Author Interview, 28th March, 2025: Isabella Stofka author of Curses of Lavender

Olivia: Welcome to this author interview. I’m Olivia and today I’m being joined by now published author Isabella Stofka. How amazing is that?

Isabella: It doesn’t feel real yet to be honest, but I’m just waiting for it to crash fully in.

Olivia: I bet. Curses of Lavender came out on the 25th of March. I’ve only been working with you since November, but it feels so sudden even though it’s been a long time coming. Congratulations on being published!

Isabella: Thank you.

Olivia: It must be incredible. Would you like to do a little introduction about yourself?

Isabella: Yeah, my name is Isabella Stofka, but everyone calls me Bella. I am the now officially published debut author of Curse of Lavender, which is a young adult fantasy novel loosely based on the classic fairytale Sleeping Beauty.

Olivia: Love that. How did you get inspiration for the book?

Bella: I love fairy tale retellings. One of my favorites is Cinder by Marissa Meyer. I love the spin she put on those books and I’ve always been drawn to fairytale retellings.

One idea came to me on a car trip, I was going through prompts when there was a picture of a door. The thought that inspired the story was “what if someone went through a door in their dreams and woke up?” Immediately I really liked it. One thing I like doing is implementing mythology and retelling stories because I really like them. When you’re starting out a story, it can be daunting, but mythology and retellings can help you with the little details. So I thought about what would lend well to the idea and I thought of Sleeping Beauty.

I’ve seen retellings for Sleeping Beauty, but none of them have ever had her save herself. Usually it’s like a spin on like she’s in the dream world or she’s doing other things, but I’ve never seen one where she actually saves herself. And I thought, what if instead of the prince waking her up, she went through a door in her dreams and that’s how she woke up? And that’s how the whole story started to spiral.

Olivia: That’s so cool. It was definitely different to the other retellings which I really enjoyed. The real world that turns out isn’t the real world is such an interesting way to prop up a story. Were there points where you faced writer’s block? And how did you overcome it?

Bella: I had a lot of instances of writer’s block. I had so many ideas I’d jump between. When I was younger, I’d do this and “slack off” a bit more. But I wanted to get published because the thought of doing anything but writing was incomprehensible. So, I really did start committing to it. I knocked out the first draft very quickly, but then I hit some roadblocks. There were times where I wouldn’t write for months. There were times I was stuck and rewriting it didn’t work.

The best thing to do when you experience writer’s block is to take a step back. Read books, watch TV shows, look at things from different angles, listen to music. Music is a source of a lot of my inspiration.

Then come back. If it’s not working then I typically find that the issue actually lies further back in the story. So let’s say I’m struggling with chapter 22. Usually the issue would lie in chapter 20 or chapter 21. I never permanently delete anything. I would just maybe act like you deleted it, and then start a new document and continue writing. A lot of the time, you’ll find the problem lies with the way you executed something that didn’t align perfectly and that’s what stumped you.

One example is in the book, Thicket has to do some training to get her magic powers back. And initially she went to a farmhouse and that stayed in the book for a long time. But it really impacted a lot of things within the book because it didn’t align very well. So when I made the decision to go back and cut it and try setting the training arc at a different place, everything I had an issue with started coming together. So it’s that saying you had to kill your darling sometimes.

Olivia: That’s such good advice. I am trying to edit my own manuscript at the moment that I started back in 2019, I’ll bear that advice in mind. Will you be publishing something else besides Book 2?

Bella: I’m giving myself a few months to figure out whether or not I can publish my other book this year. I’ve worked on Curses of Lavender for five years and one of the best things you can do is take a break and let yourself recharge because every time you write, you grow. While I’m really excited to jump into book two, I feel if I did it now, I’d fall back onto old habits.

I had to split Curses of Lavender into two books because of the word count and whilst I’ve added a beginning and an end, I am already noticing holes between the two. I feel if I jump in now, I won’t do the book justice and I don’t want to disappoint anyone, especially because it’s a second book and the finale wrapped into one.

My other piece was originally going to be my debut, but it was just far too big for me to tackle comfortably as a debut author. I literally have 15,000 word backstories for every single character. I have got a few drafts already written up that I feel I can tackle now with the growth I’ve had since Curses of Lavender.

Olivia: Taking a break is so worthwhile, especially with something of this sort of caliber. You’ve got to recognise you’ve published one, step back to regain a sense of self, and grow.

