Britt's (@BrittanieCharmintine) Interview
Hello Brittanie and welcome to Our Generation Magazine. I would like to start by thanking you for generously accepting my invitation. How's your day so far? :)
It is both an honor and a privilege to be in your magazine. It looks awesome! So far my day has consisted of Wattpadding and having breakfast. But the Oscars are later, so it should be a fun day.
Indeed! It will be. So, let's start with the interview everyone's been waiting for.
1. Brittanie, I'm sure all your readers would love to know more about their favorite author. Can you tell us something about yourself?
I live in Marin County, CA, near the setting of MATVWLT. I read and write. A lot. I also do yoga. Occasionally. I live in a forest with 120 year old redwood trees. I am originally from L.A. and come from an entertainment industry family. I have a dog named Ticker and a horse named Beau.
The way you described everything makes it all the more interesting. And I can see here that you named one of your characters after your horse. That's really sweet.
2. When did you discover your passion for writing? How old were you when you first started writing?
I started writing when I was very young. It started as a love of reading. I read a lot. My mother would have to force me to go outside and play. When I was about ten I wrote a story called "Halloween on the Moon." I thought it was a great masterpiece! I also wrote lots of poetry. Recently my uncle unearthed a book of poetry I wrote called "Ribbit." There was a drawing of a frog on the cover. Some of the poems aren't horrible!
Haha! That is very impressive.
3. How did you stumble upon Wattpad and what made you write your books here?
I have been writing seriously for about 6 years, but I never thought anything was good enough to publish. Then I read about a SciFi Magazine called "Lightspeed." They were doing a contest called "Women Wreck Science Fiction." I decided to enter. So I worked really hard to make it as good as I could. I had about 30 friends read it and make comments. I went to upload it to the contest, and found I'd misread the due date. I was pretty disappointed. That night I was reading my iPad. I thought I should look at the NY Times. I never looked at the NY Times, and I have no idea why I did that night, but there was a headline that said: "The Future of Publishing." There was an article about this website called Wattpad. I checked it out. I liked the idea that the work didn't have to be perfect. In fact, no one expects the work to be. I decided to write something for Wattpad.
Wow! That's a bit refreshing to hear about your journey to Wattpad. Most people, myself included, found out about Wattpad from a friend. How this friend found Wattpad, no one knows. Haha!
4. Brittanie, when you first started writing your book "Mermaids and the Vampires Who Love Them," what were your expectations for the book? And what are your views about its current achievements?
(I'd like to inform the readers that the book currently has about 2.5 Million reads and is a Watty Award Winner 2014.)
I meet a lot of writers, and most of the time they have no idea what Wattpad is. Wattpad is the biggest writing and reading platform in the world and so many people don't know it exists!
When I first started writing MATVWLT, I hoped it would do well on the site, but I never dreamed it would do as well as it has. I used to look at books on the site that had millions of reads and think those authors were different from me. Really special. I wished I could be like them, but didn't expect it to happen. I just wanted to write a story that the Wattpad readers would enjoy. I thought about my readers constantly.
This is the true gift of Wattpad. Ordinarily a writer works alone in a dark room with endless cups of coffee and paper strewn everywhere. But writing on Wattpad is like coming into a sunlit ballroom and being surrounded by friends. And you know how you want your friends to be happy, right? So instead of thinking "I will write this line because it amuses me" I think "I will write this line because it will make my friends happy." And I think the writing improves because of this.
As far as they story's current achievements, I am blown away. I applied to be a Featured Story in October and was Featured 2 weeks later. Then Wattpad selected MATVWLT for a Special Christmas Feature list they did for the last couple of weeks of 2014. That was a real honor. Then it won the Watty at the end of January. I was really excited and happy. I love all this, but what I love most are comments I get from my readers. They are the best!
I am sure every new writer here on Wattpad dreams to achieve the same and that is a very helpful advice you gave to aspiring writers. Many congratulations to you for the book's success.
5. Brittanie, how did you come up with the idea for MATVWLT? How do you generally come up with plot ideas?
I came up with the idea as sort of a challenge to myself. I knew I wanted something different, so I asked myself what would be the two most different supernatural beings I could throw together. I came up with mermaids and vampire out of the blue. At first I thought it was ridiculous, but then I thought it could be very cool.
As far as how I come up with plot ideas, I pay attention to what makes me emotional. Sometimes it's something on the news, sometimes an event or experience that happened to me or to a friend.
That's a very interesting thought you presented here. Challenging yourself. It has to be one of the best ways to evolve as a writer.
6. Every writer, at some point of time, faces a writer's block. What do you generally do to overcome it and write with fresh ideas?
Writer's block usually happens when the writer hasn't worked out some important information about what is happening in the plot. What I do is free write. Here's how it usually starts:
What am I doing? I have no business trying to write a novel. This is crazy. I should just give up right now and clean out my sock drawer ...
After berating myself for a paragraph or two, I start complaining about the problem I'm having with the plot. I whine about it for a while, then I begin to throw out some possible solutions. Sometimes I brainstorm with a friend. Eventually I work it out. But allowing your mind to get out all the complaining kind of clears things out and makes room for the real ideas.
