**The Journey of a Writer: A Conversation with Haley**

As a writer, I've always been driven by a passion for storytelling and a desire to share my imagination with others. But what fuels this creative fire? In this conversation, I'll take you through the highs and lows of my writing journey, from childhood dreams to adult ambitions.

**Childhood Dreams**

Growing up, I was always drawn to writing. In grade 4, I wrote a Halloween story for an assignment, but ended up writing a whopping 60-page tale instead of the expected few pages. This experience sparked something within me - a desire to become a writer and share my stories with others. It's funny how memories can be so vivid, even after decades have passed. I distinctly remember feeling excited and proud of myself for putting in the effort and receiving good grades on that assignment.

**Childhood Me: A Writing Inspiration**

In those early days, writing was more than just a hobby; it was an obsession. I spent hours scribbling stories, drawing covers, and creating worlds of my own making. My parents were always supportive, encouraging me to keep writing, even when other kids in school seemed content with playing sports or engaging in traditional childhood activities. Looking back, those years shaped who I am today - a writer driven by passion, perseverance, and the desire to share my stories with others.

**The Professor's Skepticism**

Later on, I confided in a professor at university about my writing ambitions. His response was laced with skepticism - "You'll never make it as an author." But that didn't deter me. Instead, it fueled my determination to prove him wrong. Writing had become more than just a hobby; it was my identity.

**Why I Write**

So, what drives me to keep writing? It's simple: I love telling stories and sharing them with others. There's something special about creating worlds, characters, and plots that transport readers to new and exciting places. When people ask about my writing or show genuine interest in my books, it fills me with a sense of purpose and fulfillment. As an author, I have the power to inspire, educate, and entertain - and that feeling is irreplaceable.

**Overcoming Fears and Doubts**

Writing isn't always easy, though. There are times when fear and doubt creep in, making me question whether I'm truly cut out for this profession. But it's in those moments that I remind myself of my childhood self - the one who was so excited about writing a 60-page story in grade 4. I take a deep breath, revisit those early days, and remember why I started writing in the first place.

**The Power of Fan Support**

One thing that keeps me going is knowing that there are people out there who care about my writing. When fans share their excitement and congratulations online, it's like a boost of energy and motivation. It reminds me that I'm not alone on this journey, that others believe in what I do. That means the world to me.

**Next Steps**

Now that we've caught up on my writing journey, let's talk about where I am now. Currently, I'm moving forward with working on edits for a new project. Expect another update soon - not as far out as it was last time, though! For now, I want to thank each and every one of you who has followed along on this journey so far. Your support means everything to me.

**Behind the Scenes**

I'm grateful for the opportunity to share my story with all of you. Behind the scenes, we're working closely with Susie to bring your travel novel to life. It's an exciting time, and I can barely contain my enthusiasm. One day soon, this book will be yours to read - and I couldn't be more thrilled.

