Beth Neff's Blog - Posts Tagged "ya-blogs"
"Best of..." Interviews: Second Installment
Here are a couple more of the great interview questions I've received since Getting Somewhere came out. This is the second installment and I'll plan to have one more. (And if YOU have a question you’d like to ask, send me a message here at Goodreads and I may post it with my response!)
From Amaterasu Reads
What does it feel like to have a published book?
They say it’s like having a baby – the initial excitement, the long wait, and eventual flurry of pain, relief, exhilaration, and exhaustion. I suppose this is as good a metaphor as any and yet, even though I’ve had four kids of my own, the best preparation I could have had for the experience of writing a book and having it published has been the nearly thirty years I spent as an organic vegetable farmer.
People I knew were pretty surprised when I told them I planned to quit farming, was resigning as manager of the farmers market and director of the not-for-profit I had founded, and that I hoped to become a writer. They were further surprised to discover that I had no intentions of writing about agriculture (at least, not directly!) or sustainability or community planning or any of the other topics I’d devoted my career to so far. What they really couldn’t have known, though – and I didn’t either – was that the experience of farming had, in many unpredicted ways, prepared me well for some of the things I would need to learn as a new author.
Like patience. Is there anyone who truly considers themselves patient? I certainly tried my best to be patient with my kids. And farming is nothing if not an exercise in patience. You know those gorgeous red-ripe tomatoes you love to buy at the farmers market? Well, we farmers plant those seeds in February, nurture baby plants along until they can tolerate the outdoors, weed around them for months, watch them carefully as they ripen, finally bring them to customers a good six months later. And none of this includes the months before spent perusing seed catalogs, selecting varieties, comparing records, crunching numbers, or the previous years dedicated to creating a fertile garden in the first place.
Writing a book is nearly exactly like that. It’s a whole lot of ‘hurry up and wait.’ All of your experiences have collided to create this book in the first place. You’ve spent varying amounts of time getting those perfect words recorded. And you certainly have an idea of what your ultimate goal might be (a published book!) But even once you’ve done the research to determine where to send the manuscript, even after you’ve found an agent and the agent has sold your book to a
publisher, there are so many steps along the way and so many chunks of time when you are simply waiting for the process to unfold.
I guess that’s why they call it ‘practicing’ patience.
And still, for all your best efforts in identifying and pursuing all the necessary resources, you really have very little control over the outcome. Some of it certainly comes down to hard work, some of it is timing, and some of it is just simply dumb luck (sort of like the weather.) And though it may be kind of hard to believe, that’s actually a good thing – recognizing that all you can ensure is the integrity of the process, the quality of the relationships built along
the way.
In many ways, that’s been the best part of becoming a writer and the part where my farming experience has turned out to be most relevant. It doesn’t matter how perfect that tomato turns out to be if nobody ever picks it up, admires it, savors the lovely flavor. Especially with organic farming, each vegetable is truly a labor of love. It matters who eats it, who shares with you a recipe they used to prepare it, who comes back to find more just like it. And writing is the same
way.
Authors care what people think. A book is a special kind of relationship, characterized by the nature of the story, the voice chosen to tell it and the total vulnerability we risk to present it.
In the same way that my farmers market customers wanted to be connected to the food they ate and the people who grew it, readers seek stories that will make them feel connected to something larger than themselves, that tell them something about the world of the author, the world as a whole, and, maybe more importantly, something about themselves. I am honored by the opportunity to give that to them. And of course, that’s exactly what authors want too and are
willing to go to a whole lot of trouble to get it.
From One A Day YA
Describe your main characters. If they were real people, would you be friends with them?
Getting Somewhere is the story of four very different girls who have been convicted of juvenile crimes and choose to serve out their sentences in an alternative detention program located on an organic farm. The narrative switches back and forth between the girls, providing each one’s perspective on the very challenging experiences she is confronting in this unfamiliar environment.
