Author Interview With Myself

Written & annotated edition

This is a bit of a fluffed-up transcript of a recent 5-part video series I did where I interviewed myself (link to the full video at the end of this post). I will expand upon a few answers in this blog, so it should be a little more cohesive. Do keep in mind I’m ADHD, so I bounce from topic to topic.

With that said, enjoy!

Q: What inspired you to write these particular books?

A: What I’ve written is The Five Realms trilogy with its companion novella, The Restless King. I started writing Catching Pathways, the first book, in 2019. Funny story, it was actually right after I was diagnosed with ADHD and I got onto the correct medication that I started writing like crazy again.

I have been writing since I was a little girl, but it’s been a while. I’m not so little anymore.

And, so, I got on my ADHD meds in 2019 and within about 8 months I had written, edited, and published Catching Pathways.

What inspired me to write the stories was I read a lot of stories where the protagonist was pulled into another world, and I always wanted to know—well, what happens after they grow up? What happens, especially, if they found out that what they were doing was wrong?

Which ends up being a central question of the first book here.

That Maeve, who had been pulled into the Realms as a teenager and did this whole epic quest, de-throning the Fae king and crowning a human sorcerer friend of hers… and then it ends up that he [the sorcerer] went completely batshit. So, Mr. Deposed King comes to get her and is like, you done fucked up let’s see if we can fix this.

Edited note for written edition: The TL;DR version is that I was inspired by the idea of what it would be like to go back to a world of fantasy, after having thought it was long in your past. I wanted to know what someone would do if they realized they’d been fooled before, and they now had to rectify their mistakes, not because they were bad, but just because they had the incorrect information at the time.

Q: What do I hope readers are going to take away from my books?

A: My primary motivation for writing is to entertain people. To provide the escape that one needs in order to remain sane in the current climate.

I really hope, honestly, that readers take away the sense of no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, there’s always the ability to change, and there’s always the ability to do better.

Q: What’s one thing I know now that I wish I had known when I started writing?

A: In thirty years, this book (holding up Catching Pathways) is actually my 14^th finished novel? You’re not going to see the first 12! The 13^th got published but pulled. Number 14 here? Let’s put it this way, every story is different. Every single story has its own demands and its own challenges.

I think the primary thing to remember when you’re engaging with something like a story is that you’re really engaging with something that’s like a living, breathing, sentient entity. You have to respect it. You have to acknowledge it. You need to collaborate with it.

I have not had a stable enough life, novel to novel, to know what really works and what doesn’t, because my life has been a chaos fest. So… yeah.

Edited note for written edition: There are many cultures and people who believe that creativity is something outside of ourselves, and that’s what I’m referencing in this answer. I believe in it, myself, though I think it’s a combination of internal and external that makes a true creative piece.

Q: Did I use an outline, or do I go off the seat of my pants?

A: I’m an in-betweener with a lot of things.

Every single time I’ve ever done an outline, chapter beats, scene beats, and really tried to nail down exactly where the story is going before I start writing it… every single time I do that, I start writing the story, the characters get their own thoughts into their heads, and off we fucking go.

I’m what I like to call a ‘plantser’, a plotter and a pantser.

There is something to me intrinsic in writing that I shouldn’t know everything about the story when I start out. That there should be things that are surprises to me, because then they’ll surprise you.

Edited note for written edition: I do have a general plot for each story, yes, but what comes out at the end is usually completely different from whatever plotted idea there was originally, and whatever the finished product is? It’s better.

Q: How many drafts did I go through to get to the finished product?

A: Catching Pathways: 3

Catching Embers: 6

Catching Shadows: 10!

The Restless King: 5?

A lot.

Q: What advice would you give aspiring authors in your genre?

A: Don’t be afraid to read what you’re writing, your genre, the type of story you’re writing? Don’t be afraid to read those types of stories. Part of why we write what we write is because we enjoy it. So don’t lose that joy, of enjoying your particular niche.

Q: If I were at a bar right now and four whiskey’s in, what authors would I admit to stealing from?

A: None.

We do pick little bits and pieces off people, and places, and things. I call it ‘Gathering’.

Gathering is when you take any sort of information, stimulus, entertainment, all of that, and you’re condensing it down into you, and through you, you are creating more stuff.

I’m a firm believer that we all kind of recycle material, and in that process of chewing it up, regurgitating some of it, that we are adding something and imprinting something onto it that is particularly us.

Edited note for written edition: But if you want to know my inspirations for my written work, I’d point to Carl Sagan’s entire body of work, C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series, and Garth Nix’s Abhorsen books.

