Amelia Mandeville talks her debut novel, mental health, and YouTube

At just 21-years-old, Amelia Mandeville has already accomplished more than most. Alongside her sister, Amelia runs The Mandeville Sisters, a YouTube channel with over 109k subscribers. She’s also presented for MTV, modelled, blogged, acted and, as of 15th November 2018, Amelia is now also a published author. Her debut novel, Every Colour Of You, is a young adult contemporary following Zoe and Tristan as they navigate life, death, mental health, relationships and everything that comes with finding your place in the world.

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What was your biggest inspiration when writing Every Colour Of You?

I weirdly always find this hard to answer, as I don’t have one set inspiration. However, I really did want to focus on mental health in guys, while adding my own inspirations and experiences into the story.

You’ve been very open about your writing and publishing journey with your audience on YouTube, did you find this helped or hindered your process in any way?

It 100 per cent helped. I might have given up if they hadn’t given me the constant support. I knew one day I could look back on my journey, and I did.

Do you have any advice for younger, aspiring authors?

Don’t give up. Keeping reading lots. Always write. I got a lot of rejections before I got published, so please don’t give up.

What was the process of writing Every Colour Of You like for you? 

I wrote it relatively quickly. I was in a place of my life where I felt quite lonely, sad, a little lost, so I was very absorbed in their story.

What’s one piece of advice you’d like to give to Zoe and Tristan? 

Do whatever makes you happy and do it now. Live your life

Writing can be a very personal process, are there any aspects of your characters you especially connect to? 

Definitely! There’s a bit of me in Zoe and Tristan. I wrote this when I was quite sad, and I really wanted to show what it’s like to get into the heads of someone when they feel like that, but also how they may act/talk from the outside.

Having your first book published at only 21 is incredibly impressive, when did you start writing Every Colour Of You and has is changed at all as you’ve grown? 

I started writing it when I was 19 and finished that same year I believe. I wrote it a long while ago. I do think through every edit, I’ve learnt more and more. And hopefully, my writing abilities have grown too!

How have you found balancing your YouTube/presenting career and being a published author? 

My sister is very understanding and is letting me focus a lot of time on my book at the moment. Also, we do our own separate things alongside our YouTube, which works perfectly. It can be overwhelming at times, but also I love doing lots of things, it keeps me busy.

Now that Every Colour Of You is out in the world, is writing something you’re going to continue focusing on and if so, can you give us any hints as to what we might be able to expect from a future book?

Yes, I’m writing my second book now. It’s not related to Every Colour Of You. The main characters will be a boy and a girl, but they couldn’t be more different to Tristan and Zoe.

Every Colour of You is available to buy now in the UK and the US.

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