Tell us a little about yourself and your background?
My name is Becky, I am currently 28 years old and I live in Portsmouth, which is a city along the South Coast of the UK. As well as fiction writing, I am also a singer/songwriter and my music has been used professionally on various TV shows and adverts around the world. I am signed with a music publishing company and this summer I was involved with a few songwriting camps around Europe, working with hit writers on songs for the Asian Pop Market and also for Eurovision! When I am not working on creative projects, I am at my day job which is a shop assistant in a student art shop. I have been through many horrible day jobs in my life from Blockbuster Videos to stock control in Homebase, so I am really happy to finally be in a lovely day job with a creative atmosphere and hours that fit around my other endeavors.
I am a big fan of anything cute and quirky. I love Disney, manga and Hello Kitty. I am also a huge fan of Taylor Swift and female singer/songwriters. I am an only child and I’ve lived in Portsmouth my whole life, but I absolutely love to travel and have adventures. I live in a little flat with my boyfriend of almost 9 years, we are always laughing together and we love collecting weird things for our flat such as Tetris Lamps and abstract cat posters.
My current books are in the boy x boy genre, which is a style I love reading and writing about. However, I would love to tackle more genres and social issues in the future. I really hope to reach young people with my writing and hopefully make a small difference to people out there who might be reading,
Which writers inspire you?
Growing up, my biggest inspiration was Jaqueline Wilson and her books have definitely been a huge influence to my own writing. I am a big Harry Potter fan so JK Rowling has to be up there and I also love many contemporary writers such as Meg Cabot, Sophie Kinsella, John Green, Maureen Johnson and Louise Rennison. Right now my favourite writers and new obsessions are Louise O’Neil and Holly Smale’s Geek Girl series.
Have you written any other novels in collaboration with other writers?
No, that is something I haven’t done before – but I would definitely be willing to collaborate with the right writer!
When did you decide to become a writer?
Because music has been such a big creative focus in my life, when I first started writing Reasons To Love A Nerd Like Me two years ago I really only saw it as a side hobby for a bit of fun. In my mind, music was what I was pursuing professionally and fiction writing was just a hobby. In the past, I had written a few fanfictions for fun that had been well received, but I had never finished a full-length original novel before.
I happened to stumble across the free-read website Wattpad and decided to post up the start of my story to see if anyone would like it. To my great surprise, the story took off with readers around the world and gained over 2.5 million reads and thousands of comments by the time I had finished the last chapter. Thanks to the motivation from my Wattpad fans, I decided to edit the book for an official Kindle release and try and take my writing to the next level. I am so thankful to everyone who has supported me on the site because they have helped me to discover a brand new dream I never knew I had!
Do you write full-time or part-time?
Sadly writing is not my day job, but I try and write a little bit every day either before or after work!
Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just see where an idea takes you?
I usually have a vague outline for the story as a whole and very clear scenes in my head for the beginning, middle and end. I also try and write brief outlines for each chapter, but I don’t like to follow them strictly because sometimes when I’m writing, the characters take on a life of their own and decide to take the story in a very different direction!
Do you have a strategy for finding reviewers?
I try and search as many different formats as possible for reviewers from Tumblr to Facebook to Instagram. There are some fantastic Book Blogger directories out there and they have been very helpful for finding the right people to review my book.
What are your thoughts on good/bad reviews?
It’s always wonderful hearing positive feedback on your own writing and when I get good reviews it definitely boosts my self-esteem and gives me a huge burst of motivation.
Bad reviews are much harder to take, but when the criticism is constructive then I think it’s important to hear it. Although I don’t like it when reviewers don’t back up their criticism or have a belittling tone in their review. You can tell which reviewers are genuinely trying to help and give good advice, and which ones are just bashing you to try and make you feel bad!
How can readers discover more about you and you work?
I can be contacted on all kinds of links on the net! Here are just a few places to reach me:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beckyjerams/
Twitter: @beckyjerams
Tumblr: beckyjerams.tumblr.com
Website: www.beckyjerams.com
Any Comments for the Blog readers?
Thank you for reading! I’d love to hear from you and I hope some of you out there will be interested in Scotty and his love story 🙂
Any feedback for me or the blog?
Thank you for such a friendly welcome to your lovely blog and for such interesting and thoughtful questions. You are doing a great job and your site is so creative and full of interesting content!
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