We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cassie Britt. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cassie below.

Cassie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

A little while before Covid first started up, I ran across some online writing prompts. I had fun coming up with stories for them, but at first, I wasn’t brave enough to share them (even anonymously). But I was really enjoying doing them, so I kept up with it. After a while, I took a serious interest in writing those short stories, and got brave enough to start sharing them. As time went on, I entered a lot of free online writing contests just for the fun of it and won a few. Of course that only bolstered my confidence and made me even more excited to write.

One day, I wrote a short story based on one of those prompts. It got reasonably popular online and I got one of my favorite compliments my writing has ever gotten: “That was amazing and you are a horrible person for making me read that. You should be a writer.” If there was any doubt in my mind before about sharing my stories, that comment (and a few others), helped chase away nearly all the rest of my doubts.

Over time, I also noticed that writing was a really big stress reliever for me—if I’m focused on making up a fantasy world, I can’t overthink and ruminate on every little thing in my life. So, I started writing more and more often. As I wrote those little stories, I started to think that turning something into a full length novel would be really fun, but that was always an “eventually” plan. It wasn’t until my sister-in-law started pushing me to go for it that I finally took the plunge and wrote that first book.

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

I’ve always lived in the Midwest. These days, I’m still in southwest Missouri with my husband, dog, and cat. Outside of reading and writing, I enjoy video games, nature photography, and sewing.

When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time escaping into books. Anything fantasy, romance, science fiction, or horror was right up my alley. And in part due to my fascination with those types of stories, I’ve always had a vivid imagination. Then several years ago when I discovered online writing prompts, that vivid imagination was thrown into overdrive. I fell in love with building alternate worlds and magic systems. And then, winning a few small online writing contests and getting positive feedback from strangers who read my short stories really solidified that I wanted to spend more time focusing on this writing thing. Right now, I can’t do it full-time (unfortunately), but hopefully someday!

As far as sci-fi and horror monsters go, werewolves and ghosts and vampires are interesting. But I’ve always been utterly fascinated by the concept of zombies. They’re so similar to things we can actually find in nature—what is a zombie but a creature whose brain has been taken over by something that turns it into a mindless husk of its former self? In the real world, we have rabies. We have prion diseases. There are funguses and parasites that can cause their host to behave in ways that endanger the host or those around it. Compared to all those other fictional monsters, zombies are so much closer to reality that it’s downright terrifying.

Well, around the time of covid, when everyone was focused on the pandemic, I wrote a short story about a zombie apocalypse. (That’s right. To take my mind off the real life pandemic, I decided to write about a fake one!) In the summer of 2023, I took that story and expanded it into a full-length novel. Monstra Inter is a zombie apocalypse book with multiple storylines that gradually merge together as the story progresses.

I’ve been asked about a sequel, but after that one was wrapped up, I really wanted to write a fantasy book. I’ve always liked multiple genres, so why not branch out? Crimson the Chromaveiled was born. It’s a fantasy adventure with fade-to-black romance and lots of fairy tale inspiration and references.

I have a few ideas for other apocalyptic stories and some more fantasy stories as well, but I haven’t written much for either one just yet. Regardless of whichever one I end up going with next, I’m sure I’ll never have enough time to write all the stories I want to write!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Obviously, I know that not every person will connect with the stories I write. They won’t like the genre I write, or they won’t like my writing style, or whatever other reason. And, truth be told, I’ve encountered a few of those people who don’t like my writing. (And that’s perfectly fine! Not every story is for every reader.)

But every once in a while, I’ll find someone that adores something I wrote. They’ll tell me about the character they connected with, or they’ll tell me they loved the way I described something. Maybe they’ll interpret something differently than what I intended, but even then, to see them light up about an idea that I put in their head? That’s so fun to witness.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

So when a person starts writing, there seems to be this common idea that there is a “correct” way to write a book. You’ll hear so much advice from so many people. And while I’m sure most of it is well intentioned, that advice can become overwhelming or even contradictory. For example, I’ve been told over and over to “always avoid clichés.” But then there are so many books recommended solely based on the tropes in them. What’s another word for trope? Cliché! Some people will tell you to only write in past tense, others will say present. Some will tell you to only write in third person, others will say that first is the only option. There’s no end to the contradictory advice out there about writing.

When you’re already doubtful about doing something new, getting so much conflicting advice is terrifying. Who wants to write a book and bare their soul to the world if they’re not certain they’re writing it correctly?

There is no “right” way to write a book. For those of us who want a clear path to follow that will lead us straight to success, that can be very frustrating to learn. But if you embrace it, it can also be very freeing.

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