Stacey E. Haught, Author, Challenged Her Own Self-Doubt To Publish The Stories She Was Born To Tell
Please introduce yourself, what you do, why you do it, and what you want people to know about you.
Hello!!! My name is Stacey E. Haught, for fourteen years I spent my life in a studio training the young actors of today, teaching them to tell stories, and not knowing all along I was internally writing stories that one day I would use to launch a new career.
In twenty-twenty I wrote five full-length novels in four months, selling my first novel to a publishing house in two months, this year I debut my first novel, while I continue to build my future.
What qualities make you different and unique from everyone else in the industry?
An avid reader turned writer, wrote my first novel at 72k words in two weeks, I never took no for an answer, when it came to something I knew I was born to do.
Describe THAT moment when you realized you wanted to do what you do now. Who did you tell first? What has it been like since that moment?
During the beginning of the pandemic I was riddled with anxiety, not an unfamiliar friend but I was suffering from daily panic attacks, and one night in bed I told my husband I needed to do something, I needed to get out, he listened and the next day told me he bought me something.
What he bought me was a brand new computer, and he gave it to me and told me to tell the stories I needed to tell. I haven’t stopped channeling the stories I’ve needed to tell since.
What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to face and how did you overcome it?
Self-doubt, I constantly fear I won’t ever succeed in this new industry barely feeling like I succeeded in the last industry I was in for over a decade. The three novels I am on retainer for rely on the sales of the first and I’m plagued with the overwhelming sense that I’m not going to get there.
I overcome it by talking about it, by facing it, by identifying that it terrifies me, and admitting that I need people in order to be a success.
If you had to pick the TOP 3 people you’d want to meet that could take your career (or business) to the next level…who would those 3 people be?
Victoria Averyard is one of my favorite authors, she literally writes from a film perspective, she’s one of the first authors I’ve ever heard of to plot a book the way a film is written.
Marissa Meyers is another one I just love her characters flawed and real.
Sarah Raasch she’s actually already helped me a lot, she was one of the only authors who answered my DMs and helped me when I first started; I think I’d like to just thank her for that.