Dear readers, welcome to our October interview. My name is Diana and I am going to converse with LailaLiliana about her writing and more.

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Di: Hello, thank you for agreeing to spend some time with me for this interview. Would you tell our readers something about yourself, please?

Laila: My name's Laila, and I work as an editor for a website. When I'm not working, I'm usually hanging out with my fiancé and spending time with our two dogs, or I'm writing! I've been writing on Wattpad for about 3 years, mostly romance but a little bit of women's fiction and poetry as well.

Di: Sounds like you have your hands full. Why do you write? What motivated you to become an author?

Laila: It was something I was always interested in. I even took a few creative writing courses in school. I stopped for a little bit and then life dealt me some crappy cards, and that's when I decided to dabble in it again. I found writing to be really therapeutic while I worked through some of that.

I started on Wattpad with poetry, and that really helped me express myself and sort of lighten the load I felt like I was carrying. And then from there, I decided to try my hand at full novels, where I could weasel in some of my feelings, experiences, etc. Writing just felt like a way for me to talk about what happened to me and how I felt without really talking about it, if that makes sense.

Di: It does. It's like expressing your emotions entirely without having to check if the other person gets what you mean. Am I close?

Laila: Yes, exactly! And even if they would get what you mean, sometimes we're not ready to talk about those things. But with a story, you can talk about it without them realizing you're talking about it.

Di: Those hidden gems. When you said you started on Wattpad with poetry, did you mean Wattpad was your starting point? Or have you started before joining Wattpad?

Laila: I wrote poetry before I was on Wattpad. I used to be obsessed with beautiful notebooks, and I'd buy every single one that caught my eye and write like 6 poems before moving on to the next one. :joy: It was more just my thoughts in poem form back then, and once I started posting for others to see, I tried to be a little bit more serious about it.

Di: Hey, fun writing is still writing! How different is writing poetry from writing prose for you?

Laila: Honestly, I always found writing poetry to be much easier. It's just how my thoughts would come to me, which sounds crazy, I know. It was easier to get what was going on inside my head into words in poem form.

But with prose, even though it's harder for me to write something presentable enough to be in a novel, I feel like it gives me more freedom to really dive deep into some of the topics I want to discuss.

Di: It sounds like you don't like one better over the other. Or do you?

Laila: Haha it's hard to choose. I go through phases. I'd say if I had to pick one, it would be prose, because writing novels feels much more rewarding to me.

Di: Where can we read your work? Other than Wattpad of course.

Laila: I am on both Radish and Inkitt, but I'm not very active on either and don't keep my stories updated there. So Wattpad is currently the only spot for my most up-to-date work!

Di: Where is your favorite place to write, and why?

Laila: I actually have my own little office at home. It's purple, which wouldn't come as a surprise to any of my readers or friends, and it's filled with all of my favorite books. There are quite a few Wattpad friends in there as well.

It's actually kind of a funny story. I randomly decided out of nowhere that I wanted an office, so my fiancé took me to get paint and furniture, and he helped me put it all together in like a few days. And then not long after, Covid hit and I was told I would be working from home indefinitely. So my writing space became my workspace as well!

Di: That's neat! Your intuition went through the roof. The office sounds lovely! You mentioned you have a few books by your Wattpad friends. Which are your favorite Wattpad writers/stories?

Laila: Oh no, this is such a hard question! I have so many! If I had to narrow it down to just a few Wattpad favorites, I'd say The Darkness That Consumes the Light by @AndiBlackbird and Behind Closed Curtains by @LittleMinx94. They're both darker romances that cover deep topics such as abuse, addiction, and mental health. That's normally the kind of thing I gravitate toward on Wattpad. Another favorite of mine is Running With Scissors by @Sam_Le_Fou, which is absolutely hilarious.

I'm also a huge fan of mafia romance. It's my guilty pleasure. I love the Tomassi series by @ali-lee, but I believe they were removed for publishing.

Really, anything on my reading lists. I've found so much talent on Wattpad. It's hard to pick favorites.

Di: Outside of Wattpad, is there a book you love to come back to?