**The Final Thank You**

Before we wrap up today's video update, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for being part of this journey with me. Whether it's a like, comment, or simply showing interest in what I do - your engagement fuels my passion and inspires me to keep creating. As we move forward together, know that you're an integral part of something bigger than ourselves - the world of storytelling, where imagination knows no bounds.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone its Hayley and I honestly don't even know how to start this video hi welcome back to writing updates I haven't done one in a while and there's a reason for that that I'm going to get into today but you know this right now because you've already like seen the title and the thumbnail and stuff and maybe you follow me on Instagram and Twitter where I already have announced this but I have a literary agent now what so I am over the moon excited about this and I just have been dying to do a writing update and talk to you guys about it and now I finally can and I just oh my god I can't believe it I'm in like that stage where it doesn't seem real because this is something that I've wanted for so so long and oh I'm honestly just like over the moon excited about it so I'm gonna start off by giving you guys some background so if you haven't seen my writing updates you might not know that last year in 2018 I wrote two books one was nicknamed book of sisters and then the other one was nicknamed twin travel novels so the one is a fantasy story and then the other one is a contemporary and that is the one that we're going to be focusing on is twin travel novels so that is the story that I went forward and queried with I decided to put her sisters on the back burner just because I think it's a story that I need more time with in order for it to be the best that it could possibly be but twin travel novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo I've logged the entire thing I'll have links to all that stuff if you want to follow the journey down below for you guys but I wrote it super super quickly because it was always the book that I had wanted to write I just didn't know exactly what the story was going to be and then when the pieces finally started to come together the story just flowed out of me very very quickly and my writing desk is in a terrible spot it is in the basement so the cats are just like going wild and doing things so I'm sorry if you can hear that but so to give you a little bit more background about twin travel novel it is a young adult contemporary story and it follows a girl whose first initial is M I haven't actually said her full name yet but she ends up going on a backpacking trip around Europe following the death of her twin sisters so it's a story of her discovering herself and learning to love herself and love other people and let other people in and just learn to love the world and not be afraid of it anymore so very personal story for me and that is why I'm so excited that it has been picked up should be represented by an agent like oh my god it just doesn't seem real I've been getting so many questions from you guys about like how writing has been going what I've been doing with writing any updates on book of sisters or twin travel novel and I have had nothing for you because I finished my revisions in I think it was January and then immediately after I wrote my query letter and I sent it out and then I heard back so the initial step was the query letter so when you finish a book and you want to be represented by an agent which you probably will be because most publishers do want you to have an agent so each agency is different but I went with new leaf literary and my agent is Susie Townsend and she just seemed like the perfect fit for me I like a lot of the books that she's come out with and just through doing my research she was my number one pick so I actually only queried one agent because I was like you know I'm gonna start at the top and if it doesn't work out then I will go for my other choices but she's my number one choice so I went with her and she requested my manuscript so with the query letter you send the first five pages it's different with every agency but I sent my first five pages out and from that and the description in my query letter she requested the full manuscript so then she read the full manuscript and I finally heard back because there was some issues like with technology that kept me from hearing back which is like the most annoying time for technology to not be my friend but it took me six months to hear back and finally got on a phone call with her and I know she was super busy so like I don't fault her for that at all it was just like the waiting is so torturous it was just waiting and waiting and waiting and I didn't want to tell you guys that I was querying just because I didn't want people constantly asking me have you heard anything do you have an agent like blah blah blah because it was already so stressful for myself and like people around me who actually know me in real life who knew that I was querying it was already really stressful to be asked about it constantly by them because I was like no I'm just waiting like I can't really do anything else all I can do is wait so I decided to kind of keep it a bit of a secret from you guys but now I finally have an age and I'm probably just going to say that six million times and it actually seems like it's real because it still does not seem like it's real but I'm so glad that she ended up really loving it and we are going to be working together and I'm so excited to work with her I think she's a perfect fit for this story and it's just gonna be so great and I'm so excited that you guys are going to get the chance to read it so having an agent is the first step on the journey to publication so what happens now that's one of the big questions that I've been asked by you guys is that I will go into edits and we're planning on doing a couple of rounds of edits made me more maybe less I'm not too sure there's a lot of stuff that's kind of up in the air at the moment but from those edits we will go on submission with publishers which is when a publisher will be presented with the story and then they can pick it up and that is when derp will be like an official like yes this is being published yes like publication date that sort of thing so right now this is just the first step but it is like a huge step so thrilled about it in case you couldn't tell so I feel like that kind of covers most of the things that I had wanted to mention before kind of getting into the questions because they asked you guys if you had any questions on Twitter because I've been getting a lot of questions since I've talked about it so I did just quickly want to mention that I've revealed this on an Instagram live because I did an Instagram live like right after I found out about the agent because I was so excited by I revealed the love interest name their first name I'm not gonna say the last name because I don't know what that will change like we'll see it but the love interest who you guys know I like here's my favorite he is great and his name is Finn fi n Finn and he is just he's a great dude and I can't wait for you guys to meet him already in the interview of life so many of you guys were like Finn