Extra: Read All About It

Fan Question And Answer: Part One

seriouslybro7 asks: What got you into writing?

At first, an over-active imagination and what my mother watched on television. I wrote my first “novel” when I was ten, a mystery with a really unfortunately named heroine, and a second novel the summer after that, whose main character was named after yours truly because I couldn’t think of a name at the time. Which is awkward enough. But, really, it gets worse because, what really inspired me to write, was reading Twilight.

I guess everyone needs to have that thing that they read or see that inspires them, and I was twelve when I read Twilight and I didn’t really like reading, and that was the book that made me want to read more, which led me to The Hunger Games, and then City of Bones, and it progressed from there. The next novel I wrote was basically a terrible rip-off of Twilight, and then I wrote some fan-fiction, and, now, I’m here today six years later, cringing every time I see a hint of that story lingering in my documents. Embarrassingly, although I didn’t know better, Twilight was really what made me want to write things again, and delving further into Young Adult novels was what kind of solidified the deal for me.

PurpleHazed asks: What inspired you to write Something to Rely On?

There are really several reasons why I decided to write that story, some more important than others: First and foremost, I wanted to write a new kind of story. I saw a lot of stuff on here that felt like the same, and I kind of wanted to try something on a bit of a subtopic of it, with a little bit of comedy thrown in. I was having a hard time in life around when I started it, when I had the idea, and I wanted it to be about a girl who discovers herself and who she wants to be, even if no one else accepts her vision. I wanted to tell a story not about a girl who becomes something for people, but who becomes someone that she has always wished for herself to be. So, Lena wore crazy clothes, she did crazy things. She liked to think that it was because of a dare, but it was deeper than that, because she didn’t have to have as much fun with it than she did. I wanted to write about a girl who knew what she wanted and went for it, because, at the time, I didn’t have it in me to do the same for myself.

Majorly, though, the story was inspired by my best friend of about seven years moving away. She had moved here from Waltham, Massachusetts, in the beginning of sixth grade, where we met and became instant friends, and, in the middle of sophomore year, they were moving back. I took the time hard—I was going through a bad depression then, hence the main reason why RO is a comedy, and I didn’t know what I was going to do when she was gone. A couple of months later, after thinking about it tirelessly, I had an idea for Lena’s story of moving away, and I just kind of ran with it.

I explain it a little better in the Story Behind The Story in this Extras group, but that’s why. I needed a way to cope with her leaving, with the problems I was facing with myself, and I needed to give myself some hope. It makes me happy that I got out of that slump with all of the Wattpad support, and that people tell me that it helped them, too. Something to Rely On is what I personally needed to rely on.

seriouslybro7 asks: What was your inspiration for Toy Soldiers/Playing God?

Oh, my. There’s quite the story behind this.

Back in our middle school days, ElleSvensson and I wrote a series of action books about assassins that ended up being a lot more like a satire than a drama, but it was glorious all the same. We had unfortunately named characters, tragic backstories, and I got to run over a bad guy with a train, so that was lovely. TS, of course, isn’t much like it, but it kind of started there with the idea we had, and how much I enjoyed thinking about how a spy would react or what it would be like to be on a mission to kill someone and how that would affect someone, things like that. I always knew after that story that I wanted to write about spies, and, while I was writing the light and funny RO, I started writing TS as a kind of way to take a break from a genre I wasn’t used to by delving into something I knew.