Our interviewer Netty met up with Nikki ( nikki20038 ) to bring to you an exclusive interview of the Wattys Award Winner and publishedauthor of The Bad Boy And The Tomboy as well as 68 Days And Counting.
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Nikki, tell us about yourself.
Okay well I'm sixteen, I live in Canada. I have a weird obsession with tacos and I love playing soccer, basketball and volleyball. I love reading on wattpad and off and i love to make people laugh.
Who's your favourite author and why?
Rick Riordan hands down. His stories are so relatable with his characters and their sarcasm. And he uses the theme of gods like Greek and Egyptian to make his stories even more interesting and I just love his characters so much.
What do you enjoy the most about writing?
I like that I can take my own ideas and forge them into whatever I want them to be. Also writing is a way I can get people to leave me alone when I most need to be haha.
What inspired you to write The Bad Boy and The Tomboy?
I think it was the amount of bad boy stories on wattpad. I used to read a lot of them and I noticed they all ventured around the same thing-the whole bad boy, good girl thing. I got really annoyed of it and I guess it inspired me to create a character more like me-a tomboy. Hence, the creation of The Bad Boy and The Tomboy.
What are the difficulties that arise in writing a sequel/series and how do you over come them?
Definitely trying to make the series or sequel as interesting as the story and to make it necessary to add it in the first place so the author and readers don't get bored with the story. I basically look towards different people to gain extra ideas for these situations.
With 24 million reads and counting, top charts rankings and a Wattys, tell us your secret to success.
Honestly, there was no secret just patience and I'm still surprised about it all today.
What's the best writing tip you've ever been given and how did it help to make you a better writer?
The best writing tip I've ever been given was definitely to write whatever came to my mind which was given to me by a reader. It helped me become a better writer because they're were so many people telling me to write certain things in the story. To write what they wanted to see and what they thought would be fit for it but I ignored them because it wasn't what I had planned. It helped me learn that the story is my story and that I can improve it with my own ideas.
Any writing tip of yours you'd like to share?
To edit. I always rush my chapters and the best thing to do is look it over so you're satisfied with it or else there will be so many mistakes that readers will point them out or it'll affect the story drastically.
What's the hardest and easiest thing about writing?
The hardest thing about writing is the different challenges in writing a story. For example, when you have no idea what to write between one event and another. Or for me personally when you have to write something the middle of the story that's not even the climax of it all. Writing there is hard especially when you lose inspiration or are stuck and face the challenge of writer's block.
The easiest thing about writing is that you can write what you want and you can have fun with it especially with scenes that's at the beginning and the end. With this writing is the easiest because you have inspiration and everything just flows.
Of all your characters who would you say resembles you the most? Why?
Macy Anderson. She's literally me in the book. We both play soccer, we both read, we both have a single parent who loves us, we're aggressive and have been called a tomboy at least once in our lives. She resembles me because she's a type of character you don't see in other bad boy books.
And least? Why?
Stevie. She's the opposite of me. Blonde, bubbly, likes Kpop and Kdramas.
Is there a genre you wouldn't be enthusiastic to write? If so why wouldn't you be?
I don't think I would be up to write the genre of poetry. I struggle with that a lot especially when I was forced to do it in school and I'm just not that into it.
Tell us a something you'd consider yourself not very good at writing and how have you worked it improve it?
I guess that'd have to be grammar. I get so into a chapter and I'll forget to look over the grammar or I'll just skim past it and not look properly. I'm trying to improve on that now especially since I have readers that tell me the spots where I misuse the grammar in the part of the story.
Do you follow football? If so what's your favourite team and player?
Yeah I follow football. Favorite team is Chelsea (it's a family favourite) and I'm being honest I cannot pick a player because they all have different strengths in their positions.
What's your advice to teen fic writers who seek to include sports in their story?
Make sure you understand the sport really well. That's all I'm going to say about that.
Any upcoming stories we should look out for?
At the moment there's the story My Best Friend's Crush. I'm working on possibly another final Cahill story to add to the series. But so far only the first story is confirmed.
