This past weekend, I attended the Texas Teen Book Festival in Austin, Texas. It was absolutely one of my favorite book events to date. I met several young readers who had earned their spot at the festival by reading books in class. I met several teachers and librarians who love to promote literacy and who offered to spend their Saturdays with their students at a local book festival. I met several authors who shared their books with me, including NYT Bestsellers CC Hunter and Sabaa Tahir. I reconnected with old friends and had the time of my life talking books, exploring Austin, and playing with Lightsabers.
There at the festival, I spent most of my time with my friend, Kara, who has written her own children’s book and is in the process of illustrating. As an aspiring authors, she went around and asked established writers what one piece of advice they would offer to those hoping to follow in their footsteps. Sabaa Tahir gave an incredible answer. It was “Never make excuses for why you’re NOT writing.”
That really got me thinking about my own writing journey and the questions I would have asked and those questions I would still like answered. Even now, three years later, I’m still learning everything I can from other writers. I will never pretend to have all the answers, which is why I wanted to ask these questions today.
So, if you are a writer (published or unpublished) these are for you. I will post my answers to these questions within a day or so. I know I haven’t been very good at blogging recently. Life has been so crazy (in all the best possible ways).
- What got you into writing? Did you start off thinking it was something you wanted to do professionally? When and what made you decide to pursue writing as a career?
- Do you prefer writing series or stand alone novels? If you like series, do you prefer to finish them off consecutively, or do you pursue other projects in between installments?
- What’s your favorite part of writing a new novel? The characters? The world building? The action?
- Why do you write what you write? If you write sci-fi, why sci-fi? If you write romance, why romance? What inspires you? Why THAT particular story?
- What books do you like to read?
- Finally, what advice would you give to your younger self? To aspiring writers?
A Platform of Sorts 
What I will say to my younger self is “you have done nothing wrong”, and “believe in yourself.” To aspiring writers I will tell them to believe in themselves to make their dreams come true.