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:Â 
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.
Jessica Burkhart 