Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ariel Storm. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ariel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing. I started journaling and writing poetry when I was around 12. Before I could actually write, I created stories when I played as a kid. I would act out these little storylines alone or in front of an audience. The storylines were always relationship and conflict driven, and included multiple characters and lots of dialog, and I made sure each character had their own voice, accent, etc. This alone was great training for becoming a romance author :)

I didn’t actually study writing and take it seriously until I went to college. One of the biggest things that helped me was joining the Romance Writers of America. Even though I’d read and written some romance novels when I first joined, I learned the business side of writing, which was invaluable.

Looking back, I wish I’d joined the organization or another writing group much sooner. Beyond learning the business aspect of writing and publishing, attending workshops and conferences helped me understand how each piece of writing works together to form a whole. For instance, attending workshops on dialog and conflict gave me new perspectives and helped me grow as a writer. Many writing conferences also feature editor and agent pitch sessions. I highly recommend pitching as much as possible. Even if you ultimately decide the editor or agent isn’t a good fit for your project or your writing style, pitching helped me gain confidence and taught me how to hone a good “elevator speech.”

I think the only obstacles that stood in my way was being in that place many people are when they first start out on a career path: you don’t know what you don’t know, so it can be hard to understand what your first step should be.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I write contemporary romance. My author tagline is “Fiercely independent heroines. Unconventionally sexy heroes.” A lot of my characters and stories don’t fit the mold of a traditional romance novel, and I’m totally okay with that. I self-published my first novel in 2015 and I haven’t looked back. It took me a few years of playing within contemporary subgenres, like paranormal, BDSM, and sports romance, to know what I really wanted to write.

Right now I’m totally submerged in the world I created in my current series called Talk Nerdy to Me. It’s a six book series based on the romances that blossom between the staff and customers in a nerd-themed bar, called Nerdvana. My heroes are techies, entrepreneurs, and creatives, like a political cartoonist. The women in the series are burlesque dancers, cosplay costume designers, and bartenders at Nerdvana. Each book in the series focuses on a different couple and is told in first person, alternating viewpoints between the hero and heroine.

I write for myself and the readers out there like me: nerdy and hopelessly romantic. Although my stories are meant for anyone to enjoy, my audience is mostly women, and my hope is that whoever reads one of my books can see parts of themselves in the characters and know that they’re worthy of their own happily ever after, whatever that looks like for them. I write to bring joy, a little bit of escapism in our hectic world, and to help people believe in the transformative power of love.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

At the risk of sounding like a total hedonist, my mission is to have fun! My professional background is in public relations and marketing and when I was honing in on my author brand, I knew playfulness would be at the core of my branding. I’ve always been drawn to pop art, bright colors, and the pinup style of the 40s.

I’ve visually weaved these elements into my brand through my own style and with my brand colors, book designs and promotional materials, and what I write about. Nerdvana is a bar where customers and the staff dress in cosplay, larp, play video games, read comics, and play RPG (like Dungeon and Dragons).

As weird as it may sound, I think a lot of creatives are under this impression that art has to be serious to be “real art” or to be valued. And look, if you want to write books about heavy subjects or sing about heartbreak, that’s great! For me, there’s more than enough heavy and serious topics in real life and not nearly enough fun, joyful, and hopeful messages. And although my books tackle serious issues, (in Nerdy Deeds, one of my characters is stalked by her abusive ex boyfriend), I balance it with humor, tenderness, love, and lots of spicy scenes.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I love getting lost in another world. Writing is the ultimate escape for me, but it’s also how I make sense of and explore the spectrum of human emotions, how I express myself to the world, and how I give back to the world. It’s also such a rewarding feeling to complete a book. It’s a little weird to think about something that only existed in my own mind being out in the world for anyone to pick up and read.

I’ve been doing this for a long time, yet it’s still amazing to me when I see my finished book. I hope I never lose that sense of accomplishment and wonder, that childlike “look what I did” feeling when I see one of my completed stories.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://authorarielstorm.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thearielstorm/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arielstormauthor