We are introduced first to Jenna who is described as someone who would willingly push others out of the way to get where she has to go. And yet she is, of course, much more complex than that, having been shuffled around from foster home to foster home, eventually landing in juvenile detention as a result of taking the fall for much more hardened (and sophisticated) criminals. She’s turned her hurt into a shell and we are given the opportunity to watch while that shell either weakens a bit and falls away or installs itself as a permanent burden on her back. Cassie, on the other hand, has no experience of the world at all. She has spent her childhood living in an isolated trailer with her grandmother, who has gradually deteriorated mentally, leaving Cassie as the primary caretaker. Their only outside connection is with Cassie’s uncle who, while keeping them alive and fed, turns out to be more curse than blessing. Cassie’s crime does not become clear until late in the book but her personal struggle to fit in, to find something she can call ‘self,’ is a vibrant theme throughout the story. Then there’s Sarah. She ran away from home at thirteen and, as happens to so many girls on the street, becomes the victim of drugs and prostitution. At first, the farm simply means a warm bed and hot meals but she is hard-pressed to resist the pressures – of all kinds – to participate in the drama that ensues there. The last girl is Lauren. She’s a thief and a manipulator and yet no less a victim of the poor decisions of the adults around her than the others. While I don’t know anyone exactly like Lauren – or any of the others, for that matter – there is a little piece of each one of them in all of us. And as one very wise writer said recently, you have to fall a little bit in love with your characters, no matter how difficult. At times, I just want to give each of them a great big hug!
From Amaterasu Reads
What does it feel like to have a published book?
They say it’s like having a baby – the initial excitement, the long wait, and eventual flurry of pain, relief, exhilaration, and exhaustion. I suppose this is as good a metaphor as any and yet, even though I’ve had four kids of my own, the best preparation I could have had for the experience of writing a book and having it published has been the nearly thirty years I spent as an organic vegetable farmer.
People I knew were pretty surprised when I told them I planned to quit farming, was resigning as manager of the farmers market and director of the not-for-profit I had founded, and that I hoped to become a writer. They were further surprised to discover that I had no intentions of writing about agriculture (at least, not directly!) or sustainability or community planning or any of the other topics I’d devoted my career to so far. What they really couldn’t have known, though – and I didn’t either – was that the experience of farming had, in many unpredicted ways, prepared me well for some of the things I would need to learn as a new author.
Like patience. Is there anyone who truly considers themselves patient? I certainly tried my best to be patient with my kids. And farming is nothing if not an exercise in patience. You know those gorgeous red-ripe tomatoes you love to buy at the farmers market? Well, we farmers plant those seeds in February, nurture baby plants along until they can tolerate the outdoors, weed around them for months, watch them carefully as they ripen, finally bring them to customers a good six months later. And none of this includes the months before spent perusing seed catalogs, selecting varieties, comparing records, crunching numbers, or the previous years dedicated to creating a fertile garden in the first place.
Writing a book is nearly exactly like that. It’s a whole lot of ‘hurry up and wait.’ All of your experiences have collided to create this book in the first place. You’ve spent varying amounts of time getting those perfect words recorded. And you certainly have an idea of what your ultimate goal might be (a published book!) But even once you’ve done the research to determine where to send the manuscript, even after you’ve found an agent and the agent has sold your book to a
publisher, there are so many steps along the way and so many chunks of time when you are simply waiting for the process to unfold.
I guess that’s why they call it ‘practicing’ patience.
And still, for all your best efforts in identifying and pursuing all the necessary resources, you really have very little control over the outcome. Some of it certainly comes down to hard work, some of it is timing, and some of it is just simply dumb luck (sort of like the weather.) And though it may be kind of hard to believe, that’s actually a good thing – recognizing that all you can ensure is the integrity of the process, the quality of the relationships built along
the way.
In many ways, that’s been the best part of becoming a writer and the part where my farming experience has turned out to be most relevant. It doesn’t matter how perfect that tomato turns out to be if nobody ever picks it up, admires it, savors the lovely flavor. Especially with organic farming, each vegetable is truly a labor of love. It matters who eats it, who shares with you a recipe they used to prepare it, who comes back to find more just like it. And writing is the same
way.
Authors care what people think. A book is a special kind of relationship, characterized by the nature of the story, the voice chosen to tell it and the total vulnerability we risk to present it.
In the same way that my farmers market customers wanted to be connected to the food they ate and the people who grew it, readers seek stories that will make them feel connected to something larger than themselves, that tell them something about the world of the author, the world as a whole, and, maybe more importantly, something about themselves. I am honored by the opportunity to give that to them. And of course, that’s exactly what authors want too and are
willing to go to a whole lot of trouble to get it.
From One A Day YA
Describe your main characters. If they were real people, would you be friends with them?
