Gayle Forman's Blog, page 6

then and now

It's been two days now since the launch of WHERE SHE WENT and I can't help thinking about how different things are since IF I STAY launched two years ago. But not different for the ways that I think most people assume that they'd be different.

Before I mention what's different, I should tell you what's the same:

I am still neurotic: About my writing (is it good enough? is it better than the last thing I wrote? will anyone read it?) and my career (again, will anyone read it? ) and other annoying stuff.

I still live in the same apartment.

I still buy my clothes at consignment stores (hello Beacon's Closet) and at Century 21, the best discount department store in the world!

I am still me.

But much is quite different, and that became apparent on launch day.

No, actually, the difference became apparent the day before, when the Happy Pub Day tweets started to pour in.

There was no Twitter in 2009, or there was but no one was on Twitter. And even if they had been, I didn't know any of you yet. But now I do. And the tweets continued on though pub date, an avalanche of good wishes, from this community of…readers. A community I didn't have before.

Community. Even virtual ones, are incredibly nourishing. That is one huge change.

An ancillary change, also dealing with community, became apparent the night before publication. And  it happened with flowers. These flowers, in particular.

Followed, a day later by these lovely tulips:

Both of these gorgeous—and generous!!—bouquets came not from agents or from editors or from family even (though my mom and dad sent a stunning bouquet). They came from fellow YA authors, from women unknown to me two years ago, women with whom I became friends, first through mutual admiration and then through the real bonds of genuine affection. I, of course, had friends two years ago, but not many author friends. And few friends in the YA world. Now that has changed. I am part of a community now.

I am actually part of many communities. Like a tree with roots digging into the ground. And trust me, a tree as neurotic as me needs it.

The mingling of these communities came together—literally—at the launch party. I looked out on the crowd and saw them.

First there was my family, well Nick and Willa, anyhow (Denbele, another big change since two years ago, is still 3 and was home with a sitter). There were all the Penguin Peeps. There was my fairy godmother from Oregon (doesn't everyone have one?). Then, there were my neighborhood people, my kid friends, their kids. Here's Miss  Willa—who stole the show, many times, like when I was explaining how the 25-cent-for-every-swearword policy we had at home would be in effect tonight, raised her hand to fink on me how at home I sometimes don't pony up—with some of her peeps.

Here's my friend Jena, one of my original neighborhood Mom friends. She's a babe, no? Nick didn't do such a hot job as staff photographer so Jena will have to be a stand-in for all the awesome moms in my community who came out (Isabel, Lucia, Melissa, etc.)

Then there were people like this, Frankie and Janine from The First Novels Club, bloggers who I have never actually met in person, but have become friends with over the past two years. They took the train in all the way from Philadelphia. Seriously! Mitali Dave, another blogger friend came in from Jersey. Ditto Lacey from Staten Island. People, that blows me away.

Then again, maybe they came for the cupcakes?

This guy totally did—and the quarter he earned from the F-Bomb I dropped during the reading (channeling Adam, not as Gayle!).

Ohh, cupcakes. Wait, focus, Gayle, focus.

So, I'm not going to bother with the update of the reading. If you're interested, you can read a recap at the First Novels Club.

Instead, I want to take you back to the Then-Now theme. To when IF I STAY came out. I spent that day roaming around Brooklyn bookstores looking for a copy of the book and feeling let down when I didn't find it (I also had a nice lunch with my friend Heather, who also came to this reading. Yay Heather!).

This time, I spent the day running lots of errands. I didn't check bookstores. I got lots of lovely well wishes on Twitter and FB and real life but otherwise stayed clear of my computer (and Amazon ratings, and no one around me is allowed to mention them). There was no sense of anti-climax because though the book comes out on the one day and the launch party is on the one day, the rest of it continues. The friendships I have built in the last two years, IRL and virtual—these are here day in and day out. There is no comedown from that.

Community. It can be so elusive, yet it is the most important thing. The family you create outside your family. And there are so many ways to build community. Of all the wonderful things the last two years have brought me, it's this sense of community that  made this launch day so different. That makes everything so different.

And that all comes down to you.

Of course, it always comes down to you.

Maybe that's the lesson for a successful launch. It really is all about you!

So, that is my typically longwinded way of saying: Thank you.

launch list

Today is the launch of WHERE SHE WENT! Am I excited? Hells, yeah! Am I spending the day primping at  dayspa in advance of tonight's event…..If you're quiet, you can hear the sound of laughter echoing through my apartment.

Here is today's schedule. I have to write it down, so I may as well do it here:

6:30 a.m. Wake up. Try that foul oil-pulling ayurvedic technique my friend Isabel swears by to kick out the last of my cold, consisting of swishing sesame oil around in my mouth for 15 minutes. Do it wrong. Nearly choke on sesame oil.

7. Wake girls. Let Willa borrow my pink tights. Dress and feed Denbele. Refuse to wipe Willa's butt. She's six. Nick ruins my resolve by doing it for her.

7:40 Turn on Elmo.