Laila: Yes, actually, and it's something no one would expect based on what I read and write here. Rant by Chuck Palahniuk.

Di: I never read that book. What is it about?

Laila: The best way I can describe it is like the most bizarre fever dream. Truly.

It's a "biography" about a character named Buster "Rant" Casey, who you find out in the beginning died in a car crash while participating in what is essentially a demolition derby on city streets—something that's common for the "undesirables" to do in this dystopian world. It's told through several different people who knew him at various stages in his life. He just has so many insane, disturbing experiences. It gets more and more weird the further you read, and by the end, you're questioning life all together.

Di: Back to your own writing! Is there a subject(s) you cannot write about?

Laila: While I do mix in a lot of darker topics into my stories, such as abuse, trauma, and pretty explicit violence, I find it hard to write about sexual assault and rape. I've actually had a story idea for awhile that revolves around a survivor navigating the justice system to seek justice against her attacker, but it drains me working on it. I've set it aside for now.

Other than that, nothing comes to mind. I mean, there are entire genres I can't write.

Di: Such as?

Laila: Fantasy and sci-fi! I just don't have the level of creativity needed to create an entire new world or all these crazy cool sci-fi elements. My current ongoing book Opalescent sort of has a fantasy element to it, and Distortion has a bit of sci-fi mixed in there, but I am amazing by people who can write those genres.

Di: Just as I saw the beginning of your reply, I wanted to say that Distortion has a sci-fi element, and I must say, it gave the story a whole different feel. In a good way. I think you might be successful in sci-fi if you tried.

Since we touched Distortion, our Book of the Month. For readers who are not familiar with the story. It revolves around domestic abuse. What made you write about this topic?

Laila: It's a topic that's near and dear to my heart, but it's so often brushed under the rug and not spoken about. Just looking through comments on Wattpad stories that touch on abuse, you'll see a lot of "why didn't she just leave?" or "she's so stupid for excusing his behavior", and I think that demonstrates how little people understand the mindset of someone trapped in an abusive relationship.

In addition to that, I feel that people think it's happening a lot less often than it is. Globally, 1 in 3 women will endure physical abuse from a partner. One in three (and in case that fraction looks familiar, many of us on Wattpad changed our profile pictures to "1 in 3" for the first week of October to raise awareness for Domestic Violence Awareness Month). But that's just women. It stretches across all genders, races, religions, etc. It affects everyone.

While I get that they mean no harm and simply don't understand, it can be hurtful to see. It's not easy to leave. Abusers use a lot of strategies to get you to stay—emotional manipulation, isolation, fear, financial abuse. There is so much more that goes into it aside from "wanting to stay."

So I wanted to write a story that focuses on this topic and that puts readers in the shoes of the person trapped so that they could see her thought processes, see the manipulation, see the hot-and-cold of his personality, and my hope would be that it helps the reader be more empathetic and more compassionate toward people in these situations. And maybe that would also push them to be more involved in donating, volunteering, or even just keeping an eye out for signs of abuse and being a supportive helping hand.

Di: In my opinion you achieved just that with Distortion, read my review to see my thoughts. 

Is domestic violence a topic you choose to address in your stories regularly? Or is Distortion the only story with such a theme?

Laila: It actually makes an appearance in all three books of my Nefarious series, with three very different women, reactions to it, and journeys to move past it. But Distortion is the only one where it's a central plot line.

Di: What was the hardest thing about writing Distortion?

Laila: Probably trying to make sense of Ariella's conflicting thoughts and feelings and putting them down on virtual paper. With a topic that's so important and so misunderstood, you want to write it just right so that people don't automatically jump to "she's dumb" or "she makes no sense." If you can't help them follow her thought process, you risk them losing the entire point of the story. 

That, and just overall, writing something so close to your heart is very hard. It's difficult to not take it personally when it doesn't get as many reads as your other stories or doesn't perform as well. When the novella version was knocked out of ONC, it was hard to not take that to heart. But hey, I re-wrote it, extended it, and now it's featured as an Editor's Pick, so I suppose that loss gave me the push I needed to make it into something better and more fleshed out.

