I am very quiet upon first meeting. I'm a natural observer, so I tend to watch people before I start talking, or let them do most of the talking. But once I get to know you, I can get pretty chatty! Also, though I tend to dress fashionably, and love cute things, I definitely have a dark streak.

Writing is my hobby! I work as a designer during the day, so to unwind I sit down and write. It's something that's completely different from my daily work, so it's a nice way to calm down while still being creative. Being creative is something that's very important to me.

I am incredibly pale... Almost like a vampire. I also have very light blonde hair so it's pretty easy to pick me out. I'll blind you. ;)

If I were vampire, I think I'd be most excited about being able to live forever... All that time to finish as many projects as I like! If I were a witch, I'd figure out how to stop time so I could, work on all my projects. Hm, recurring theme.

My username is simply my pseudonym/pen name. I chose it because I like the name Yvette and Russell is my Grandfather's name... and also because it was available on Twitter and Wattpad.

I joined Wattpad five years ago, which seems insane now. It's kind of a funny story. I was wasting time on the Internet, and I stumbled across an article about the most popular characters/celebrities in fanfiction. Having grown up reading fanfic, I was curious, so I clicked through. I was shocked to find that Taylor Lautner topped the list. I, obviously, knew that Twilight was big, but I was sure that there was no way it could compete with older, bigger fandoms like Harry Potter, Star Trek, and Lord of the Rings.

But it wasn't an old site, like fanfiction.net, that had years upon years of fanfic from thousands of fandoms. This was a new site... called Wattpad.

The more I looked into it, I realized that Wattpad wasn't just for fanfiction. People also published their original fiction there. And since I had just finished my first novel—At Death's Door—for NaNoWriMo, I figured that I might as well post it there.

The rest is history. :)

I don't know if I could break it down into twenty points! I really love the variety of Wattpad. You can post anything and everything on there (I mean, within reason). You can try out any genre and fans will find you. It's incredible.

Wattpad has changed so much over the years! It's really impressive how the team has grown the community. There are some speedbumps with implementing new features, but I'm really excited about the direction the site is going in.

The only thing that I find a little frustrating about Wattpad is how some readers approach the work on the site. While I appreciate when people point out typos or errors, it can get frustrating when people expect perfection. Wattpad authors, for the most part, don't have professional editors to give them feedback and fix stuff for them. Most people don't realize how much work it takes to truly make a finished, polished piece of writing... Even traditionally published books have errors, and they have a full team of people to work with them. When it's just you, working on your own, you can't fix/catch everything.

So that's something I encourage everyone to keep in mind. ;)

Writing books isn't something I've always done, but I've always been a storyteller. When I was younger, I used to draw comics and make movies with my friends. I actually started writing books for practice before I attempted making a graphic novel. It's kind of gotten beyond that now, hahaha!

I have none of my 'optional' parts; I don't have tonsils, an appendix, or my wisdom teeth.

My friends and I used to make short horror films when we were in high school. A few of them are still somewhere on YouTube...

Each of my characters—each and every one—has an aspect of myself in them, typically a flaw. For example, from The Psychic Next Door, Rachel is my insecurity, Polly is my temper, Luc is my anxiety, Tory is my insatiable curiosity, etc.

Luc was originally intended to be a demon because the earliest, earliest draft of The Psychic Next Door started out as a prompt for a paranormal romance featuring a demon. That, obviously, has changed!

Regarding the last point, Luc's name was original Lucifer (dumb, I know) but when I ditched the demon angle before I started posting on Wattpad, I shortened it. It's pronounced like "Luke"; he's French (from Quebec).

Rachel's parents are super-religious, which is why she isn't in contact with them/doesn't have a good relationship with them. In high school she had to go live with her grandmother before she died, then she lived with Rick's parents for a brief time before they went to college together.

Polly hasn't found herself attracted to anyone—guy or girl—in a long, long time. She isn't really bothered by it.

My favourite foods are lefse, uni sushi (sea urchin), and tomatoes.

My favourite movies are Hot Fuzz, Jane Eyre (the one from 2011), and The Orphanage.

I love cats. Like, I seriously ADORE them. In my mind, no house is a home without a cat.

Despite being decidedly non-religious, I love Christmas.

My idea wedding would be Halloween themed and I wouldn't wear white, I'd wear black (or dark red).

I am NOT a morning person. Waking up on time is one of my biggest struggles.

I have a hard time reading novels before bed because I have the tendency to want to keep reading until I'm done. So I usually only read non-fiction books before bed... but that can lead to some seriously weird dreams.

I really like reading about diseases, especially the bubonic plague.

My biggest goal in life is to create a graphic novel.

I'm dyslexic, which makes my hobby of writing a bit of a struggle.

I wear a lot of black. Partially because I like dark things and lean a little towards the Goth look, but also because I'm hopelessly clumsy and spill things on myself all the time, and black hide stains well.

I hate the summer, mostly because I hate being too hot. My favourite seasons are Spring and Fall.

I really, really someone would create an entirely waterproof laptop so I could write in the bath.

I don't have a name for them, but I just want to say... Thank you! Fans is not something I ever really expected to have, so I'm both eternally surprised and grateful. I don't know if I would've kept up with writing books if it weren't for you!

I'm not sure, honestly. I don't really have plans for my writing career (could I even call it that). It's just something I enjoy doing... But I think I'd like to try traditional publishing. I've done casually posting work, I've done self-publishing, so I'd be interested in trying something new.