8:15 Walk Denbele to school. Go to bank to get quarters for tonight (25 cents per swear word at the reading for kids under 10). Go for a run. Come home.

9:30. WASH HAIR—I don't even want to tell you how dirty it is. But it got so dirty I figured at this point, might as well have it shiny clean for tonight.

10:30: Drive to Manhattan to pick up cupcakes from Sugar Sweet Sunshine. Sure, I could've ordered from a Brooklyn bakery, but SSW's cakes are the best and I want to feed my readers the best.

11:30. Attempt to find vegan cupcakes for the two known vegans in attendance.

12:30 Manicure pedicure? It's the fantasy plan. We'll see how it pans out.

2 p.m. Therapy. Please. I'm a New Yorker. And have you read my books? I have demons!

3  Get Denbele from school.

3:30 Freeze at bus stop while we wait for Willa. We have been doing this for month. I eagerly look forward to sweltering at the bus stop.

3:45-4:30: Playground!!!!!

4:30-6. Home. Willa and I will primp.

6 p.m. Sitter arrives. Nick arrives.

6:15  Depart for Barnes & Noble. With cupcakes. And sanity. And maybe pretty fingers and toes.

Where She Went Event Dates

I finally am getting confirmed details for some of the events I'm doing this spring. I'm so excited to be returning to some old favorite bookstores and to be launching WHERE SHE WENT at my local B&N, less than a mile from home!

We're going to be adding more events as the spring goes on, so stay tuned! All events listed are free.

LAUNCH PARTY!!!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011, Brooklyn, NY

Park Slope Barnes & Noble, 7 p.m.

Details here. There will be cupcakes!

Thursday, April 14, 2011, Houston, TX

Blue Willow Books, 7 p.m.

Details here.

Friday, April 28th, L.A., CA

YA Smackdown, Diesel Books, 7 p.m.

Don't miss this sure-to-be crazy-fun event with me, (Team Contemporary) Beautiful Creatures and Beautiful Darkness authors Kami Garcia and Margie Stohl (Team Paranormal) and Ally Condie, author of Matched and the forthcoming Crossed(Team Dystopian) as we thrown down and represent our sub-genres.

Details here.

Saturday, April 29th, L.A., CA

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

2 p.m.: Panel @ya stage with Robin Benway and Gennifer Cholodenko. Signings @ 3 p.m. near the panel and @ 4 p.m at the Mysterious Galaxy booth.

Details here.

Sunday, April 30th, Oakland, CA

A Great Good Place For Books, 4 p.m.

Details here.

Thursday, May 12th, Miami, FL

Books & Books.

Time and store details to come.

 

life viewed through whiskers

I thought thought the big milestone event of this week would be the new book's release on Tuesday. But then my cat Scottie stopped eating. He's 17. He has advanced kidney disease. The vet yesterday said that barring major intervention, he has days left. With intervention, he has weeks. Given that I think it's kind of silly and pointless that we humans spend so much money on end-of-life care, making health-care costs astronomical and not changing the inevitable outcomes of terminal diseases, you can probably surmise my decision. Bring Scottie home. Keep him comfortable. Try to get him to eat. Let the girls say goodbye. Yesterday he ate, I called him Lazarus. Today he stopped again. He basically sleeps all day. Which means in the next day or two, barring some miracle, he'll either die or we'll have to put him to sleep.

I can be an incredibly sentimental person at times. And I can also be ruthlessly not. When people tell me that their beloved grandparent died at age 95, usually I want to say something along the lines of "congratulations" because isn't that the gold medal of life we all aim for?

But, or and, because not sure I'm rebutting anything here, those 17 years of his have sure spanned a lot, if not in his lifetime, then in mine. Scottie was a present for my 24th birthday. Nick and I were on our way to the 5th Street Market in Eugene to buy me a ring or something when we saw some hippies with kitites on the street and got the idea to get a kitten instead, to keep the 6 month old kitty, Miranda, we'd gotten a few months back, company. The hippies were long gone by the time the idea cemented so we looked in the classifieds (remember those, pre internet?) and found an ad for free kitties and drove up into the hills to a house where the kitties supposedly were only to find no one home. Later that day, Nick drove out to the pet shelter and came back with the one kitten left. He was clinging to the cage with such ferocity that nobody wanted him. (Or her, at the time, we thought she was a she as that's what the shelter people told us.) His/her hair was matted because it was so long s/he couldn't groom properly. Nick brought the kitten home. Miranda, imperious Miranda, immediately sensed she was being usurped. She hated the kitten. Swiped at it. She never did warm to him.

Initially, I didn't either. I felt guilty about making Miranda so upset. And the kitten was just crazy, eating the speaker wire, eating any wire. I thought of sending her back. But she stayed. She turned into a boy. And then she turned into about the most loyal cat I ever had. So loyal he defied the cat stereotypes. Loyal, I daresay, like a dog.

Scottie grew to be huge, almost 14 pounds, and with this huge Elizabethan ruff, a classic Maine Coon cat. I never understood how he was so huge because he threw up about half of what he ate, our little bulimic cat. He also masturbated with any piece of clothing you left lying around, yowling loudly. We took to allocating certain sweaters to him—we called them his "girlfriends." It's all less gross than it sounds; he was fixed, so there were no, um, excretions.

