Sara is quite the busy girl! Not only is she a book loving, fan girl and author, she is the mind behind the blog What a Nerd Girl Says. There she talks about all of the latest books she's reading and I'm seriously jealous of all the author's she gets to meet. Sara was kind enough to answer a few questions about What a Nerd Girl Says.
Well, it kind of says it in the title. My blog was started as a place where I could go to talk and write about my passions and one of the biggest passions that I have is reading, especially reading young adult literature. My blog isn't a fansite, I'm not here to report news or any of that, but its more of a fan experience. I write about what I'm reading or watching, or who I'm meeting or where I'm going, all in the fandom world. So I'm constantly writing book reviews or movie reviews, and I'm doing event recaps of the different things I go to, and I'm always doing giveaways because I know that not everyone can go to these things. I'm hoping to add forums to my blog soon, to add a sort of interaction to it and to hopefully start a writing workshop with anyone who wants to try it!
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| Sara and some fellow bloggers and all the guest authors of the Ontario Teen Book Fest |
What was your inspiration in starting you blog?
I was taking a children's literature class and we had to do all these journals and I found myself talking about YA a lot and defending it a lot to those who didn't really see it as a legitimate source of literature. My professor kept commending me for the journals I was writing and I basically started the blog as a way to continue to write about it, both just showing my like for it and to constantly defend and support it. I also had been reading my friend Jackie's blog (Seeking Bazinga) and I was loving it, and I just thought, well, I could do that.
It looks like your are involved in multiple projects aside from the blog.
I totally am. I am a busy person. I started the blog last summer, May of 2012, and it was when I had a lot more time on my hands, and now I'm really learning how little time I have for the blog, especially since its grown and grown! But its something I'm incredibly passionate about, and its something that I really enjoy so I stick to it. I am also a full time college student, working hard to get my BA in History (even considering a minor in American Studies, we'll see...) and I work as a nanny after school. When I'm not working on school work or the blog, I'm working on my novel. It will be my third, technically, but I have a good feeling about this one and I'm hoping its my first "real" novel. I also keep myself busy with events, like movie premieres and lots of author events, and I'm also a member of the second largest Harry Potter group in the world, the Los Angeles Dumbledore's Army, which is a 21+ HP fan group.
What sorts of books or fandoms are you really excited about?
Wow, this is a huge question because there is so much. I'm meeting Cinda Williams Chima in the next couple weeks and I can barely contain my excitement over that because she's just brilliant. I'm excited for books the The House of Hades by Rick Riordan, Allegiant by Veronica Roth, City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare, Champion by Marie Lu, Just One Year by Gayle Forman, Unsouled by Neal Shusterman, I could go on and on about books.
I'm also really excited about all my shows coming back like Once Upon a Time and the spin-off, The Vampire Diaries and THAT spin-off. I'm so especially excited for the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary and Christmas special coming up. So many emotions are going to be going through for that one! I just got my first Doctor Who tattoo so that's on my mind a lot. I'm also really excited for movies like Catching Fire and The Desolation of Smaug, The Maze Runner, The Book Thief, etc.
On top of it all you have written two novels. What are your future plans as far as writing go?
In all honesty, its what I want to do with my life. Some way, some how, I want to be a writer. My goal is to become a novelist, and I work really hard at that, and I'm getting my college degree because I know how hard it is to accomplish that. But I definitely want to continue writing my blog because its a good exercise for my writing skills and I just enjoy it and I'm going to continue to write fiction in the hopes that one day I write something worth publishing. Ever since I was a tween and I was reading Sarah Dessen and Meg Cabot, I've just always wanted to be a writer. I've never been the type of person who can write capital L literature but YA has taught me that I can be a good writer in my own voice and I hope one day to see my writing published on a bookshelf in a bookstore. Then I will probably squeal so loudly that I'll scare the employees just a bit haha.
How would you like to see your blog grow and evolve?
When I first started it, I just wanted to be noticed. I wanted everyone to notice, and I was huge on followers and views. And while I'm still conscious of followers and views, I've learned that its more about WHO is following you, not HOW MANY people are following you. I have great followers who I've become friends with her and who are awesome. I hope to continue to make my blog a community where we can talk about books and movies and TV shows, and mostly books haha. That's why I want to start a forum on my blog, to kind of give more of that community feel to it.
Be sure to head on over to What a Nerd Girl Says and check it out. You can also find Sara on:
