Gayle Forman's Blog, page 5

wall street depravity

I'm not even going to talk about that ridonculous piece in the Wall Street Journal about depraved YA and the woeful lack of choice for today's upstanding parents. You can read it if you want. You can read all about it over the Internets. You can read the awesome response on Twitter under the hashtag #YASaves.

What I am going to talk about, because I have experience in this matter, is crappy journalism, and the dangers of bullying loudmouths setting the agenda.

The reason the silly piece in the Journal deserves no debunking is because it's a fake piece. A made-up trend piece. Trust me, I've written enough of them to know how they happen. Here is how it goes: Editors decide that they need a fresh take on something that they've covered before (and let's give the Journal props for at least covering YA often, albeit schizophrenically; I'm always amazed at the Journal's coverage but then I remember that WSJ is a business newspaper and YA is a thriving business so it makes sense). Anywho, editors want a fresh take. Someone calls out an idea, like "Have you seen how dark YA is getting these days?" By the way, it's not. It's always been that way. But that's besides the point. And because the Journal already did a piece a few years back that looked at the trend of dark YA (and did so positively, IF I STAY was in this roundup) and just did a piece about dystopian YA (ditto on the positive) some genius probably thought it was time to do something PROBING. "How about we do something about how bad this is for kids?" the genius asked, thinking it was the new, new story, when of course it was the old, old story.

So maybe it was the editor's idea. Or maybe it was the columnist's own opinion that she put forth as societal trend, in which case, weird to do it as a reported piece instead of an opinion piece but it's the Journal, and that's journalism. So, she goes out, canvasses bookstores, finds one unhappy mom, and poof, a Big Story is born. (The offshoot of this is when something happened to the editor-in-chief or her best friend and she thinks it means it's a trend so the story is assigned to a reporter who must hunt down people who fit into this trend, even if there are only five of them in the entire country. You can see why I left journalism?)

Except the trend story is no more true than trend stories about teenagers all having oral sex in study hall, which occasionally pops up on newsmagazine shows and is similarly scandalous and totally bogus in terms of actually having any reportable veracity beyond one or two cases. One or two cases does not a trend make. Whatevs. We Americans seem to have an endless appetite for worrying about teens going to hell in handbaskets. Which is ironic, given that we have all been teens in our lives. Except for Ron Paul. I don't think he was ever a teenager.

The parental worrying about books is just crap though. And that crap is proven by the numbers. Sales of hardcover YA books jumped more than 30 percent in 2009, according to the Association of American Publishers. Now, I'm sure some of that is teens buying their own books, but the majority is, I'd guess, parents buying books for their kids, parents delighted about the beautiful buffet of serious and silly YA out there, parents delighted that their children are reading (and parents reading these books themselves, ahem).

But here's the problem. Let's say ninety-five percent of parents out there are groovin' and happy with the awesome selection of books that gets their kids reading. And five percent have issues. Somehow, that five percent gets to set the agenda. Gets to ban books. Because they are loud and they are bullies, if you ask me.

But this is the trend. Obama's Healthcare plan has death panels? No it doesn't and most Americans wanted healthcare reform, but it nearly got derailed (still might) because bullies shouted lies and set the agenda. Teachers are to blame for everything wrong in society. Most people disagree with that, but they stay silent and the loudmouth bullies set the agenda and so teachers are on the firing lines, figuratively and literally. YA is corrupting our kids and should be cleaned up. Ridonculous to anyone who has actually picked up one of these "questionable" books, or even seen their child totally engaged in one of them. But that reality won't matter if we let the bullies set the agenda.

It was just a crappy non-news story. It shouldn't matter. It only matters if we let the loudmouth bullies decide the agenda. The YASaves was a great response, but this is a larger problem. It's time for the rational silent majority of this country to speak up. Loudly, firmly, smartly, and nicely. Because as any reader of YA knows, the only way to defang a bully is to stand up to them, but never, ever lose your cool.

Not that we would. We are YA. We ooze cool. It's a byproduct of all that depravity.

If you do not understand the reference in the above picture, or why I'm calling a book a machine, or why I'm DEFACING a book, you need to know this awesome Woody Guthrie photo:

wall street nonsense

I'm not even going to talk about that ridonculous piece in the Wall Street Journal about depraved YA and the woeful lack of choice for today's upstanding parents. You can read it if you want. You can read all about it over the Internets. You can read the awesome response on Twitter under the hashtag #YASaves.

What I am going to talk about, because I have experience in this matter, is crappy journalism, and the dangers of bullying loudmouths setting the agenda.

The reason the silly piece in the Journal deserves no debunking is because it's a fake piece. A made-up trend piece. Trust me, I've written enough of them to know how they happen. Here is how it goes: Editors decide that they need a fresh take on something that they've covered before (and let's give the Journal props for at least covering YA often, albeit schizophrenically; I'm always amazed at the Journal's coverage but then I remember that WSJ is a business newspaper and YA is a thriving business so it makes sense). Anywho, editors want a fresh take. Someone calls out an idea, like "Have you seen how dark YA is getting these days?" By the way, it's not. It's always been that way. But that's besides the point. And because the Journal already did a piece a few years back that looked at the trend of dark YA (and did so positively, IF I STAY was in this roundup) and just did a piece about dystopian YA (ditto on the positive) some genius probably thought it was time to do something PROBING. "How about we do something about how bad this is for kids?" the genius asked, thinking it was the new, new story, when of course it was the old, old story.

So maybe it was the editor's idea. Or maybe it was the columnist's own opinion that she put forth as societal trend, in which case, weird to do it as a reported piece instead of an opinion piece but it's the Journal, and that's journalism. So, she goes out, canvasses bookstores, finds one unhappy mom, and poof, a Big Story is born.

Except the trend story is no more true than trend stories about teenagers all having oral sex in study hall, which occasionally pops up on newsmagazine shows and is similarly scandalous and totally bogus in terms of actually having any reportable veracity beyond one or two cases. One or two chases does not a trend make. Whatevs. We Americans seem to have an endless appetite for worrying about teens going to hell in handbaskets. Which is ironic, given that we have all been teens in our lives. Except for Ron Paul. I don't think he was ever a teenager.

The parental worrying about books is just crap though. And that crap is proven by the numbers. Sales of hardcover YA books jumped more than 30 percent in 2009, according to the Association of American Publishers. Now, I'm sure some of that is teens buying their own books, but the majority is, I'd guess, parents buying books for their kids, parents delighted about the beautiful buffet of serious and silly YA out there, parents delighted that their children are reading (and parents reading these books themselves, ahem).

But here's the problem. Let's say ninety-five percent of parents out there are groovin' and happy with the awesome selection of books that gets their kids reading. And five percent have issues. Somehow, that five percent gets to set the agenda. Gets to ban books. Because they are loud and they are bullies, if you ask me.

But this is the trend. Obama's Healthcare plan has death panels? No it doesn't and most Americans wanted healthcare reform, but it nearly got derailed (still might) because bullies shouted lies and set the agenda. Teachers are to blame for everything wrong in society. Most people disagree with that, but they stay silent and the loudmouth bullies set the agenda and so teachers are on the firing lines, figuratively and literally. YA is corrupting our kids and should be cleaned up. Ridonculous to anyone who has actually picked up one of these "questionable" books, or even seen their child totally engaged in one of them. But that reality won't matter if we let the bullies set the agenda.

