It’s that time again for 10 Questions for our newest volunteer! This week the forum members bound together to ask Holly Tinsley 10 hard hitting questions.
Holly can be found here on her website: https://htinsleywriter.wordpress.com/about/
Here on X: https://x.com/hollytinsl3y
Find her books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/HL-Tinsley/author/B08FTKTSY8
1. If your life were to be made into a movie, what would the title be?
‘Can’t You See I’ve Got Shit To Do?’
2. What actor would you have playing you in your biopic? And who would compose the music for the movie?
Ashley Johnson. I feel like Ashley could encapsulate my vibe and we could bond over baggy sweatpants during readthroughs. Although I’d rather be animated if we’re going to make a movie. Chris Stapleton would compose the soundtrack, but only if Terry Crews can do a flute solo. Then Baltic House Orchestra can do me an epic remix.
3. A bus leaves New York City, traveling west at 70mph. At the same exact time a train leaves Houston, Texas traveling north at 150mph. If you could never have to work another day in your life, but the condition was you could never eat another sweet again, would you?
This is one of those questions that ends with me in an analysis loop. Because I don’t really care about sweets, so I could easily go without them. But I don’t think – even if I was given the option – that I could never work again. I’d try it, get bored and find something else to do after a few days. So, I would have given up sweets for nothing. If the question was ‘If you could get paid twice as much as you get paid now, but the condition was you could never eat another sweet again, would you?’ the answer would be yes.
4. If you could time travel only once back to when the first humans cultivated beans in the Nile River basin and punch them in the face…or at least give them a stern talking to, would you? If not, where would you want to go and what would you do?
Contrary to rumour, I don’t have an issue with beans in general. Just baked ones. Beans are a useful ingredient of many fine dishes. If I could go back in time, I’d go back to the reign of Henry the Eighth and take him some antibiotics for his jousting wound.
There have been studies on how his chronic pain and sporting injuries influenced his personality and leadership. I’ve always been interested in how even basic modern medical intervention might have changed the trajectory of his life and subsequently the entire reformation of English religion, politics and history. I’d be fascinated to see what the world would have become if one man hadn’t had a sore leg.
5. What’s the weirdest dream you’ve ever had?
The most vivid dream I remember ever having was just pencils being sharpened. They were lined up in a row on a white table, each one picked up, sharpened, and placed back down in turn. There was no music, no sound, nothing. Just hours of pencils being sharpened. I’ve had more exciting dreams but that was by the far the one I remember the most strongly.
6. If someone offered you a publishing deal based on you portraying a certain look or personality other than your own, would you take it?
I feel like the answer people think you should always give to this is a resolute no, but the honest answer is I’d have to know the particulars. There’s a vast difference between making adaptations with regards to presentation or professional presence and selling out or being disingenuous. There are plenty of professions that require you to conduct or present yourself in a certain manner that aligns with their values or ethos. It’s not necessarily a case of trying to be something you’re not. Would I change my personality to get a publishing deal? No, I couldn’t if I wanted to, I’m a rubbish actor, hence needing Ashley Johnson. But would I adjust how I market myself or shape my brand if it was the right deal – one that aligned with my values and genuinely advanced my career? Possibly. Again, it would come down to the particulars.
7. If God is infinite, and the universe is also infinite… How many times can you hula a hoop?
Zero times.
8. Do you attempt to balance your own artistic vision with commercial sensibilities? If so or if not, why?
I think anyone who is serious about this as a profession does – or should do this. Too many people make out like treating this as a business is a betrayal of artistic integrity, but quite frankly that’s insanity. If you want to write books that’s fine. But just having an artistic vision isn’t going to get you many sales, unless you’re that one-in-a-million unicorn. If you want to sell books, you’ve got to work at this like you would any other business, and that means understanding your market, trends, commerciality and reader audience. I can’t remember who I was speaking to recently, but they had a great way of putting it – ‘when you’ve written a story, printed it, bound it and put a cover on it, you’ve got a book. The minute you put that onto a sales platform, you’ve got a product’. Being commercially aware shouldn’t mean sacrificing your artistic integrity; it just means understanding how to position your work, so it reaches the right audience. There’s a balance to be found between the two.
9. In all your years of playing tabletop RPGs, what has been the most unhinged, unexpected thing you’ve seen a group of players do?
Right, buckle up buttercups. First off, the most infamous scenario that ever played out was when I was Jonquil Crag, the Tabaxi rogue. I’d taken an invisibility potion and broken away from the party to follow a very clearly dodgy gang setting up a deal. Whilst in a dark alley (and nowhere near my party) I attempted to pickpocket one of the gang members. At that moment, I realised that the invisibility spell breaks if you touch someone. Long story short, I got wrapped up in an old carpet and ditched in a garbage compactor with a large trash monster. That in itself wasn’t so unhinged, but my attempts to talk my way out of the situation have gone down in our party’s history – along with the now infamous line “guys, guys, guys, I think we got off on the wrong foot”. Other examples of unhinged-ness include one of my players killing themselves by trying to stop a mining cart full of rocks with their head (it did not work), the Harengon tavern owner who had 400 siblings buried beneath his bar due to a building collapse and the one character whose family lives in a nudist commune where everybody is called Jeff.
That said, I think the most unhinged character I’ve ever had at my table was the eight foot pole-dancing minotaur who started every session by coming on to their entrance music. Which was a bard core version of Pony by Ginuwine. Which is here, for your delight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsIJJ4IJstg
10. What’s your favourite part of setting up something like Spotlight Indie (across all the online and in person aspects of the event/site/channel as a whole)?
My favourite part of the event was seeing it make people happy. It doesn’t really get any more complex than that. It was just joyful. The world is a pretty shit place right now, and it’s getting harder and harder to find and share genuine moments of connection and happiness with other people. When I decided to set this up, I was in a pretty dark place myself. I didn’t feel like I belonged. I didn’t feel like I was wanted. I didn’t feel like I had any value or anything to bring to this community. But then I realised that what I could bring was a way to make sure others didn’t have to feel that way. Because honestly it was complete shit. I don’t want anyone to feel that way. I’m a solutions-driven person and I saw this as a solution. More than anything, I want to create something that made indie creators feel like they do matter – that their work has real impact and real value, no matter how big or small.
