Life Awards Magazine: 2017 Edition

Interview: Lightning_Stryker

Hello everyone! Today, I interviewed Lightning_Stryker or Jay. Jay has been known for her works such as the Lost Boys series, Broken, and all of her other books on Wattpad! Her book, Once Upon A City, was Top 25 of the Once Upon Now Contest. Right now, she has 1.2K followers.

Here's the interview:

Can you please tell us a couple of things about yourself?

Jay: Well I’ve been publishing my stories online for a few years. I’ve been on Wattpad for a little over 2 years now and I absolutely love how interactive and positive the community is. On top of writing The Lost Boy Series, I write in a wide variety of genres and I also run the KissCampaign account.
Aside from writing, I love the show Riverdale and I am obsessed with Disney. In my spare time I also like to play Kingdom Hearts, watch people do music covers on YouTube, and Tweet.

What age did you start to have an interest of writing books and why?

Jay: I can’t even remember what age it was, but I was definitely very young. From a young age, my mother would read me Dr. Seuss books at bedtime and I think that was one of the major factors that helped me find my passion for writing. I loved all of the positivity that Dr. Seuss shared through his words and always felt inspired and happy after reading his works.
Since I was a young child, I wanted to write to help make people feel the same way that Dr. Seuss made me feel. I wanted to positively impact people through just my words, and to this day I still want to do the same thing.

Let's talk about your Lost Boy Series. What inspired you to create this series? Besides Peter Pan.

Jay: Well I’ve always wanted to write a story about Peter Pan, so obviously that was the first major factor of influence. But besides that, I really had no idea where the story was going to go when I wrote the first chapter. A lot of my stories are written as I go, which means that I write one chapter and automatically publish it.
The first chapter of Peter was written because I had a really rough day. Taking all of those raw emotions and just pouring them onto the page, I channelled them into the first chapter of Peter where my female lead was experiencing feelings of self-doubt and unworthiness. But after that chapter, the characters began to form themselves and so did the storyline. Everything ended up falling into place the way it should be, and I’m really happy at how the whole entire series is going. There’s nothing more rewarding than having your readers enjoy the story that you really enjoyed creating.

Are you planning to self-publish it or wait for a publisher to publish it?

Jay: Self publishing is definitely not for me. I would LOVE to make full-length versions of all the books and submit it to some publishing houses. You’ll never know if you never try!

In Wattpad, what are the thing that annoys you the most?

Jay: I get kind of annoyed at people who bash other writers. Everyone has their own style of writing and their own genre that they prefer. You shouldn’t be rude to other writers who are trying to put forth their best work. I often see a lot of people complaining on popular stories. They often say things like ‘This story sucks’ or ‘How does this even have so many reads? The writing is horrible!’. Personally, I always think there is room for improvement on EVERY story, but providing constructive criticism is very different from bashing another writer’s work. You shouldn’t purposely knock someone down because they worked just as hard as you did to write their story.

Which Wattpad ćliche do you hate the most?

Jay: I wouldn’t say that I necessarily hate clichés, because I feel like all clichés can be good if they are done right. However, I find some of the student/teacher relationship stories to be more on the exotic side. They’re not my cup of tea. I can never imagine fantasizing over one of my professors haha

Last question, Are you planning to write a genre that you haven't done before?

Jay: Oh goodness, I’m what they call a ‘genre-hopper’. I hop over from genre to genre all the time. I have books ranging from science fiction, to poetry, to teen fiction. But I do plan on experimenting with more genres! It’s so fun!

Jay: Thanks for having me!

Thank you Jay for answering our questions!

You can follow her on Wattpad, of course. You can also follow her on Twitter and Instagram.