Hi, guys!

I read an amazing book, THE HAUNTING OF SUNSHINE GIRL, a few weeks ago and HAD to share it with you. Something even cooler? The author, Paige McKenzie, was my age when she got published! Paige is also a major YouTuber and actress, so she’s a triple threat.

Read on for some fun and inspiring words from Paige! 🙂

For anyone who doesn’t know about your YouTube channel (they must be living under a

rock!), can you explain a bit about it?

Sure! It began as a show about a girl who wanted to prove to the world – and her mother

– that her house is haunted, so she decided to record videos of the haunting and post them

to YouTube. At least, that’s what viewers who were there from the beginning thought

they were getting themselves into! It soon becomes clear that Sunshine’s haunting is a

lot more complicated than just a few scary noises. Before long a creepy lady shows up at

her door and tells her she must leave the house, and her mother starts acting very strange.

But, in the five years since the series started, we’ve done a lot more with the character of

Sunshine, too! I’ve gone on adventures, I post some regular vlogs, and I’ve even featured

other people’s hauntings. I would say if you’re approaching my channel for the first time

be sure and look over the playlists before you get started.

How did you grow your YouTube viewers in the early days? Were there ever times when

not so many people watched and you felt discouraged?

To begin with, we just wanted to create the best and most compelling content possible

so that people would want to watch! But I also started interacting with people through

my channel and other channels with similar content. Interacting with other Tubers was

a great way to get the ball rolling because of course when you’re just starting out, no one

really knows about you!

As for getting discouraged – that’s a good question. I guess when you’re working on

a YouTube channel pretty much non-stop, it’s easy to get discouraged when it’s not

growing the way you hoped it would. But I just viewed it as a challenge. If the channel

wasn’t growing, then my partners and I figured there was something we weren’t doing

quite right yet. After all, like everything else in life, views on YouTube aren’t just

handed to you! You’ve got to make videos people like and work within the system

you’re given. But it can definitely be frustrating – I remember once, when YouTube

changed their internal algorithm without warning, my views dropped by half! There was

suddenly a whole new set of rules we had to live and work by. But eventually we worked

through it – and lucky for us, the channel continues to grow!

How did SUNSHINE go from YouTube to a book idea? Can you explain the process?

After of few years of telling Sunshine’s story on YouTube, we started thinking about

ways to tell a bigger, more behind-the-scenes sort of story than we had so far. In the web

series, you don’t know a whole lot about Sunshine’s life before she moves into a haunted

house, and you don’t know why her house in haunted, or why her mom doesn’t believe

her. So when I was approached by my wonderful literary agent Mollie Glick about

turning the series into a into a book, we were thrilled! Mollie teamed us up with another

of her clients, a YA author named Alyssa Sheinmel who already had a few books under

her belt (and loved writing creepy stuff). And then Alyssa began working on the book

proposal for The Haunting of Sunshine Girl.

What was it like working with your co-writer, the awesome Alyssa Sheinmel? How did it

differ from creating something on your own?

First of all, thanks for calling Alyssa Sheinmel awesome! We think she’s pretty rad, too.

One of the best things about The Haunting of Sunshine Girl is that it was a collaboration

from the beginning – the web series was a collaboration between my mom (Mercedes

Rose), producer Nick Hagen and me, along with all the amazing actors we got to work

with over the years. Alyssa joined Team Sunshine to help figure out how to bring all of

that good stuff to the page. So it honestly didn’t feel that different because I’d always felt

like I was part of a team. Sunshine was and is always a team effort – there are just a lot

more team-members now that we’re a book series as well as a web series.

What’s your writing process like? Are you a night owl or an early bird?

Both! Or neither, actually – I like to go to bed early and sleep late. Meanwhile, Alyssa is

a total early bird when it comes to writing – she tries to meet her word-count quota each

day before noon. And to make things even more complicated, Alyssa’s on East Coast

time and I’m on Pacific time! So it can be a bit tricky sometimes to find time to chat. So

there’s a lot of emailing for sure.