Scottie seemed like a bruiser; he would pick fights with neighborhood dogs and hiss at anyone who wasn't us. But he seemed to have this innate understanding that he was meant to be nice to kids. Early on, we had friends with a toddler and when they'd come over, Scottie would grudgingly come out, allow his puffer tail to be yanked on, his fur to be roughly pet, and he'd just take it. No growling, or hissing. When the child would grow tired of Scottie, Scottie would retreat to our room. Miranda, meanwhile, would cower under a bed the whole time. Scottie did this through generations of children, including our own, whom he loved, again, unlike Miranda who seemed mortally offended by their presence (and told us so, by crapping all over the place once they came on the scene).

Scottie came to us in Eugene, Oregon, drove cross-country in a Ryder truck with us (yowling all the way, Miranda, if she could've would've rolled her eyes). He moved with us into our Lower East Side apartment in NYC, the smallness of which made us all a little crazy and then rejoiced when we moved into much bigger digs in Hell's Kitchen by racing back and forth and back again up the length of the apartment. When we moved to Brooklyn and had outdoor space again, Scottie spent long hours outside, lying in patches of sunlight, pooping in my flower boxes (I blame him for the death of my unkillable honeysuckle) and exploring the parking lot.

He has been with me through so much. The move to New York. The misery of that transition. The getting used to it here. The falling in love with it here. My journalism career. My entry into the YA world. And my romantic life. Scottie was the best gift Nick has ever gotten me, bar my children, perhaps. So it's fitting he's been around for so much of my relationship. He was there when we moved to NYC. There when we got married (okay, he wasn't at the wedding; they didn't allow cats on the boat but he was there when I got ready). When Nick and I went traveling around the world for a year, Scottie had an adventure of his own. He and Miranda lived with my friend Tamara, and Scottie and Tamara's relationship was almost out of a movie. He hissed at her or ignored her until she herself went away for a long weekend. Then she came back and it was love. Forever more. Or at least until Nick and I came back.

When we had the kids, Scottie watched out for them. I remember wishing he would scratch Willa so she would learn to use "gentle touches" with him but he just took it. The yanked tails. Over and over. Same with Denbele. But he earned their love. Miranda they could take or leave. Scottie, I learned this morning at preschool, when I told the teachers of his fate, was well-known at school. Denbele talks about him. Incessantly.

At night, Scottie cuddles in bed with us. I pull the mats from his hair. He can't groom himself anymore. Like with humans, age returns you to your infant self. Though Scottie has always seemed kittenish even when he's a grumpy old man. Just as he's always seemed grumpy old mannish, even when he was kittenish.

I don't know how to write this. Present tense or past.  It's an elegy for a cat that's still alive. I can hear the telltale clink-clink of his collar as he drinks from his water bowl. I am still following him around with his food dish, hoping he'll eat something. Kibble. Turkey slices. Braised shortribs?

We told Willa the truth this time, that we might have to put Scottie to sleep. She's buried two gerbils at school this year so she's acquainted with losing pets. She was okay with it but then this morning she said "I wish I would die when Scottie dies." Which basically stopped my heart. "No!" I said back. "Don't ever wish that."

She explained that she'd meant she wished that Scottie could live as long as she would. But Nick explained that unfortunately, even if Scottie had been born when she was, that wasn't how it worked.

I will miss my beloved Scottie. But this is the way it's supposed to happen. This is the gold medal of feline life. So when he goes, be it in his sleep on my bed, where he spends most of his days, or via the vet's needle, I must remind myself to say: "Congratulations."

The Jandy Hour

We interrupt the regularly scheduled program to bring you:

The Jandy Hour

Featuring Jandy Nelson

 

If you are a frequent or loyal or just longtime reader of this blog, you might remember, oh, a year and a half ago I started SWOONING about a book I'd had the opportunity to read an advanced copy of. It was called THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE by Jandy Nelson. I was SO besotted with the book that I fangirled the author on Facebook as is my wont—have done this to Stephanie Perkins, Ally Condie, Natalie Standiford, Libba Bray, among others; not boys, it's too weird to get fangirlly with boys. Anyhow, I emailed her and we became admirers and then friends.

I cannot say how much I love this book, though I will try: It is poetic without being florid. Sweeping without feeling overwrought. Insanely romantic without ever going over than line into icky. It deals with grand themes: love, lust, loss, grieving, identity—all of which in the wrong hands could cross over into melodrama. Luckily, Jandy's hands are the right hands. The book is simply—and literally—breathtaking.

And now it has a cover that is as breathtaking as the book itself. I liked the big floating heart, but this new cover is sexy and romantic and full of lush fecund growing things, like the book itself. See?

