The Wattpad Block Party

Q & A with Sheila Bravo (@thepurplerose)

How is everyone doing? Are you all enjoying the block party? I didn't know much about it until recently and was very pleasantly surprised with it. It is a great idea to bring authors together in order to interact with readers, so I really commend @KellyAnneBlount for creating it!

Hello everybody! I'm Sheila Bravo, otherwise known as @thepurplerose, though I'm mostly known for my story "The Teddy Bear Agreement".

I discovered Wattpad my junior year of high school, which is almost four years ago (I'm getting old), but I've been writing since I was thirteen years old. Discovering Wattpad was great and exciting since I didn't know people could actually write down their own stories and share them with thousands of people around the world, it was mind blowing for me, mind you. So I've been writing on different accounts throughout all of these four years.

I seriously couldn't be here without all of my followers, they keep me motivated and over all make me feel better about my writing when I'm truly down and stressed over the course of my books. And although recently my life has been very busy because of school, I still read and try to keep in touch with my readers. Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for the support!

Since I was somewhat on a small time gap, and because over the past half a year I've gathered quite a lot of questions I decided to create a FAQ or a Q&A while telling you all a bit more about myself for my topic on the Block Party.

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Frequently Asked Questions:

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I. What is your first language?

As I noted to my readers with my Author's Note inside TTBA, English is not my first language. My first language is Spanish, and while I've gotten some requests to translate "The Teddy Bear Agreement" to Spanish, I am afraid my fluidity with grammar in Spanish is not much better than my knowledge on English since I moved to the U.S. at a time when both of the languages are being taught most strongly; hence I didn't exactly get to know a language fully well. For example, sometimes as I'm talking with someone I break into Spanish because I can't find the right way to express myself in English, but sometimes when I'm speaking in Spanish I just have to speak in English for the same reasons.

It can be rather frustrating, really.

Also: "El Contrato de Ositos de Peluche" does not sound too appealing.

II. Where are you from?

I was born and raised in Nuevo León, Mexico. I lived there until I was some days short to turning twelve years old before moving to Texas where I've been living for almost eight years now, which is something that keeps surprising me! Time goes by so fast!

¡Muchos saludos a mis lectores de Mexico!

III. What was your first story here on Wattpad?

This is a very hard question, I've had around five accounts on Wattpad, but I think the very first one I actually uploaded has been long forgotten on the trash bin of an older computer I had; however I do remember what it was about, so I'll give you all a small blurb from a story I wrote when I was around fifteen years old haha.

The story revolved around a sixteen year old girl who was sold to the king's army by her poor parents, since if you gave up your child to the army, the king would give you money in return. The same happened if the child offered themselves, but they could not back away anything if their parents 'sold them'. Our protagonist was taken to be trained under the army. In this world there are creatures like Fae or Elves, and of course, magic. So the story was about our protagonist having to endure some tests in order to see where in the different armies she qualified to, how the prince was involved with everything, dark evil creatures and curses, and a very handsome elf-ish guy, too.

I remember being very excited about it back on the day, but since I was busy with school and my extracurricular activities, I stopped writing it. Maybe I'll begin re-writing it sometime on the future, sine I want to start writing fantasy again.

IV. Where can I read your older works?

Sadly I've deleted all of my older accounts, the only two active accounts I have at the moment are: @thepurpleroe and @theblackhellebore sounded like.

V. How did you come up with the idea for TTBA?

I believe this is the question I get asked the most, and always find it funny to answer if I'm being honest.

I began writing TTBA (if my Words document is not lying to me) on the 24th of March, last year. I created this story with just one thought on my mind: "I want to have fun." This was because both of the stories I was writing on my other account @kaitsumi were passing for some dark times.

TTBA was never meant to be a long, deep story about a girl and her trusting issues and a boy with a mentality that he can help everyone out. It was going to be simply a humor story that had no apparent direction, which it was for a while, but then as I got to know my characters more and as the story developed I began realizing that there was more to it than an agreement which made no sense at all.

So when it comes to the question of how I came up with the idea, my best answer is: I thought of one of the most ridiculous scenarios I could come up with. And when I thought of recently new roommates getting in this big dilemma because of a pair of Teddy Bears and having to sleep with each other because they couldn't sleep alone, I thought: "Yep, that's my ridiculous scenario."

VI. Do you have any future projects?

Yes, I do, and they're around TEN haha, so yes, I'm going to keep on being busy on the future. A lot of my projects are contemporary, but there's also paranormal and fantasy stories in there, too.

VII. Do you have any writing tips?

My major writing tip will always be: Don't stop!

It probably sounds very cheesy and cliché, but I think this is the best tip I have. If you ever love something, never stop doing it, many times I've left out things that I truly loved because of certain circumstances. But find your passion, and if your passion resides in writing, never, ever stop doing it.

Also, write because you love it. Don't force or overwhelm yourself with wanting to be famous, don't let others dictate your stories, write from your heart, and write stories you like. It is your writing. Remember that.

Be patient, write at your own pace, love what you do, and don't stop.

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And that is everything I can think of right now! But if you have more questions do not be afraid to ask! I will be more than happy to answer them (: So go ahead and ask on the comment section of this post if you wish to!

Here are my links!

Twitter: @sheireads

Instagram: _thepurplerose

Blogs/Rants: http://www.wattpad.com/story/32793371-rants-blogs-%26-other-useless-topics