This months featured author here at #visible is... @Lamestuff !

To start us off and so you can all learn a little more about who this lovely lady is, here are a few questions and answers. If you have any of your own, don't be afraid to comment and ask away!

What made you want to write about the issues your book 'Come Closer' deals with?

I've got my own issues, similar to Celia, and honestly, I just wanted to write about a girl that had some problems but still has a normal life. People stigmatise others with mental disorders so much but they don't realise that a lot of people live perfectly regular lives, and fall in love, have friends, while also living with this disorder. It's like they can't imagine them as real people. I wanted a character that's a real girl, without a doubt.

One of the issues Celia has is depression, which is a huge topic at the moment. What do you hope your readers take away from your book regarding this topic?

I hope they understand that, like I said before, you can live a perfectly normal life! Your illness does NOT make you less than. You can be depressed, or have any type of illness and it might be harder, but you can still live a normal life. Your illness does not define you. You define you.

Well said! So what inspired the idea for your book 'Come Closer'?

Well, Celia suffers from bipolar disorder. One of the side effects of this is a clinical diagnosis called 'hyper sexuality' and that's something I have been diagnosed with myself. I wanted to write about something I understood but also something bigger, which is where Celia's bipolar comes from.

On top of that, a friend of mine in the clubs said write a prompt about something you hate in real life. I am allergic to pineapple, like Celia is in the book and that's where I got the inspiration for the first chapter.

It's basically a hodgepodge of inspiration from lots of places.

I love that prompt, I will definitely be trying it out in the future. As a writer, motivation can be hard to come by sometimes. What keeps you coming back to write more?

That's hard to answer. I don't know if it's anything I can explain, really. I wrote Come Closer (originally titled 'misadventures of Celia Rose') in less than a week, which is an all new type of fast for me. Generally I just feel the NEED to write, like I can't stop my fingers from moving.

With Celia's story I just felt the need to write for her for five days straight. Sometimes it's harder to write, which is eve ident by my 'on hold' stories. Sometimes I really have to make myself write to get past a block. Ironically that was what made me write Celia's story. I was looking for a prompt to help with my writers block and a whole new book sprung up. It's a confusing and contradicting process that never seems to make sense to me.

This is a question I love to ask everyone- what does diversity mean to YOU?

I think that to me, diversity in literature is the ability to be different, or not to be. You can be weird, funny, smart, crazy, interesting, boring, creepy or totally normal and you can still have your story told. You can be black or white, tall or short, and your story won't be ignored. That's what diversity in literature is. The ability for EVERYONE to be heard.

Thank you so much for taking part! Is there anything you would like to add or say to our readers?

Just that even if their story is something they don't think everyone might want to hear, they should still write it. Be VISIBLE (he-he. SEE what I did there?) ((Did you SEE what I did again?)

That was Lamestuff talking a little bit about herself, her writing, diversity in literature and her book 'Come Closer'

Next  'Come Closer' is being reviewed by  Wiserthanthou

Don't be afraid to ask any questions you might have for her, and stay tuned!