So, in honor of the paperback release of THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE, we have this awesome interview with Jandy, along with GIVEAWAYS galore. Signed copies of her new book, plus for those of you SKY SCHOLARS, a quiz and a giveaway of a beautiful deluxe journal, so you can jot down poems like Lennie does.More on the giveaways after the interview. Without further, ado, Jandy:

I'm going to ask the obvious, and hard, question first. When I first  read—and fell in love with—THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE, I was hit by the  utter truth and immediacy of what grief felt like. "My sister dies over and over again, all day long." I just knew when I read that  you were writing from a personal place. So, would you share the  inspiration for this story.

First, thank you so much for having me here on your blog! I adore IF I STAY and I adore you and I'm counting the days, minutes, seconds until WHERE SHE WENT comes out! [Editorial note: less than two weeks now!!!]

Thanks for your words above. And yes, it is a very personal story for me in terms of the grief. Years ago, I lost one of my closest friends in the world very suddenly to a heart attack. I had lots of brothers growing up, always wanted a sister, and this friend was a sister in every way but blood. I imagined every step of my life with her by my side and losing her just swept me off the continent, hurled me right into the stratosphere. It changed everything. Many years later, Lennie crashed into my psyche with her clarinet and worn copy of Wuthering Heights. I kept seeing her, this grief-stricken girl scattering her poems all over a town and I knew this was it: my opportunity to write about this kind of catastrophic, tectonic, transformational life event, to really explore the intricacies and complexities of grief. Then the fiction part came in because I wanted to explore it all through a love story—or two love stories really. I wanted to write a story where joy and sorrow cohabitated in really close quarters, where love could be almost as unwieldy as grief.

You and I have talked about the similarity of writing THE SKY IS  EVERYWHERE to my writing IF I STAY, highly emotional and cathartic. Can you talk about how it felt to write this book?

Yes, it's wild how similar our experiences were! I remember reading an interview you'd done days after I'd done one on the radio and realized that we almost spoke about our experiences verbatim! It was incredible.

Writing SKY was one of the most joyous experiences of my life as ironic as they may seem considering the subject matter. It was crazy. Even as the tears streamed down my face, I often felt like I was in a fit of ecstasy. I think this is because I got to discover over and again by writing the book the same thing Lennie discovers within the book, that grief and love are conjoined, that you can't have one without the other, that grief is a measure of love lost, and that love is eternal. I think that's all so hopeful and it filled me with hope as I was writing it and discovering it with Lennie. We were definitely in it together! Also, for me, this is a story of a girl waking up to life in all its joys and sorrows and even just a few a few pages into the story, the world (though dark) is turning on, switch by switch, so it was a joy to see light after light illuminated within and outside of her. Lennie's grief is very transformative and ultimately redemptive for her as it was for me experiencing it with her. I felt like my friend who died was with me in the room the whole time I was writing the story—it was as if every morning we showed up at my desk together. Unbelievably, the book sold at auction to Penguin on the anniversary of her death— exactly 11 years later, almost to the minute. That's crazy, isn't it? I mean, I had absolutely nothing to do with the timing of the submission, the auction, any of it. There are 364 other days in the year, but it happened on that day. I'm pretty sure she was working behind the scenes!

I've read somewhere that some other bits of SKY are true, like the  poems scattered all around town. Did you do that?

No, not really, but after my friend died, I'd go sit at this bench by the water. One day, I wanted to talk to her so badly I wrote her a note and then crumpled it up and threw it in the water. It seemed the only way. And it got me thinking, wondering what do you do? Do you scatter notes to the winds? Do you write letters and just drop them in a mailbox w/o an address? Maybe write Heaven as the address, or Hell, or The Beyond. I like that idea a lot actually—all these letters showing up at the post office! Anyway, I think the seeds for Lennie scattering her poems and writing on whatever came from this kind of thinking (combined with a love of graffiti and found art). It's such a mad helpless feeling not being able to communicate with people when they're gone. I think for Lennie it was that motivating her—the desire to communicate with Bailey—and something more too. I think she needed to mark her grief as well as her and Bailey's story on the world, to somehow make sure their story wasn't forgotten, to make sure it was part of everything. A couple girls in the UK told me recently that everyone in their school was reading SKY and scattering poems all over their town! Nothing has made me happier than imagining that town covered in poems!

But in terms of other stuff, yes, I have to confess that the most wacko stuff in the book is true: Big's pyramids, The Forest Bedroom, a grandmother who only paints green people—I stole all that and more from my crazy relatives.

The Northern California hippie town is SO PERFECT, it's like a character of its own. I have to ask, is it modeled on any one place,  or a pastiche of places? I want to go there!

Thank you! Let's go together! I made up the town, didn't really model it on one I know, more one I dream about living in. I see it so clearly in my mind, I fully expect to stumble on it one day while driving around. Lennie calls the area northern Northern California but the natural elements are all true to the Russian River area, perhaps with a shot of adrenalin. My river might rush a little more and the redwoods might be a little grander, but otherwise it's pretty accurate—I've spent lots of time up there. I love it. I'm so happy you thought of the town like a character. I really wanted it to be. The landscape—the rushing river, the thick old growth forest, the redwoods—is so in the DNA of the Walker family, I wanted the natural world to be instrumental in Lennie's recovery and awakening almost in a spiritual way and I wanted the town to feel idyllic and a little magical. A place where people actually might believe that the scent of Gram's roses could make them fall in love.

