Healing on Instinct, Leaning into Whimsy

I will follow you over a cliff for a pretty turn of phrase in almost any genre, but give me a grieving heroine full of anger and desire and let her make her own choices in a world beautiful and deadly, richly imagined but never over-explained? With lush, finely crafted prose that feels both grounded and ethereal at once?

Hi, hello, yes. Absolutely, 100%, my kind of book. My favorite kind of book.

The Flowers I Deserve is sapphic demon smut and a meditation on grief and healing and rage and need and has echoes of a certain type of classic feminist coming of age fantasy, all in a stunningly beautiful literary style. Tamara's first novel, The Fall That Saved Us, was one of my favorite books of 2023 (for similar reasons!), and was one of the early inspirations for this interview series–I desperately wanted to know how they write these books.

LZ: Flowers reads to me almost like an epic poem. There's the stunningly beautiful language, of course–I do so love novels written by poets–but there's also something about the plot structure and the way moments and emotion are distilled into imagery. Motifs and themes return again and again, revealing new layers and connections as Carlotta's story progresses. I'm curious if you build novels using tools and techniques from poetry?

TJ: So first of all, comparing Flowers to an epic poem is some of the highest praise I've ever received for my work, wow. I do have aspirations to write an epic poem someday!

The poetic turn is one of my favorite tools, and many poems are so impactful because of their stunning final turns. I think that's why I have such a strong impulse towards closing on an impactful image. A poem's tension is often in the question of what the image will do or mean for the story being told. The poet can surprise or excite the reader by evolving the image/theme/emotion or putting it to an unexpected use ("turning" it). I think that's why you see me intuitively returning to things and layering. It's so much fun to see what new work an existing image can do. It took several iterations to get Carlotta's final confrontation right because it's essentially the final turn. I needed all the images and themes I'd set up to work together.

LZ: I love this–I think the final confrontation comes together beautifully–the layering of these final turns gives the confrontation a sense of being both grounded and inevitable; it feels carefully structured and yet also ethereal. Thinking here about the poison flowers, the devoted snake, the stone of the castle that grows and changes... many of them hold tension between their initial reveals and further developments. I'd love to know more about the process of choosing and honing those images and how they come forward while drafting–there are such strong themes in this book, which feels very intentionally built, and yet the flow is very natural and organic. What's your drafting and revision process like?

TJ: I'm very much a discovery writer and intuitive drafter. I hadn’t planned to write the snake at all, but when it came up as a solution to an early plot point I'd been trying to solve, I decided I wanted to carry it through the story. Unlike the other possibilities I'd considered, it was the right symbol for the theme of bearing grief and guilt as well as a physical representation of love transformed.There are a couple symbols I've been obsessed with since the start of my writing career.

Feathers, snakes, spirit-imbued stones, mysterious flowers—they’ve all appeared in my previous poems and short stories with similar themes attached. For this novel, it really felt like returning to a language I'd been unconsciously building for five years. I've been fascinated by religion, spirituality, and ritual since I was a teenager, so these symbols are always popping up naturally and have been evolving with me for a long time. The snake has been a favorite to reclaim and reassign given the negative Christian connotations I grew up with.

The drafting process honestly is a lot like the scenes where Carlotta is healing on instinct, feeling her way through, and trusting that her body will know the right thing to do next depending on what she finds. However, I reread and revise heavily as I draft, so that's where the intentionality and structure come in to balance out my Piscean wandering.

LZ: I think that makes a lot of sense–I read (and think) a lot about structure and craft, but when it comes to drafting I very much follow the words to see where we go; all of the preparation and background work comes out on its own, when it serves the story. There's a lot to be said for flow and exploration and discovery.

And I love this idea of building your own language in your work through returning to symbols and themes; I see another element of that in your characters, who are drawn with so much compassion and clarity, and who choose their desire and passions and healing. I've been thinking about passages just before Carlotta begins her final confrontation, where she realizes what place rage and ruthlessness can ultimately have as an expression of love. I *loved* this; your main characters choose to follow their own desires and healing and love–pursue it, and revel even in the darker expressions of it; it is in part their willingness to embrace these desires–to transgress–that gives them strength and freedom. It feels extremely queer, in the best and holiest of ways.

One of the things I loved most about Carlotta is that she turns toward her desires; there's no question for her about what she wants and no regret or shame–her relationship with the King is complex, but so are all of her relationships with the women she meets in the castle, and her conflicts in those relationships are not about jealousy or control. She never thinks that maybe she should limit her contact or define her loves, and whatever the opinions of those outside the castle may be, no one inside seems to feel any differently than she does. How much of this was a conscious and deliberate decision, and how much was discovered while drafting?

TJ: I can often feel adrift in craft discussions that assume everyone goes into a story consciously understanding and having laid out its elements ahead of time, so thank you for affirming me! For me, the heart of characters and themes is drawn out in the writing. I struggle with character sheets even when preparing for a TTRPG session!

The world of Flowers is very much not a queernorm world, but I wanted the castle itself to be a fluid refuge where there wasn’t too much interpersonal drama around intimacy and pleasure itself. All the residents of the castle have arrived there with emotional wounds, and as a result, I wanted there to be a kind of unspoken agreement that the world they have within the castle walls will not be like the world that was cruel to them. That left me space to explore other, less obvious character dynamics that didn't center jealousy.