Getting Somewhere is the story of four very different girls who have been convicted of juvenile crimes and choose to serve out their sentences in an alternative detention program located on an organic farm. The narrative switches back and forth between the girls, providing each one’s perspective on the very challenging experiences she is confronting in this unfamiliar environment.
We are introduced first to Jenna who is described as someone who would willingly push others out of the way to get where she has to go. And yet she is, of course, much more complex than that, having been shuffled around from foster home to foster home, eventually landing in juvenile detention as a result of taking the fall for much more hardened (and sophisticated) criminals. She’s turned her hurt into a shell and we are given the opportunity to watch while that shell either weakens a bit and falls away or installs itself as a permanent burden on her back. Cassie, on the other hand, has no experience of the world at all. She has spent her childhood living in an isolated trailer with her grandmother, who has gradually deteriorated mentally, leaving Cassie as the primary caretaker. Their only outside connection is with Cassie’s uncle who, while keeping them alive and fed, turns out to be more curse than blessing. Cassie’s crime does not become clear until late in the book but her personal struggle to fit in, to find something she can call ‘self,’ is a vibrant theme throughout the story. Then there’s Sarah. She ran away from home at thirteen and, as happens to so many girls on the street, becomes the victim of drugs and prostitution. At first, the farm simply means a warm bed and hot meals but she is hard-pressed to resist the pressures – of all kinds – to participate in the drama that ensues there. The last girl is Lauren. She’s a thief and a manipulator and yet no less a victim of the poor decisions of the adults around her than the others. While I don’t know anyone exactly like Lauren – or any of the others, for that matter – there is a little piece of each one of them in all of us. And as one very wise writer said recently, you have to fall a little bit in love with your characters, no matter how difficult. At times, I just want to give each of them a great big hug!
Best of...Interviews Part 3
I’ve received some great questions from various interviews over the last ten months since Getting Somewhere came out so thought I’d gather a few of the responses in one place. This is the third installment. (And if YOU have a question you’d like to ask, send me a message here at Goodreads and I may post it with my response!)
For Reading Keeps You Sane
Where did the title of your book come from?
I’m sure it happens all the time: the book is written and all that remains is somehow arriving at the perfect title. The title is the book’s face to the world and finding the perfect fit might require long, diligent effort, even a few initial stabs at it that earn just wrinkled noses and noncommittal smiles.
I have to admit, though, that that’s not the way it happened for me at all. In fact, the title Getting Somewhere jumped into my mind even before the first page was completely written, providing thematic guidance for the actual writing of the novel itself.
That classic concept of a ‘heroine’s journey’ permeates the narrative from the very first scene in which the four girls arrive at the farm in the detention-center bus, taking that first step on what will turn out for all of them to be a bit of a harrowing trip. Jenna is prepared to be seriously underwhelmed, expecting the women who run the farm to have nothing to offer her – just like all of the other adults she has encountered so far in her life. Sarah doesn’t think much beyond a warm bed or a full stomach at first, has trained herself to take things pretty much as they come, assuming others will make the tough decisions and let her know about them afterwards. Cassie has rarely been beyond the walls of her grandmother’s trailer, the boundaries of the surrounding yard, can’t even conceive of what she might confront beyond pictures from the books she’s devoured from early childhood. And Lauren? Well, Lauren expects to get whatever she wants, has no intention of doing anything she doesn’t want to do or being anywhere she doesn’t want to be.
Yet, despite the fact that they’ve all converged onto this isolated spot on earth from significantly diverse directions, they’re all on the same road now. What will they make of the trip? How will they use what they know of themselves to discover their strengths and discard their shackles? How will who they’ve been up until now allow (or disallow!) them to absorb these new and difficult – yet potentially life-altering – surroundings, to negotiate the path laid out before them?
I’m fascinated with the process of personal decision-making, with the way that identity is such a stew of our perceptions of ourselves within the framework of our experiences. Sometimes our experiences hinder our ability to move forward. Sometimes what we believe about ourselves – what we’ve been told by others – simply isn’t true. Sometimes, in order to get somewhere, we have to leave an awful lot of stuff behind.
With Getting Somewhere, both the title and the book, I hope to address some of the most basic questions of trust and choice and forgiveness. I am pleased and honored to invite readers along on that metaphoric – but no less real and challenging – journey.
For A Tapestry of Words
Describe your choice to include strong adult characters in the story.