 

You've mentioned that initially you thought you would write SKY as a verse novel. When did you realize that this would change?

I realized very very early in the writing process, after about two weeks. It was the scariest moment ever because I'd never written fiction before, only poetry, but I knew the story needed to be told mostly in prose. So I dove in and fell madly in love with writing fiction. I think that contributed a lot to the ecstatic state I was in writing SKY. I just loved being so immersed in a story: it was like living two lives at once, which really suits me.

I have a crush on both Joe and Toby. Do you have a favorite?

They have crushes on you too. [Editor's note: *blushing*] Though Joe is no longer available.  I think when you're writing a love story, you fall in love right alongside your main character, so I have strong feelings for both. My heart kind of aches for Toby and rejoices in Joe. But as the author, I never really felt like Toby was a viable long-term romantic option for Lennie, always knew Joe was the one for her. She and Joe are both so similar at their cores, both emotional and creative and romantic—passion hunters really. Toby is a little laconic and broody for Lennie. Personally, I like the strong silent type and I'm pretty mad about cowboys, but I also love the guy who bursts with life and creativity, so nope, can't pick. It's impossible! They share my heart.

 

Speaking of Joe and Toby, one of the things I LOVED about this book  was the "inappropriate" ways that Lennie found herself behaving. "I do not think this is how normal people mourn," she says of her flaring, um, lust at one point. I've wondered if some readers, younger ones in particular, might not have gotten that, might have judged Lennie for channeling her grief the way she does with Toby. Has that happened? If so, do you want to speak to it?

Yes it has happened. Most of the readers I hear from understand why Lennie was drawn to Toby, how deeply she needed him, and him, her, how they confused their shared grief with passion, etc., how together they somehow conjured Bailey, but others definitely feel she crosses an unforgivable line. And Lennie feels she does too! So does Joe. In this regard, Lennie is her worst critic really and judges herself quite harshly. I have more compassion about it. I think grief is a very complicated, very powerful, often blindingly passionate emotion and it doesn't always allow one "to behave" as one would wish or expect. I think there are as many ways to mourn as there are people. In general, people make mistakes, make questionable choices, especially when their whole world has tipped over and they're "out of their trees," as Gram says. Lennie was quite out of her tree for most of the book. In the end, she gets back in that tree and tries to make amends and make things right with the people she hurt. Also, an aside: on a practical story-telling level, if characters always made the right choices, there would be a lot of very boring stories out there!

 

There's a definite horticultural theme in the book, tons of flower imagery, and in your publicity photos, you are surrounded by gorgeous flowers. You have a quote on your website about eating flowers.  Do  you have a green thumb?

Oh my God, I have a black thumb! I'm the grim reaper of the vegetal world! Once they come into my hands it's doomsday! Luckily fictional flowers don't need much attending! I once went to this extraordinary flower farm up north—the roses were as big as my head and every color of orange and pink and red. I swooned. I think that was the moment Gram's garden began to seed.

The paperback cover for SKY is pretty drastically different from the  hardcover. What are your thoughts on the shift?

I'm totally in love with the paperback cover. I love that it's The Forest Bedroom, love that the vines are creeping over the sleeping girl. It has a dreamy magical quality that really works for me and I like the green leafyness of it. And it's sexy and romantic too! I'm excited my story gets to be inside it. The hardback cover was dramatic and I was happy with it, but I'm really smitten with this one. I feel like I can say this because the same designer did both. She's amazing.

You were a literary agent before becoming an author. How is it different to be on the other side?

It's a miracle being on the other side, truly. I feel so lucky. My favorite part about being an agent is making the call to a writer saying that I'm madly in love with his or her book and want to represent it—that's such a joyful moment, as is making the call to an author that there is an offer or offers from publishing houses—it's just crazy gleeful. But I have to say getting those calls is perhaps even more amazing than making them! It's funny, I'm so used to being around the publishing process that sometimes it's hard for me to remember that it's actually my book and not someone else's that's being discussed. I pinch myself a lot. I do think the most difficult part about being on this side, about being an author in general, is the colossal lack of control. All you can do is write the best story you can—the rest is largely not up to you.

Given you have this unique perspective, do you have any advice for aspiring writers out there?

Ironically, agenting has hammered into me the idea that you must write the story you need to, without paying attention to the market, to trends, to an audience, that you must try to be true to your own voice and vision and just pour yourself onto the page. It may sound corny to say that, but when you're an agent, you see, again and again, writers trying to write for the market rather than for themselves and most often that's a mistake. So, I guess my years working in the industry have taught me to pay little attention to my years working in the industry!