I already love him you know it's like this is the best thing ever but yeah let's just get into it the questions that you guys had for me so there are actually a lot of questions so I don't think I'm gonna be able to get to all of them but I'm going to get to as many as I possibly can so the first question is any tips on how to start writing for beginners and my biggest tip is to just do it and that sounds so dumb but that's honestly all you can do don't have any late reservations in mind because if you do you're never going to finish so just start figuring out what you need in order to start and finish a story and just get yourself there write something and don't expect to be writing a best-seller right away don't expect to be writing an amazing book because that's not what's going to happen it's going to take time and it's going to take revisions revisions are your friend you're not going to write a great story immediately you have to go back and kind of rework it and edit in things and that's totally normal and totally okay but I think a big tip for me that helped me was to stop comparing yourself and that's so difficult like oh this is so much easier said than done but I kind of always in the back of my mind had right now edit later and then stop comparing your first draft your second draft whatever to someone's like 50th draft and even their final product so basically it's not fair for you to be comparing something that is a work-in-progress - someone's final product that you see on a bookshelf in a bookstore it just doesn't make sense and it's not fair to anyone so try to have that in the back of your mind and it might help you it might not I know that it was really helpful for me personally next is how do you keep the writing process going on days where you can't actually write but want to keep making progress with the story I think that's actually a really good question I would like while I was at work which at work I wouldn't have to be really like using my brain that much I would be doing some mindless work so while I was doing that I would be kind of thinking where I was with the story and where I wanted to go and try to put myself in the mind of the characters like think of certain situations and think what would they do in this situation because that's kind of like getting to know them and getting to know who they are and for me that really helped me to keep a connection with the story even when I wasn't like fully in it so doing things like that or even like making aesthetic boards if you have time to do that making a playlist I listen to my playlist all the time it is a great playlist I'll have that link down below as well for you guys but just doing things where I still feel that connection with the story and I'm strengthening it even if I can't actually write on that day I don't know if that like really answers the question but that's kinda that's just what I did personally the next question I kind of already answered but it is how many queries did you send out before getting an agent and what was the process like so I only sent out the one query and the process was just very long and exhausting it was just long like the waiting was exhausting for me because it was all I could think about or like months on end I was just thinking and thinking and thinking and like is it gonna happen you're kind of in limbo for a little bit which really sucks but all you can do is wait and I had so many questions about if I was writing anything new but I hadn't started anything new because I didn't want to start a new story and then have to put it down and go into edits on another story and then I would just like lose everything I don't know I just like when I start something I want to get it done immediately so for me it didn't make sense to be starting a new story so I just waited so it was just a very long and frustrating process of waiting because I'm impatient so it's like if you have good patience then you should be ok but like I don't so it was just long but obviously it was entirely worth it in the end I can't wait to start working with Susie and I think she's the perfect fit next question is do you have Pinterest in smoke boards for characters and scenes and did you find it helpful so I have Pinterest inspiration spoe I can't say it in SPO right now because I just got my Invisalign change today and like the words are just not happening but I have boards for particular characters so each character has a board and then I also have boards for each place that they go in the novel since they're travelling around Europe I have different board for every place and I for every scene although there are some scenes that I made like different aesthetics for but mostly like place by place and then I have some general boards and like some quotes and stuff that's something that like I can see I would make it public like when it gets published but at the moment I'm keeping it to myself because I like secrecy sorry this is another question I got a lot so next is where did you look for agents did you stay in your area or did you go more canada-us wide so I ended up looking in the States and I knew I was going to query in the States just because the opportunity in Canada doesn't really compare as much as it breaks my heart to say that it just it's not comparable so I decided to look in the States and I had a particular agency in mind right away and then I was looking at the agents within the agency and then I found Suzy and I was like I feel like this is the absolute perfect fit so that was how I found her about how many pages is twin travel novels so at the moment and this could get higher or lower I'm not too sure but it's 65 thousand words which I believe translates to roughly under 300 pages like qu 80 maybe 300 pages that kind of depends but that's in like book pages if you translate it like that will you have any about the cover or cover art probably not I mean a little bit but like something that I feel like a lot of people don't know is authors don't really get much say in the publication process for their book like to a certain extent obviously a bite with the cover they don't really get that much say generally it kind of depends but I obviously like the cover is so important to me but I don't really have anything like in mind for how I want it to look I just know obviously I wanted to be Illustrated because that is like my favorite I love illustrator two covers and I want it to be absolutely beautiful and I'm sure that it will be because that's something I will definitely fight for I can feel like I need a beautiful cover because I am so superficial and I love the beautiful books and I judge them by their covers all the time so I need a really pretty cover this is another question I got pretty frequently so why did you choose to pursue trying to publish twin travel novel instead of book of sisters and will you ever tried to get book of sisters published so yes I do want to get book and sisters published but I had always wanted to start with twin travel novel when I thought about the novel that I wanted to write as my debut it was a story of travel and it was a story of self-discovery and sisterhood which obviously book of sisters also has to do a sisterhood but I just always wanted to write something that was kind of inspired by the places that I went when I went on my own backpacking