It’s always a little strange coming back to something you once used to do every day.
Ten years ago, I made my first YouTube video. Soon afterwards, I was a proper vlogger, as they used to be in the early days of the platform. When making money from your content was unheard of and becoming a YouTube partner was the highest honour one could obtain. Filming on grainy webcams was the norm and you could even reply to people’s videos with another video! I still don’t understand why they removed that feature, it created such a great sense of community.
I love YouTube and consume its content daily, multiple hours of it. But as the years have gone by, my life became crazier and I had to stop making videos myself, for various reasons. I always knew I wanted to come back though, when I had something worth sharing again.
From my pool of 450 subscriptions, I find myself mostly watching small channels that focus on books or writing related videos, so I decided I wanted to join in on the fun, since I LOVE talking about books and writing to anyone who will listen.
So here I am again, filming myself talking to a camera in my living room. It never really stops being a little strange.
As a quick introduction to myself as an writer (I try to remember that being an author means you’ve published books, which I haven’t yet, but there’s no such thing as #WriterTube, so forgive me if I use the term incorrectly), I filmed the AuthorTube Newbie Tag, originally created by Jenna Streety. Watch the video or read on to find out my answers to the 13 questions.
1. How did you find out about Authortube?
I started watching book related videos on YouTube about six years ago, and one of the first people I watched was Katytastic, who also happened to be a writer. She made videos about NaNoWriMo and I found them super helpful and it was just nice to hear other writers talking about their process and their take on things. From there I found other people, like Jenna Moreci and Kim Chance.
2. What genres do you write in?
I write mostly contemporary and fantasy, currently under the Young Adult(YA) age category, but I do plan to write Adult fiction in the future, and I also want to write science fiction as well.
3. What is your preferred writing tense, point of view, and category of story? (Children’s, YA, NA, Adult, etc.)
My preferred writing tense is past perfect. Point of view is third person limited, although I also write in first person. First person present tense is super difficult, as I’ve recently learned, but I’m trying to get better at it. And as I’ve mentioned, I currently write in the YA age category.
4. Are you a plotter, pantser, or plantser?
For those who don’t know, writers usually fall in one of three categories. There are plotters, who plan out all the big scenes in their stories, even the small scenes, way before actually sitting down and writing. Then on the opposite end of the spectrum there are pantsers, an expression which comes from writing by the seat of your pants, who have no idea where the story is going and they figure it out on the way. And then there are plantsers, who are somewhere in the middle.
I definitely fall under the third category, as in I plan the important bits and discover everything else as I go alone. I mainly use the beat sheet method from Save The Cat! by Blake Snyder. I will make a separate video talking about this method for sure, because I think it’s super helpful.
5. Are you a self-published, published, or yet-to-be published?
I am yet to be published, and as for traditional versus self pub, I am currently querying agents to try to get into traditional publishing, but I am also very pro self publishing and looking into editors and other professionals myself in order to maybe go down that route. I’ll probably end up doing both, but for now I’m testing the waters and seeing which option is most appealing right now.
6. What publishing company, literary agent, and/or printing company are you represented by or use? If you’re not yet published, what is your dream publishing house and/or literary agent?
I haven’t thought much about it, because I don’t want to be disappointed if I don’t end up getting a specific agent or publishing house.
7. What AuthorTube related videos can we expect to find on your channel?
The main reason I decided to start making videos again was to document my journey to one day being a published author, so you’ll see plenty of process/progress videos of my different projects, as well as craft videos, going into detail on how to write this or that. I also want to make content about the publishing industry and how all of that works. I know I had plenty of questions and I had to learn these things from various resources, so I’d love to be able to provide concrete information about all of these things right here on my channel.
And as you can see behind me, I read a lot of books and I love talking about them, so I will also make BookTube related content, such as book hauls and book reviews. But i will mostly focus on writerly content for the most part.
8. When did you start writing?
I believe I was around 8.
9. What was the first story you ever wrote?
All I remember is that it was a comedy, think slapstick comedy, and I read it to my grandmother and she laughed like a mad woman, tears streaming down her face, difficulty breathing, the lot. So, I almost killed my grandmother with my first story. Needless to say, I haven’t stopped writing since.
10. What authors have inspired your writing the most?
The obvious one is J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter made me fall in love with reading and I started off by emulating her writing. In fact, one of the first serious projects I ever worked on was a Harry Potter fanfic, although I didn’t know at the time what fanfiction even was. But doing this helped me to ultimately develop my own writing style. Then my favourite contemporary author is John Green. My books are heavily inspired by his and his writing. And coming back to fantasy, my heroes are Brandon Sanderson and Patrick Rothfuss.
11. Do you schedule your writing sessions or simply get to writing whenever you can find the time?
I use my passion planner to schedule in my writing each day. I also track when I’ve actually written and how much. I give myself one gold star for each 500 words I’ve written, and I’ve found that this method helps me stay motivated.
12. Do you type on a computer, typewriter, write everything out by hand, or use a blend of those? And where do you write in general?
I type the actual book on a computer, but I outline by hand and plan out any scenes or notes by hand. I also have a notebook that I keep specifically for writing in case I want to get away from the screen for a while but still work, or if I’m going away somewhere; sometimes it’s easier to write it out by hand and then transfer it to the computer later.
As for location, I write at my desk, at the dining table, or in bed.
13. What are you most looking forward to now that you’re a part of AuthorTube?
I am very excited to meet more people who love books and writing just as much as I do and to be apart of this wonderful community. I think writing can be a pretty lonely endeavour and it’s extremely important to have a network of like-minded people to talk to, so please leave a comment, follow me on Twitter and let’s chat about all things books!
And that’s the end of the AuthorTube Newbie Tag.
It’s great to be back and you should expect new videos from me every Monday, so please remember to subscribe if you haven’t already or check back here on my blog to see when I’ve posted new content.