Here's a paragraph from the Q&A in the brand spanking new awesome paperback where I talk more generally about advice to aspiring writers:

Read, read, read. And write, write, write. Also, remember that what makes your voice as a writer unique is the fact that you're you, so don't be afraid to put yourself on the page, to reveal your passions, sorrows, joys, idiosyncrasies, insights, your personal monsters and miracles. Only you can be you and only you can write like you—that's your gift alone. If you have the writing fever, just keep at it—writing takes a ton of practice, patience and perseverance—make sure to ignore the market and don't let rejection talk you out of your dream. I love this quote by Ray Bradbury: "Yet if I were asked to name the most important items in a writer's make-up, the things that shape his material and rush him along the road to where he wants to go, I could only warn him to look to his zest, see to his gusto."

*     *     *

 

Sigh. Are you feeling the love right how? I am.

 

Have you read THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE yet? No? NO? NO??!!!!!! Okay then, you must. I'm going to make it easy on you. You can either click here to order yourself a copy or you can try your luck to win a signed copy. Oh, you optimistic peoples, Always going for the longshot. Okay, to win a copy, all you have to do is leave a comment. That's it. No craziness, no poetry (though if you feel inspired, by all means, comment in verse). Just a comment.

 

Now, for those of you who have already fallen under Jandy's spell, I am offering a gorgeous handcrafted journal, the kind with paper that looks like it comes from trees (read: expensive) so you can not be like Lennie, scattering poetry on styrofoam cups, but can leave it in a journal. Jandy will even sign this journal with some special magical muse-beckong incantation.

So, if you want to win the fine handcrafted journal, put on your thinking caps and answer the following SKY questions. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, post your answers here. Rather email them to me at info at gayleforman dot com. I will randomly select a winner. And no, you don't have to get them all right to play. You just have to make a game effort.

Both contests run until March 30th.

Pencils up:

1. Lennie's grandmother judges Lennie's wellbeing based upon what household item?

2. Name at least three places where Lennie leaves her poems.

3. What are the secret powers of Gram's roses?

4. What kind of "gene" does Gram tell Lennie and Bailey their missing mother has?

5. What is the name of the Fontaine brother's band?

6. What color did Bailey paint The Sanctum (hint: the color of extraordinary)?

7. What city do Lennie and Joe fantasize about traveling to?

8 . What self-deprecating word does Lennie use to describe herself/the poem that she gives to Joe by way of an apology.

9. Which character says that the sky is everywhere?

10. Bonus question: Name at least one trait that Lennie and IF I STAY's Mia share.

Remember, email your answers to info at gayleforman dot come.

Good luck!!! And look up and around you. The sky really is everywhere.

watch tv…write a novel

One thing that nearly all authors get asked at some point in their lives is this slightly maddening question: "Can you tell me how to write a novel?"

We all have different answers for that. Some of us have even devoted sections of our websites to answering that. But really, there is no easy answer.

Until now.

I'm about to tell you the secret to writing a novel.

Are you ready?

All you need is a TV, a DVD player, several hours of spare time (65 to be exact) and the acquisition of a foreign language, known as Balmer-ese, which you will usually pick up after the first few hours but if you don't, you can always watch the show with subtitles on, though I don't recommend it.

I'm talking about HBO's The Wire, which concluded its five-season run in 2008. I watched it back then and I'm re-watching it with my husband now. And perhaps it's this deeper viewing that's allowing me to realize this:

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WRITING A NOVEL YOU CAN LEARN FROM THE WIRE.

Dubious? I offer you the following proofs, with minimal spoilers.

#1 arc, Arc. ARC

This first point is very instructive for any of you wanting to write a series, not that I'm recommending a series if you haven't written a novel (walk before you run, etc.). But what makes The Wire—which, in a nutshell, is a show about cops and drug dealers but really is an examination of the decline of the American City—so amazing is that each episode has somewhat of an arc to it (though not like Law & Order, which is wrapped up neat by the end). Each season is itself an arc. Like the season itself could be a novel. But the whole of the series itself is like an opus, a broad-reaching meta-novel. It is so clear that the creators of this show, unlike those of say, Lost, sat down and had a broad general idea of how this would all play out. I have no idea how much of the story was outlined or not and it being TV, obviously they had no idea of how many seasons they'd go, but there is a cohesiveness to the little story lines bleeding (fitting term) into the larger season arcs into the series arc that is mind-blowing in its meticulous planning. Lesson to you: Know the contours of your story even if you don't necessarily know the highways and biways you will take in the telling. Craft the arcs meticulously.

#2 Plant seeds, don't plunk down trees

The Wire has a sprawling cast of characters (not something I recommend for a novel unless you are Libba Bray) but it works because each season focusses on a certain element of the city: A certain drug gang, a middle school, police command. But the show creators never just start a season and, whammo!, introduce new characters. They have been woven in from earlier seasons so that their presence feels real and authentic. I didn't realize just how meticulous they were with this until I saw a reporter who was on for like two seconds in season 3 and realized he was the same one who is a main character in season 5 (when the decline of the newspapers is the show's target issue). It makes total sense because even with that brief cameo, you get enough of a sense of this character to understand what kind of person he is. And if you missed it, no biggie. In your own books, don't suddenly make a character start acting a certain way if you haven't planted the seeds. Don't introduce a conflict simply because you need it if you haven't planted seeds. If you're going to fire that shotgun in chapter 22, we better have seen it hanging over the mantle in chapter 8.

