Getting to Know You: Brittany

This week for the eighth interview of the ‘Getting to Know You’ series, I met thirteen year old Brittany. Yes, I did say thirteen, but other than that, she blogs over at Hills and Corkscrews. She is taking part in Rach Harries’ 3^rd Writers Platform-Building Campaign and she’s pretty cool.

Brittany, you are 13 years old, when did you decide you were a writer?

I've written as long as I could. I wrote little stories for school and just for fun probably from 1st-4th grade. I have composition notebooks full of stories and drawings. I didn't really think of it as anything more than that until I wrote my first full-length novel 

during a NaNo WriMo spin-off in January. I've always wanted to be a writer but I think that's when I started to take my writing seriously.

Wow! I’d say that I’ve been writing all my life too, I just wish I’d thought to take it seriously a bit earlier. I've looked at some of the books you love and I see that we like some of the same authors, namely Neil Gaiman and Cornelia Funke. What do you love about these authors?

I know this is going to sound cliche, but what I love most about an author is his or her's ability to take you to another world. For example, Cornelia Funke can take me to a world that's inside a story in the world of the novel (book-ception!), Neil Gaiman takes me to places like a graveyard full of ghosts or a creepy parallel world (with Coraline). I also love writers who can create magical characters and twisty plots.

I see you took part in NaNoWriMo. Will you be taking part this year and why do you do it?

I'm participating in NaNo WriMo this year, and I do NaNo because it's incredibly motivating for me, it's lots of fun, and I probably wouldn't have written my first novel (or at least, it would have been a lot later in my life) without it. Even though I've realized by now that I can't write anything worth keeping during NaNo, I still do it because I think it's a great way to write those dirty water words and I can't imagine missing it. 

Not sure I agree with you. I am sure you can get something out of those dirty NaNo words ;) But let’s move onto writing now are you a plotter or pantster?

I'm kind of in between. I plot most of the story on index cards before writing it, I know a bit about my characters, and I know what happens for the first half or two-thirds of the story. Then when I hit that point, I usually throw out whatever outline I have left, though I'm not sure why, and I pants the rest of the story. I like knowing where the story is going but I also like freedom and spontaneity.

 I get that. I sort of plotted my last novel, but what I have now has definitely been the result of some pretty hard writing by the seat of my pants. Although I do recommend planning, too. So what’s your top writing tip?

My top writing tip is to write and read (let's pretend that's one tip instead of two). One of the best ways to get better at writing is to just keep writing, but you also need to read. You can learn a lot about writing from studying your favorite books.

And what’s your most valuable writing resource?

Probably some of my favorite blogs and websites about writing, like Janice Hardy's blog Storyflip, which has a TON of blog posts about writing. 

And finally why did you join this challenge?

I joined the Campaign to meet other writers who blog and to build my platform, same as everyone else I think. :)

If you’ve enjoyed getting to know Brittany, don’t forget you can read her blog over at Hills and Corkscrews. Unfortunately, she’s going to be taking a break from blogging, but hopefully we’ll see her again somewhere in the future.

Meanwhile, there might be a book review here on Wednesday and definitely a photo on Friday, and who knows I might even tell you a bit about the Red Hot Chilli Peppers gig I’m going to on Tuesday.