trip to Europe because traveling is something really important to me and I just knew while I was on that trip like I took notes everywhere we went and I took notes on like the vibes of the places that we went to and different things that I would remember seeing because I knew that I wanted to write a story inspired by my travels and the places that I went to so it just for me was a no-brainer that win travel novel felt like it was more ready to be made public and it is the story that I want you guys to be introduced to my writing with because I think that it is the best representation of me and who I am as writer and who I am as a person and I just think it's a story that you guys are going to really love and that doesn't mean like any compliment that I give to to entrap a novel doesn't mean that I think that book of sisters is lesser it's just a story that I need to work on more because it's a fantasy so that is one that I want to work like side by side with an agent and make that it is the best that it can possibly be because it is pretty out of my comfort zone so I think it's good but that's also the only fantasy that I've ever written so I don't really know if it is the best it can possibly be so that is why it was important for me to start with twin travel novel and have that be the first story that I entered the world with if you will I hope that makes sense I feel like it's really hard to explain that and it always seems like I'm like a book whose sisters whatever but like I still love that book so much like I love both of them but I just I wanted to put twin travel novel first do you have another novel idea looming in the back of your mind and if so do you know when you want to start working on it I have like seeds of themes I'm having so much trouble speaking today it is such a struggle by themes seeds of themes I have those in my head right now and I have a lot of them written down but I don't really have the characters or the actual plot yet but that's also how I started with twin travel novel and even with book of sisters like I don't really start with a plot I start with like the small idea that I end up building upon so I do definitely have some themes that I want to touch on I have like some possible I don't know maybe at one point sequel companions that I would maybe want to do but like I have no clue so I want to focus on edits right now and then when I'm done with that and I'm feeling like I'm at a point where I can start with something new creatively then that is when I will start writing a new novel but I have no clue when that will actually be have you used another research tool other than travel books like someone's travel blog so I did use I have like travel books on my desk here they're right there there but I used those a lot while I was writing just to like kind of fact check and stuff like that I used a lot of googling to fact-check as well but I also used travel not blogs but vlogs vlogs with a V this is so hard with you Invisalign you can't tell the difference between bees and bees but I would watch people's travel vlogs and kind of like see their perspective on things and I don't know for some reason that was really helpful for me to like watch someone else traveling while I'm writing about someone traveling I found that to be very enjoyable I honestly the ones that I watched the most were my own travel vlogs and that was because like I wrote about the places that I've been to so it was really nice to kind of relive that and see the places that I went again and it just made me want to travel again I'd like I have major wanderlust right now what is your favorite destination that you've got to write about into an travel novel I feel like for anyone who knows me and has been following me for a while like they know the answer to this but I loved getting to revisit the Netherlands in this story it was just so much fun to get back there like that's my favorite place that I've ever been in the world so when they got to go to the Netherlands and go to Amsterdam I was like oh this is beautiful and I want to go back so badly so I think that that was definitely my favorite destination to write about what advice would you give anyone wanting to do NaNoWriMo for the first time be patient with yourself and go in with a plan don't just go in and be like I'm gonna write a book but like not really know what it's going to be definitely take October or like even beforehand take that time to plan out what you want to happen and plan out as much as you want to you like I'm kind of half plotter half Panther so I plan until I feel like I'm ready to write the story and I know enough and then I write and then I go back and I'm like I think I need to plot a little bit more so then I'll plan out a little bit more and then I write and then I go back and like I did it twice with this book because I planned like pretty far and I knew pretty much what I wanted to happen in the store you'd buy I would say definitely don't just go in blind at least personally for me that would not work it might work for you though and if it does then like kudos that's awesome but for me it just was no it wasn't happening so having a plan this time definitely really helped even though I I feel like I like made my plan like last minute I was like I'm not gonna do NaNoWriMo and then I was like yeah I'm gonna do NaNoWriMo and then I was like I'm not really worried about like winning it I wanted to get 20,000 words and and then I ended up winning NaNoWriMo and finishing my entire book so I think I wrote yeah I wrote all 65,000 words during NaNoWriMo so like go in with low expectations and you can only be surprised and excited when you exceed them that's really my motto for everything go in expecting the least expecting the worst and it can only go up from there really do I have a title for the book yet this is another question I've gotten to lie and yes I do but I'm not gonna share it because that is something that definitely could change and might change but at the moment I do have a title and I do really like it but I also wouldn't be like the most upset if it changed it's definitely a story that I've thought of like numerous titles that could work for it but this is just the title that I was like yes this encompasses a lot of the story and I feel like it's really great but that's definitely something that is probably going to change I think that's like the number one thing that would maybe change so this is kind of a variation on a question that I got quite a bit but it is how did you get yourself to keep writing the book from start to finish and that is honestly like that's a personal thing for me I'm really goal oriented and I set out with the goal of wanting to write one book in 2018 I was like I want to finish one book because I've always always always wanted to write a book so I knew that I wanted to write one and then I did write one and then I was like I'm kind of close to being done a second one I should write a second one so then I ended up writing a second one and I was like cool like I like to be an overachiever at times and it's really only when I'm trying to prove something to myself but I was also trying to prove something to other people like I had a professor in a university who I told him I wanted to write a book and he was like no you're never gonna do that that was a stupid idea