It was just a crappy non-news story. It shouldn't matter. It only matters if we let the loudmouth bullies decide the agenda. The YASaves was a great response, but this is a larger problem. It's time for the rational silent majority of this country to speak up. Loudly, firmly, smartly, and nicely. Because as any reader of YA knows, the only way to defang a bully is to stand up to them, but never, ever lose your cool.

Not that we would. We are YA. We ooze cool. It's a byproduct of all that depravity.

If you do not understand the reference in the above picture, or why I'm calling a book a machine, or why I'm DEFACING a book, you need to know this awesome Woody Guthrie photo:

that green-eyed fucker

I'm always a day behind the news—there was a tornado WHERE last night? There was a big jealousy blog piece bounding around the writ-o-sphere this past week? Oh. I was on the farm trip with the kids.

But I'm on it today. And I've read Sugar's post on The Rumpus, about an aspiring author bravely owning up, I thought, to the nasty, unpleasant jealous feelings she had toward her friends who'd all gotten publishing deals. I thought the piece offered a lot of smart insights about the difference between writing a magnificent piece of art and getting a good deal, though I'd also point out for a lot of writers, that "pure art" argument falls flat. Publication is a validation. Writing masterworks that live on your hard drive is a little like that tree falling in the forest and no one hearing it fall. Does it make a sound? Luckily, self-publishing, which is ever-growing, is offering authors a new avenue to get work out there and to an audience even, when the publishing mechanism says no.

But I have some different ideas on jealousy. I agree that we all have the savage within us. But I disagree that the way to deal with it is to pack it away or tell yourself not to feel it. Willpower might work for some. But more often than not, it's like advising someone to put a festering cut under a bandaid without giving it a good—and stinging—wash first.

I am both a "successful" author and a human person with a petty streak so I have been on both the giving and receiving end of jealousy. I have been jealous of my friends' successes. I haven't wanted to be. I have been very happy for my friends and simultaneously jealous. That's the thing about jealousy. You don't invite it. And you can't always will it away. The jealousy I had toward a friend didn't detract from my happiness of her successes—at least theoretically; I was happy, even if I could not fully feel that joy. It more reflected my dissatisfaction with where my life was. And sure, I could've swallowed it. Buttoned it up. Told myself to get over it. Maybe I would've. But more likely, it would've driven a wedge between me and said friend. So on the occasions this has happened with close, trusted friends, I have learned to brave up. I have admitted to my friend that I was happy for him or her but also jealous. And you know what? Putting it out there. Getting that nasty little secretive green-eyed fucker out there on the table? It went away. Not entirely. But almost. Jealousy thrives in darkness and secretiveness. It doesn't like light and air. It's like Gremlins that way.

When IF I STAY was bought, when the foreign deals came in and the movie options! I suddenly felt like Cinderella—no more cleaning the toilets, no, sir, I was going to the ball!—I could tell some of my friends were weird about it. It came out in comments. In nasty asides. And in the eventual cooling of friendships even though I'm pretty sure I haven't changed so much. And then there was my best friend. She was the biggest fan of the book—she left a sobbing message on the phone after she read the manuscript; I thought someone had died until she blubbered that she'd loved the book. But later on, as the other stuff happened, she admitted to that was so happy for me but that she was also jealous. And I was so GRATEFUL for her honesty. Because I understood it. My answer to her was that I would be jealous of me too. We've all been there. And our friendship has gone on its merry way, unchanged by the big changes in my career. Thank god. I'd be lost without her.

Of course, you can only be honest like this with a good friend. You can't go around telling every writer who gets a good deal that you're experiencing feelings of envy. Nor should you even want to. I mean, how is feeling jealous of say Sarah Dessen's latest success, unless you're BFFs with Sarah, any different from being envious of Cameron Diaz's latest movie deal? They are both strangers to you who have no bearing on your daily life!!!!

But you probably don't know what Cameron is up to because you're not reading Variety. Well, there you have it. You might not feel such jealousy toward random stranger authors if you didn't know the deals they were getting. Want to feel better? Stop reading deal reports on Publishers Weekly and Publishers Lunch and Twitter and anywhere else. I am sure some purpose is served by having the who-got-what broadcast like that, but it doesn't help writers. It just makes them crazy. So I'd advise anyone with a jealousy problem—ahem, everyone—to stop reading deal reports. Stop kidding yourself: keeping up on the industry is not helping you get a book deal. Writing a kick-ass book will help you with that. Your agent (or future agent) gets 15 percent so he or she can go crazy keeping up with the industry so you don't have to.

Sugar was right about this: You don't want to get caught up in competitiveness and pettiness and jealousy. From an artistic standpoint, it will strangle your creativity. From a human standpoint, it will stifle your humanity. But I'd argue that jealousy is part of the human condition. The only way to deal with it is when it comes up in your personal life is to actually deal with it. To counter jealousy with honesty. And if you can manage it, with generosity.

Here's a little secret about me. Now that I'm doing what I want to be doing—albeit still, terrified that someone will take this privilege away from me, yes, I'm weird that way, but I think it probably goes with the writerly territory—I occasionally read books that blow my mind so thoroughly that they make me think that I'm not worthy to write IKEA instruction manuals, let alone YA novels. In these cases, I have two choices: give in to the insecurity and feel jealous of other authors' virtuosity or give in to my better angels and rejoice in these wonderful books and tell the world about them. If you read my blog, you probably know which way I roll.

So now you know the awful truth about me: Behind every book I evangelize (and lately, I've swooned over Libba Bray's BEAUTY QUEENS, Holly Black's Curseworkers Series, Franny Billingley's CHIME and Nova Ren Suma's IMAGINARY GIRLS–I need to read me some guy books, no? Someone get me a David Levtithan!) is a pang of jealousy. But the minute I start singing these books' deserved praises, that jealousy dissipates in the pure joy of talking about good writing. See what I mean about jealousy being like Gremlins? Only less cute.

Which I guess is what Sugar was saying all along in her post. That it's the work that matters. (Because I get jealous of kick-ass books, not bestselling books, though when the two coincide, I'm beside myself with joy!) And this is most definitely true. But you have to clear out that junk drawer in the pit of your stomach to get to the good place with your work, that wonderful freeing, flying place where the true work flows. And for me, at least, that only happens by shining a light on the shitty stuff.

Being honest, exploring the dark stuff, cleaning out the junk: Isn't that why we write?

the nova hour (and no, not the pbs show)

 

I knew that Nova Ren Suma's debut YA novel IMAGINARY GIRLS was something special before I ever read a word of it. I'm not one to judge books by their covers. Really, I'm not. I know all the decisions that go into covers and all the inappropriately jacketed books that hide really quality literary novels behind silly, doofy looking covers. But this cover, you saw it, and you just knew, the book was going to kick ass:

I think this might be the most stunning YA cover I have ever seen. Ever. It tells you the book, IMAGINARY GIRLS, is something special, something eerie, something otherworldly. Something unlike anything you've ever read before. All of which is true and none of which begins to scratch the surface of this beautifully written—and beautifully written in a way that is different from anything I've ever read before—creepy, elegant, ambient, riveting, provocative novel that I'm still thinking about several months after finishing it.

