teach other people if you don’t know anything about the subject. I heard that muggle teachers can cheat their job, they don’t need to know much about the subject and yet they are still able to teach. I’m honestly not sure how this can happen, and I wonder how those students are able to learn that way.

I used to be the same way, and in all honestly I used to be the one that would try to get into as much mayhem as I could just to piss the staff off. I was… A wild card to say the least, but I think I have gone a long way since then. If you haven’t gone yet, you should try going to Alaska to see the northern lights, or even go mountain climbing, just make sure you do enough research and maybe take classes if you can I heard mountain climbing can be very dangerous. I don’t know how muggles are able to do these dangerous things without magic… I can understand that sentiment about humans more than anyone. I used to have… not so great friends back in my school days, except for my best friend he was actually alright at least to me. My friends had disappointed me in more ways than I could count on my fingers. I learned my lessons since then.

That is probably the hardest journey to walk, being able to keep your head up, and be okay with not finding answers, is probably the second best thing that could happen to you in that situation.

Sincerely,
Kamillia

[Deleted]

I agree that having time generally makes people less nervous. I think it’s also easier when I’m not right in front of them, because even though they know I’m the person on the other side of the words, there’s still some level of disconnect – their head knows that I’m writing, but their heart might not quite realize it yet. And you can also go through several drafts of letters, so if the first one sounds strange, it’s easy not to send it, or to revise it to be better. When you’re talking, you can’t take your words back quite that easily. Well, the date’s been set for the third Saturday in February, so if you’re looking to go, that’s when it’ll be! I’m hoping for an all-day event, so whenever you can leave will probably be fine.

Even if you do see it in the Prophet, there’s no harm in reiterating it, don’t you think? I’ve heard that you have been having quite a few problems recently in Britain, as doing some research into the Prophet’s archives has showed me. As for keeping tabs on my image, I do have people to do that, yes. But I’m also not as well known here as I was in my hometown. And one bad review isn’t going to kill me, and I’ve hardly done anything scandal-worthy to be worried about getting into the papers. I think it’s harder to keep a good image when you actually do have something to hide.

Sadly, the only thing I know enough about to teach other people is writing, and writing is something that’s hard to teach because it’s so inherently creative. Muggle teachers are an interesting case, because Muggles have such a vast amount of information at their fingertips at any time. Have you ever used a computer? They’re fascinating, and bloody useful, too. Practically anything you want to know about you can find information on the Internet about (with the exception of magical things, since so few wizards use it). It’s a shame that magic makes them bug out so much, otherwise I’d have a computer in my home.

I haven’t been to Alaska. Most of the East Coast I have been to, though, and my aunt and uncle had me hike a part of the Appalachian Trail with them when I was younger, as a part of a retirement party from one of their work colleagues. That was a strange thing, but it taught me a little about mountain climbing – though some people would debate that the Appalachian Mountains are mountains at all. They’re more like glorified hills, but I digress. I think even friends that disappoint you can be good friends. It all depends, really, on whether or not your expectations were realistic. But assuming they were bad friends, I’m glad that they seem to be out of your life now.

Only the second best? What would the first best thing be?

@kamillia