BLOCK PARTY FEATURED AUTHOR: Blair Holden

ABOUT: I’m a twenty-one year old college student who lives on caffeine and chocolate. You’ll find me alternating between juggling mountains of textbooks and writing romance stories for now over 180K readers! I’ve been on Wattpad for nearly four years now and it’s been such a crazy journey. To know that so many people around the world read my work is so overwhelming!

WATTPAD BLOCK PARTY STORY: An Interview with Cole and Talon

SHORT SYNOPSIS: My post is a collaboration with a fellow Teen Fiction writer Lindsey Summers aka @DoNotMicrowave of ‘The Cell Phone Swap’  fame who’ll also be posting in the Block Party. During my turn we’ll be interviewing the male leads of our respective stories, Cole and Talon who have received a lot of love from the readers. 

LINK: http://www.wattpad.com/103351698-the-wattpad-block-party-an-interview-with-cole-and

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: 

Who are your favorite authors?  

Honestly that’s an impossible question to answer. I think it depends on whom I prefer as a reader and as a writer. As a writer I’m obsessed with contemporary YA authors like Rainbow Rowell, Stephanie Perkins, Colleen Hoover, Meg Cabot etc because those are the people whose writing I’d like to emulate in a way. As a reader, I’ve been introduced to a lot of new writers recently and love everyone from Chekov to Austen to Rowling. 

"The Bad Boy's Girl" has been read more than 115 million times!! What's your secret?

Haha, there is none! I’m very lucky to have found readers who love my story and characters as much as they do. I couldn’t believe it when TBBG crossed 1 million reads so to see that it has over 100 million reads is a little overwhelming and something I still can’t explain. 

What was the inspiration for the story you wrote for the Block Party? 

For me, participating in the Block Party was a way of giving back to the readers. Lindsey got in touch with me regarding doing something together and I thought it would make our readers really happy given that we have more or less the same audience.  

What's your writing routine? 

It’s difficult to set a fixed routine for writing given the fact that I do go to school full time. Usually I won’t find time to post during the week and I’ll do most of my writing during the weekend. It all depends how hard my professors are pushing me at the moment. I’ll still make an effort to do some writing even during the more gruelling points of the semester so yes that usually involves several cups of coffee and a lot of late nights in the library. 

How did you discover Wattpad? How often do you check in & engage with readers? 

My best friend introduced me to Wattpad around when I was eighteen and I was mostly a silent reader for a year and a half. I just fell in love with the idea of it, of having so many stories within our reach and getting the opportunity to talk to my favourite writers. When I started writing myself, I made it a mission to interact as much with my readers as possible. I write quite long and rambling author’s notes at the end of my books so that my readers know what’s going on in my life. Instagram and Twitter have also become great tools of engagement and I use them daily as well as sending out messages regularly from my Wattpad account. 

When I'm not writing I’m: Studying, sleeping or eating but mostly studying! 

What's you favorite thing about Wattpad?  

The immediate feedback and support! I’ll post a chapter and have over a hundred wonderful and encouraging comments ten minutes later which is just the best thing.

What can we expect from you next?

You’ll definitely find me writing and uploading on Wattpad! In other exciting news, I did sign with Alexander Slater of Trident Media Agency a couple of months back and *fingers crossed* that it results in something exciting for both me and everyone who reads my books. 

Again, thank you for the interview!

Our pleasure, Blair!