joke's on you buddy but the real number one thing that has kept me going I guess like two things one this is what I've always wanted to do with my life I've never loved anything as much as I've loved writing and it has been my number one passion and why I have wanted to be as an author and in order to be an author I have to write and as much as it terrifies me to try and finish a book because there could be failure there I knew that I would never know and I would just constantly be sitting there like oh I want to do this but like the time is now so I had to like push myself to finally finally do it but whenever things got tough and I felt like I wanted to stop I would always go back to young baby Haley in grade 4 and in grade 4 is when I discovered my love of writing I always would write stories growing up like I still have them like these stapled one day I'll do a video reading them for you guys but like they're just these like stapled stories that like I would draw the cover for and like I'd give them to my parents like I would just spend my days writing because I didn't really have anything else to do this was obviously before I discovered Sims I had a lot of free time but it was in grade four when I had to write for an assignment so I had to write a Halloween story and I only had to write like a couple of pages but I ended up writing a 60 page story and I handed it in and it was the first thing that I had ever handed in and gotten a good grade on that I really cared about because I wasn't a great student so I really cared about it and I was so so so excited about it and I I'd like distinctly remember that being the day where I was like I'm gonna be a writer I want to be an author and that is what I want to do and since then that has been my number one goal so I feel like I have an obligation to ten year old me or nine year old me however old I was in grade four and I feel like I have an obligation to my childhood self to at least try and put myself out there as terrifying as it might be so I know that's like a long sappy answer but that's honestly what has kept me going this entire time I also want you guys to have the chance to read it like your excitement fuels me so so much like when I'm feeling like I can't even do it anymore I don't care about childhood me whatever no like I go back and I read the comments on my writing updates or like anything where I'm talking about writing and even just random things and you guys will constantly be asking about my writing and asking about my books and it means the world to me that you guys care so much and you guys follow along on this journey with me so thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart for that because it is life-changing for me like I can't even describe how that feels especially at bookcon when so many of you guys were asking me about it like it just means the absolute world to me so there are a lot more questions but I'm going to save them for when I go and do another writing update for you guys after like I said from now I'm going into edits so I will have another writing update for you guys soon they won't be so spaced out like it's been like months since I did the last one so I promise there will be another one for you guys very soon it won't be quite as long as a wave but thank you guys once again so much for following along on this journey with me thank you for all your support with this announcement like the comments have been so much for me and I wish I could respond to every single one of you but just know I have read every single one of them and all of your congratulations and kind words means everything to me and I'm so excited like just can't wait to move forward with working with Susie and to getting twin travel novel published one day oh my god I can't even say that with a straight face but thank you guys so much for watching today's video I hope you guys enjoyed it and I will see you guys next one byehey everyone its Hayley and I honestly don't even know how to start this video hi welcome back to writing updates I haven't done one in a while and there's a reason for that that I'm going to get into today but you know this right now because you've already like seen the title and the thumbnail and stuff and maybe you follow me on Instagram and Twitter where I already have announced this but I have a literary agent now what so I am over the moon excited about this and I just have been dying to do a writing update and talk to you guys about it and now I finally can and I just oh my god I can't believe it I'm in like that stage where it doesn't seem real because this is something that I've wanted for so so long and oh I'm honestly just like over the moon excited about it so I'm gonna start off by giving you guys some background so if you haven't seen my writing updates you might not know that last year in 2018 I wrote two books one was nicknamed book of sisters and then the other one was nicknamed twin travel novels so the one is a fantasy story and then the other one is a contemporary and that is the one that we're going to be focusing on is twin travel novels so that is the story that I went forward and queried with I decided to put her sisters on the back burner just because I think it's a story that I need more time with in order for it to be the best that it could possibly be but twin travel novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo I've logged the entire thing I'll have links to all that stuff if you want to follow the journey down below for you guys but I wrote it super super quickly because it was always the book that I had wanted to write I just didn't know exactly what the story was going to be and then when the pieces finally started to come together the story just flowed out of me very very quickly and my writing desk is in a terrible spot it is in the basement so the cats are just like going wild and doing things so I'm sorry if you can hear that but so to give you a little bit more background about twin travel novel it is a young adult contemporary story and it follows a girl whose first initial is M I haven't actually said her full name yet but she ends up going on a backpacking trip around Europe following the death of her twin sisters so it's a story of her discovering herself and learning to love herself and love other people and let other people in and just learn to love the world and not be afraid of it anymore so very personal story for me and that is why I'm so excited that it has been picked up should be represented by an agent like oh my god it just doesn't seem real I've been getting so many questions from you guys about like how writing has been going what I've been doing with writing any updates on book of sisters or twin travel novel and I have had nothing for you because I finished my revisions in I think it was January and then immediately after I wrote my query letter and I sent it out and then I heard back so the initial step was the query letter so when you finish a book and you want to be represented by an agent which you probably will be because most publishers do want you to have an agent so each agency is different but I went with new leaf literary and my agent is Susie Townsend and she just seemed like the perfect fit for me I like a lot of the books that she's come out with and just through doing my research she was my number one pick so I actually