I knew I wanted the castle to be a place of big, radical hedonism, and that simple worldbuilding principle guided everything else unconsciously. I was like, what would be a fun way to enter lesbian society and find one's identity? Carlotta's entrance into the castle begins with an extravagant ball attended by gorgeous femmes who are comfortable with casual displays of affection. Carlotta is awkward and provincial, fangirling one moment and then angry and causing a scene and then forgetting she was angry and asking more excited questions. For all that Carlotta struggles with dissociation/depersonalization throughout the book, she's also grounded in the moment and taking cues from people around her. Beyond the freedom of finally having a word to define sapphic attraction, she's not concerned with labeling the relationships themselves or ranking their importance because no one around her does. The castle has an established way of thinking that she can accept unlike the prescribed roles and expectations she encountered in the borderlands.

Thank you for mentioning Carlotta's rage! When circling the idea for this story, I was very conscious that I didn't want to write Cassiel 2.0, which would've been really easy to fall into. The early defining features of Carlotta's character were that she was angry, short-tempered, impulsive, and a bit grandiose. I've never tried to write a character like this, but it was such a fun challenge to be in the head of someone who quickly flips into You will pay for what you did / I will take what I am owed (with an accompanying invasion of personal space) when core wounds around her love for her parents are triggered.

LZ: I loved so much that Carlotta's development was not to give up or soothe her rage, but to aim it. Her rage is fully justified, and never treated as anything less by the text. If there are similarities between Carlotta and Cassiel, it's the compassion and clarity with which they are drawn.

And that description of the castle and its society and intended purpose makes me want an entire series set inside. Every poison woman gets a book, like some series romances. Add one more genre element to the mix!

Which of course brings me to another question. I have so many thoughts about genre and rules and where we expect too much or too little of readers, and I love books that follow the story outside of preconceived categories. Where does genre play a part in your writing process?

TJ: That idea has definitely crossed my mind! It's very natural with a larger cast to want to wander into their stories, though I always need the emotional and thematic core to solidify before an intriguing idea becomes a must-write idea. I've realized a big writing motivation for me is sitting with an emotion for an extended period, exploring it, and resolving it.

There were points in drafting and revision where I felt an anxious nudge to bring Flowers into alignment with genre expectations. To make it straightforwardly romance, I would've brought King Emelia in sooner. An early reader said to cut the entire beginning and start with Carlotta arriving at the castle if I wanted something more commercial. And so much hinges on that if, right? To make Flowers into a more plot-driven high fantasy, I should've had elements of court intrigue and on-page political maneuvering. I'd have had a book that correctly executed genre while minimizing what I was most interested in exploring.

This is painful craftwise, where the book I want to write and the book I could write for stronger genre fit start running up against each other. The "correct" book can start to loom over the entire process. Ultimately, I chose the quieter book, of course. For better or worse, I do love an emotional litfic novel where nothing happens (said appreciatively). It's been heartening to know there are readers ready to meet me where I am and who resonate with the work even if it strays from the path and does three genres at once.

LZ: Last question, I think, as we're about at our word count–I find it very challenging at times to come back to the quieter book I want to write–even when I am deliberately going against genre norms. That "if I want something more commercial" haunts me, sometimes, because of course we want to sell the work in the end. What guides you back, when the doubt sets in?

TJ: Haunt really is the correct word for how it can feel! For my process to work and for my imagination to keep feeding me, I really have to follow my whimsy. It's half of the reason why I decided, after all the work of breaking into the video games industry, that it wasn't for me.

When the marketability doubt becomes especially loud, I have to find my way back to my creative goals and sit with them honestly. This took a lot of journaling and looking at the market and then looking at my work. My current plan is to lean gleefully into rather than away from what makes my work not quite fit. I can spend a lot of energy and anxiety on going against my instincts or I can just follow them and see what happens!

I think at the root of it all for me is a fear that people will disregard my craft because I may not execute genre elements as expected, but reader tastes are so varied! I had a workshop instructor who framed craft elements in terms of delights for the reader. She said what a writer lacked in one area they made up for with what they did especially well--the delights, as she called them. I think it's the biggest lesson I still think of regularly. My work won't resonate with every part of the market (or the largest part of the market), but it also doesn't need to.

THE FLOWERS I DESERVE
Weeping luna is as common as wildflowers, and in the northern kingdoms, assassination by its floral poison is rampant. Those born with immunity are coveted by heretic clerical orders and the endangered aristocracy—and shunned by a superstitious society.

One so gifted, or cursed, Carlotta embraces her newfound power as the currency to deliver her from a land in the grip of drought. Luxury and beauty, glimpsed only through the portal of her late mother’s letters, become an easy trade to consider in exchange for her life. And looming always in her imagination is the symbol of it all—King Emelia, a demon who rose to power under mysterious circumstances. Rumor claims her to be a monstrous woman like the poison girls who serve and adore her. Yet in the warnings of evil, Carlotta sees her own reflection.

Once initiated into the world of sensual indulgence and ancient magic within the castle walls, however, Carlotta finds that not even a king’s devotion is enough to sate her. As the castle’s ghosts coalesce, Carlotta must also confront what her own dead want for her and, even at the heights of her seduction, what she truly wants for herself.

Content notes are available on the author’s website and inside the book.

The Flowers I Deserve released October 14 and you can buy direct from the author or wherever you buy books online. Ask your local library to add it to their collection or order through your local shop.