Q: Is there a particular scene or a passage in my books that I’m particularly proud of?

A: Yeah.

Yeah, there is.

(Holds up Catching Pathways)

End of the first book. Yeah.

My betas were reading this when I was first considering publishing it, and I actually had one beta reach out to me as they were going through it, and they were like, hey! I just got to scene, you know what, and I need to know, does it work out like THIS? Or like THAT?

They were basically like, you have to spoil this for me right now or I’m not going to continue.

This was before they knew who I was. Have faith that I give you a Happily Ever After, okay? I do give you a Happily Ever After, I just take you on a bit of a journey to get there.

Q: What passages and sections of the books gave you the most difficulty to write?

A: The most difficulty came from this whole (holds up Catching Shadows) fucking thing…

This is the finale.

It went through a lot of drafts.

I think I wrote close to half a million words for this novel, and most of it was really difficult.

When I went from book 2 to book 3, I was basically like I hope you enjoyed all of your reprieves, because in book three, it’s going to be balls to the walls fucking crazy.

Q: What surprising discoveries did you make during your writing process?

A: Who Maeve’s daddy ends up being? That was kind of a big surprise to me.

He’s an interesting character, for sure. He actually has a few chapters in the third book.

Edited note for written edition: That, and the Big Discovery/Epiphany of how The Five Realms tied into the stories I’d been working on since my teenager years, the Dark Wings stories.

Q: How has my writing evolved since I first started publishing?

A: I think that my writing constantly evolves, and has since I first started writing.

I do have some trouble going back to my old work because it’s just like, oh! Oh, man. Cringe.

Those are manuscripts, though, that’s a first draft.

But! When it comes to looking back at the published books? Something like that went through multiple rounds of editing, feedback, and changes.

I actually can re-read the books, and I do. It does feel a little egotistical to be like, yeah I read my own books, but—well, it’s a series so I need to remember what the fuck I wrote.

Edited note for written edition: I honestly think the biggest evolution was simply accepting my writing for being where it is, at whatever point I’m at. Acceptance is huge and a boost to creativity like nothing else.

Q: Do I write for an audience or do I write primarily for myself?

A: I’d say when I first started and I was very young, I was definitely writing just for myself. It wasn’t until I was in High School and I started sharing my work with other people, and started to post writing online, that I started taking in feedback from other people.

It was great because it really helped me improve my writing.

Now, with the fully published books? I did write these with the thought of writing something popular, interesting, and entertaining. I want to entertain people.

My big hope when it comes to someone that read or is reading my books is that they’re surprised. Whatever ‘it’ is. Whatever I’ve done, this time.

Q: Which character out of these books do you identify the most with?

A: I’m more like Jen.

Jen’s like a loudmouth, swearing, queer, fun person. I don’t know. I like her a lot. I would identify more with her than with my main character.

My main character does go through some stuff that is reminiscent of my own life, but she takes it differently, she does different things with it. She doesn’t do what I would have done.

I love Maeve. She’s a great character. She’s a wonderful protagonist to work with, but—she has her flaws.

That is all for the interview questions and answers. I do definitely have trouble staying on-track sometimes, but I hope my additional notes were helpful.

If you want to see the full video interview, you can see it on YouTube here:

https://youtu.be/JNKyLa0NjB4?si=3ewaxFHJptss1CSu

Cheers,

Danielle

Hello, friends.

Something I do wish I knew a little less about is, catastrophe. Chaos. Unrest. I've moved more than three dozen times in my life, and I'm not done yet. I’ve had dozens of jobs, relationships, and ambitions. I've seen many of them dashed to bits.

And it seems like the world is absolutely chock full of such things these days.

So, I wanted to offer the meager advice that I'm able. Please bear in mind that these are all based off my own experiences, and that there is no such thing as a One Size Fits All, especially when it comes to the whims of the universe, and the ins and outs of mental health. I am also NOT a mental health professional.

(Please see one if you're having any trouble, or even if you're just lightly thinking you might be. Psychologists and psychiatrists are a game-changer.)

This all came to be because the handyman that my aunt and uncle employ asked me, “What do you do when the darkness gets too much?"<— thank you for that blog title 😊

I did not know how to respond at first, except to point to my dog and go, “He helps. Tremendously.”

It does seem like the darkness is getting too much lately. There’s been the great deal of unrest all over the States. There’s nothing on the news except horror, it seems, around the world. Atrocities heaped upon each other. The children, especially, is so hard to bear.