It's also one of those books that I read thinking: How Did She Do That? The characterizations. The metaphors that don't stand out as metaphors but just sort of quietly slither under your skin. The way the whole book washes over you, leaving a thin layer of silt, which, is fitting. You'll see when you read it. It comes out June 14th and you can win a signed first-edition if you keep reading. I was even more blown away because I mistakenly thought Nova was one of those wunderkinds—you know, 23, straight out of school, immediate book contract, instant genius. That she's not, that she traveled a long road and had her knocks along the way, makes me admire her all the more ,and also makes the incredible depth of this book that much more understandable. (Not that the wunderkinds aren't capable of depth. The incredible Lauren Oliver published BEFORE I FALL when she was 27, a fact that never ceases to blow my mind.)

I got my story straight when I finally sat down and asked Nova the questions that I've been wondering about and she answered thoroughly and thoughtfully.  So, prepare to get to know Nova Ren Suma and all you up-and-coming writers, prepare to be inspired. IMAGINARY GIRLS is going to be one of the books everyone is talking about this summer, and the story of how it came to be is testament to perseverance and patience and hope. Cream, does, eventually, rise to the top.

GF: So, I have to start off by saying that I totally thought that you were one of those writer starlets—23, straight out of grad school, wrote a first book and then a big YA book. And while I'm right about the first book—the middle grade DANI NOIR—I appear to have been wrong about everything else. You don't have to give your age or anything but can you give a sense of your background, your road to becoming an author.

NRS: Can I start, before admitting I'm no writer starlet, to say how thrilled I am to do this interview—and how much I love (love! love!) IF I STAY and WHERE SHE WENT? It's an honor to have this conversation with you and I'll try not to get tripped up.

Okay, so I'm certainly not a writer starlet, though it isn't for lack of trying. I entered my MFA program straight out of college, with lots of stars in my eyes. In a way, I felt the program promised so much: the story in The Paris Review or The New Yorker, the fancy agent to wine and dine us, the six-figure book deal by graduation… And sure, that did happen to some, but those promises didn't come true for me, and I don't think it's the fault of Columbia University; it was my own naive expectation. I was also not the best at networking, and I think my shyness and lack of confidence cost me a lot.

Years passed. I graduated, I wrote two novels—meant to be adult literary fiction but mostly written in teenage voices… it never occurred to me that they could have been YA—and I got close but never snagged an agent. Eventually I hit a low point where I began to think it just wouldn't happen for me. You know, the dream: the agent, the book, the permission to call myself a "writer." I worked various day jobs in publishing, most of them as a copy editor in children's books, and I began doing work-for-hire writing on the side, because it's hard to make it on a publishing salary in New York. I wrote about seventeen books—from middle-grade series novels to picture books to movie tie-ins—and the first book I ended up publishing under my name was DANI NOIR, a middle-grade novel that came about because of the connections and hard work I put into ghostwriting.

But something else was going on, too. Before I signed the contract for DANI NOIR, I had an eye-opening experience about YA fiction. At my day job—at that point I was a senior production editor at HarperCollins—I was working for the first time on YA novels and I was falling in love with the genre. There was one writer in particular whose novels inspired me: Laura Kasischke, author of BOY HEAVEN and FEATHERED. But DANI NOIR was happening, so I put what would become IMAGINARY GIRLS aside to write that. Still, the idea of writing my first YA novel kept tugging at me.

Thankfully, there was one last test. After I turned in the DANI NOIR manuscript, I was approached with a work-for-hire opportunity, to write for a new series—guaranteed publication, as many as three books—or return to IMAGINARY GIRLS and keep writing without any guarantees that I'd ever get an agent or a publisher from it. I needed the money the other project would have offered, but I went with my gut. It felt like a last-ditch effort for me… and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made.

GF: I also heard you say that if you could give novice authors advice what would it be, it was something along the lines of "embrace YA sooner." As someone who also backed into writing YA (though I had a long history of writing for teens), I totally understand that. Without rehashing what you've just told us, can you tell us what you mean about this. How did you find your way into YA and how did you know that you'd found your natural home?

NRS: I know I talked a bit about that already, but it was my day job that opened my eyes. Since I got into children's book publishing accidentally (I interned for the art editor of The New Yorker, Françoise Mouly, and she ended up hiring me to be her assistant at the small-press children's book publisher RAW Junior that she'd founded with her husband, Art Spiegelman), I'm forever grateful for it. It was an odd, winding path for me, but I ended up in just the right place.

There is so much I would have done differently in my writing career. Choosing a fully funded grad school is one (I can't ever recommend that anyone take out as many loans as I did to get an MFA), and writing for teens is the other.

The thing is, I've always seemed to write about teenagers or from a young perspective. The first novel I wrote, a semiautobiographical coming-of-age story, was written in a large part from a kid's perspective, and the second novel I wrote, so much fiction it bordered on the bizarre, was written from the perspective of two teenagers, a brother and sister, with alternating chapters. My short stories were most often about teenagers. I once wrote a short story from a fortysomething woman's perspective… and the best scene is when she takes her teenage daughter to get her nose pierced on St. Mark's Place, and that's because the daughter brought the scene to life.

I often think that writing for teens was staring me in the face for so long and I have no idea why I didn't see it. I know it took me a while to get here, but I'm thrilled to be a part of this. I love how you called it my "natural home"—that's just how it feels.

GF: We're glad to have you in the YA community. It's pretty awesome as you're probably finding out. It's sort of like our secret. I know that you've spent a fair amount of time in the adult literary world (MacDowell Colony, etc.). Have you experienced any snobbery from the adult lit world now that you've switched over to YA, along the lines of all the crap Sherman Alexie got when he wrote THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN? You don't have to name names!

NRS: Oh my, yes. I won't name names, but I've gotten attitude about writing for young adults, the usual jokes about vampires, and some snobby dismissals.

There was one time when I did a reading from IMAGINARY GIRLS at a famous location in the adult literary world. After the reading someone came up to me, all complimentary about my pages, saying all these wonderful things. Then came the kicker: "It sounded like a REAL book!" this person said. It was meant as a high compliment, but I didn't take it that way.

Yes, YA novels are REAL BOOKS.

I recently had residencies at both Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony—I was the only YA writer there both times, though I just missed Cecil Castellucci at MacDowell and was very sad about that. I was so nervous to go, but I went in introducing myself not just as a writer but as a YA writer. I'm so proud of it. I discovered that many of the writers for adults that I met are extremely curious about YA now. Maybe authors like Sherman Alexie have something to do with that. At one point, four or five writers at one of my residencies admitted to me privately that they wanted to write YA novels and asked me how to know when what you're writing is YA.

I do want to say that for the most part, I met some amazingly supportive artists and writers at these places. At my most recent residency, at MacDowell this winter, we had this ritual of announcing each artist's last night after dinner. On my last night, a playwright/screenwriter stood up in the dining room during dessert and announced that it was my last night, and then from other corners of the dining room other artists and writers and poets and composers called out about my book coming out that summer, "IMAGINARY GIRLS! June 14!" And they all applauded. If I had any insecurities about being fully accepted, they fell away in that moment.

