Interview with AlloenDreams

Hello, everyone! Again, I'm late in posting...partially because I've been so completely overwhelmed with school, but mostly because I've been working on a special treat for you guys. Alright...so it might have been just as much of a treat for me, as well; allow me to introduce to you the lovely AlloenDreams!


    Jess was somewhat of a hero-figure to me, when I first ventured to put some of my scribblings out in the deviantART world. She was one of the first writers I stumbled upon, and her work has and will forever leave me with goosebumps _{the good kind} and that sort of bittersweet feeling you get from reading something so good you wish it was never over. But! I digress; here is our interview, and I am so thrilled to be putting it up.

1. Hello, dear! To start off, could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Anything you feel comfortable with; it could even be your favorite kind of socks.
um, well, my name is jess. i've been an on-and-off writer here on deviantart for over three years now, and i consider myself to be fortunate enough to have met a number of incredible  people here, to have amassed more daily deviations than i'd have ever imagined, and to have grown as a writer and person immensely thanks to this site and everyone i've met here. i'm currently in my first semester of college as a psychology major after a long stretch of moping in my bedroom and working at a florist. i'm in self-recovery from a slew of things and my favorite footwear is tights, though a cozy pair of thigh high socks definitely make a close second.

2. When did you start writing? At what point along the line did you realize that it was something you really wanted to keep doing?
i actually have records of my writing way, way back to when i was a child. i have notebooks i remember buying from a book fair in school, filled with short, aimless excerpts of stories and diary entries. i have about fifteen that are somewhere around halfway filled, from various points in my life.
but, i did not start writing prolifically until i was fifteen; well over half of my notebooks are from then. late into that year, my mother who had been ill my entire life was finally given her final diagnosis: cancer. and, being the invacious teenager i was, after being sent out of the room with my little sister while my parents talked to her doctor after what we believed was corrective surgery on her hips, i overheard the words "cancer" and "terminal", and promptly sat back down. i can't say an understanding come of her illness until years after it, but after dinner that night, in the shower, i knew three things: i felt bad, the food my father made me eat made me feel even worse, and somehow i was terribly at fault for this whole mess. i began a regimen of self destruction then first in emotional overflow and then after my mother's death, in great calculation as to how i could make myself suffer an ounce of the pain she did before i succeeded in ending my own life.
i continued on through attempted intervention after intervention until a failed month of self-recovery when i submitted to inpatient treatment. after two weeks of hour long therapy sessions spent with little to no progress being made other than crying and mechanical eating, i was given a new assignment: writing. my therapist told me, as i was hugging a photo album of my family to my chest, that she understood "there's no room left for food inside you because you've swallowed all your emotions". i was asked to journal daily to try and get my feelings out because verbalizing them was to difficult for me, and it worked. i would still cry, but stability came as i started eating again and confessing.
even after leaving the hospital, i wrote. i joined deviantart just after being discharged, because i wanted someone to hear what i was saying after i became apparent most people would rather pretend the past year had never occurred. writing allows me get my feelings out in a way that i was never able to before, and having a kind, appreciative audience like everyone i've gotten to know here gives me somewhere safe to keep it. i write because if i don't, i fall back on bad habits. writing is both something i love to do and need to.

3. Do you have any writing inspirations? These can be anything from historical figures to fellow deviants.
a lot of things inspire me to write; anything from music to another piece i've read to simple, daily life. there are moments i have that i want to keep, feelings like hope or revelation or even anger that i want to remember, so i write about them. and, many times, they hardly becomes a polished piece or anything close, but reading back on it later a line i wrote may resonate with something i'm feeling and then there's something a little less rough, maybe almost readable. my sta.sh is stuffed with monstrosities like that, i'm afraid. it's a writing graveyard filled with mainly series of bad one-liners, and i'm filling it more than i'm making headway in writing.

reading good writing, though, is always an inspiration. it's that overwhelming feeling of oh wow, that was beautiful; i want to try and make something that beautiful, too. some of my best pieces have come from being able to resonate with others' words or being inspired by their ideas or just a word they use that i absolutely fall in love with.

4. What is your favorite writing style?
that is really, really tough. if you had asked me a year earlier, it would have been prose. but ,now i'm torn after having experimented with free verse poetry as a lesson in being more concise in my writing. i've grown to love it. if you ask me in another year, it may well be poetry, but i'm going to stick with my long-winded metaphor heavy prose as a favorite for at least a bit longer.

5. If you could give one bit of advice to your fellows in the literary community, what would it be?
write the ugly things. write the things you're scared to tell anyone, the things you're scared to even put down on paper because it feels like a confession. write whenever you feel something so strong it's bursting in your chest, your hands, your mouth, because you'll want to remember that feeling later. write letters to those who are dead and to those who you wish were; burn the letters and forgive both yourself and them. write whenever you can, just one line about someone you saw that day that you still remember as you're going to bed or about something so beautiful it kept you up at night. write it on napkins or better, a notebook even smaller than your iphone. just write, write, write because it's the easiest way to stay connected to yourself and your life, even if you only write about hating it.