only queried one agent because I was like you know I'm gonna start at the top and if it doesn't work out then I will go for my other choices but she's my number one choice so I went with her and she requested my manuscript so with the query letter you send the first five pages it's different with every agency but I sent my first five pages out and from that and the description in my query letter she requested the full manuscript so then she read the full manuscript and I finally heard back because there was some issues like with technology that kept me from hearing back which is like the most annoying time for technology to not be my friend but it took me six months to hear back and finally got on a phone call with her and I know she was super busy so like I don't fault her for that at all it was just like the waiting is so torturous it was just waiting and waiting and waiting and I didn't want to tell you guys that I was querying just because I didn't want people constantly asking me have you heard anything do you have an agent like blah blah blah because it was already so stressful for myself and like people around me who actually know me in real life who knew that I was querying it was already really stressful to be asked about it constantly by them because I was like no I'm just waiting like I can't really do anything else all I can do is wait so I decided to kind of keep it a bit of a secret from you guys but now I finally have an age and I'm probably just going to say that six million times and it actually seems like it's real because it still does not seem like it's real but I'm so glad that she ended up really loving it and we are going to be working together and I'm so excited to work with her I think she's a perfect fit for this story and it's just gonna be so great and I'm so excited that you guys are going to get the chance to read it so having an agent is the first step on the journey to publication so what happens now that's one of the big questions that I've been asked by you guys is that I will go into edits and we're planning on doing a couple of rounds of edits made me more maybe less I'm not too sure there's a lot of stuff that's kind of up in the air at the moment but from those edits we will go on submission with publishers which is when a publisher will be presented with the story and then they can pick it up and that is when derp will be like an official like yes this is being published yes like publication date that sort of thing so right now this is just the first step but it is like a huge step so thrilled about it in case you couldn't tell so I feel like that kind of covers most of the things that I had wanted to mention before kind of getting into the questions because they asked you guys if you had any questions on Twitter because I've been getting a lot of questions since I've talked about it so I did just quickly want to mention that I've revealed this on an Instagram live because I did an Instagram live like right after I found out about the agent because I was so excited by I revealed the love interest name their first name I'm not gonna say the last name because I don't know what that will change like we'll see it but the love interest who you guys know I like here's my favorite he is great and his name is Finn fi n Finn and he is just he's a great dude and I can't wait for you guys to meet him already in the interview of life so many of you guys were like Finn I already love him you know it's like this is the best thing ever but yeah let's just get into it the questions that you guys had for me so there are actually a lot of questions so I don't think I'm gonna be able to get to all of them but I'm going to get to as many as I possibly can so the first question is any tips on how to start writing for beginners and my biggest tip is to just do it and that sounds so dumb but that's honestly all you can do don't have any late reservations in mind because if you do you're never going to finish so just start figuring out what you need in order to start and finish a story and just get yourself there write something and don't expect to be writing a best-seller right away don't expect to be writing an amazing book because that's not what's going to happen it's going to take time and it's going to take revisions revisions are your friend you're not going to write a great story immediately you have to go back and kind of rework it and edit in things and that's totally normal and totally okay but I think a big tip for me that helped me was to stop comparing yourself and that's so difficult like oh this is so much easier said than done but I kind of always in the back of my mind had right now edit later and then stop comparing your first draft your second draft whatever to someone's like 50th draft and even their final product so basically it's not fair for you to be comparing something that is a work-in-progress - someone's final product that you see on a bookshelf in a bookstore it just doesn't make sense and it's not fair to anyone so try to have that in the back of your mind and it might help you it might not I know that it was really helpful for me personally next is how do you keep the writing process going on days where you can't actually write but want to keep making progress with the story I think that's actually a really good question I would like while I was at work which at work I wouldn't have to be really like using my brain that much I would be doing some mindless work so while I was doing that I would be kind of thinking where I was with the story and where I wanted to go and try to put myself in the mind of the characters like think of certain situations and think what would they do in this situation because that's kind of like getting to know them and getting to know who they are and for me that really helped me to keep a connection with the story even when I wasn't like fully in it so doing things like that or even like making aesthetic boards if you have time to do that making a playlist I listen to my playlist all the time it is a great playlist I'll have that link down below as well for you guys but just doing things where I still feel that connection with the story and I'm strengthening it even if I can't actually write on that day I don't know if that like really answers the question but that's kinda that's just what I did personally the next question I kind of already answered but it is how many queries did you send out before getting an agent and what was the process like so I only sent out the one query and the process was just very long and exhausting it was just long like the waiting was exhausting for me because it was all I could think about or like months on end I was just thinking and thinking and thinking and like is it gonna happen you're kind of in limbo for a little bit which really sucks but all you can do is wait and I had so many questions about if I was writing anything new but I hadn't started anything new because I didn't want to start a new story and then have to put it down and go into edits on another story and then I would just like lose everything I don't know I just like when I start something I want to get it done immediately so for me it didn't make sense to be starting a new story so I just waited so it was just a very long and frustrating process of waiting because I'm impatient so it's like if you have