Continuing this series of interviews with my fellow contributing authors on the romantic fantasy anthology First Love, here’s Edeline Wrigh, whose short story Of Seals and Storms delves into Celtic myth and selkies.

Give us a little tease for your short story for First Love.

When a storm threatens the lives of several local fishermen, Elizabeth’s best friend – a selkie and the girl she’s in love with – comes up with a plan to save them. But there’s one little caveat: she has to return to the ocean for the rest of eternity. Assuming they can find the skin her father hid from her before he drowns, of course. Of Seals and Storms is a love story about hard decisions, sacrifices, and trusting fate.

Do you prefer your romantic fiction to end happily-ever-after, happy-for-now, tragically, or does it depend on the story?

It depends on the story, but also my mood. I read (and write) all of them.

What fantasy elements (if any) do you use in your First Love story?

Selkies! That’s the most obvious/explicit one, but there’s also some anthropomorphizing of the natural world and allusions to at least one Celtic deity.

What major theme(s) are you exploring in this story?

Choices and identity.

To what extent are your characters based on you or people you know?

They aren’t. Not at all. Of course past experiences influenced it because they always do to some extent, but no one’s intentionally based on anyone.

Do you know your ending when you write, or do you start and see where the story or characters take you?

It depends on the project. Different ones develop differently. Sometimes I start with the ending and none of the lead up, sometimes I start with a vague idea, sometimes I start with a random middle scene. For Of Seals and Storms I think I knew what the ending was about 20% of the way through it.

What is the worst thing about being a writer?

Balancing writing with other life obligations.

To what extent (if at all) do you agree with the statement “write what you know”?

I agree with it, but find it’s often misinterpreted. As a fantasy writer, of course I’m not intimately familiar with unicorns or what-have-you, but the themes I’m writing about are always ones I “know” – loss, love, cruelty, solidarity, faith, etc. Also, there are moments in fiction that can parallel things we intimately know and we can pull on our experiences for those things. If the job our character is applying for is a wizard’s apprentice, many of us are still familiar with the anxiety surrounding interviewing for a job even if we were interviewing for an office gig.

Also, honestly, with the internet it’s really easy to research a subject and can draw on other people’s experiences too.

Are you promiscuous or monogamous with your genre of choice?

I’m devoted to fantasy and fantasy subgenres, but I don’t have a particular subgenre I’m “monogamous” with.

What is your current work-in-progress?

The first in a lesbian harem paranormal romance series – The Witch and the Werewolf. It comes out on March 21 and is available for preorder now.

What advice would you give someone who tells you they want to be a writer?

Just write.

It’s simple and it can be hard at first, but really… just write. Stop prewriting and get words on paper. Finish your drafts even if you hate them; it’s a hard habit to form and it’s important if you ever want to “get anywhere.” If you feel your project sucks, finish it and then write something else, and share it with someone who will be kind but also honest in the meantime. But also don’t get caught up on making your first project “perfect.” It won’t be. Neither will your fifth or your twentieth, and that doesn’t actually matter. Your readers largely won’t care and they’d rather have something to read. Promise.

To follow Edeline Wrigh, visit edelinewrites.com and check out her writing here.

To pick up a copy of First Love either in paperback or on Kindle, click here (in the UK) and here (in the US).