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Blog Tour: Shani Petroff
I’m participating in a blog tour with a bunch of cool authors, so for the next several months, my Writer Wednesday feature will be replaced with interviews from authors who made their writing debut last year and have a second novel coming out this year. Impressive no?
I’ve asked all the authors to relay the best and worst pieces of advice they’ve ever heard, creating a sort of advice column for all y’all. I can’t wait to see what little nuggets of wisdom everyone passes on.
First up is Shani Petroff, whose debut novel, Bedeviled: Daddy’s Little Angel, came out last August. The sequel, Bedeviled: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Dress, has been on the shelves since January. Rabid Bedeviled fans will be delighted to know that a third installment, Careful What You Wish For, is due out in June, and I’ll be featuring it later in the summer. Thanks for stopping by my blog on your tour, Shani!
About Bedeviled: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Dress
Angel Garrett knows two things for sure. The first is that she inherited her devil-dad’s powers. The second is that she wreaks havoc whenever she tries to use them. Especially when she’s trying to impress her crush, Cole. Angel’s only solution is to stay as far away as possible from him until she learns how to harness this new gift. But how do you avoid someone and get him to ask you to the school dance at the same time?
About Shani Petroff
Shani Petroff is a writer living in New York City. In addition to tween and teen books, Shani writes for news programs and several other venues. When she’s not locked in her apartment typing away, she spends a whole lot of time on books, boys, TV, daydreaming, and shopping online. She has no devil lineage as far as she knows.
Advice from Shani Petroff
What’s one of the best pieces of advice you’ve ever received?
If you’re going to pursue your dream then pursue it—if you’re not then get a decent paying job. For a while I only talked about going after my dreams. I didn’t actually do it. However, I didn’t want to get a “real” job either… because I didn’t want it to stand in the way of my creative pursuits (which I wasn’t really pursuing—it was a pretty bad circle). So I would temp, wait tables, but nothing that interested me. Finally, my dad told me it’s great if I want to follow my dreams, but then I needed to really follow them. Not just talk about it. And if not, then he told me I should put my degree to use—get a job that would lead to a career—one where I wasn’t always struggling to make ends meet. I ended up doing both—following my dreams and getting a cool job while I went after them. (FYI, that cool job paid horribly for the first few years, but I knew I had the potential to move up the ladder, and it was in an industry that always fascinated me).
What’s one of the worst pieces of advice you’ve ever received?
Back when I was in fifth grade or so, I went to get my hair cut. I only wanted a trim. My mother thought that I should do something different. She suggested I get bangs. Big mistake. The woman started them from the middle of my scalp. Half of my hair was turned into bangs. To make matters worse, my hair was thick and wavy—so the bangs sprouted out in every direction imaginable. It took forever to style them the way I wanted—and even then they didn’t look right. It took me years to grow them out fully. (I actually like bangs—just not the ones the woman gave me.)
What advice would you give to your sixteen-year-old self, knowing all that you know now?
Follow your dreams. Don’t let anyone stand in your way. Oh, and a few years down the line when you see a guy that’s completely your type named, well, let’s call him Mr. X (I’ll fill you in later to keep his name off of the internet) and you make eye contact across a crowded room and he moves toward you just like in all the best romance movies—run the other direction. You can do much, much better. Don’t let him or anyone ever make you feel like you aren’t good enough. (Although he did make for some amusing stories down the line—so, maybe it wasn’t all bad. Live and learn).