Do you think the Curses of Lavender world will stay as a duology or do you think it may be expanded?

Bella: I would love to keep it a duology. I have ideas for some spin-off series, but I know people have commented on the pacing. I could probably find a way to stretch it into three books if I had taken that into account with book one. Writing is fragile, if you mess with it too much, you can ruin the whole experience. So I know this book isn’t perfect, but it’s the best that I can do without disrupting the careful web that I have woven.

Olivia: I agree. There are quite a few stories where things are stretched out more than it probably should be. Spin-offs are a great way to expand upon the world without dragging out the main story.

Bella: And seeing the world through different perspectives. Whilst Thicket is worrying about death, Bern is focusing on adventure.

Olivia: I grew to love the characters as if they were my friends. Were they based on you or your friends?

Bella: You can try and force a character to act a certain way, but they come as they want to be and you can’t control them. When I first wrote Thicket, she was supposed to be one of those instantly badass princesses but my own internal struggles seeped into her and she became my way to cope. She grew into a person similar to myself, but I didn’t try to base her off me.

I’m sure there’s traits from people, the boys are similar to my husband who is quick-witted like Marcel, but sweet like Elian. If you do your job “right”, your characters come to life in a natural way because you can’t force people to walk a certain life and characters are the same.

Olivia: Were there lots of changes to characterisation?

Bella: The side characters weren’t realistic in the initial drafts because they were molded around supporting Thicket, which isn’t realistic. Your friends will help you but not revolve their whole life around you. Once I started paying more attention to the side characters, they started to become more fleshed out. Lotta’s personality was always set in stone, a wise person stuck in a young body. Bern is a wild card, she has her own stuff going on but helps her friends. Marcel was always grumpy.

I had to work on Elian a lot as he kept falling into the arrogant prince stereotype. It took me delving into his backstory to make it work. One question I kept in mind was how Thicket saving herself would affect his pride? Curses of Lavender is a Sleeping Beauty retelling, so how would this affect Elian, who wants to be the one to save the princess, but is unable to?

Then with Marcel being born with low magical abilities, he was always grumpy and quickwitted. But I really struggled with making a mean character, so there were a few drafts where Thicket and Marcel were constantly fighting just so I could make him really mean to cut it down.

Olivia: Out of all the characters, who would your friend be?

Bella: Thicket and I are really similar but we’d be bad for each other’s anxieties. Bern encompasses the support from my friends, or Lotta to keep my head cool.

Olivia: Yeah, I would agree. If you were to wake up in this fantasy world, who would you want telling you the truth behind it?

Bella: I would say Caspian as he’s the old mentor type and the maturity makes him more trustworthy to Thicket. Caspian is level-headed like my mum and dad.

Olivia: Other than retellings, did you have other inspirations for the book?

Bella: Marissa Meyer played a pivotal role in my writing process and style with her books. Stephanie Garber’s lush atmospheric writing helps me as a non-visual reader because it’s so detailed. I can see the world through the rhythm of how I shape the words.

I also was inspired by French architecture and mythology because Sleeping Beauty originated in France. There’s a city in book two that’s based on Provence. Also, there’s a part of the story called the Soulseeker and that is actually from a French myth.

Olivia: You’re incredibly talented to be able to create a vividly descriptive world when you’re not a visual reader. I am, and I could picture this world so clearly. Out of all the lands, which would you like to live in?

Bella: Vindrya if her sister hadn’t ruined it. I would love to travel to Dymree because I based it off Taiwan as I have a lot of fond childhood holiday memories there with the nightmarkets.

Olivia: Being friends with Bern, you’d travel a lot. What would your Aneuma be?

Bella: Probably a Kiwi as Thicket and I are so similar. My brother is coding an official Aneuma quiz but until I can take it, Kiwi.

Olivia: I’d say I’m the same. How did you come up with the Aneuma?

Bella: I had to do a lot of plot rewriting because initially the main secret Thicket discovers was going to be that animals have powers. But I’d created all these cool abilities and with humans not knowing about magical animals, I couldn’t depict any of their powers, so I had to change it.

Thicket’s sister was initially supposed to be completely isolated, leaving her only allies to be animals, but with my insecurities, I was worried that readers would find animal side-kicks to be silly. I needed them to have magic to be more formidable like the creatures in Lord of the Rings.

Olivia: The magic system is really unique. How did you come up with the flame colour magic system?