GF: I recently heard you talk about one of the inspirations for writing IMAGINARY GIRLS, which was swimming in the reservoir in your hometown in upstate New York and later learning about the history of the flooded towns. But I've also heard you speak about your intense bond with your sister and that seems to be very much at play in this book, too. Did one idea spark the book, or was there a you-got-your-chocolate-in-my-peanut butter moment (And young ones who don't understand this cultural reference, look it up here)? Can you elaborate on these twin inspirations and any others that were part of the mix.

NRS: It's true that a town where I went to high school in the Hudson Valley—and the reservoir there—inspired the town in the novel, but the true heart of the novel, the seed of inspiration that started everything, is my relationship with my little sister, Laurel Rose. Anyone who truly knows me knows how much I adore my little sister and always have. The day she was born (at home, just like Chloe was in the novel) was one of best days of my life, and Rose and I are still close today.

IMAGINARY GIRLS began as a short story about two sisters, Chloe and Ruby, and then the idea of the flooded towns in the reservoir seeped into the story and colored their world.

A scene that had been in the original story, and that later became awkward and extraneous and had to be cut from the novel, was on the mezzanine of a concert hall, when the older sister, Ruby, left her little sister, Chloe—around eight years old at the time—alone for hours while she went to hang out with her friends. This actually happened, when I was in high school, when I took Rose with me to a They Might Be Giants concert. While in the story it became an enormous and terrible secret between the girls, in real life it could have turned into that… but thankfully my sister was okay when I came back to get her. But it's something I've been guilty about for years, and it's why I wrote the original sister story in the first place. An apology in a way. An apology that went full-on into fiction and turned into a surreal and dangerous love letter.

GF: One of the many, many things that blew me away about IMAGINARY GIRLS was Ruby. She has that thing, that charisma, that we've all witnessed in girls before. That thing that makes them beautiful, even if they're not all that pretty, that makes guys and girls drop at their feet. I think that's a hard thing to show on the page, but you did it. Within 10 pages, I totally bought Ruby. This might be a self-serving question, but how in the hell did you do that?

NRS: Gayle, thank you so much! I wish I could explain how I brought Ruby to life—if I knew, maybe it would help when creating future characters—but she simply vividly existed and begged for a story to be told about her. I always saw her from the outside, though, and I think Chloe's view of her is a lot to do with how her character came to life. It's a mix of who Ruby really is, and who her little sister thinks she is. I don't think the novel would work if it had been told in Ruby's voice.

Ruby is my way of writing a mythical creature. I didn't write a novel about angels fallen from the clouds, or centuries' old undead with psychic powers, or faeries or mermaids or anything like that. I wrote Ruby. I wrote a larger-than-life person told from the perspective of the person who loves her most in the world.

During the writing of the novel, my own sister was going through some very tough things. I see now that writing Ruby the way she is was entirely wishful thinking on my part. She's who I'd be for Rose if I could. I'm nothing like Ruby—in fact, I'm far more like Chloe—but I understand Ruby. If I could make everything better for my sister, no matter the costs, I would.

GF: I love that Ruby is ruthless and Machiavellian, so kind of evil that way, but she's fiercely loyal and protective of Chloe, the one person she loves, even if she's trying to control her. So much gray in both these girls. I know the book is not out yet but what are the reactions to Ruby so far?

NRS: I'm not sure about the reactions to Ruby. I hear the good things—when people tell me to my face—but I've stopped reading blog reviews and checking Goodreads ratings and I try to close my eyes when something pops up on my Twitter feed. That's just because I'm in the delicate place of writing a new novel and I need to keep my confidence up, so it's better to not go looking.

The good things I hear are that people are drawn to Ruby. They find her magnetic and fascinating, though I'm often asked what she is, as if there is one easy answer. Maybe there are those who hate her, I don't know. I see so much good in Ruby—I see her true intentions—and I just can't let go of that, though you could argue that my own attachment to my little sister colors my view of Ruby and always will.

GF: What kind of books do you read when you're writing? I know some authors can't read novels when they're drafting. You? Do you listen to music?

NRS: I do listen to music while I write—I have playlists for my novels, and often a single song will go with one section or chapter, which means I can listen to it on repeat for a week or more at a time.

But I'm going through a frustrating period right now where I find it very difficult to read novels while I'm writing the first draft of my new one. I may try reading novels that are distinct enough—adult novels and middle-grade novels not in first person—but the problem is that I just take in so much when I'm first-drafting. Everything and everyone around me can inadvertently influence what makes it to the page. Conversations overhead. Bathroom graffiti spied in my favorite café. Fear of ticks at the writers colony where I wrote the first of these pages. The storm of ice that fell while I was at another colony writing a later chunk of pages… It's dangerous.

So lately I've been reading nonfiction. But I make exceptions for books I'm really excited about—there was absolutely no way I could wait to read WHERE SHE WENT, I hope you know—and I'll tell you the novel that is begging and daring me to read it this weekend: BEAUTY QUEENS by Libba Bray. [Editor's note: BQ is so worth it!]

GF: Do you do a lot of research? Did you research IMAGINARY GIRLS? If so, which elements needed research?

NRS: I don't do a lot of research. I'm terrible that way. I like making things up far more than I like sticking to facts. But I do like to take something real and undeniably in this world and bend it my way, for the sake of a story. I've always done that in my writing, and it's the reason that even after all my journalism classes in college, and editing the newspaper, I gave up writing journalism in favor of fiction.

I wrote IMAGINARY GIRLS from memories of a real place—but it was a place that lived in my mind, one that surely doesn't exist anymore, since it's been a while since I spent my summers there during high school. So it's as much invented as it is real. I didn't want to go visit while I was writing, for fear it would shatter the illusion I'd created for myself.

There was one piece of the story that I did research, and that was the history of the building of the Ashokan Reservoir, which is the reservoir the one in IMAGINARY GIRLS is based on. Still, I took facts and bent and recast them. That's the beauty of fiction.

GF: I keep seeing IMAGINARY GIRLS referred to as paranormal or as fantasy, which I find bewildering. (The same thing happened with IF I STAY, which has a fantastical element, I suppose). Your book certainly has fantastical elements: Slight spoiler here but it's in the trailer—dead girls not staying dead, among other things—but it doesn't seem paranormal to me. Creepy magical realism? Yes. But not paranormal. Did you know/think you writing a paranormal book? Do you care how your book is categorized?

NRS: I don't see IMAGINARY GIRLS as paranormal, and I do find it strange that it is often put in that category. I certainly don't see it as fantasy. If someone sees this book as paranormal or fantasy, they will go in expecting something they may not find here. I think it's just as much "contemporary" as it is "paranormal"—in fact, I've been calling it "contemporary with a fantastical twist," but the truth is I wrote it inspired by magical realism.

I wish the book didn't have to be in one category or the other, so I care only if it keeps some readers away because they have a preconceived notion about what it is. My editor was very careful in flap copy and catalog descriptions to keep it open to interpretation. I think she was very smart about that, and I wish all other outside labels could be ignored and the book could just be what it is.

GF: I've seen you refer to the amount of work that went into IG, and I know that editor Julie Strauss-Gabel has "put you through the wringer." (Her words. I am familiar with that wringer.) Without giving away too much of how the book was before/afters—I don't like to show too much of the sausage-making process—can you tell us about the amount of editing revision that you did? The depth/breadth of it?

