[Madhu, After Dark] Marina! *I love your name* 

[Marina Vega, Featured Author] Thank you! Marina is perfect. It's actually my real name. I did mess around with the idea of using a character name for myself in my story, and for the first couple weeks that's exactly what I did, it was Marcy. It definitely made it easier to initially post like that and kind of get things moving, but eventually I felt like it took away from the fact that this is Non Fiction. It's real, when you're reading something like that, a memoir, and the main character's name isn't even real it makes you question things. Writing memoirs is a very intimate thing between the writer and the reader, it's like a secret between strangers, and I feel like the only way for it to work is to be completely open, making whoever is on the other end feel like they know you personally, and this is so close to me, I didn't want to jeopardize that trust.

[M] That happened to me too. I started out with a totally weird name, but eventually put up my real name here. So, I feel ya!
Could you tell us a bit more about your book, How To Be A Horrible Person?

[Marina] Of course, How To Be A Horrible Person is my story around High School. It's personal like a diary, but it's told as if I'm telling a friend what happened.

On a base level it's the story of the friends that were my family, quite literally, and the boy that I gave my virginity too. Who ended up sleeping with one of those best friends. A good little teen love gone wrong. but on a deeper level, because let's be honest there has to be a deeper meaning lol I mean it's a good story on its own, you truly can't make up that good of drama, but at the end of the day what do you get out of it besides my past story?

that's really important to me because when it comes to other people (I'm not an asshole or anything) but I usually don't care when it comes to whining or past drama. I think that's ok though I think a lot of people are like that too and I think that that's why a lot of people have a hard time writing memoir because you want to be real and express emotion but without seeming like you're venting

so to me it's really important that people get something out of it too and I think they do, because it's also in a way a lot about everyone's first time, falling in love and learning to trust people and to be vulnerable at that age when you are not quite an adult but also not a kid, and everything hurts but you just have to keep trying to not let it suck your soul or your innocence away and change you too much. A little is ok, just not too much

it's about learning to be open to all of that love and firsts with an understanding that there are bad things that happen, and that there are people that don't always have your best interest at heart, but not letting those experiences make you a horrible person at the end of the day.

I like writing in little tidbits of info I picked up and had wished I had learned before too, for example early on I described what it was like having a guy go down on me for the first time and how terrifying it was as a girl having not seen what my own vagina looked like, then having this guy. this guy I liked with his face down there. I later learned, I mean i guess girls are suppose to put a hand mirror down there to check it out? get familiar with your business. I had no idea. I truly hope

someone reads that and it saves them a lot of embarrassment, and wonder,because they can confidently say they are familiar with all of their own body. I like to think in that way I am passing on a little bit of girl wisdom, I didn't have. I know how hard it is being a girl and having no one to rely upon for woman advice besides other girls your own age. Which BTW is not a awesome resource on its own, because i mean they also don't know lol. The people that have read How To Be A Horrible Person are also really great at commenting and sharing their own personal story's in the comments section also, so I'm hoping that means that people can relate and it helps in someway, even if it's just to laugh at the stuff that makes us wanna cry, because I think that sometimes we need to remember to do that too.

Also feel free to let me know if there are any restrictions in my speech I need to be aware of! I totally should have asked you before we started, but I assumed since my book is mature and this is how I talk in the book, like very conversational, that it would be ok to use profanity and say vagina whenever I please, I will try to key it down if you need me too though, no worries.

[M] It's kind of inspiring that you're writing down your story for others to read and that I suppose, would take immense courage to do, at least on my part. I honestly look up to you now!
And, you are free to talk about what you want to :P
It's great that you're here today with us, but could you tell us how you stumbled across Wattpad? And what did you first think of it?

[Marina] Aw thank you, that really means a lot, no it was def hard to put everything up for the first time, you're not alone there. I actually just wrote the first few chapters as something just for me but then I didn't want to stop.. I was originally planning on throwing them away but I've always been in love with writing and I just couldn't after a while. I read a little to my current boyfriend. He thought it was funny and sad, I don't think he's ever seen anything like that from me, something that was so me, my personality and voice, and he encouraged me to keep going with it. I mean professionally, because I wasn't going to stop writing anyways.

I struggled with not editing it in the beginning, when I wrote it it was very much for my eyes only and I cringed at the thought of people reading all of that, but I promised myself that if I was going to do this I would do it right and continue to write like no one was going to ever see it, then post it, it got easier, especially because I found alot of people think it is just a story, that it's not real.

I used to love sites like fan fiction when I was younger, before I found Non Fiction I would try to write fiction, or poetry, nothing really clicked though, and I always ended up writing some fan fiction that was based on my life or experiences I had using other characters. It wasnt good. In case anyone thought it might be lol. I honestly don't know why I made it so hard on myself and didn't discover Non Fiction earlier, but all I can say is it does have a bad rap sometimes, for the everyday person to think they can try, the only books in that genre I had seen before were like Anne Franks diary, famous people, or they were very sad, it wasn't until I discovered books like Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo, Home is Burning by Dan Marshall, and Mary karr's liars club that I realized memoir can be written by regular people and they can be cool and funny even in the tragedy of it.

I plan on publishing How To Be A Horrible Person and watt pad seemed like that fan fiction platform I was used to for real books, like the perfect place to test it out, I really just wanted to see what people's reaction to it was, if there

was an interest in the story, and to have a place to get feedback from people that were actually reading it, no one knows about this story in my real life except my boyfriend who is very supportive but Is not allowed to read it right now lol

Wattpad is an awesome place and I've gotten a lot of great feedback from it, people telling me they relate to it and are following the story, asking me when it will update, which is still crazy to me, it's definitely given me the push to make it even better as the first 6 chapters up are just my rough drafts.