#3 Throw lots of rocks

It's an old adage that when you write a novel, you put your main character in a tree and throw lots of rocks at him or her. The creators of The Wire clearly understood that. They also clearly loved many of their characters. But that never stopped them from throwing rocks at them. And bricks. And more than the occasional bullet. If you don't put your characters under stressful situations, nothing interesting happens. And when you throw the occasional stuffed animal, or piece of candy, you don't let the characters have it for long before you throw a nice spiked anvil at them. It's for their own good, really.

#4 No character is black or white. Everyone is gray

One of the most spectacular—and discombobulating—things about The Wire is how you start out all hanging with the cops. And we're used to the cops. And the cops are good and the drug dealers are bad. Except life isn't like that. The cops can be egomaniacal dirtbags. The drug dealers can be intelligent and savvy and good to their families (when they aren't offing people). Also, they can be so hot. All the girls lusting for Stringer Bell, say yeah! No one in this show is pure good or bad (except maybe Marlo, he's stone-cold, and Snoop). One of the show's heroes is Omar, a thief who steals from drug dealers and never curses and goes to church. One of the paragons of integrity is a police major who we know has done something dirty and dishonest in his past. One of the "heroes" is a renegade police detective who's basically a huge dick. No one is perfect and you somehow sympathize with everyone, even if you don't always like them.

#5 Characters may transform but leopards don't change their spots

Wait? What? Didn't I just mix a metaphor and contradict myself? Stay with me a sec. A character can transform. Absolutely. But they are transforming within some semblance of the selves that they are. The evil baddie never becomes good. The lothario doesn't become a tamed hubby. That's another thing I love about The Wire. It gets that. People have their essential selves and through the meat-grinder of life (or the course of your novel) they may transform, discover their better, or worse, selves, it must be within the context of who they already are, otherwise the change won't seem authentic. There are two cops on The Wire that start out buddies; they're kind of buffoons. Okay, this is a slight spoiler. One winds up the series a really good cop ("good police" in Wire parlance) because of a slow transformation that happened over several arcs (see #1); the other winds up a security guard. And yet, the split makes total sense because from the start, the essential self of one was doofus, the other one was budding integrity. Moral of the story for your novel: You can take your character on a journey all the way from Siberia to Paris, on land, barefoot if you make that journey emotionally authentic to who your character is. But you can't make your character change people, change personalities. That would be like taking them from Los Angeles to Honolulu without a boat or plane. Or hot-air balloon. You get my drift.

#6 Leaven with humor. Darken with pathos

I'm not sure if The Wire is meant to be a drama or a comedy because sometimes it makes me crack up. And sometimes—hello, season 4—it takes my heart and stamps on it until it's a pulpy mess no dog would even eat. The reason for my confusion is that when it's dark, it lightens with humor. If your book is daaark and heeeaavy, please leaven it with some funny. For the first few seasons, much of the comic relief was the two buffoon cops I mentioned earlier. I swear, they were like Click and Clack. Sitting in their squad, going on and on about if you could have a threesome with any two girls in the world but you had to blow a guy first, who would it be? (Olsen Twins and Steve McQueen, I think was Herc's answer). Except Click and Clack would never be so profane. You laugh, and then someone gets killed. Someone you cared about. Similarly, and this is not really an issue for The Wire, if you are writing comedy, you'll want the pathos in there. Your humor will ring that much funnier.

#7 Trust your audience.

There are two types of people who watch The Wire. Those of us who are obsessed with it. And those who never got past the first two episodes. Because the first few episodes were kind of hard. The creators threw you into the deep end, not bothering to explain all the street terminology (hoppers and mopes and re-ups; there are glossaries if you need help). They trusted their audience to figure it out. Now, I'm not saying you want to have your YA audience so befuddled but you should know your audience and you should trust them. For further proof of this, I point to an incredibly successful author whose books also require glossaries: J.K. Rowling. She threw readers into the Hogwarts world after that first book, with ever deepening terminology and mythology and trusted them to figure it out or remember what was what from prior books. And readers did. I believe if you raise the bar with readers—and tell them a hell of a good story—they will not only rise to the occasion, they will appreciate your vote of confidence in them.

#8 Tell a hell of a story.

Easier said than done, right? Well, The Wire took one of the oldest stories in the book and put a new twist on it. Cops and Robbers except none of them are all good and none of them all all bad. Decline of American City. Decline of American School. You can take a big meta idea and find a small way to tell it. That's what novels do, over and over again. They repeat the same stories with fresh new details and by details I mean characters. And if you want to know how to create character, well, I advise you to go to your Netflix page and start with Season 1. You'll definitely want to re-up.

 

Finally, if you still don't believe me, you should see who wrote The Wire. Many of the episodes were written by a bunch of novelists: Dennis Lehane. Richard Price. George Pelecanos. To name a few.

the spoiler conundrum

SPOILER ALERT FOR IF I STAY VIRGINS. SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Ever since I went public with the existence of WHERE SHE WENT, I have had this dilemma, which as dilemmas go, isn't exactly Sophie's Choice, I'll give you, but is tricky nonetheless.