Did Julie say that? Haha. She's so right. She put me through the wringer, and it's no exaggeration to say it was the hardest I've ever worked on anything in my life.

IMAGINARY GIRLS was sold on four chapters and a synopsis, so when I turned in the full manuscript, it needed a lot of work. (A LOT. A first draft is never a finished novel.) I revised my first full draft twice before turning it in. Then I went through five rounds of revision with Julie. Yes, you heard that right: FIVE. Some of those revisions were absolutely massive—between first draft and second, I threw out two hundred pages in the middle—and toward the end we were still fine-tuning, rewording and inserting passages and adding layers of connection and clarification. It was incredibly intense, not just for me, I think for Julie too. But a good editor—a really good editor who's not afraid to get her hands dirty—is going to make you a better writer, and that happens through revision. Every round of revision took us closer to what the book was meant to be.

I remember something Julie said to me that kept me going. She said there was nothing she wanted to change about the "basic fabric of the book"—the setting, the voice, the concept—and knowing this, I felt complete trust in her. It was my dream as a writer to find the editor who saw such potential in me and found me worthwhile enough to take a risk on. Don't we all want someone to see that in us, to push us harder than we knew we could work, because she somehow knows what we're capable of? I feel so lucky that Julie saw that in me… and after all those hours of work and angst and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting… IMAGINARY GIRLS is far better for it.

In fact, I'd do it again. Maybe I will—because I'm writing a new book for Julie right now. I really am hoping we won't need five rounds of revision on this one, though, because I hope I learned something last time. We'll see!

GF: What has been the most surprising part of your journey as an author so far?

NRS: I'm still surprised that it's happening at all. Not to say that I didn't have faith in myself—I wouldn't have kept on trying all these years if I didn't—but I have a hard time believing it's here, right now, simply because I wanted it for so long.

When the good things started happening with IMAGINARY GIRLS, I was in a state of shock for months. I sold my first book, DANI NOIR, without an agent, since it was something I'd developed directly with an editor, much like the work-for-hire books I'd written before it, and after my experience trying to find an agent in adult literary fiction, I'd accepted the fact that I'd probably never have one. The shock of my life came the week I decided to try one last time to find an agent… this time for IMAGINARY GIRLS.

The problem is, I had just 25 pages. But, with possible interest from my DANI NOIR publisher, and encouragement from a generous editor friend who helped me narrow down my list of agents to try, I sent out queries.

By the end of that same week, I had six agent offers. At the time I was working a day job in book publishing—I was a copy editor at a publishing house in New York—and I had agents emailing and calling me, all at once, all while I was supposed to be checking barcodes on other writers' book jackets, a huge stack that needed to route upstairs as soon as possible, and I panicked. I remember rushing down the hall to my boss's office. I needed to tell him that I wanted to take a personal day to meet some agents, but I didn't even know how to explain what was happening. That there were literary agents who had actually offered to sign ME. After all my years of rejections.

The words spilled out and I remember very vividly how it felt to stand there before my boss's desk, my legs going weightless under me and my head filling with a hot buzz.

Then I remember sitting down on the floor—actually sitting on the floor of my boss's office!—and saying, "I think I'm going to faint."

(Thankfully, my former boss was very understanding, and has been a huge support to me and this book, even after I left the job so I could write it.)

That was the late spring of 2009. I picked the perfect agent and he set me to work writing some more pages so we'd have a decent-size proposal. Then IMAGINARY GIRLS sold to Julie in June. But some days, I'm still sitting on that floor, dizzy with the knowledge that my dream might actually have the chance of coming true. I have to remind myself to stand up and believe it.

#     #     #

I love this story. Maybe it's because I'm an old broad who didn't publish her first YA novel until she was 37, this resonates with me. I know IG isn't out yet so maybe it's premature to call it a success, but it is a success. As a piece of art, it is. It's just that good.

Okay, so you want a signed copy? How could you not after that?  All you have to do is comment on the blog with something you learned/mastered over time. We will have two winners. One winner will get a signed copy of IG. The other will get a CD of the playlist that Nova created while writing the book! Contest goes until the end of the week and because it's the publisher mailing the book, not me, I'm afraid it's U.S. residents only. Don't worry. I'll give away another copy post-pub anywhere in the world.

Let's all thank Nova for this awesome and honest interview. Thank you, Nova!

adam and mia and a third book

Okay. Just to make this crystal clear. And don't read this if you haven't read IF I STAY and WHERE SHE WENT because it's a spoiler. But I keep getting asked if there is a third book for Mia and Adam. And if you have finished WHERE SHE WENT, I have to ask you to ask yourself this:

Really?

Do you really want a third book?

I am so flattered that you ask. Am so flattered that you want to spend more time with the characters. But think about the ways books work. They operate on conflict. A third book would either be Adam and Mia in boring middle age. YAWN. Or I'd have to introduce some new conflict. You know, like give someone cancer. Would you want me to do that to them? Have they not been through enough already???!!!!

I love you all for asking. I love you all for wanting to be with them. You can always be with them in the pages of IF I STAY and WHERE SHE WENT or in your own imaginations. But the only reason I even wrote WHERE SHE WENT was because Adam and Mia were banging in my head, telling me that they weren't happy where I'd left them. They're happy now. They're quiet now. I'm happy for them now.

There are some other noisemakers in my head now. They have nothing to do with any of the characters in IIS OR WSW. They are totally new people. I hope to be able to tell you about them soon. I hope you will fall in love with them in a whole different way from the way you have with Adam and Mia.

Thank you for your awesome enthusiasm.

what we talk about when we talk about the weather

Most of you don't live with me. Which is probably a good thing. You might think I spend my days talking about Adam or Mia or the next batch of characters—and I do talk a fair bit about them, which actually drives my poor husband NUTS; he couldn't care less. They are fake people to him—but what I really have been talking about, incessantly, is this: The weather.

It could be because we had a winter that looked like this:

Followed by a spring that was cold and pretty much nonstop this:

 

So, basically, for the last two weeks, when we had a Biblical deluge, this was me on a daily basis.

Wakeup. Check National Weather Service online forecast, which the day before might have been calling for partly cloudy skies and now was calling for 90 percent chance of heavy rain. Moan. Tell Nick I can't hack it anymore. Look at another website in hopes of getting a different forecast. Hit refresh on the forecasts. Maybe they will change their minds. This went on for weeks. It got to the point I was thinking of leaving the City, hunting around for new cities to move to.

But the thing was, just as a cigar is often not a cigar, the weather is not really about the weather. Why do I get so frigging upset about the weather? It's not like a tornado tore through here. (Actually, that did happen last year. Here's my nabe. But no one got hurt.)

But now that it's sunny-ish, I've come to understand that when I was bitching and moaning and kvetching about the weather, I wasn't really talking about the weather. Here's what I was really talking about.