good patience then you should be ok but like I don't so it was just long but obviously it was entirely worth it in the end I can't wait to start working with Susie and I think she's the perfect fit next question is do you have Pinterest in smoke boards for characters and scenes and did you find it helpful so I have Pinterest inspiration spoe I can't say it in SPO right now because I just got my Invisalign change today and like the words are just not happening but I have boards for particular characters so each character has a board and then I also have boards for each place that they go in the novel since they're travelling around Europe I have different board for every place and I for every scene although there are some scenes that I made like different aesthetics for but mostly like place by place and then I have some general boards and like some quotes and stuff that's something that like I can see I would make it public like when it gets published but at the moment I'm keeping it to myself because I like secrecy sorry this is another question I got a lot so next is where did you look for agents did you stay in your area or did you go more canada-us wide so I ended up looking in the States and I knew I was going to query in the States just because the opportunity in Canada doesn't really compare as much as it breaks my heart to say that it just it's not comparable so I decided to look in the States and I had a particular agency in mind right away and then I was looking at the agents within the agency and then I found Suzy and I was like I feel like this is the absolute perfect fit so that was how I found her about how many pages is twin travel novels so at the moment and this could get higher or lower I'm not too sure but it's 65 thousand words which I believe translates to roughly under 300 pages like qu 80 maybe 300 pages that kind of depends but that's in like book pages if you translate it like that will you have any about the cover or cover art probably not I mean a little bit but like something that I feel like a lot of people don't know is authors don't really get much say in the publication process for their book like to a certain extent obviously a bite with the cover they don't really get that much say generally it kind of depends but I obviously like the cover is so important to me but I don't really have anything like in mind for how I want it to look I just know obviously I wanted to be Illustrated because that is like my favorite I love illustrator two covers and I want it to be absolutely beautiful and I'm sure that it will be because that's something I will definitely fight for I can feel like I need a beautiful cover because I am so superficial and I love the beautiful books and I judge them by their covers all the time so I need a really pretty cover this is another question I got pretty frequently so why did you choose to pursue trying to publish twin travel novel instead of book of sisters and will you ever tried to get book of sisters published so yes I do want to get book and sisters published but I had always wanted to start with twin travel novel when I thought about the novel that I wanted to write as my debut it was a story of travel and it was a story of self-discovery and sisterhood which obviously book of sisters also has to do a sisterhood but I just always wanted to write something that was kind of inspired by the places that I went when I went on my own backpacking trip to Europe because traveling is something really important to me and I just knew while I was on that trip like I took notes everywhere we went and I took notes on like the vibes of the places that we went to and different things that I would remember seeing because I knew that I wanted to write a story inspired by my travels and the places that I went to so it just for me was a no-brainer that win travel novel felt like it was more ready to be made public and it is the story that I want you guys to be introduced to my writing with because I think that it is the best representation of me and who I am as writer and who I am as a person and I just think it's a story that you guys are going to really love and that doesn't mean like any compliment that I give to to entrap a novel doesn't mean that I think that book of sisters is lesser it's just a story that I need to work on more because it's a fantasy so that is one that I want to work like side by side with an agent and make that it is the best that it can possibly be because it is pretty out of my comfort zone so I think it's good but that's also the only fantasy that I've ever written so I don't really know if it is the best it can possibly be so that is why it was important for me to start with twin travel novel and have that be the first story that I entered the world with if you will I hope that makes sense I feel like it's really hard to explain that and it always seems like I'm like a book whose sisters whatever but like I still love that book so much like I love both of them but I just I wanted to put twin travel novel first do you have another novel idea looming in the back of your mind and if so do you know when you want to start working on it I have like seeds of themes I'm having so much trouble speaking today it is such a struggle by themes seeds of themes I have those in my head right now and I have a lot of them written down but I don't really have the characters or the actual plot yet but that's also how I started with twin travel novel and even with book of sisters like I don't really start with a plot I start with like the small idea that I end up building upon so I do definitely have some themes that I want to touch on I have like some possible I don't know maybe at one point sequel companions that I would maybe want to do but like I have no clue so I want to focus on edits right now and then when I'm done with that and I'm feeling like I'm at a point where I can start with something new creatively then that is when I will start writing a new novel but I have no clue when that will actually be have you used another research tool other than travel books like someone's travel blog so I did use I have like travel books on my desk here they're right there there but I used those a lot while I was writing just to like kind of fact check and stuff like that I used a lot of googling to fact-check as well but I also used travel not blogs but vlogs vlogs with a V this is so hard with you Invisalign you can't tell the difference between bees and bees but I would watch people's travel vlogs and kind of like see their perspective on things and I don't know for some reason that was really helpful for me to like watch someone else traveling while I'm writing about someone traveling I found that to be very enjoyable I honestly the ones that I watched the most were my own travel vlogs and that was because like I wrote about the places that I've been to so it was really nice to kind of relive that and see the places that I went again and it just made me want to travel again I'd like I have major wanderlust right now what is your favorite destination that you've got to write about into an travel novel I feel like for anyone who knows me and has been following me for a while like they know the answer to this but I loved getting to revisit the Netherlands in this story it was just so much fun to get back there like that's my favorite