How do I talk about the existence of WHERE SHE WENT without giving away the ending of IF I STAY and thus robbing readers who have not read the first book of the—I hope—suspense of not knowing Mia's decision until the very last page?

And, this is the point that I should probably reiterate, hey, you, if you haven't read IF I STAY, what are you waiting for? And to warn you to stop reading now, lest your reading experience be sullied by the aforementioned spoilers.

Because of course, the very existence of WHERE SHE WENT is basically a spoiler. Though I tried to fudge it for a while, by saying it was a book that takes place three years later and is from Adam's point of view (I figured that vagueness, plus title, could mean Mia decided to depart this fair world), now there are ARCs and jacket copy floating about. It is pretty darn clear that the book is about Mia and Adam. Not the ghost of Mia and the human Adam, though Adam does spend a fair amount of time battling ghosts. Not an angel Mia. A flesh-and-blood Mia.

And now, it gets even tricker. Because now we have this super-awesome trailer. Have I mentioned the trailer? It makes me swoon? I have a crush on Adam's voice. And I should tell you that this is Dan Bittner, the same actor who did the voice for the audiobook and I cannot tell you how I DIED when I heard the audio version. Okay, I can. I listened to it. Then I needed a cigarette and a cold shower. And I don't smoke. And I'm always freezing so I don't particularly like cold anything. You can download an excerpt here, and read on for a chance to win the audiobook. As for that smokin' trailer, in case you have not seen it, here tis:

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, trailer out. It even premiered on MTV's Hollywood Crush blog. Cat out of bag. Mia almost died. Adam made her a promise. Mia lived. First book is now officially and totally spoiled by second book. But how else can we talk about WHERE SHE WENT without giving this away? When we first started talking about IF I STAY, we had a similar problem. How to talk about the book without giving away the accident. We wanted you all to be shocked when it happened. And we wanted you to be shocked again when you found out about Mia's choice. And again when you found out about Teddy. I did mention that this post would have IF I STAY spoilers, right???

But sometimes you have to give a little away. Initially, we were too coy with the first book and people had no clue what it was about. And with WHERE SHE WENT, we tell people that Mia lived—and dumped Adam.But I feel terrible about ruining the reading experience for people who haven't read IF I STAY. I don't want any collateral damage readers (heh, heh, inside joke that will make sense once you read WHERE SHE WENT).

But then we have this other video, which is a video tour of several of the New York City locations in WHERE SHE WENT, with me as your guide (*waves*). Ideally, this is something you would watch AFTER you read WHERE SHE WENT because not only does it contain spoilers of plotpoints and such that you are just so much better off not knowing, but also because it gives you a visual picture of settings in the book, and I think it's so much better as a reader to imagine what the places look like in your head and then see how they match up. (And you'll notice I didn't embed the video here, though I did kindly provide the link.) For the same reason, I always prefer to read the book BEFORE I watch the movie. But we released the video, and did so before the book, and I know plenty of people will watch it before they read the book—because, umm, we put it out before the book was released, for one, and for two because it's just human nature. I know people who even read the endings of book first, which horrifies me. Truly. Don't ever tell an author you do that, okay?

Sigh! It's a thin line between getting readers interested in books and spoiling a reading experience. I know for many readers, the best experience reading IF I STAY was going in totally blind, having no idea what was going to happen and then just being shocked. I love when books do that to me. I read Emma Donohue's amazing if unbearably suspenseful ROOM in that kind of ignorance and loved it. I read THE HUNGER GAMES before I knew much and was similarly flabbergasted by it. Getting something pre-hype, pre-Twitter, pre-trailer can be an amazing thing. But so can getting something because your best friend told you she just read something and you HAVE TO READ IT RIGHT NOW!

I have seen some of the early blog reviews for WHERE SHE WENT and I am LOVING how reviewers are warning readers not even to read the review if they haven't read IF I STAY and then reviewing WSW so delicately so as to give too much away. This is the sign of a true bibliophile. You bloggers are way more restrained than me. And I'm sorry about the trailer being a spoiler. In its defense, it is so hot!!!

And finally—get to the point already, Gayle!!!—so I will not be alone out here swooning over the voice of Adam, I'm giving away one copy of the audiobook of WHERE SHE WENT. All you have to do is comment on the spoiler thing. And any authors out there reading this, I'd love to hear how you handle this dance. Anyhow once you comment, you're entered. No matter where you live. This contest is worldwide, baby.

One of these days I'll write a book that I can talk about without spoiling it. But having just completed the draft of a new book (and no, it's not about Adam or Mia), I have to say, it's not this one. I have NO CLUE how I'll describe this one without giving away the farm.

Conundrums!

Where She Went out April 5th, 2011

Pre-order it here.

International Reading Association Conference

May 8-11 For more information, check out: http://www.iraconvention.org/

Texas Library Association Annual Conference

April 12-15. For more information click here.