[M] WOW! It's awesome how you've been able to keep at it, challenged yourself to write and have reached this level.
I find that very motivating and inspiring, and I cannot seem to be able to tell that to you enough!
But, I'd love to know more about your profile picture. You've mentioned that it is a picture of you with the sensor over your eyes in your bio, Confession: I did stalk you! :P
And I'm super curious to know, why the sensor?

[Marina] Thank you so much, I think I've definitely grown a level too, the openness and not caring so much what other people think about it factor for sure. There is this book Wetlands by Charlotte Roche that really helped me realize that it's ok to say things that maybe should stay in your head, that people are ok with that, if you haven't read Wetlands, it's a trip, the most uncensored book I've probably ever read. Authors like Chuck Palahniuk are my favorite for that reason, but I have a lot to go as far as learning goes...and editing lol I'm still very much in learning mode!

lol I think everyone has stalked someone on social media at least once, if not there lying. There are a few reasons for the censor bar. I wanted to have a real profile picture of me up, I felt like that was important to me, but I also didn't want it to take away from me being completely open in my writing, I think I would have a lot harder time saying what I wanted to say especially the sex parts if people could see all of me and I didn't want to take away from that, I'm actually a very private person in real life, What people are hearing is what I would tell my best friends, I think people think I'm comfortable speaking like that to strangers in my day to day but it's just not true.

I've always been an open and honest person but I reserve my bluntness for those I love the most, lucky them, also the parts I have on wattpad are very much unfinished to me, even if they don't seem like it, and I would never show someone something unfinished usually, so In a way the users that see this story here are very special and close to me, even if they are complete strangers I wouldn't want anyone that knows me in my life to read this, I'm not saying never but not until it's finished at least, I think thats fair, even then I'm not dying for anyone to read it though, it would make it very difficult to write.

I think because of that there has to be some sort of anonymity in it for me. I've never really wanted to be "known" if I was a famous person I would probably be happy being Sia in the big wig that hides her face, because of that I try to be as open as I can while still maintaining my privacy, hence the censor bar, but the real picture, my real first name, with the last name Vega which is totally a pen name, I'm not going into detail about my vagina then putting my last name up here for randoms to search. Let's be real.

Before I publish the final version of my story, I'm going to send some copies to some of the people in it, for consideration, probably just the people I still talk to or would have a chance to read this elsewhere. I feel like thats polite, but until then it would just make things complex and weird lol it also wouldn't really be for anything.

I have been asked before if I would send this to Terence after I'm finished with it, and the truth is I don't know. Ive thought about it. I would probably be interested in reading a book about me if he wrote one, so it seems fair, but I don't feel an overwhelming need too and i'm not really sure what it would do, and he also makes me uncomfortable as fuck, so I think i'm going to have to pass on that.

Im also pretty sure he doesnt want me to break up with him and then send him a book about it seven years later. Terence was my first but I was his Tenth. He was this older guy to me but I was just his girlfriend that was still in Highschool. I'm very reserved, I don't think he ever got how big a piece in my life he was and realistically, it would mean nothing now anyways.

[M] I still think that you're the most courageous person I met!
I'm sure that the people that are a part of your life would feel proud of you!
:P Random question, but what are your pet peeves?

[Marina] Thank you, it's funny because a lot of people have said that to me. I had a girl that even wrote an entire review of my story that mainly stated how brave I was and how it's not fair that life made me struggle so much, and it upsets me sometimes because people go through a lot worse then that, I mean in the grand scheme of things it's nothing, I wasn't held as a prisoner of war or starved to the brink of death, so I'm not complaining too much, but I am glad that the emotions come through in the writing to make people feel that way. I think it's something that can hit home for most considering it's a topic a lot can find something relatable in

As far as my writing goes I think a pet peeve of mine is when people assume this happened yesterday for me lol it's really not there fault because if someone is just reading it it happened to them yesterday but, and I know this is weird but it happened so long ago it's not something I really think about anymore, especially with everyone having different names in my writing I forget sometimes this really happened. it's more like a movie I watched a really long time ago and know all too well, until I actually have to write a chapter of the story. I think people forget that to really truly write about something like this you have to be over it on some level or it wouldn't be true, if I wrote this five years ago when it was still fresh, all those nice little analysis of Terrence cutting him slack or writing about the good things would have been gone and replaced with something bad lol. I didn't even really remember all the good things until I started writing this, it would be one sided that way, and How To Be A Horrible Person would have probably been about how I thought he was a Horrible Person, not me, the people we make ourselves after the world happens to us for the first time, and who cares about that really?

My childhood is actually something that is still hard for me to talk about which is why I didn't start there in memoir. I still have a lot more perspective to gain in that area, but I'm excited for when I get there! Woo more books

A personal pet peeve of mine is when women put other women down for no reason, like if two girls like the same guy so they have to hate each other. I have never understood that. I can understand jealousy, but you win by bettering yourself and not worrying what other girls are doing. If you have to put someone down to win a guy over, if he doesn't already see you, he's not worth it, and if you already have a guy and are worried about him not staying in his lane, you don't fix it by getting on every girl that has your same taste in guys. Blatant disrespect for your relationship is one thing but most of the time, I read once a quote that said, "how can you expect girls to stay in there own lane if your man hasn't defined a lane for them to stay in" and it's true, us girls have to stick together.

[M] Well, I do agree with that! When you're in a relationship, you have to respect the other and their feelings too.
Well, I'm sure that you'd do well with How To Be A Horrible Person and your future books as well!
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us!

[Marina] Not at all, Thank you! I really appreciate you taking the time out to give me my first interview. This was fun, also for those interested in hearing more about How To Be A Horrible Person feel free to follow me here on Wattpad @marina-vega I love hearing from people