Greetings Younglings,
For this month's edition, we had the chance to talk with Pooja Pathak about her featured jealously and romance stories!

About the Author
I'm a daydreamer and a romance brewer from India. I work as a Software Engineer for my day job, so writing is like therapy, something that keeps me sane and allows me to share stories in my head with the world out there. I mostly write romance stories with complex yet real characters. My stories tend to have a deep emotional touch and often turn out to be tear-jerking. When I'm not working on a business scenario, you can find me at my desk, writing love stories.

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About the Book of the Month - The Kiss Equation

I started my journey on Wattpad with my first YA romance series Dear Augustus. It's a two-part novella series on the themes of first love and second chances. From there, I developed a pattern of brewing immersive, sometimes painful, but mostly heart-warming love stories. The Kiss Equation is a standalone spin-off novella from The Dear Augustus series that revolves around Daisy Eve, who has a problem with romance and is nearly heartbroken by the love of her life. In comes the infamous best kisser of her school, Aelius Carter Hayes, and what starts as a deal to get back the boy she is in love with turns into something entirely unintentional but hard to resist.

Also, my Wattys shortlisted novels Crush and Soulmates are a blend of YA and NA romances with swoon-worthy characters and soul-crushing backstories.

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1. Could you take us back to the beginning and share your journey of writing on Wattpad? What inspired you to start writing here?
Wattpad has been a second home to the random stories running in my mind. To begin with my journey, I would say, I started as a Wattpad reader and advanced towards joining the troop of so many young and talented authors around the world. For me, sharing my stories with a larger audience is always a motivator. When I first started writing, I wasn't very sure about my words, but the response I got from readers made me feel more confident about my passion. And Wattpad is a great platform to interact directly with your readers and get their feedback on your story as you write. It keeps me motivated to write regularly and polish my skills through continuous feedback.

2. The story captures the theme of a one-sided crush and jealousy, as experienced by Daisy. Can you share with us what inspired you to write about this particular theme and how you made it a unique representation in your writing?
I love writing about one-sided crushes or first loves and having a character go through with it and also learning to accept that love is not based on ideas or thoughts we have about it but mutual feelings and emotions. Daisy, in some ways, represents my younger self, crazy, reckless, stubborn, and so very clueless about her life choices. I've tried giving a realistic touch to the way events progressed, leading Daisy toward the love of her life while also realizing her worth in a relationship.

3. If Daisy had not accepted Aelius's kiss dare, how do you imagine the story would have unfolded differently? Would Aelius have continued his pursuit, or would things have taken a different direction?
Aelius had always been into Daisy, and I think the kiss dare was more of a motivator to confirm his emotions. If Daisy had not accepted the dare, he would've continued liking her the way he did since the beginning, but if she didn't like him back, he wouldn't have forced himself into her life.

4. If you had to pick between Alex and Aelius, who would you choose and why?
Definitely, Aelius, as he is my perfect book boyfriend, the one I would choose over all the others.

5. Are there any romantic tropes you would like to experiment with in the future in the young adult genre? What draws you to that specific trope?
I like writing young adult romances because they truly come from my heart, with no filters and no glorification. I'm planning to mix fantasy in my next attempt at this trope.

6. For new writers looking to write young adult novels with romance elements, do you have any advice to share with them?
The only thing I would like them to do is to be real with the approach. Even if it's based on fantasy, try to create characters who resonate with the readers. Put lots of genuine human emotions, and you are to ace it.

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Thank you for having a chat with us!
Check out the authors' works in the profile account Pooja Pathak!
Have you read their works? Any author to suggest to us for next month?