I recently read the book, “One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” by Omar El Akkad, and there is a line within that I just could not get over.

“There is no such thing as someone else's children."

In my opinion, this barrage of horror, this continual destruction is meant, in many ways, to desensitize us to further evils.

So, when it all piles, I lean back on some of the things I've learned through my years of therapy and chaos.

What to do when it gets too much

1. TIPP - a therapy gold standard. TIPP stands for Temperature control, Intense exercise, Progressive muscle relaxation, and Pace breathing. These are four proven methods that, in moments of extreme stress and anxiety, can almost immediately bring you back to the present moment. They help you breathe. They help you remember who and where you are.
   
   
   1. Temperature control can be triggered through something like grabbing an ice cube or taking a cold shower.
   2. Pace breathing can be many types of repetitive breathing methods, I recommend trying apps like Calm or YouTube videos that follow those methods to help practice (you should definitely practice BEFORE you need it)
   
   
2. Play - one of the things that most adults lose in their years is a sense of whimsy and fun, of play. Play, I think, is something inherently natural to the universe and the shaping of things. Joy is infectious. See what happens if you go to a park and just, skip. Or spin in circles, use the swing, climb something tall. See the world from a different perspective. Take a moment and flip everything on its head. Because you're alive, and playfulness is inherent to that.
3. Do something - anything. Literally anything. Even if “all you can do” is write a poem about what you're seeing, or to describe it in a journal entry. Talk about it with a friend. Go find other friends to talk about it with signs on sticks in front of important buildings. There is a lot to be said about direct action, and you will personally gain a great deal from it to help bolster your mental health. Make art. Make bad art, good art, in-between art. Make up songs. Write blog entries. Create something. Make something. Do something. Action is the best counter for entropy, which is the playground of the darkness.
4. Sit with it - sometimes, the only thing you can do when confronted with the darkness and the voices lurking within is to sit down with it all. Feel the feelings. Acknowledge exactly what is there and how much it hurts. It’s not miring yourself in it or succumbing, it's simply allowing. Sometimes all the darkness needs is a little space to be, and then it recedes on its own. I think it’s important to attempt something like this, if you're able, at first in the company of someone accepting and loving like a therapist or a very trusted friend/family member.

As much as it hurts to live through this, live through it we must, and hopefully thrive out the other end.

I'm still trying for better, and probably always will. The reason this blog is called A Human in Progress is because that’s how I see myself, and many of us. Always in progress, always changing.

I don't have any great epiphanies in how we can actually fix the miseries of the world, other than direct action. We can each pull at the little threads available to us, and through the actions of millions we can unravel a tapestry that covers the world. Maybe some of what I've written can help. Maybe not.

We must try.

Hello, friends.

If everything is going according to plan, I have several of these written by now.

(note from the future: we have a handful 😁)

I also will have several newsletters written by now, and be ready to roll with some TikTok, Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook content.

Right now as I sit here, it’s December 28, 2025, at 12:49 p.m. Family is coming over for the holidays, and I’m thinking—I have so much to do, however… Let’s take what time we can, and do the thing.

My hope is that by the time 2026 hits, we’re ready to roll with the Book Business, more or less. That we’re jogging at a good clip, at least. That you’re going to be hearing from me with greater frequency and that this will be a new habit, not a rarity.

Which reminds me.

Somewhere in my internet travels I came across 7 Principals to Keep In Mind for a Creative Career, and I have them written on a note card taped beneath my central monitor.

7 Principals for a Creative Career

(probably not the original title)

1. You’ll never feel ready. Being completely at ease with your launch is an illusion, you will always feel like there’s something else to do and adjust. Remember that some of the greatest content in the history of entertainment have made last-minute adjustments that are now cannon.

2. Your what-if’s are dumb. Okay, so you have a hundred, a thousand, a million reasons why if you do the thing, something bad will happen. Or someone will find out that you’re a faker or whatever. But that’s just, dumb. Your what-if’s are dumb. Stop listening to them.

3. The cavalry isn’t coming. There is no one else who wants this as much as you. You will not be ‘saved’ from the hard work of making your dream a reality. You have to put in the effort, you have to be your own cavalry.

4. You aren’t flawless. There are skeletons in everyone’s closet, everyone’s… don’t think you’re any different, don’t think you’re any better.

5. FUCK IT! Just fucking do it, my friend. Yours is the voice and the perspective we haven’t heard from yet, and we need you.

6. Nothing’s original. So stop pretending it will be, or strive to make it so. Similarly, nothing is perfect. Done is better.