As far as the writing process, Alyssa likes to say that everyone who worked on the web

series had already done a lot of the heavy lifting involved in creating these voices and

personalities – she just had to try to remain true to everything we created! The book

takes place in the same setting and is based on a lot of the same ideas as the web series,

but we also worked out a plot to take Sunshine on some new adventures. But we hope

that viewers of the show will feel like the characters in the books behave just like the

characters from the show would in these situations.

Okay, we have to talk about something you’re afraid of: horses. Girl, I wrote an entire

series about horses (Canterwood Crest) because I’m obsessed with them! Why are you

scared?

I wish I had a great story about how a prince rescued me from a runaway stallion and

I’ve been terrified ever since – but what really happened isn’t nearly that exciting. I took

riding lessons when I was like eight and they put me on a horse that had to be the size of

a small dragon. And when he decided to lie down while I was still in the saddle, that was

the end of my lessons – and the beginning of my fear! But I love horses from a distance.

And, I’m actually considering some lessons again soon. Maybe I’ll just start smaller this

time…like with a pony.

A lot of tweens and teens have said to me, “I’m too young to get anyone to notice my

talent.” What would you say to them?

I remember thinking I was “too young” when I was just getting started on YouTube. I

was sixteen and a sophomore at a tiny high school, a million miles from Hollywood. And

I wasn’t doing the “traditional” YouTube comedy or beauty channel. The truth is, I didn’t

know if I had anything to share that anyone would really want to watch! But then it

finally occurred to me that this was what I wanted to do – I wanted to work with my mom

and start a YouTube series about a haunted house and have the chance to really create

something. No matter that I might have been “too young” to some people. So, that’s my

advice: if you want to do something, do it. You don’t have to wait until you are older and

wiser – because you will probably never really feel ready or wiser, just older!

What’s the best advice you’ve gotten about being young and becoming successful both as

an actress and author?

My mum has always set a good example for me about following your passion and not

being discouraged by rejection or the occasional (or not so occasional) uphill battle. She

has been a working actresses in a small market (Portland, Oregon) for pretty much my

whole life so I’ve seen both the positive attitude and just how much guts it takes to get

ahead in a business that can be really brutal. She’s always told me that the sky is the

limit and I believe her!

Let’s do a rapid round of favorites!

What’s your fave . . .

Scary movie?

Usually I am just a big wuss when it comes to scary movies! The Haunting in

Connecticut is the one that terrifies me the most. (Recently, I had two book events in

Connecticut. But luckily there were no bodies in the walls. As far as I know…) But

really, I’m such a wuss that even ET scares me!

Fruit?

Pink Lady apples. (I have a real thing for the movie Grease!)

Vacay spot?

Well, I’ve never been to Hawaii so I’m going to have to go with Disneyland. The happiest

place on earth!

Color?

Is black a color? How about white? Black-and-white!

Book?

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman!

Author Bios: 

Paige McKenzie, the irresistible face of The Haunting of Sunshine Girl, is thrilled

to bring her unique voice to life in a book series. At the age of sixteen, McKenzie

teamed up with producer Nick Hagen and her mother, actress Mercedes Rose, to create

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl on YouTube. Soon the spine-chilling series – and its

unforgettable title character – boasted a viewership in the tens of millions. McKenzie

was recently named one of Seventeen magazine’s “Pretty Amazing” finalists. She lives

in Portland, Oregon. Follow her on Twitter @hauntedsunshine or visit her online at

thehauntingofsunshinegirl.com.

Alyssa Sheinmel is the author of the young adult novels Second Star, The Beautiful

Between, The Lucky Kind, and The Stone Girl, as well as the forthcoming novel,

Faceless. The New York Post described The Beautiful Between as “endearing, realistic,

and heart-wrenching”; and New York Times bestselling author Anna Godbersen called

Second Star “gorgeous: at once sun-soaked and haunted, elegant and strange…perfect.”

Alyssa grew up in Northern California and New York, and attended Barnard College.

She now lives and writes in New York City. Follow her on Twitter @AlyssaSheinmel

and visit her online at AlyssaSheinmel.com.