I'm Going To Kill This Rain====Translation====I'm Lonely

Rain keeps us indoors, isolated. Writers spend pretty much all of their time like that anyway. So the post 3 pm hour when I get my kids is, during the warmth of springtime, when we go to the playground. They run around and get their yayas out. I talk to grownups about things that have nothing to do with publishing. After a winter of hibernation, and daily hibernations at my desk, to have to come home each day to spend a day alone with cabin-fevered kids, playing referee while they see who can tear more of the other one's hair out, well, the CIA should develop this as an "enhanced interrogation" technique. Terrorists would sing like babies

I Want To Fire Whoever Is In Charge Of The Weather======Translation====I'm Powerless

Writers are such bizarrely powerful/powerless people. I mean, the only people we have any real power over are fake people. Our characters. They do our bidding ahahahahah. (Of course, truth is, we really do their bidding, but really, if we were tough, we could force them to do whatever we wanted. Hear that, Adam and Mia!!!! I rule you, not the other way round!) But the truth is, all we control is our work. Then it goes to our agents and our publishers who do wonderful things with it, but we are often out of the loop and even when we are in the loop, we are out of control. How a book does, if readers notice it, like it, if it gets made into a movie, etc. all of these things are so out of your control. Just like the weather. But you want to have some power. You want to be able to control more. Just like I want to be able to go the Head Climactic Office and tell the person in charge that they blew the winter, screwed the spring and are totally fired! But I can't. It's maddening. Like the weather.

This Winter/Spring Broke Me. I Hate New York========Translation=====I Hate The Book I'm Working On

I swear, when the work is going well, NYC seems great. It feels like you are part of the creative flow of the city. But when my novel is turning me into a crying little girl, I hate the big bad city. Just put me out there with the garbage. Or send me somewhere kinder, gentler. But also not rainy. Where is this mythical place? See, generally, I do LOVE this city. The energy. The community. But I hate that everything is so hard, from finding a parking space to getting a babysitter, to going grocery shopping, so you just feel tapped out when your novel is kicking your ass, too. So when the weather does this, it's like, whoa, city. We had a deal. I'd put up with all the crap: expenses, taxes, crowds, rats, small living spaces, bankers, etc. and you would not throw too many curveballs. I steadfastly stayed through 9-11 and Anthrax at my husband's office, but Buffalo New York weather downstate? Then I want Buffalo prices!

I'm So Cold=======Translation====I'm So Cold.

I really am cold. I run cold. Our apartment never gets that hot. I'm like a lizard. I want to soak up the heat in my skin. Come July when it's 90 and humid (please let it be 90 and humid; if it's a cold summer, I really am going to lose my shit) I will be the happy girl at the city pool.

Anyhow, it's been a winter and spring of true disasters, from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan to weather-related killer storms all over the United States. My problems are, as they say, velvet problems. It's just the weather. And with global warming, we really have bigger fish to fry. But I think that's where the real terror comes in. Is this past year's weather crazy because the weather's crazy and this is just a wacky seasonal fluctuation? Or is the weather crazy because global climate change is happening this extremely already, and we are just the frogs in the pot, letting the water get hotter while politicians argue about whether the water is water or some other wet, watery substance.

Talk about feeling powerless. Talk about wanting to fire someone.

battle cry for the mr. saxons!

So, I finally watched that documentary Waiting for Superman, you know the one that was much buzzed about last year, the one that basically says that public education is going to hell in a hand basket?

And maybe it's because I appreciate a bit of nuance, be it in my books, my documentary films, or my feature films, or maybe it's because I watched it on the heels of having returned from the International Reading Association's annual conference where I met, and was inspired, by so many teachers (more on that in a second), or maybe it's because I've had it about up to HERE with the political trend of blaming educators for pretty much everything that's gone wrong in our country, from out-of-control budgets to under-performing kids or maybe it's because I send my children to public schools and so I know that while there are some really crappy schools out there, so too are there some phenomenal ones (hello? balance?). Or maybe it's because some of my best friends are teachers (hi Gretchen, hi Georgi). But can I just say, and say it in a way that is totally inappropriate for the classroom: Shut the fuck up, already.

I mean, seriously. Teachers? Teachers as the scapegoat? How we got to this sad state of affairs shows a couple of things, one of which is just how good politicians are at playing politics. Because, really, if we wanted to look at people who were rewarded for incompetence and idiocy, or whose hypocricy or profligacy went unchecked, we might have to look at people who, say, cheated on their wives when they had cancer, while they were gunning for impeachment of a president for having an affair, then left said wives and married the woman they were hooking up with and are now running for president for the party that stands for Family Values. Or, you know, the crusading governor who gets caught in a high-end prostituation ring, only to come back with a cable show that is likely his entré back into politics. Or, those who you know, spent our country into a deep-ass deficits by pursuring off-the-books wars and giving tax breaks to rich people who probably send their kids to private school. Not that all politicans are bad, but it sure seems like a lot of them these days are really good at slinging arrows, less good at actually solving problems. And the worst abusers just get golden parachutses, while the men and women who are dipping into their savings to buy school supplies because politicans keep cutting off the public money (but not corporate welfare) are having their paracuhutes burned, their paltry safety nets shredded.

WTF?

Look, I get that there are crummy teachers out there. I see them at school visits. The ones that treat students like delinquents and wait for them to sink to the occasion. Or the ones who drone on, phoning it in while waiting for their pensions to kick in. And I will admit here and now that I have iffy feelings about the tenure that protects that these crappy teachers. But, I'd be a lot more willing to do away with tenure if I could be sure that come budget-cut time, it wouldn't be the hightest paid, senior teachers that got the axe, or if I could be confident that teachers' abilities were judged by more than just test scores. Because scores are bogus. I'm proof of that.Want to know what I got on my SATs? In the thousands. And I graduated college summa cum laude and seem to have done okay for myself. The tests like that are supposed to measure aptitude or achievement but really all they do is measure how well you take a test. Which is why so many classrooms now focus on teaching the tests, which is not only suck-ass boring but also counterproductive to actually educating kids. Oh, and it's making them sick. And cheat. Read my friend Marjorie's excellent  column to learn more about it. Puke is the new black for fourth graders. You heard it here.

As for lousy teachers,  I had some of them myself. But you know what? I don't remember them. You know who I do remember? I remember John Saxon and Donna Huberman. Mr. Saxon was the stooped-over, chain-smoking eighth-grade English teacher who taught us really grisly poetry (Robert Frost's Out, Out) and Bob Dylan lyrics and really sexy poetry (ee cummings's she being Brand) though in the latter case, you had to analyze all the metaphors to understand just how dirty a poem it was. To eighth graders, this was the best carrot in the world to draw us deeper into the text. Mrs. Huberman was the feisty redhead who taught me senior-year physiology and got me obsessed with the genius that is the human body and who probably had something to do with me meticulously writing all those surgery scenes.

There are millions of stories about Mr. Saxons and Mrs. Hubermans. And yet, they're being drowned out by all this bullshit propoganda. I don't get it. There are good cops and bad cops. Good doctors and bad doctors. Good plumbers and bad plumbers. Good writers and bad writers. But none of them get painted with a single stroke. But teachers, do. Again, might I say: WTF?