As you may have noticed, there are a lot of dead and missing adults in YA literature. The reasons are fairly obvious. First, YA characters need to be experiencing some kind of challenge, drama, or even trauma. Killing off a parent (or two) is a pretty good way of doing that. Second, YA protagonists are generally learning how to make the transition from childhood to adulthood (the ‘coming of age’ trope) and the experience is significantly more interesting and dramatic without a parent looking over their shoulders. And, finally, YA is, well, it’s YA which means it’s about young adults. The sense among the adults who edit, publish and market these books is that teenagers just don’t want to read about adults.
The truth is, though, that adults are both the primary problem-makers AND problem-solvers in the world. Whether it’s fantasy or real-lit, it’s usually neither workable nor advisable to eliminate adult voices entirely. Think of Harry Potter. He has both Voldemort and Dumbledore. Or Katniss Everdeen with both President Snow (and the Capitol) and Haymitch (‘maker’ and ‘solver.’) There are certainly exceptions but the point is that the world isn’t – or shouldn’t be – divided up by age groups and adults can serve as both excellent antagonists and critical resources in literary settings. In other words, the identity of the teen character evolves either in relationship with or in juxtaposition to the adults in his or her life.
And, in fact, adults represent a ‘future’ that is not possible to develop in any other way. Kids generally don’t get to grow up in YA lit and yet, if we are to explore the psychologically essential (and dramatically interesting) aspects of responsibility and consequences, it is important to represent how those might manifest themselves over time. Adult characters can provide critical tension by acting as models, reflections, or even cautionary tales, sometimes all at the same time. This is the dynamic that fascinated me as I developed the characters and plot elements of Getting Somewhere.
My characters are four teen girls who have committed juvenile crimes and elect to participate in an alternative detention program located on an organic farm. Clearly, something has gone wrong for them. Though we want to know what has happened to them in the past, the setting and the story line pretty much eliminate any significant role for parents right from the start.
And yet, adults do come to play a significant role. Three women run the farm. They are important to the story, (and to the girls) offering that classic conflict between potential resource and flawed decision-making. Though the issues the girls are dealing with start long before they arrive on the farm, the relationships they develop with the adult women – and the relationships between the women – offer a potent context for exploring those exact issues further. Paradoxically, an understanding of the identities and experiences of the adult characters provides an opportunity to delve more deeply into the girls themselves – the impact of experience itself, the nature of emotional resources, how choices are made, how empowerment happens.
And, maybe more importantly, it is essential for our YA characters to grow, to experience some kind of transformation over the course of the story. While the love, nurture and support for that growth can come from some other source – a friend or love interest, for example – having it come at least in part from an adult (or to be visibly absent, forcing the teen to recognize the gap) is rich, powerful, and compellingly realistic.
In addition to that, there is the question of how we perceive of young adult experience, both in real life and on the page. I think younger readers ARE interested in reading about adults. Genuine adults, conflicted adults, flawed adults. Maybe not as primary characters but certainly as interesting, fully-developed, authentically devised secondary ones. Teens are keeping their eyes on us – as well they should! They want to understand motives, access information, evaluate how their decisions are going to play out in the long run. As authors, regardless of genre, it is our job to give that to them.
For Reading Keeps You Sane
Where did the title of your book come from?
I’m sure it happens all the time: the book is written and all that remains is somehow arriving at the perfect title. The title is the book’s face to the world and finding the perfect fit might require long, diligent effort, even a few initial stabs at it that earn just wrinkled noses and noncommittal smiles.
I have to admit, though, that that’s not the way it happened for me at all. In fact, the title Getting Somewhere jumped into my mind even before the first page was completely written, providing thematic guidance for the actual writing of the novel itself.
That classic concept of a ‘heroine’s journey’ permeates the narrative from the very first scene in which the four girls arrive at the farm in the detention-center bus, taking that first step on what will turn out for all of them to be a bit of a harrowing trip. Jenna is prepared to be seriously underwhelmed, expecting the women who run the farm to have nothing to offer her – just like all of the other adults she has encountered so far in her life. Sarah doesn’t think much beyond a warm bed or a full stomach at first, has trained herself to take things pretty much as they come, assuming others will make the tough decisions and let her know about them afterwards. Cassie has rarely been beyond the walls of her grandmother’s trailer, the boundaries of the surrounding yard, can’t even conceive of what she might confront beyond pictures from the books she’s devoured from early childhood. And Lauren? Well, Lauren expects to get whatever she wants, has no intention of doing anything she doesn’t want to do or being anywhere she doesn’t want to be.