6. What are your personal favorites from your gallery? Yes, I'm forcing you to do some shameless self-promotion.
oh no i don't like this question one bit um, my most recent piece please, eat is something very special to me (and also a  good example about what i was talking about in number three). it's a poem based off of the conversations and comments said to me by my boy, who is on another level of the "special" spectrum entirely. he actually read it aloud to me a over skype a few days ago and it made made cry and had every one of my bones quaking.

shrinking i wrote in light of a conversation i had with someone about weight, body image, and the pro-ana movement --an incredinly, painfuly frustrating topic for me to say the least.  

when roses was given a daily deviation, it made me so happy; it's a piece that reminds me to be patient and kind.

7. And now you get to promote others! Who are some literary deviants that you think could use a little more attention?
i've gotten to know and watch so many beautiful people during my time here, but a few people who especially inspire me are:
LadyLincoln
sense-and-stupidity
DisabledAffections
KaitForest
suemao
Tiny-Chuck
silklilies
Sammur-amat
jikivigoig

and someone by the name of Tales-of-Tao
_{Oh, stop it, you.}

and i'm probably forgetting some very dear people _{but i'm actually supposed to be writing a short paper on teratogens in babies so}

8. Last question: I'm sure we all have that list of favorite books and authors; would you mind sharing yours with us?
sad as i am to say this, i've stopped reading a smuch as i used to. i blame it on anxiety and an inability to rationalize taking time purely for myself, but there's really no excuse. however, a few of my all-time favorites are: the lace reader by brunonia barry, five quarters of the orange by joanne harris, the classic frankenstein by mary shelly, and even though i'm only halfway through it, i'm loving alice hoffman's the dove keepers. i know i'm forgetting plenty, but not being at home i can't poke through my bookcases to find what i know i'm forgetting.

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    Thank you so, so much, Jess, for sharing what you have. You really went above and beyond with these questions; I thoroughly enjoyed reading them, and hope everyone else will, too.

    To the rest of you, thanks for tagging along with us! I'm actually going to put the spotlight on dear Jessie for just a few more seconds, because there are some pieces in her gallery that I've been in love with for ages, and simply must share:

yoursi am more
than the
disarrangement
of my bones.
i am
flower press
sighs, and
the arch
of my spine, 
talentless
pianist fingers
and the
saltwater
on my skin.
i am
the sound
of shifting
sheets and
the laughter
in your throat,
my champagne
kisses and
the press
of your hands.
i am what lies
beyond the hike
of my skirt,
the rise
of my jeans,
the gossamer sheen
of my shirt- 
i am
the flesh
that is
yours. two-hundred milesi'm not the kind of girl you can leave behind.
so boy, run. run home to the feilds and the open skies and leave suburbia's smog and shit behind, because i'll stick to your lungs longer than it ever will. i am a burr on your heart, winter's breath in your bones- haunting, in the way i ghost behind your eyelids at midnight, sitting on the edge of your bed, your windowsill, and then, gone.
i promise the heat on your skin won't fade, the weight i left on your shoulders won't dissipate until i'm back in your arms. i promise, that your lips wil still ache and your hair won't fall just right until you're here, in the town where we first met and where we first kissed and where, where i will always wait.
so boy, run. run to the park where we first said goodbye and meet me on the bench. take her in your arms, the girl with the quiet mouth and wild eyes, and make her sing. say hello and then, just as quick, goodbye, because its true: distance makes the heart grow fonder.
so boy, run. orange juiceand i don't think you ever understood, that you ever could, that at the last beat of your heart, mine quivered.
 
because we were the porcelain girls, sliver-lipped like moonlight and not breathing a word.
we sold our souls for solace but lost our flesh along the way, skeletons slipping free from skin and bending at the break. we were idols -cellophane skin and ossified bodies trapped betwixt five-thousand character limits and image size constraints, binding our bodies by the same. we were lost to decimals and the space between our thighs, tea and tablespoons, calculations and heartbeats.
you found me in pieces, numbers, blurry webcam photos.
you told me:
babe, you're sick. real sick. scary sick.
we can do this, together. i'll help you. just, drink some oj, okay? your heart is weak.
you need to go, now. get out before its too late.
i left, but you were the one to never come back.
a year later, i found you at nine.
the figmented number, single digits glory, the point

    Actually, you guys should just go and check out her whole gallery; honestly, I couldn't pick enough favorites because I might accidentally stick a whole folder up or something.

    That's all from me, for this week! I really love this whole interviewing thing, so you might definitely see more of it in coming updates. If there's anyone you particularly want to hear from, send me a note and refer me to them! It would be greatly appreciated. Have a great week, and stay warm!