This wouldn't be so teeth-gnashingly annoying if so many teachers weren't so freaking amazing. Like I said, I just got back from IRA and I met educators who taught me stuff. Like Kimberly Frykas, the vice principal of Crystal Park School in Grande Prairie, Alberta. When kids get sent to her office for discipline problems, do you know what she does? She gives them an emotional YA book and they sit down and read. Often, there are some tears.Then they can talk about what's really going on, the issue behind the "discipline" problem. Dude, that is what I call enlightend. (Frykas's school is in Canada. I cannot see this going down at a public school in the U.S. Teachers, if you're reading this, I would LOVE to be corrected.)

Then I heard about Gay Ivey, who along with Douglas Fisher has written this book called Creating Literacy-Rich Schools for Adolescents. Ivey talked about this wild thing they did, which was—Lexile scores be damned—to do away with the required reading lists and give middle-schoolers the kinds of YA books they wanted. Instead of papers, the kids had to journal. And you'll never guess what happened to test scores. They went up. Way up.

And I would be remiss if I did not mention Paola, my six-year-old's teacher who works minor miracles with her 23 first graders. She has taught them how to read, write (as in write stories), do math, build marble runs, sketch, create ceramic flowers (they had to sketch designs first), which are now being kiln-fired, walk a mile for weekly field trips (bus money seems to have dried up) discuss life and death ( two of the class gerbils have died and the ensuing spiritual discussions were deep), be a community, be respectful. That last part really blows me away. Because those kids, they all respect Paola, but not because they're scared of her but because she treats them with respect. She asks their opinions, allows them to make their own decisions. She has shown them that mutual respect is expected. She has raised the bar and allowed the to rise to the occasion. It makes my own heart swell.

Paola, Gay, Kimberly—their kind of innovation is what happens when teachers are not hamstrung by tests and mandatory curriculum and government top-down policies. So many teachers know what they are doing. Know how to get through to kids. And for this? For this we demonize them.

Again, I'm not saying our education system is perfect. Far from it. But seriously, can we stop blaming teachers and maybe start blaming a system that pays teachers less than $23,000 to teach 40 kids a class, six periods a day? That was how much MATCHED author Ally Condie made when she taught at a public high school in Utah, and it's a testament to how much she loves teaching that she still wants to teach, still keeps her license active, even now that she's a mondo-successful author.

But when a system pushes test scores in the name of not leaving any child left behind and then tells all students to race to the top—And why are we racing? And also, there is not room for everyone at the top. That's not how it works. Some kids are meant to thrive in other areas, but no, we can't acknowlege that—and then defunds education first when economic trouble looms, what the hell do you expect? So, sure, blame teachers. Might as well blame Canada while you're at it.

Meanwhile, the teachers (and this goes for librarians and media specialists, too), they have unwittingly been cast as the Big Bad Bogeyman. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe the politics are too potent to push back against. Maybe they just suck at fighting back because they're dealing with school stuff all day, and really, there's only so much irrationality you want to deal with. Maybe they're just too busy grading papers, planning lessons, changing lives.

So it falls on us, then, to speak up for them. Someone has to. It doesn't seem to be working for the teachers to just defend themselves. We have to start going to bat for them.

I'm not sure where to even start. I know there is going to be a big Save Our Schools march on DC this summer. Spread the word.

But maybe the answer lies with students.  Maybe people will actually listen to you (for once) on this one. I know that sometimes teachers seem like the banes of your existence. Often they drive you crazy. Overload you with work. Or bore you. But you know how sometimes as a teen, it feels like the whole world is out to get you, blame you when you haven't done anything, crap all over you because you're at the bottom of the totem pole? Well, that's how it is for teachers right now!

You know how that feels. It sucks majorly. So go to your favorite teachers. Tell them you've got their back. And ask what you can do. What your community can do. And then do it.

We don't need to wait for Superman. You are superman. And your teachers, they need some help!

win some books, why don't you?

 

I'm feeling terse this morning, so how about I bullet point pertinent facts?

I'm back from California where I had a great time at the LA Times Festival of Books. Here is a cute photo of me, Margie Stohl, Cecil Caselluci and Robin Benway from said festival. I swear it looks like we could be in a sitcom. GrrlWriters. Please send script treatments my way. 

 

I also am back reading at A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland. You can read all about here on Ravenous Reader. But I also stole a picture of the Bay Area YA posse from Nancy for your viewing pleasure (that would be Daisy Whitney, Cheryl Herbsman, Nina LaCour, moi, Jandy Nelson).

 

And now I'm home and it's raining and I won't even say how bummed I am, after surviving the winter we went through, to have this rain. Because no tornadoes have destroyed my apartment (they downed a bunch of trees here but that was last summer). I'm grumpy and I'm dealing with my grumpiness by giving away FIVE copies of the UK WHERE SHE WENT. The one with this pretty cover.

[image error]

 

All you have to do is respond with a note as to what you do when you're grumpy to get ungrumpy. I will be taking notes. I'll pick five winners by the end of the weekend. I'll mail copies out when I get back from Florida (yo, Miami, Books & Books, Coral Gables, 5/12/ 6:30, be there and no rain this time, hear me!!!)
Okay, game on.
Bullet points over.

YA Smackdown—Team Contemporary

Okay, it's Smackdown time! Paranormal! Dystopian, I'm talking to you! (Imagine the previous sentence in Robert DeNiro-ese, okay?)

So, I look around the bookshelf these days, with my characters without any superpowers, living in a world that is just as nice and just as sucky as the one I live in right now, I feel a cool breeze blowing. It's lonely around here. Dude, what is up? No magic, not post-apocalyptic world, no dice. Yeesh.

Kami, Margie, I'm looking at you. Caster Girls. BEAUTIFUL CREATURES. Pff! And oh, Ally, MATCHED Dystopian Lady, with your nice smooth-running Society, don't try and sneak away. I got some choice words for you, lady.

Casters, you're up. Oh, sure, sure, you could say that BEAUTIFUL CREATURES & BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS are gorgeously written, and that's got nothing to do with genre. Sure, you could use that as a flimsy excuse. Or talk about how well you've created your Gothic Gaitlin, South Carolina town. Yeah, whatever. It still gets stormy when your girl arrives around town. And what about those tunnels? I have issues with the subways now, thank you! And what's with the relatives that can do crazy-ass things like make houses redecorate likethat? (By the way, if you guys actually possess such skills, would you like to take a look at my living room?) And you might say that a love story is a love story and Ethan and Lena's connection is true and real and nothing magical about that beyond the otherworldy magical that is falling in love? Of, of course you'd say that! Please!

Come on! Curses! Can't they not be together because she has an early curfew? What's wrong with that? Or maybe she just gets really bad PMS and might kill him? Huh? And that fantastic bigotry you so perfectly portray, Lena the odd-girl out, in a town of small-minded folk, the Casters versus Mortals, I mean why not just make Lena weird in a normal way, like with piercings? You already have her dress all Goth. Or maybe she's shunned because she has an unattractive goiter? Girls with goiters are woefully underrpresented in YA literature. But no, she's a magical girl with POWER. I mean, you'd think you were trying to be allegorical or something about, well, I don't know what. I'm not that deep! Maybe you can tell me. In contemporary, we don't beat around the bush so much. Everything is very straightforward and nice and neat and the plots and themes are very clearly laid out. Right?