Honestly, I haven't been in school for a while. This will take a trip down memory lane...

Even though I went to an art college, and love art, in high school I really hated art class. The class was more focussed on simple, inane projects for beginners and slackers, and there wasn't anything for those who were actually interested in art (ex. me) who really wanted to develop their skills. Still bitter, hahaha!

My favourite class was Media Arts. I got to spend half the day making movies, learning how to use editing and animation software, and building websites.

As I mentioned earlier, I just love storytelling. I've always been an avid reader (my friends would hide books from me so I wouldn't get distracted) and I've been drawing comics and making movies since I was a kid. There's always a million threads of stories in my head.

That being said, my visual background has served me well as a writer. I picture scenes very clearly in my head, so it's easy to describe it when I write. And when I'm planning out stories, sometimes I'll even storyboard scenes—especially if there's a lot of action—to make sure I have a solid picture of what goes where when I write it out.

Fortunately, I think I got all of my Mary Sue writing out when I was a young. But that's not to say there's anything wrong with including part of yourself in your characters, emphasis on part. All of my characters have aspects of myself in them, even the villains. For example, in The Psychic Next Door, Rachel reflected a lot of my insecurities from living on my own for the first time... I mean, I wasn't dumped like she was, but there's definitely common ground between us. Polly has my temper, and my tenaciousness, but I'm not suffering from the mental after-effects of losing a sibling.

State your biggest pet peeves, obsessions, habits (bad and good), wishes and desires?

Pet Peeve: People who keep trying to talk to me when I'm obviously working or reading!

Obsession: CATS! I love them, I come from a long line of cat lovers.

Good Habits: Pushing myself to learn new things if I don't understand them.

Bad Habits: Sleeping in.

Wishes/Desires: To become rich, just so I don't need a job... so I can spend my day working on my million side projects, ahaha!

Oh man, this is a tough question. I get ideas everywhere. Sometimes seeing something, or experiencing something, will light a little flame. Other times, I just think... "I want to write a haunted house story." Sometimes I'll start in one place, expecting the story will follow a certain vein, and the story will end up somewhere else completely!

One example... My friend sent me a call for submissions for a short erotic novella (sub 30,000 words), and I figured I'd give it a shot. I wrote the first chapter, but as I started the second, I quickly realized that I am way too bashful to write sex scenes. HA! But I liked the first chapter enough that I took it in a different direction... And that was the first chapter of The Psychic Next Door!

As for genres, I love writing horror. I have loved horror my entire life... the creeping fear, the shock, the twists and turns. But I actually really struggle with writing romance. I am not a fan of romantic comedies, so I try to avoid mush, but I enjoy a challenge, so I'm interested in expanding those skills.

It would be an alien world that is mostly water, like Jupiter's moon Europa. Thinking of the kind of creatures that would evolve to survive there is both exciting and frightening. Giant squid-like creatures, huge crabs, creepy mermaids... There's so much potential! Okay... now I want to write this story. Dammit.

A zombie apocalypse? It depends where I was, honestly. I used to have a lot of nightmares about zombies (apparently when I'm stressed, this is how my brain deals with it), and it got to the point where I had to come up with a contingency plan just to calm myself down after I woke up. I ended up designing zombie-proof, self-sustained housing (yes, I'm that much of a nerd). So, if I had time to build/retreat to there, then yes! Otherwise, I don't know. As for zombies being real, I could see some kind of variant of rabies suiting the bill, but the person would still need to be alive for that, so they couldn't technically be dead. And they'd be a lot easier to kill.

As for a vampire attack, depends on the vampire! Maybe I'd try to blend in. I am pale enough... If they were going to be real though, it would have to be some kind of disease, like some kind of anemia that was so severe that it required the person to drink blood directly... But that certainly wouldn't make them super strong or fast.

I can't say I believe concretely, but I have some strange experiences that have made me wonder.

My only good advice is to write, keep writing, never stop. And also open yourself up to feedback. Don't get defensive, just try to consider the perspective of your reviewer—especially if they have a lot of experience! You can always make something better.

If I had something to say! If I'm enjoying the story, I don't say anything unless something truly awesome/surprising happened. If I'm not enjoying it... I just tend to stop reading it rather than saying why. I'm just a lurker!

The cover is the first impression. The old saying goes "don't judge a book by a cover" but people totally do. With the hundreds of thousands of books available—on Wattpad and off—you need something to initially grab the reader's attention, and that's the cover's job.

The cover is the first impression. The old saying goes "don't judge a book by a cover" but people totally do. With the hundreds of thousands of books available—on Wattpad and off—you need something to initially grab the reader's attention, and that's the cover's job.

A lot of those stories can be cliché, it's true. Recycled characters, predictable plots, clunky dialogue...but those are problems any story can suffer from. No story is entirely original, after all! So it all depends on execution. But if you can bring something new and interesting to the story, then it can still feel fresh.

That being said, the ones that portray stalking/controlling behaviour as romantic make me roll my eyes. Blech.

The hardest part to master, at least for me, is creating dialogue that fits each character's voice. I mean, creating natural dialogue is pretty easy, but making it signature to a certain person or character is harder. Everyone has their own way of talking, right? Their own style, their own tics. It's hard to capture that, but I'm working on it.

As for making stories less interesting... I think it's when, well, nothing happens, or if the story spends too much time flip-flopping around. For an example, it can be pretty interesting reading about a character's struggle with whether or not they have feelings for someone. But if you spend too much time going back and forth on that, the reader will lose interest.

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