place that I've ever been in the world so when they got to go to the Netherlands and go to Amsterdam I was like oh this is beautiful and I want to go back so badly so I think that that was definitely my favorite destination to write about what advice would you give anyone wanting to do NaNoWriMo for the first time be patient with yourself and go in with a plan don't just go in and be like I'm gonna write a book but like not really know what it's going to be definitely take October or like even beforehand take that time to plan out what you want to happen and plan out as much as you want to you like I'm kind of half plotter half Panther so I plan until I feel like I'm ready to write the story and I know enough and then I write and then I go back and I'm like I think I need to plot a little bit more so then I'll plan out a little bit more and then I write and then I go back and like I did it twice with this book because I planned like pretty far and I knew pretty much what I wanted to happen in the store you'd buy I would say definitely don't just go in blind at least personally for me that would not work it might work for you though and if it does then like kudos that's awesome but for me it just was no it wasn't happening so having a plan this time definitely really helped even though I I feel like I like made my plan like last minute I was like I'm not gonna do NaNoWriMo and then I was like yeah I'm gonna do NaNoWriMo and then I was like I'm not really worried about like winning it I wanted to get 20,000 words and and then I ended up winning NaNoWriMo and finishing my entire book so I think I wrote yeah I wrote all 65,000 words during NaNoWriMo so like go in with low expectations and you can only be surprised and excited when you exceed them that's really my motto for everything go in expecting the least expecting the worst and it can only go up from there really do I have a title for the book yet this is another question I've gotten to lie and yes I do but I'm not gonna share it because that is something that definitely could change and might change but at the moment I do have a title and I do really like it but I also wouldn't be like the most upset if it changed it's definitely a story that I've thought of like numerous titles that could work for it but this is just the title that I was like yes this encompasses a lot of the story and I feel like it's really great but that's definitely something that is probably going to change I think that's like the number one thing that would maybe change so this is kind of a variation on a question that I got quite a bit but it is how did you get yourself to keep writing the book from start to finish and that is honestly like that's a personal thing for me I'm really goal oriented and I set out with the goal of wanting to write one book in 2018 I was like I want to finish one book because I've always always always wanted to write a book so I knew that I wanted to write one and then I did write one and then I was like I'm kind of close to being done a second one I should write a second one so then I ended up writing a second one and I was like cool like I like to be an overachiever at times and it's really only when I'm trying to prove something to myself but I was also trying to prove something to other people like I had a professor in a university who I told him I wanted to write a book and he was like no you're never gonna do that that was a stupid idea joke's on you buddy but the real number one thing that has kept me going I guess like two things one this is what I've always wanted to do with my life I've never loved anything as much as I've loved writing and it has been my number one passion and why I have wanted to be as an author and in order to be an author I have to write and as much as it terrifies me to try and finish a book because there could be failure there I knew that I would never know and I would just constantly be sitting there like oh I want to do this but like the time is now so I had to like push myself to finally finally do it but whenever things got tough and I felt like I wanted to stop I would always go back to young baby Haley in grade 4 and in grade 4 is when I discovered my love of writing I always would write stories growing up like I still have them like these stapled one day I'll do a video reading them for you guys but like they're just these like stapled stories that like I would draw the cover for and like I'd give them to my parents like I would just spend my days writing because I didn't really have anything else to do this was obviously before I discovered Sims I had a lot of free time but it was in grade four when I had to write for an assignment so I had to write a Halloween story and I only had to write like a couple of pages but I ended up writing a 60 page story and I handed it in and it was the first thing that I had ever handed in and gotten a good grade on that I really cared about because I wasn't a great student so I really cared about it and I was so so so excited about it and I I'd like distinctly remember that being the day where I was like I'm gonna be a writer I want to be an author and that is what I want to do and since then that has been my number one goal so I feel like I have an obligation to ten year old me or nine year old me however old I was in grade four and I feel like I have an obligation to my childhood self to at least try and put myself out there as terrifying as it might be so I know that's like a long sappy answer but that's honestly what has kept me going this entire time I also want you guys to have the chance to read it like your excitement fuels me so so much like when I'm feeling like I can't even do it anymore I don't care about childhood me whatever no like I go back and I read the comments on my writing updates or like anything where I'm talking about writing and even just random things and you guys will constantly be asking about my writing and asking about my books and it means the world to me that you guys care so much and you guys follow along on this journey with me so thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart for that because it is life-changing for me like I can't even describe how that feels especially at bookcon when so many of you guys were asking me about it like it just means the absolute world to me so there are a lot more questions but I'm going to save them for when I go and do another writing update for you guys after like I said from now I'm going into edits so I will have another writing update for you guys soon they won't be so spaced out like it's been like months since I did the last one so I promise there will be another one for you guys very soon it won't be quite as long as a wave but thank you guys once again so much for following along on this journey with me thank you for all your support with this announcement like the comments have been so much for me and I wish I could respond to every single one of you but just know I have read every single one of them and all of your congratulations and kind words means everything to me and I'm so excited like just can't wait to move forward with working with Susie and to getting twin travel novel published one day oh my god I can't even say that with a straight face but thank you guys so much for watching today's video I hope you guys enjoyed it and I will see you guys next one bye\n"