Di: You mentioned the topic is very close to your heart and it is that more important for you to get the point of the story across right. How do you deal with your emotions while writing your stories? Do you put your feelings into your characters?

Laila: Yes, definitely. A lot of Ariella's thoughts and feelings are my true feelings. Many of her scenes were actually really easy to write because, kind of like I said above, I was able to talk about it without people knowing I'm talking about it.

One of my close friends here beta read for me, and there were several times where she was like, "I see a lot of Laila in here" :joy: The one that comes to mind off the top of my head is the part where I talk about telling everybody you're fine because that's the "polite" thing to do. That whole section was written before I ever even had the idea for this story, it was just in poem form in an unpublished draft somewhere.

Di: That part was very touching. And it was true to be fair, people somehow seem to always expect to hear a positive answer to that question. Why ask then?

Have you ever had a reader come to you. One who would find themselves, or a loved one, in your story?

Laila: Exactly! I don't want to discourage people from asking, but don't put this burden on them to hold everything in. Ask because you genuinely want to offer support.

And yes, I've actually had quite a few people reach out to me and share their experiences with me after reading. Hearing other peoples' journeys through something similar and how much my story meant to them has been very heartwarming. And they are all just so strong, and many of them have done extraordinary things to help raise awareness and hopefully, one day, put an end to domestic violence.

Di: That's beautiful. I believe that the sole fact of seeing they are not the only one helps them on their journey to recovery.

Laila: Definitely! During the "1 in 3" profile picture campaign, we saw a lot of people coming together to share their experiences and reaching out to one another. Understanding that you're not alone has a huge impact.

Di: I love the soundtrack (spotify playlist). I am listening to it while we speak, actually. I found quite a few of my favorite songs on it. Are those songs you randomly listened to while writing? Or did you choose each song for each chapter with a purpose?

Laila: Yes, I love this question!!! I am HUGE on music. I add a song to every single chapter of every story I write (and for my trilogy, I didn't repeat a song once!)

I actually can't listen to music while I write, but I make a playlist for each book I work on, and I listen to a few songs from it to get me in the mood to write. The songs I attach sometimes are meaningful to the chapter (for example, Peaches by Grandson toward the end of Distortion), and sometimes the sound just sets a mood (Doin' Time by Lana Del Ray just has this dreamy sound to it that I felt really fit in with how Distortion began).

But yes, each song is chosen with a purpose!
Curious which ones were your favorites?

Di: I thought so, I haven't actually listen to them when I read the story because youtube is wonky on my Wattpad app and almost never plays the song for me. But I listened to them afterwards and it felt like that perfect song to set the mood when the credits of a movie come. I really regretted not making the playlist before reading then :D

My favorites before I got familiar with your list were: Snow by RHCP, Help I'm Alive by Metric, Sexy Boy by Air (I am a huge fan of Air, almost every song by them is my favorite hehe), and Three Wishes by The Pierces.

But believe me, the whole list went straight to my favs XD I think we've got very similar taste in music.

Laila: Ahhhh I love Metric and Air! Well all of them, since I chose them :joy: but yes! I've never met anyone who knows of those two!!!

Di: I find that hard to believe! Such amazing bands! But then again, the rest of your playlist is amazing and I didn't know those songs. So who am I to judge. Hehe.

So to wrap this up. What are the projects you are working on now?

Laila: Currently, I'm working on a story called Opalescent. It's set in a world very similar to our own with one minor difference—you see in black and white until you touch your soulmate. It's about a man who is skeptical about soulmates and was already very much in love with his girlfriend, but while picking up coffee, a woman brushes by him and suddenly, he can see in color for the first time. 

The whole story is about the idea of fate—giving in to it, challenging it, does the universe know better than we do? Etc.

Di: It sounds very interesting! 

I will wish you luck with your writing, with your life, and everything really. Thank you so much for making the time to talk to me.

Laila: Of course! Thank you for giving me this opportunity! It was really fun!

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This is where we tell Laila goodbye. Don't be shy to reach out to her in case you have any questions regarding her stories, or anything really. She is such a beautiful person and very easy to talk to. I promise.

The awerness profile picture was made by our Laila.