Edited by Eden Prosser
As a university student, I often struggle to find time to write. From readings to assignments, I feel overwhelmed at the idea of writing on my personal time. Yet I was recently given the great opportunity to speak with someone who’s successfully balanced the two: author of How to Be the Best Third Wheel, Loridee De Villa, a Filipino writer currently studying at the University of Toronto. We talked about her journey from Wattpad to traditional publishing, the challenges she faced in the industry, and how she learned to deal with them. Here is what Loridee had to say…
Maham: Thank you for meeting with me! To start off, can you tell us a bit about your book, How to Be the Best Third Wheel?
Loridee De Villa: Yeah, of course! It follows a Filipino sixteen-year-old girl who returns home from the Philippines just to find all her friends are now in relationships. She doesn’t know how to deal with it, because essentially, she is now the third wheel of her friend group. Meanwhile, all her best friends are dating the friends of her archnemesis. It’s just about a girl trying to navigate high school and deal with the pressures of growing up, while dealing with another pressure of being out of place.
Maham: Thank you! What inspired you to write How to Be the Best Third Wheel?
Loridee De Villa: I think my friends inspired a lot of this story. When I was growing up, I was never really the one to be in any sort of romantic relationship. When I saw people pairing up in high school, I felt like that was weird, [so] I took from my own experiences of feeling out of place. A lot of it was inspired by the personal problems I dealt with, especially trying to find myself while growing up.
Maham: I understand that you first started writing on Wattpad. Can you talk about the transition from writing on Wattpad to becoming a published author?
Loridee De Villa: When I started writing (at fourteen years old), I didn’t really plan on this [career] becoming super big. I really liked writing on this platform, Wattpad, because you would get feedback right away and I really thrived off that external validation. That is something that always got me motivated: people liked and appreciated what I wrote. I entered this annual book contest called the Wattys and I ended up winning the prize for young adult fiction. The grand prize was a publication deal, and I was paired with an editor. From there, we went through many months of revisions. After that, it was all about marketing.
It’s insane to see that a book that was on my computer, on a website, is now on bookstore shelves, library shelves and in people’s hands. It is just completely surreal.
Maham: Were there any obstacles you faced while getting published?
Loridee De Villa: A lot of it revolved around trying to restructure the story. It was very difficult because the story I wrote when I was sixteen was written during the time I was facing a lot of emotional changes. It didn’t feel coherent. There was a lot of pressure to change things that I didn’t want to change. There were a lot of external pressures based on what the market might want.
At the end of the day, a book is still a commodity, and you do want it to do well. And I wasn’t sure my book could do that. I faced a lot of pressure to change a lot of things. It took a lot of courage to realize I didn’t have to do that and that I was allowed to only change the things that I really felt like I wanted to.
Maham: How do you deal with good (and bad!) book reviews?
Loridee De Vila: When I first listed my book on Netgalley (a reviewer site, which offers advanced copies of books to industry professionals), I was met with a lot of mixed reviews. A lot of them were good, but there were also a couple of bad ones. It really hurts, because [a book]’s something you put so much time and effort into and you want people to like it, but the reality is that… they just won’t. It’s not your fault, because people have different tastes and that’s completely okay!
Something I’ve done for myself is that I don’t read reviews anymore. When I first started out, I would be on [Netgalley] every single day, reading every review that came out, and that would really dictate how I felt about myself that day. I know now that it’s not the best for my mental health, and that when people have good things to say to me, usually they will go out of their way to say it. Whenever I do come across bad reviews, I take criticism with a grain of salt. I take it for what it is and not let it get to me.
Maham: I really like what you said earlier: not everyone will like your book and that’s okay. I think that is something many people struggle with, including myself: the fear that some people might not like what you write.
Maham: How do you find time to write while balancing university and work?
Loridee De Villa: Honestly, it’s difficult. It is hard to find time to write. When I was editing, school was online and I didn’t have to commute, I didn’t have a lot of extracurriculars, and I wasn’t working part-time. Even at that point, I barely had time [to juggle it all]. I would edit between 12am and 3am. When they would give me a month for a deadline, I would compress it into a week or less.
I have a lot of friends who write at specific times of the day—they set aside time for themselves. To be honest with you, I haven’t gotten to a point in my life where I am able to do that. I don’t know how to balance, and I’m still trying to figure that out for myself.
I find that when I write, it is because I must. Writing is ingrained in my being to the point that I must write, otherwise I go crazy. Right now, I write once or twice a month, but I’m still trying to figure out how to write more consistently.
Maham: What is one piece of advice you would give to university students who are looking to get published?
Loridee De Villa: I think the hardest part is completing the story, because we get in our heads about our writing. All the writers I’ve talked to think their work is trash—and that is how I feel about myself! Get something down, finish your story. You want to have a story to pitch for publication.
Maham: Do you have plans for another book?
Loridee De Villa: I do have plans for another book! I am currently working on rewriting a book, it follows Filipino-Canadian about a girl who plans her eighteenth birthday—which is something that is very special in Filipino culture—and she has to find a date. I think it’s a very enjoyable story. Also, I’m writing a science fiction book right now called the Infinite Worlds of Ella Jane.
Maham: I’m looking forward to reading them when they come out. Thank you for doing this interview with me!
My interview with Loridee encouraged me to start writing more. For those who are reading this article and want to write, who miss writing, who are looking for that extra push: just do it. The payoff is worth it. Give time to hobbies that make you happy. After all, you may see them grow into something bigger!
I highly recommend How to Be the Third Wheel. It was a fun coming-of-age story that changed my perspective on different relationships. Make sure to check her book out!