#VoicesofYA Tag

The lovely Jem Jones tagged me to do the #VoicesofYA tag! Seeing as this is my first tag, please forgive me if I mess some stuff up. Anyway, onto the questions!

~What draws you to YA~

I think, for me, it's the journeys the characters go through. It's really special to see them go through stuff that we young people struggle with. It gives us hope. It's encouraging to see them rise above obstacles. If they can do it, so can we. 

~Describe your writing process. Do you like outlines and structure, or seeing where the story takes you?~

I structure, more or less. I have a fairly basic outline. I also found I like to map out my conflicts/climaxes beforehand because my plot seems to have more dimension this way. I didn't do this for my first novels and I'm struggling in edits because of it. Also, if I have any excerpts that come to mind for certain scenes before I start drafting it, I write them down either on sticky notes (my desk is covered in them) or 3x5 cards. 

I might actually go and write a post about my process, since it's quite detailed and lengthy and I could go on forever about it. 

~How long have you been writing? Where are you in your journey?~

I've been a writer since I was eight years old, so about twelve or so years. I've completed seven novels. I'm currently in the process of editing my first novel in hopes to someday polish it enough to publish it. So I suppose I'm in the buckle-down-and-take-this-writing-thing-seriously stage of my journey.

~What do you need to write? Coffee? Music?~

I need silence (or, at least, no one needing my assistance for the duration. Go ask someone else). I need my laptop. I need my flash-drive (I don't store anything on my laptop. I've lost too much of my life's work because of that!). I need my pens/pencils. I need my idea notebook. My sticky notes and 3x5 cards. Sometimes I'll listen to music if a certain scene requires it, but I rarely, if ever, listen to music while editing. I almost always have my water next to me. Sometimes I'll have other food or drinks with me as well if I'm hungry. 

~If you could offer one piece of advice to another writer, (OTHER THAN "don't give up"), what would it be?~

I have a lot of advice I'd love to get other writers. But I think the one I've learned the hard way is this: be willing to let go of anything for the sake of your story. Time after time during my edits, I've had to let go of things I really loved during the first draft because they didn't add anything to the story itself. Trust me, it hurts. But it is good. Let them go. The beautiful thing about writing is you can recycle ideas and characters. You can put them to use somewhere else where they will live up to their full potential. That's super awesome!

~What book still has you reeling from its plot twist?~

There aren't many plot twists that have me reeling. But one that got me was the ending of Inkspell. #iheartdustfinger #youprobablyalreadyknewthat #butwhyforfarid? #hesanidiot 

~What books are you most anticipating for this year?~

The book I was most anticipating this year already released. The Lost Girl of Astor Street by Stephanie Morrill is a book I was super excited to read. I actually won an ARC copy, so I got to read it before it released. #soawesome 

~In your opinion, which YA book/series has the most unique premise?~

Hmmm. Honestly, I think there are several. I love the Percy Jackson series. Really cool premise there. The Series of Unfortunate Events is possibly my favorite series ever. I can't really limit it to one. Also *puts on hipster glasses* I know a lot of books by my writing friends that are in the works with super cool/unique premises. Those will probably take the cake when they're published. 

~What is your all-time favorite quote from YA?~

Quote? Oh goodness, let's see. I have no idea. I was going to go with a really deep quote, but there are too many. So I'm going to go with one of my favorite writing quotes from Fenoglio in Inkdeath. I think it's from Inkdeath, anyway. 

"You really don't understand the first thing about writing... For one thing, early in the morning is the worst possible time. The brain is like a wet sponge at that hour. And for another, real writing is a question of staring into space and waiting for the right ideas."

~What book do you most hope will have a movie adaptation?~

A lot of the books I would hope to see in movie form have already been adapted and they were all horrible. Percy Jackson. Series of Unfortunate Events (though the casting was fantastic. And the movie itself wasn't completely terrible). Inkheart. Eragon. I did like the Chronicles of Narnia movies. So I guess that doesn't leave a lot of books that I'd like to see in movie form. The Kingdom series by Chuck Black would probably do well as movies. They're working on the movies, apparently, but I don't think there's been much progress. 

So there you have it. My first tag is almost complete! But first I must tag someone else, which is unfortunate, because most of the people I know to tag have already done this one. So I'm tagging my fellow Pennite, Hannah at Lady GoodKnight.

What about y'all? What are some of your answers?