Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Marissa Lete. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Marissa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

If you have a few conversations with authors/writers out in the world, you’ll probably learn pretty quickly that most of us suffer from a condition called imposter syndrome. We could write a book, a play, a short story, or whatever our preferred form of creative writing may be, and that piece could receive raving reviews from tons of readers, and yet, we still might sit down at the end of the day and wonder, “Am I even good at this?”

I am certainly no exception. In school, I was a straight-A student. If I ever got less than 100% (or more) on an assignment or exam, I would lose my mind. I would obsessively go over whatever problems I got wrong and study the issues that made me lose points. I still, to this day, grieve over the fact that I got a B in one class my very last semester of college and therefore ended up with a graduating GPA of 3.997 instead of a perfect 4.00.

In the writing world, I often feel like I’m striving for that perfect 4.00, too. The problem? There are no grades here! The closest thing writers can get is the five-star rating system on book review platforms. And I’ve learned quickly that if you attribute your worth as a creative to your average rating on Goodreads, you’re going to lose too much sleep over that one-star review a stranger left (especially when, as some of my colleagues have experienced, that review is left by someone who specifically notes in their review that they didn’t even read the book).

Writing is such a subjective field. I’ve had a reviewer make notes on things they disliked about my books and the next reviewer talk about how much they loved those exact things. It is not a math problem in which there is one single solution that gets you that perfect score—there’s no right or wrong way to do it. And once you realize that and embrace it, it can be so freeing!

After many years of turmoil learning this lesson, I finally realized that, for me, getting better at writing is so much more about getting better at enjoying writing than it is about obsessing over whether I’m following the rules for my specific genre or creating the perfect-yet-flawed-in-the-right-ways, three-dimensional characters.

When you write something you love, your readers are going to feel that. I think there’s an audience out there for everything—finding that audience is the hard part. But writing? Writing is so much easier when I let go of the ridiculously high expectations I have for myself and just have fun!

And when I’m having fun, suddenly all of those things that seemed hard before—meeting my daily word count goals, going back through and editing everything a thousand times, figuring out how to market the book, and on and on—are so much easier.

Marissa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m an author of young adult novels and a book layout designer/formatter!

When I was in high school, I wrote a novel that gained some traction on Wattpad, and even though I hardcore cringe every time I go back and look at it, that experience planted a dream in me to publish a real, actually good novel one day.

In college I studied a completely unrelated field, and then got a job doing landscape work while my husband finished his degree. I loved the job and especially enjoyed being outdoors all the time, but summertime in the south was brutal and I needed an outlet. So I dug some chapters of a story I began writing in high school out of a long-lost email thread I’d sent to a friend and decided to finish it.

Thus, my debut novel, Echoes, was born. I wrote about 75% of it on my unsanctioned lunch breaks at work (don’t tell my boss), and I loved it so much I knew I needed to put it out into the world. It took me a few years to figure out the best route for me to do that, but I finally decided to independently publish the book! Echoes came out in 2021, and since then I’ve completed its two sequels that now make up the trilolgy: Anomalies and Heroes.

While I was falling in love with the self publishing process, I also wanted to try and do as much as I could by myself, including formatting the book. I spent way too many hours and learned from way too many mistakes for me to feel like doing all of it for myself was enough, so I started a freelance business formatting other people’s books to put my skills to use!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson I’ve had to unlearn is that you have to be perfect at something in order to do it.

When I was first starting out, I stressed so much over whether my book was even good enough to charge people money for it. I put off setting up my formatting services page for a long time because I didn’t think I had enough experience for people to hire me.

The truth of the matter, though, is that you can’t get better at something until you start doing it. You don’t really know how things are going to turn out unless you try. And you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to have to fix things you messed up for your clients sometimes. You’re going to find typos. You’re going to be rereading your book while proofing the audiobook you finally got made for it and you’re going to realize (two months after release) that your main character’s dad’s name changes halfway through the book.

Okay, maybe that last one is just me. But the point is, you can’t really learn how to avoid mistakes until you make them. And you can fix them! You can always find another client. You can always go back and fix the issue and reupload the book (or just let the dad have two names and come up with a hilarious explanation in case anyone asks).

You can’t get anywhere if you don’t start moving. Sure, you might trip sometimes, but you can get back up again! Make mistakes. Learn from them. Then move on and make new ones. It’s a process!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The best part of being a creative is always when someone is able to connect with my work. Whenever I get a message from someone who read my books and loved them or see a client super excited about how their book turned out, I feel so fulfilled.

Part of the fun of creating things is getting to explore the vast differences in humanity alongside the things that make us all similar. If someone is able to see a piece of themself in one my characters or I’m able to pinpoint the exact look and feel a client was hoping to achieve with their book, then I know I’ve done my job correctly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://marissalete.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marissaleteauthor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marissaleteauthor
• Other: https://www.fiverr.com/marissalete