Bella: I think it was trying to come up with an explanation of how people in this world would know their power level. Thicket is technically the most overpowered person in the world. I wanted to illustrate the idea of having all of the power in the world, but if you don’t believe in yourself, are you truly powerful or do you feel powerless?

I always thought fire was the coolest element so in my mind, Thicket always had fire abilities. The colour of your fire doesn’t determine your magic, you’re born with a certain level of power, and then use the environment’s elements to fuel it, you just provide the magical spark. Because this relies on magical energy, the colour is determined on how much magical energy you have. And so then it became that’s how people could tell what if they were born having weaker or stronger fire.

Olivia: It makes me think of other depictions of women with power in literature and how strong women are always criticised as ‘Mary Sue’ characters, whereas there doesn’t tend to be that kind of criticism when the character is a man. It’s also a really interesting dynamic to inspect throughout the book, the powerful and powerless. And it’s also such a great analogy for overcoming insecurities and finding inner strength.

Did you find that there were any unexpected reactions from readers of this book?

Bella: I was really anxious about my characters and worldbuilding. I was worried that people would think Thicket is too tough or too whiny, that the animals would seem silly or my book wasn’t ‘cool’ enough. I aimed it for middle school – high school students [11-18] as that’s the YA audience. But there’s also fantasy series like those by Sarah J Maas that are really serious and the characters are all super powerful. I just got insecure that people would think it’s silly compared to books like those. I was the most insecure about world building, but it is actually the thing I get complimented on the most about, so that makes me really happy.

I also wasn’t expecting all of the love for Marcel because Thicket doesn’t even see him as a love interest, she just sees him as an annoying guy that keeps getting mad at her for no reason. Meanwhile Elian is being sweet but people are suspicious of him and like Marcel. People are picking teams and whilst I’m embracing it, I also am really wary of not creating a hated love interest. I know there are lots of love triangles in which one is the obvious choice so the other becomes hated, but I don’t want that to happen, I want both the boys to have their own merit. I’m glad that people still like Elian, even if they ship Thicket and Marcel. I do not want to go down the route of the love interest that gets really awful so the other becomes the really obvious choice. I want them at the end of both books to still be their own good, sweet person and still have likeable characteristics.

Olivia: I think Sarah J Maas has made people distrustful of the seemingly sweet love interest because as a reader, you’re expecting a twist and them to become horrible. But your ability to create two loveable characters that are different sides of the love triangle, but the reader would be happy for either of them.

Olivia: How did you navigate self-publishing?

Bella: It was so difficult. I had to order 12 proof copies to nail down details and still things went wrong. It costs so much money to self-publish by buying ISBNs, proof copies, and cover art. If you want people to recognise you, you have to promote but not too much that it’s annoying. You want to invest in really good character art which costs a lot of money, you have to format it correctly, you buy Canva pro, you buy book distributors like BookFunnel. You run giveaways. There’s so many unseen and unknown expenses that go into self-publishing. Even things like sizing. Indie sizing and traditionally published books are sized differently, so that took a lot of time adapting and working out. Sites you go through can be problematic because they know they’re one of the only sites to use so customer service isn’t the best. Being an indie writer is not for the faint of heart, but I do have full creative liberty and autonomy in making my book to my vision. I wouldn’t have so much freedom if I did continue down the traditionally published path which was my initial thought.

At the end of the day, there’s also a really good support system when you’re an indie writer. You can create great Street Teams and actually be able to engage with your readers which you’re less able to do when traditionally published. All indie authors are really nice so if you need help, reach out to one.

Olivia: You did it, you’re published. You should give yourself more credit because it’s been such a journey (though expensive and time-consuming), but overall, hopefully, worthwhile. Congratulations! And thank you again for the opportunity to work alongside you.

Bella: Thank you for wanting to join. You’re one of the first people to believe in me and my story and that means a lot and you’ve been such a great rock and everything for this whole journey. So I really really appreciate you and all my other Street Team members and thank you for giving me this opportunity. I love talking about writing and about books and everything. So, I had a lot of fun. So, thank you for reaching out and inviting me. And then if anyone does end up picking up my book, thank you so much. I appreciate everyone’s support. And yeah, I hope that at the very least you enjoy it. But again, no pressure. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. but I also hope a step above that you find some kind of resonance with her journey and know that you are awesome no matter who you are or yeah, just you’re awesome and thank you.