Yet, despite the fact that they’ve all converged onto this isolated spot on earth from significantly diverse directions, they’re all on the same road now. What will they make of the trip? How will they use what they know of themselves to discover their strengths and discard their shackles? How will who they’ve been up until now allow (or disallow!) them to absorb these new and difficult – yet potentially life-altering – surroundings, to negotiate the path laid out before them?
I’m fascinated with the process of personal decision-making, with the way that identity is such a stew of our perceptions of ourselves within the framework of our experiences. Sometimes our experiences hinder our ability to move forward. Sometimes what we believe about ourselves – what we’ve been told by others – simply isn’t true. Sometimes, in order to get somewhere, we have to leave an awful lot of stuff behind.
With Getting Somewhere, both the title and the book, I hope to address some of the most basic questions of trust and choice and forgiveness. I am pleased and honored to invite readers along on that metaphoric – but no less real and challenging – journey.
For A Tapestry of Words
Describe your choice to include strong adult characters in the story.
As you may have noticed, there are a lot of dead and missing adults in YA literature. The reasons are fairly obvious. First, YA characters need to be experiencing some kind of challenge, drama, or even trauma. Killing off a parent (or two) is a pretty good way of doing that. Second, YA protagonists are generally learning how to make the transition from childhood to adulthood (the ‘coming of age’ trope) and the experience is significantly more interesting and dramatic without a parent looking over their shoulders. And, finally, YA is, well, it’s YA which means it’s about young adults. The sense among the adults who edit, publish and market these books is that teenagers just don’t want to read about adults.
The truth is, though, that adults are both the primary problem-makers AND problem-solvers in the world. Whether it’s fantasy or real-lit, it’s usually neither workable nor advisable to eliminate adult voices entirely. Think of Harry Potter. He has both Voldemort and Dumbledore. Or Katniss Everdeen with both President Snow (and the Capitol) and Haymitch (‘maker’ and ‘solver.’) There are certainly exceptions but the point is that the world isn’t – or shouldn’t be – divided up by age groups and adults can serve as both excellent antagonists and critical resources in literary settings. In other words, the identity of the teen character evolves either in relationship with or in juxtaposition to the adults in his or her life.
And, in fact, adults represent a ‘future’ that is not possible to develop in any other way. Kids generally don’t get to grow up in YA lit and yet, if we are to explore the psychologically essential (and dramatically interesting) aspects of responsibility and consequences, it is important to represent how those might manifest themselves over time. Adult characters can provide critical tension by acting as models, reflections, or even cautionary tales, sometimes all at the same time. This is the dynamic that fascinated me as I developed the characters and plot elements of Getting Somewhere.
My characters are four teen girls who have committed juvenile crimes and elect to participate in an alternative detention program located on an organic farm. Clearly, something has gone wrong for them. Though we want to know what has happened to them in the past, the setting and the story line pretty much eliminate any significant role for parents right from the start.
And yet, adults do come to play a significant role. Three women run the farm. They are important to the story, (and to the girls) offering that classic conflict between potential resource and flawed decision-making. Though the issues the girls are dealing with start long before they arrive on the farm, the relationships they develop with the adult women – and the relationships between the women – offer a potent context for exploring those exact issues further. Paradoxically, an understanding of the identities and experiences of the adult characters provides an opportunity to delve more deeply into the girls themselves – the impact of experience itself, the nature of emotional resources, how choices are made, how empowerment happens.
And, maybe more importantly, it is essential for our YA characters to grow, to experience some kind of transformation over the course of the story. While the love, nurture and support for that growth can come from some other source – a friend or love interest, for example – having it come at least in part from an adult (or to be visibly absent, forcing the teen to recognize the gap) is rich, powerful, and compellingly realistic.
In addition to that, there is the question of how we perceive of young adult experience, both in real life and on the page. I think younger readers ARE interested in reading about adults. Genuine adults, conflicted adults, flawed adults. Maybe not as primary characters but certainly as interesting, fully-developed, authentically devised secondary ones. Teens are keeping their eyes on us – as well they should! They want to understand motives, access information, evaluate how their decisions are going to play out in the long run. As authors, regardless of genre, it is our job to give that to them.