7. Ask your why. Understand WHY you are doing all of this, because if you are aware of the force that drives you, then you can harness it even more. You can come to a level of calm/certainty/confidence within your work that would otherwise be lacking. Find your reason or reasons for doing this, and hold them close to your heart.

If that list helped you in any way how it once helped me, do not give me credit. I think I may have gotten this from Wheezy Waiter of all folks, on YouTube, but he’s surprisingly profound at times. If not him, something similar. I only have my hand-written note card as proof. I love this list, but it did not originate with me.

It’s now about an hour before the projected arrival time of our familial guests, and I fear I have to run, but soon I will be back. Soon I will make more of these. About all manner of things. We’ve made lists about topics!

I’m so happy to be back amongst you, and I promise that abandonment is a thing of the past. Suffice it to say, buckets of therapy and medication and meditation have happened in the interim, and we’re far more stable than we’ve ever been.

I’m here to stay. I look forward to the future 💕

Cheers.

Hello, friends.

This post was supposed to be:

How I celebrate finishing a book

It’s a writing prompt I submitted for myself some time ago, believing that by the time I got around to writing this one, I would have surely celebrated by then, right?

But as I continued to write this post, it went from talking about my (paltry) celebrations, to talking about the book releases in general.

So, past Danielle, take it away!

What we’ve done wrong, and how we’re fixing it

I have not thrown a party, or done a launch blast, or any of that, when I finish a novel.

Part of that is my abysmal track record of “marketing,” or outreach as in—what even is it, really? Do we do it? Nope. Not a bit.

Not until now.

Part of it is that I don’t know how to celebrate myself, or achievements in general. A lot of that is ingrained trauma from childhood, and a lot is getting worked on right now. More on that ahead.

I will also mention that the majority of my books came out right at the beginning of or soon after/in the pandemic, so having a launch party in-person or any kind of in-person celebration was kind of off-limits there for a bit.

I’m midway through my manuscript for Edge of Night, Dark Wings: Book One. I’m anticipating that I will want to have this manuscript done and polished, and the next well on its way to first draft status, before I hit publish on book one. Because I want to be sure Book Two, which I am HOPING is the only sequel, is well on its way and therefore not too far behind. Maybe by 6-12 months.

I want to publish closer together. I owe it to you all. I owe it to myself. I would like to see 1-2 books a year, at least, but we’ll see how we do.

I am Autistic and ADHD (AuDHD) and I do have to give myself certain levels of accommodations in order to ensure I don’t burn out on any of this. I want to be here. I want to keep writing and keep reaching out to all of you and making content, but I do not want to burn out. I am doing a lot of work on the Self in order to avoid that fate, including incorporating a new modality of therapy in EMDR (highly recommend for my fellows). All this is leading me to here, to being able to do this.

I cannot adequately describe the monumental amount of Fear that is associated with outreach, talking to all of you, and—in my mind, at least in part—exposing myself. I know that being authentic and exposure are not the same thing, but gods they feel damned similar.

So I will moderate expectations. I apologize profusely for the confusion and the missed deadlines of the past. That is something I deeply wish to avoid moving forward.

There have been plenty of mistakes I’ve made on my self-publishing and Indie Author road, but I’m learning. I’ve been taking in a lot of books on the subject, and understanding how I need to proceed.

In the past, we fucked up this Book Business by:

- Trusting the wrong people

- Saying we’ll have a book out when it was not near enough ready to make that announcement

- Making abrupt and fiscally irresponsible cross-state moves

- Not investing in the right things (tools that help with AuDHD especially)

- Not prioritizing our creative writing

Currently we are:

- Making an Actual Business Plan & investing in our business and ourselves

- Setting daily word count creative writing goals that we are meeting or surpassing regularly

- In a trustworthy and stable environment

- Holding onto our announcements until we have a tangible product

This has been a difficult shift, as well, because I have decided to follow my therapists advice and strategies, in putting certain people “on the ceiling,” as it were. Allowing that people are going to say things. Certain people are going to suddenly reappear in my life. But I will endure, because I have to, and because I mean to do this For Good.

I’m tired of working paycheck-to-paycheck, at dead end jobs, in places that could give a shit less about the individual. I want to make a difference, and write stories, and create art, and entertain the fuck out of all of you as much as I can.

To that end, soon there should be announcements along the lines of:

- Future audiobooks

- Future in-person events

Subscribe to the newsletter to keep as up-to-date as possible.

