Wattpad Block Party: Insiders Guide

Block Party Founder: Kelly Blount

What's a party without a Host? We get the goods on Wattpad Block Party Founder, Host and all-out awesome gal, Kelly Blout.

When did you begin writing? 

I began writing in May of 2012. Since then, I’ve written five books and I’m working on numbers six, seven, and eight!

Who are your favorite authors? 

I have loads of favorite authors! That said, some of my all time favorite are: Gillian Flynn, Amanda Hocking, Brandon Mull, Harlan Coben, Cornelia Funke, and John Grisham.

What are your writing habits, or routine? 

I’m a total night owl! I could totally stay up writing all night long; however, during the day I’m the Director of Sales and Business Development for an amazing company, so I need sleep to function. The weekends are my favorite time to write! I wake up, get my laptop out, turn on Netflix, and snuggle in bed with my fur babies all morning long.

How did you discover Wattpad? 

I one hundred and ten percent owe discovering Wattpad to my good friend and amazing author, Apryl Baker! She told me that the first book her horror series, The Ghost Files, had been read over three million times on Wattpad.

I decided to give it a try and I joined Wattpad. Since Apryl had such a great response to her horror story, I manned up (seriously, I’m scared of everything) and started a horror/dark thriller story titled Captured.

Since starting Captured, the response from the readers on Wattpad has been absolutely amazing! With over six million reads and a recent Watty Award win, I am totally elated!

Seriously, I love everything Wattpad!

When I'm not writing I'm spending time with my sweet husband, snuggle with our fur babies, talking to my family on the phone, hanging out with friends, working, and/or reading!

What's you favorite thing about Wattpad?

I love so many things about Wattpad, the list is probably too long to include everything in this interview! But, if I had to pick one thing, I would say that my favorite thing about Wattpad is interacting with my fans and readers! I seriously love all of the sweet messages in my inbox and the comments on my stories. Such fantastic motivation to continue to improve my writing skills and continue to post writing on a regular basis! 

You're a USA Today Best Selling author! Tell us about that journey, and how it has shaped you as an author. 

As long as I can remember, I have loved to write. From a young child in elementary school, through college and graduate school, to this very day, writing has played a very important roll in my life.

It wasn’t until I moved back from the Cayman Islands (yup, I used to live there) and read Amanda Hocking’s Trylle Series, that I thought, “You know what, I’m going to try to write a real book!”

Nearly three years later, I’ve written five books, and I’ve hit the USA TODAY Bestsellers List!

I credit my success to hard work and lots of it, a great group of amazing author and reader friends, to Wattpad for helping me reach over six million readers with my novels, and the best fans ever!  

What is your ultimate goal as a writer? 

My ultimate goal as a writer is to hit the New York Times Bestsellers list and to have my books turned into major motion pictures.

What's the best piece of writing advice you have ever received?

Hmmmm… That’s a great question! I’ve received a lot of great advice over the past three years, the best though, is probably to write and write as much as you can!

Tell us about the Block Party! What's the inspiration for it? Who can contribute? What do you hope to see? Is there a theme? A required length? 

I’m so excited for this epic event! The inspiration behind it goes back to my good friend, Apryl Baker. She hosts two blog fests a year and they are always fantastic events. I thought, well, why not host something similar on Wattpad? Well, as you can see, the event already has a tremendous response and it hasn’t even started yet!

I know we’ll see phenomenal posts by some of the most influential authors on Wattpad! Rumors are that two of Wattpad’s most famous authors are working on a two-part story together. We also have fantastic character interviews, question and answer sessions, and quite a few surprise posts that are going to knock your socks off!

We don’t have a theme per say; however, all of the posts are reading and/or writing related.

There is no required length, so you’ll see a variety of post lengths.

Did someone say MASSIVE GIVEAWAY???

We have a HUGE Rafflecopter giveaway with prizes ranging from signed copies, to e-books, to the winner’s names being used in current and upcoming stories! Here's a link tot he giveaway:

https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/fbe91d2e40/