Today we’re joined by Myr. Myr is a wonderful writer and visual artist from Germany who dabbles in a few different things. They mainly write as a hobby and are currently working on a novel. They’re a dedicated fanfiction writer who writes a lot of slash in a few different fandoms, which they post on a German website. When Myr isn’t writing, they also enjoy doing visual art and specialize in photography. It’s clear they’re very dedicated to their art, as you’ll soon read. My thanks to them for taking the time to participate in this interview.
WORK
Please, tell us about your art.
I am a genderqueer hobby author and fan fiction writer, I started writing in elementary school and lost passion multiple times on the way to where I am now. I don’t really publish and certainly don’t sell anything but I keep going. Occasionally I also photograph and I used to draw/sketch.
What inspires you?
I mostly write fan fiction and some of my favourite own characters started off as side characters in fan fictions as well as autobiographical characters, so yea. I take inspiration from the original canon as well as my own experiences. I did so even before I grew confidence to talk about myself and my personal history with bullying and depression.
For photography I try capturing simple things in another perspective or engage mostly in documentary photography.
What got you interested in your field? Have you always wanted to be an artist?
Funny enough, I didn’t like reading when I was a child until when my mom bought the Harry Potter audiobooks and I was like a sponge, I even could recite big parts of my favourite (book 3 – Prisoner of Azkaban).
I always was a little artistic, trying to express myself with drawings and a little bit painting but I was told way too often how good I am with words, so I started writing.
My father and uncle and godfather and cousin are all interested in photography and I was drawn to it from young age, always having cameras focused on me when on family gatherings or on holiday.
Do you have any kind of special or unique signature, symbol, or feature you include in your work that you’d be willing to reveal?
As afore mentioned I tend to include autobiographic own characters partly resembling myself and partly expressing my goal regarding life choices, character traits and so on.
So it’s likely my newer OCs (since end 2016) are somewhere on the asexual spectrum and every autobiographic OC is gender non-conforming if not genderqueer, when it comes to character traits the characters don’t have that much in common if you don’t look closely, but getting to the characterisation they are very much alike.
What advice would you give young aspiring artists?
This might seem stupid but: just do it! Honestly I started out with a fairytale in elementary school which I didn’t even research for and it was so… I was 8 at the time and a huge anime-fan, so looking back it was horrible! I wrote something about a Japanese Wadden sea /mudflat and a girl having wings as arms, I think…?
And my next phase… I am not that proud about it but when I started writing again at age 11 or 12 I was writing PWP – “plot what plot?“ – which is… it’s erotica basically.
At age 15 (2014) I created a small Facebook page which is deleted since 2014 and published bits and pieces of romantic and adventurous one-shots.
I was used to writing erotica, I didn’t know how to do action or crime… and I didn’t start reading regularly until 2014 when I first discovered the German website fanfiktion.de
By now my longest work online is 52 pages and 29,900 words long (fan fiction to BBCs Sherlock).
So yea, keep going, no matter where you start off, no matter where you pause and pick up again, keep doing what you enjoy!
ASEXUALITY
Where on the spectrum do you identify?
I am aegosexual (I feel not connected with what arouses me and prefer consuming erotica over actually engaging in sexual acts) and grey-biromantic
Have you encountered any kind of ace prejudice or ignorance in your field? If so, how do you handle it?
I was told I couldn’t write smut and border on very explicit erotica since I am ace and shouldn’t care about such things otherwise I would invalidate myself.
I mostly laugh it off despite being able to get very vocal when I am upset, frustrated or angered.
What’s the most common misconception about asexuality that you’ve encountered?
That no asexual is sexually active, I personally needed a sexual relationship to realise I am asexual. Attraction doesn’t equal action, sweethearts.
And we are no innocent little honey buns, not in general.
Never generalise about any group, okay?
What advice would you give to any asexual individuals out there who might be struggling with their orientation?
Reach out, get to know the community. I was uncomfortable, too.
I was certain “I must be greysexual, I mean… I can not not feel attraction, I am enough of a freak, I can’t be this strange!“
Reaching out and getting to know people on Tumblr and Facebook helped, we are all perfectly normal (as far as anything ever is normal at all) people and we are diverse like every other group.
Finally, where can people find out more about your work?
I suppose my profile in fanfiktion.de is the way to go. It’s fanfiktion.de/u/Kayli+Talis
With a good translator-plug-in for your web browser you will be able to read my works without knowledge of German.
I am also working on translations (as you can see in the attached photos) and will publish at least my 52-page-work in an English version once I completely translated it.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you, Myr, for participating in this interview and this project. It’s very much appreciated.
Asexual Artists 