Stay safe out there, my friends. Drink your water, and take your meds. 💕

Cheers,

Danielle Berggren

Author’s note: this is my website, and as such I will not censor myself nearly so much as I do on third-party-controlled social media sites. This post and many others will contain political, societal, and religious views that many will not agree with. You’re welcome to comment, or to keep browsing the internet at large. This is my little corner.

Hello, friends.

It’s been a while.

I had another post scheduled for this last Friday, but then this came roaring into my head and I could not ignore it. The other post has been rescheduled to February 11th, so keep an eye out for that later.

Since we last spoke, several personal things have happened, including losing my job and going through the slog of bureaucratic nonsense to get Unemployment approved. Here in the States that’s a bit of a process. Then I had to migrate my entire website, blog, and everything over to a new website builder and hosting site (two separate entities this time), and that took a great deal of finagling.

But, more than any of that, is Everything Else. The world at large.

As I sit here, officials in the United States government are scrambling to backtrack on their labeling of Alex Pretti, the man recently shot many times and killed in Minneapolis, as a domestic terrorist and assassin. They could not have picked a worse person for their victim-blaming and alternative-fact smearing. It ends up that Pretti was a pretty stand-up guy, who spent the majority of his life in service to and helping others.

And I wish he were the first and last, but instead it seems like, though the most recent, Pretti is part of a growing trend of violence from a militaristic branch of the government that seems to be controlled directly by Trump and his circle. ICE and CBP seem to be operating under their own set of rules. Something far afield from what a good slice of the population has experienced from the States in the past.

Unfortunately, this isn’t new. State-sponsored violence is all-too-common in United States history, especially among people and communities of color. I’ve only become semi-recently-aware of some of the things like the Tulsa massacre, and the MOVE bombing, but I’ve been aware of the unequal treatment of peoples and communities in this country for some time. I saw first-hand my BIPOC friends get spit upon and sneered at simply for being as early as middle school.

I’ve seen what happens when people with hate in their hearts get ahold of the most vulnerable members of our society. I’ve read the articles, the missing ads written by good friends and found family… there is a terrible amount of violence out there directed at those who are simply living.

I’ve heard the arguments for the violence, the killings and blatant murders. There seem to be legions of folks waiting in the wings to point fingers at the victims and paint them as anything but innocent.

The problem is that, even if Silverio Villegas González had some traffic tickets? That was no reason to execute him. He was scared. Even if Pretti kicked out that tail light, that’s no reason to shoot him close to a dozen times. Even if Good was being “antagonistic” by some points of view (I disagree), she did not deserve to be gunned down.

I made this graphic for my social media the other day:

I want to make it clear that I do not stand with our leaders on this. That I think ICE should be disbanded, CBP disbanded or defunded, the police restructured… I’m pretty much full ACAB at this point. I'm certainly an anti-Capitalist and anti-fascist. Though this is a new level of violence from these particular agencies, it’s not new to POC and those communities. This is the States they’ve almost always known. I hate that we’re all living in it now.

And I’m going to do everything I can to resist, to not obey in advance, to use whatever platforms I have and whatever meager voice I can raise to say, this is enough. This is fucking enough. We should never have reached this level of violence, this level of chaos. We’re tearing families and communities apart. We’re failing an open-book history test.

I’m currently making my way through this article, and I would highly recommend it already to others. It’s full of great ideas: https://chriscookie.com/2025/04/30/what-can-we-do-a-hierarchy-of-20-things-to-resist-fascism-part-1-of-3/

I’m working hard on number one (survive). On number two (thrive), we’re getting there. That’s why despite the world being on fire, I keep writing. I keep making art. I made a new website, and am re-launching my Creative Business. I’m planning more and more books (see my ‘What’s Next?’ page), and devoting hours to them each day.

I’m trying to stay for good, to make my mark and be a presence in the world, despite all this. Because joy, success, and the ability to thrive is in itself an act of revolution toward this horrid regime.

Alex Pretti was about two months younger than me, almost exactly. He wanted the people who had murdered a member of his community to leave, and then he was executed after helping a woman to her feet. His last words, to our knowledge, were, “Are you okay?”

I’m not okay. I haven’t felt okay since we re-elected this douche pickle, and I don’t think I’ll be okay until we remove him and all his nominees and selections from seats of power. We need to purge this cancer from our society, before it kills and displaces more of us.

Do what you can. Fight the fights you’re able.

Make art.

We will win this. Have faith.

Thank you for listening. I’ll talk to you later, my friends.

Danielle Berggren