Vanilla

Q&A

As promised, it's a Q&A section *ding ding ding* hooray! I apologise if some of your questions aren't written over here just yet or answered completely and my reason for doing so is entirely because, uh, I maybe can't answer it yet or it might lead to spoilers. Most importantly, I'm glad that all of you are so invested enough to ask questions about this book (or me haha)! Apart from doing my best to answer the questions from the previous chapter, I will do my best to answer to comments on this section as well. So, without further ado...

"When will Leroy kiss Vanilla?" @cinnamonq

Well *with hands steepled* that is a question everyone has been asking and I'm sure it's because you guys have either read or reread the Baked series and realize that for both Baked and Brave Love, the kiss happens on Chapter 13. Admittedly, I had been tempted to write something similar for this spin-off but then (if you haven't realized), my language for Vanilla is so much heavier and advanced compared to my language in the Baked series and the reason for that has to do, of course, with the perspective I'm taking.

While Chip had adorable thoughts and moments whereby he's more emotional than rational, Vanilla is someone who thinks based on logic most of the time. Moreover, with the kind of vocabulary and IQ he has, he thinks very differently from Chip, Xander, Leroy—basically any other character I've written for first person. He's knowledgeable and resourceful; time-efficient and straightforward. This makes each chapter very, very long even though I've kept to the usual skeleton I go for: 3 events/scenes per chapter.

The reason why I try to keep to content instead of word count is because focusing on content drives the story forward and keeps my readers at the edge of their seats instead of knowing 'oh it's going to be about three thousand words.' This is why my chapters in Vanilla have been amounting to 5k, 6k, and sometimes 7k words per chapter when those in the Baked series are roughly 3-4k.

Therefore, although we are 14 chapters into the story and about 75k words done, the timeline of the setting in Vanilla is literally only 2-3 weeks apart. This is very different from the timeline in the Baked series, whereby I did multiple time skips and allowed Xander and Chip to spend quality time together on a more intimate level. Also because Chip was older back then and has already figured out his sexuality.

Vanilla's birthday is in October whereas Leroy's is in August. This means that in their timeline (September, when school starts), Vanilla is still 14 years old while Leroy is already 16.

As you can tell from Vanilla's perspective, he hasn't had any romantic relationships or even experienced falling in love or having a crush. He is very, very far from discovering his sexuality or even coming to terms with the prospect of romance.

The focus of this story is therefore very different. It's more about finding yourself and finding grounding for the first time, taking a step towards something new and then learning about the world. The romance in this book will set in fairly late, I believe. And yet, Leroy and Vanilla are one of my most sexually tensed couples and I honestly don't know how that happens sometimes HAHAHAHA.

Just know that both teens are finding themselves and will take some time to figure out their feelings towards one another. And if you understanding Vanilla's character (or if I've written him well enough), you will know that Vanilla will never agree or jump into the unknown without doing any research beforehand. If he's going to do any frisky activities with his man, he needs to research. If he thinks he might be sexually attracted to I-don't-know-what, he needs to do his research.