Meet The Authors Showcase Edition #2 (2 of 3)

A new showcase with @MP13Girl, author of our song

1 what inspired the idea of your story? 

When I was in my freshman year health class, we were divided into groups and each were assigned a different mental illness that the group would then do a presentation on. I can't remember what mental illness my group was assigned, but it was not the one that one of the characters in the book has (I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't read the book). After each presentation, our teacher would then give more information on the mental illness. When he was explaining the mental illness that one of the characters in this book has, he told us how people who have this mental illness in real life would wear big headphones with loud music. I almost immediately had the idea for this book after he said that. I can remember exactly where I was in the room and exactly how he said it. Little did he know that with that one piece of information, he changed my writing forever.

 2 what was something you struggled with for your story? 

Definitely the representation of the mental illness that one of the characters has. I was fourteen to fifteen when I wrote Our Song and it's sequel, and I did not do enough research like I should have. I do not feel as though I represented the mental illness well enough, and that's something I want to fix before I consider actually publishing the novel. 

3 what has been the overall response to your story from your readers? 

Generally positive, I think. I remember when the story suddenly started to become popular, and it completely caught me off guard. It wasn't until I was in the middle of writing the sequel that somehow people began reading it more than before, and to this day I still don't know why the books suddenly became so popular out of the blue. It all happened at once, so the only thing I can think of is that someone shouted it out or something like that, but I still have no idea. 

4 what did you enjoy writing most of your story?

 I love the characters in this book, even the ones that were not created to be loved by the readers. There's just something about this novel that holds a lot of nostalgia for me, and I think fondly back to when I wrote it. 

5 is your story a stand alone novel or a piece of a series? 

Originally, it was going to be a stand alone novel. In the original ending, the main male lead was going to die and the main character was going to end up with someone else. When I told this to one of my friends at school that ended up reading the book, he told me that I shouldn't do that and I ended up changing my mind and making a sequel called Our Everlasting Melody. My friend essentially changed the whole storyline and in turn, my career on Wattpad as Our Song only started becoming popular as I was writing Our Everlasting Melody.

 6 what would you like your readers to take away from your story? 

I'd want anyone who reads the story to take away from it that you can love whoever you want and you shouldn't be ashamed of it, and that what other people think should not be important if you're happy.

 7 what's a piece of advice you would provide to another writer, when it comes to focusing on their story?

 Keep up with the frequent updates. I haven't been following my own advice for a while, but when I wrote Our Song and Our Everlasting Melody, I had scheduled updates as much as I could and updated weekly, for the most part. 

8 does your main character share any similarities to yourself? 

I tried to make Leah as opposite to me as I could. In high school I didn't feel very pretty and no one knew who I was, so I made her beautiful and popular. I have dark hair and brown eyes, she's blonde with blue eyes. She is the first protagonist I've ever written that does not look like me, as I had a habit of doing that so I could relate to them more. I went out of my way to try to make her as different from me as I could. 

9 what's something you believe would draw in new readers?

 Follow the trends that are popular at the time and do your own version. I wrote my story Hey There, Delilah when the "girl going to an all-boys school" trope was popular. That's what got a lot of people in, and then that traction lead people to other stories of mine that eventually would gain it's own readership. 

10 do you have any future projects? 

I have a lot! So many, actually. I can't wait to