Okay, Ms. Condie, you're up. What is up with the Society? Are you trying to make a point about something? All those Officials everywhere. And the Warming? Are you trying to suggest something? Because where I live, it's been crazy cold! And, like how was Cassia supposed to get it on with Khy or Xander with all those officials everywhere? I mean it was maddening! If you hadn't had that oppressive society in the way, maybe they could've just had their relationship and been done with it. Okay, maybe then there wouldn't have been any tension or word count or anything, but do we always need a Big Brother to get in the way of romance? What's wrong with a really bad case of acne? And speaking of oppressive, cooking three meals a day? And cleaning up? That society seems pretty dreamy—even if the food is kinda bland, kinda airplane meal seeming (remember airplane meals?). And those air-trains were like always on time. And everyone gets Atavans? You call that a dystopia? Because from where I stand, the someone else does the cooking/cleaning/butt-wiping no anti-anxiety pills when you need them, that's pretty dystopian. (Okay, maybe I read the butt-wiping part into it.) And so what if there's only 100 poems or songs or paintings? How many people here can actually name ten poems? Yeah, I thought so!

Ally, couldn't you just tell your story in, like, present-day Detroit? I mean, what would you lose, really? Maybe the names wouldn't be as cool, and the trains might not run on time and people would have to eat crappy fast food, but your love story could work, right? Cassia, she could just have really boring parents and not realize it yet and maybe she meets a bad boy in town and then rides around on his motorcycle and rebels against "society" that way? I mean that's a fresh story, no? You wouldn't lose anything by taking your story out of "dystopia" and putting it in Detroit, would you? And I've never been to Detroit, but I hear it is pretty darn dystopic as is. So, I challenge you, to recast the rest of the series not in the Outer Provinces but in Detroit. Are you woman enough?

See, we Contemporary authors, we just rely on feelings and true dialogue and the real-life gritty world to tell our stories. None of that magical business. None of that end-of-the-world dystopia. Oh, sure, sure, I can hear you haters now: Isn't Mia being out-of-body in IF I STAY a little bit "paranormal"? Umm, No! Because this has happened. Not to me. But to people. It was even featured in a recent episode of Grey's Anatomy, so it has to be legit. And Grey's Anatomy is not fantasy or paranormal, though anything having to do with the healthcare system—and oh, lord, insurance claims—is kind of automatically dystopian, no? Come to think of it, never getting sick and getting offed at 80 like in MATCHED doesn't sound so bad. But, wait, I digress.

And, I suppose you could argue that for Adam and Mia, life in WHERE SHE WENT has become somewhat dystopian, personally post-apocalyptic. I mean, how many teen girls come back from a coma after losing their whole families? How many boyfriends nurse their girlfriends back from the brink of death, only to get dumped and then become rock stars. Yeah, a little dystopian, but whatever. They still have to make their own meals. Well, Mia does. Adam has People to do that for him.

So, my challenge to you, Madames Condie, Garcia & Stohl, is to defend your genre. Tell me why you must put all this fancy-schmancy paranormal dystopian wrapping around what are such awesomely good stories? Why can't you take away the magic, the dystopia? Can't you keep it real, like we Contemporary peeps do?

I challenge you to a duel, next Thursday night, 4/28 at 7 p.m.. At the old saloon. Or, umm. Diesel bookstore in Brentwood. Be there. Prepare to defend your genre. Pages blazing!

Snap! And that, my friends, is a Smackdown!

(Umm, in case it wasn't clearly obvious, tongue planted firmly in cheek.) Like Megan Fox. Boobage optional.

we're all crazy!

First off, let me apologize for the lameness of my photo-taking. I am so bad when I travel these days and I come home with three photos and I'm like, how did that happen? I took so many photos. Yeah. Via someone else's camera. I managed to download some from FB so I'm not totally lame, but I'm pretty lame.

Anyhow, hi! How is everyone? I'm good. I have slept straight through the last three nights, or when I've been woken up by the inevitable child yelling because her blanket came off, I've gone right back to sleep. Which means I'm feeling relaxed. The book is out. I am back from Austin. It's school vacation here so I can't even work. I'm sneaking this blog post in while I cook breakfast. I'm such a multitasker (chocolate-chip pancakes and turkey bacon, if you must know. The pancakes are re-heats from an older batch.) And yes, we take Passover very seriously here.

I went to Austin last week, to the Texas Library Association's Annual Conference, and I think I must attribute some of my calm to that conference. I had SUCH an amazing time. And the conference did something important for me. Aside from hook me up with all kinds of cool librarians. By the way, Texas Librarians+Fashion=Awesomeness. I melt into a puddle when I see the dress with cowboy boots look. I was very puddly. But I digress. Here is me and a librarian. She did not have boots but she was still super-cool. Her name is Jane. She had a Britishy accent, but she's still Texan!

Aside from hook me up with cool bloggers with whom I've had a relationship for months/years, even if we haven't actually met—and Girls in the Stacks, pictured here, will have to stand in for The Mundie Moms and all the the other cool bloggers I met at the conference. Also, does Shannan (on my right, from left it's Nancy and Stacy) not look like Lorelai from The Gilmore Girls?

Aside even from the weather, which was so incredibly perfect, mid 80s, but a soft breeze blowing. I went for a run by the lake. It looked like this, except no tandem cyclists, which would've somehow detracted.

Aside, even from having WHERE SHE WENT hit the NYT Bestseller list while I was there. I found out as I ran up to my room from an interview, with aforementioned Girls In The Stacks. We squealed and hugged. And then I just forgot about it. There was something nice in not thinking about it.

What made the conference so amazing was the writers. All the other writers. I hung with so many cool writers: David Levithan, Rebecca Stead, Margo Rabb, Melissa Kantor, Lauren Oliver, Elizabeth Scott, Ally Condie, Robert Paul Weston, Tim Wynn-Jones, Lauren Myracle and so many more. And I am here to tell you that these writers we all love. They are crazy. And I mean that in the best of ways.

That's Rebecca Stead and Margo Rabb posing next to a WHERE SHE WENT display at Book People. They are both crazy. Seriously. In lovely writerly neurotic ways that makes me love them and their books even more. I don't mean to single them out in their craziness. They are not extra-crazy. I just have a photo of them.

This here is Ally Condie and me (holding someone else's beer) and Lauren Myracle (holding her own beer). Nicest people on the planet? Oh, yeah. Crazy? Bet on it.

Before I go on, slandering my fellow authors, allow me to define crazy. Crazy for writers means doing things like writing whole books and throwing them away. Chopping wood or taking a shower or pulling hair out to get through that "spongy middle" of a novel. It means writing a book on a Blackberry on the subway because that's when you have time to get the story out. It means being slave to voices in your head but also celebrating a happy face from your editor. It means not being able to even have a book you've written in the house once you've finished it. It means worrying when your book lands on the bestseller list that it's not high enough to please your publisher. It means talking to yourself. It means waking up at four in the morning to listen to your characters. It means looking at cans of tuna fish and letting that be the catalyst for a huge what-if idea. Tuna fish? It means neglecting your family even as you're sitting with them, because your head is really somewhere else.

Tolstoy once wrote that Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. You could adapt that to writers and say that sane writers are all alike but insane writers are all crazy in their own way. Except it would be backwards. Because there are no sane writers, as I so gleefully discovered. And we are all cra-cra in such similar ways. Which, somehow, makes us one big happy family.