Meet Alexa Shay

We were lucky to catch up with Alexa Shay recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alexa, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

My resilience comes from my tenacity. I grew up in a household where I wasn’t allowed to be a child after the age of around four or five, thus I had to regularly choose to survive and ultimately, to thrive. It’s very easy when you’re in a dark place to get lost. My greatest desires were my guiding lights:

1. Be a better person than my egg donor
2. Gain security in my life
3. Achieve freedom from said egg donor

My ambition to make a better life for myself gave me the strength to navigate the hard times. I wanted my life to be better and I was going to make it that way no matter what.

My love of self improvement (probably stemming from desire number one above) helped me become more resilient. I always work on improving myself, which includes going to therapy. Therapy is a wonderful thing to have available and I highly encourage everyone do it. You go to the doctor for your body- go to a therapist for your mind. Mental health is every bit as important as physical health, though it often gets overlooked.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

When I was in the second grade, I decided I wanted to be a writer when I grew up and I never let go of that dream. Now, many years later, I’m an independently published author. I published my debut novel, The Shield (book one of The Shield Series), on my 35th birthday in February of this year (2025). I want people to know that you’re never too old (OR too young) to chase and catch your dreams. When I held that book in my hand, I knew this is what I was meant to be.

I chose to write Young Adult (YA) literature because I want to be the kind of author I needed when I was young: encouraging, inclusive, and kind. I want to inspire and help kids and teens to write, to tell their stories, and to be true to who they are. I try to write my characters as realistically as possible. An example of this is how I wrote the teen lead of The Shield, Amy Sanders. Yes, she’s a teenager, but that doesn’t mean she’s stupid. Being young can mean you’re naive in some areas, but that doesn’t mean you’re stupid. I’m so tired of teenage characters being an insult to real life teenagers.

I’m aiming to have book two published in the next one to two years. You can keep up with my work, subscribe to my newsletter, or see my social media links at AlexaShays.com.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I have so much to say on this. I’m very passionate about helping other people achieve their dreams, so I made a free page on my website with advice for aspiring writers/indie authors at AlexaShays.com/AuthorAdvice. I want to help other people feel the joy that I felt when I held my book.

The three main things I think everyone needs, no matter what they’re trying to achieve, are:

1. Authenticity. People can tell when you’re not being yourself and that will turn them away from you. Always be as authentically you as you can be. If you’re cringe, embrace it. If you’re loud, don’t be silenced. Be you.

2. Goal setting. Learn how to set realistic and achievable goals. A dream without a plan is just a wish and those rarely come true without outside help. Break big goals into smaller steps and set deadlines. There are lots of books and articles written about how to do this, you just have to figure out what works best for you.

3. Some level of organizational ability. Achieving things takes organizational skills. I’m naturally rather chaotic, both in thought and deed, so I have to set boundaries for myself. I use spreadsheets for many things, but those aren’t for everyone. Try to find ways that you can consistently keep your chaos moderately under control. Where will you write down ideas? How will your organize information? These are deeply personal things and you have to figure out what works best for you. I know I’m repeating myself, but everyone is different, so try not to care if your methods don’t look like whatever you’re seeing online or in books. If it works for you, then it’s a good method.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

I love trying to improve myself, in both big and small ways, so of course I think you should shore up your weaknesses. A weakness is just an opportunity to learn and grow and the more you learn in your chosen area, the better you’ll be all around.

This isn’t to say, however, that you shouldn’t focus on your strengths. If you’re good at something, do it. Become even better. Don’t lose sight of taking advantage of your strengths as you try to improve your weaknesses.

I’m good at making up my own worlds and characters, so I did. I wasn’t as strong as I could have been when it came to the technical side of story development and writing, so I hired a professional editor (shout out to Brittany at E&A Editing Services – EAEditing.com) to teach me and to help guide me towards making my book the best it could be. Never be afraid to ask for help from someone who knows more than you. In my case, I learned that writing and editing are two very different skillsets and that editing is way harder for me than creating, so I found someone who could teach me and point me to resources where I could learn more. In the Author Advice page I mentioned earlier, I shared a lot of the resources she pointed me to.

Building up my weaknesses while relying on my existing strengths is how I managed to make my dream a reality.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Kristina Pearl Photography – KristinaPearlPhotography.com

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