It took me a while to believe in my ability to do that effectively, but I am so glad I was able to move past my fears to put out the story I truly wanted to tell. But I had to remind myself that I had an overall message I wanted to get across and the best way to reach that goal was to blend truth with fiction. One of the pressures when writing an #ownvoices novel is I had moments where I felt like I needed to stick to exactly what happened in my own life because I was worried that otherwise, it would be inauthentic. I drew from my real life to create the characters, the locations, and some of the circumstances that Nevaeh, the protagonist, finds herself in. Many aspects of the book are based on my own experiences. How did your experiences reflect on the writing of this book ? Was it difficult to get into writing about your multiracial experience, to draw the line between sharing your own personal experiences and fiction-writing ? Color Me In is, from what I gathered, loosely based on your own life experiences. So, sometimes what I do is just write the dialogue of the scene first and then go back in and sprinkle in the descriptions and the set ups around the dialogue. I have to be in a specific zone and even then, this nagging voice with the name of imposter syndrome gets in my way. My brain loves to come up with dialogue, I hear the voices in my head and the conversations almost write themselves to the point where I find my fingers are struggling to keep up with the lines. I took playwriting classes in college (which is an adjacent format to screenwriting in terms of technique and style) and I also graduated from the UCLA professionals program, which is a three semester certificate program where each semester you workshop a new script from concept to first draft. Screenwriting is the format of writing I have had the most experience in, at least in practice. How different was your novel-writing experience – if it was any different ? Are there any things, writing methods, brainstorming tips you stole from your screenwriting process, for instance, that you used in your novel writing, too ? You have a lot of experience in writing, in different fields: from screenwriting to personal essays, to freelance writing and now, debuting with your first young adult novel. We’re talking about writing, personal experiences, awesome book covers and sharing, as always, some awesome recommendations!ġ. Today, I’m having the lovely Natasha Dìaz on the blog to talk about her upcoming debut, Color Me In, a contemporary story I personally count in one of my most anticipated reads of the year. In case you missed it, “A Talk With” is a brand new feature here on Drizzle & Hurricane Books, where I will invite young adult book authors to chat with me about their upcoming books, share their writing tips and tricks and more! Hi friends! I’m so happy to be back today to chat with another author whose debut I am really, really anticipating with my feature, A Talk With…!
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