YA LGBT Books discussion
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John Goode
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Kaje
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Feb 29, 2012 09:58PM
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For March, 2012, our featured author is John Goode. He is a skilled writer, amusing and insightful blogger, and (given how willingly he agreed to do this for us) a really nice guy. We will be discussing his book Maybe With a Chance of Certainty on another thread below. This thread is for asking questions, making comments and generally getting to know our featured author.John's bio reads:
"John Goode was found in the back of a garden shed originally, and lured out by candy, he was raised on Elm Street before moving due to a rare sleep disorder. After taking off with a few friends to find a dead body, he attended Sherman High School majoring in absenteeism. Dropping out of college to work at the Gap, he struggled on perfecting his karaoke version of "Conjunction Junction" before moving on. He worked several odd jobs, first as a clerk at a record store that was open till midnight, moving to garbage collector with his brother, and then he finally decided on being a convenience store clerk who complained a lot that he wasn't even supposed to be there that particular day. He lives with a talking cartoon dog or cat or three squirrels and has possibly ingested far too much pop culture over the years.
Or he is this guy who lives in this place and writes stuff he hopes you read."
I'm hoping he'll bring the critters by here. But even if they are figments of his imagination, I am looking forward to getting to know this author better. Welcome to YA LGBT Books, Mr. Goode.
Wait, you mean my imaginary friends aren't real?
Who am I to decide? They are welcome here, anyway, should they care to show up. With you being a writer, I have to figure figments of your imagination can be pretty darned real.
Well growing up i was a total nerd (wait, still am...damnit) I have always been a total nerd so have played RPG's since I was about 13 so if I was being honest, I have spent more time talking to unreal people that real ones.
John wrote: "Wait, you mean my imaginary friends aren't real?"OMG--I love you already and I haven't read a word you've written!!
WOOP! I loved Maybe with a chance of certainty :P so Congrats on being Author of the Month John... great name btw ;) haha
Thanks, it is a great honor.I'm fond of the name too :)
Maybe with a Chance of Certainty was a great read. If I trusted my 16-year-old with my Kindle, I would have passed it along to her.Welcome, John! Looking forward to finding out more about you and your books.
Jo wrote: "Maybe with a Chance of Certainty was a great read. If I trusted my 16-year-old with my Kindle, I would have passed it along to her...."Yeah, maybe not. My 16 year old is not getting my Nook in her hands either given some of the content. But maybe she can have a pdf of the book on her computer.
I tried the PDF on the computer thing with my 16-year-old, and also sent her a Word document of one of my stories to beta for me (I think it was Life Skills, actually), and she "forgot." LOL
Jo wrote: "I tried the PDF on the computer thing with my 16-year-old, and also sent her a Word document of one of my stories to beta for me (I think it was Life Skills, actually), and she "forgot." LOL"Oops. Or maybe she felt uncomfortable beta-ing Mom's work and conveniently forgot.
My kid will read anything anywhere. If she had a Kindle with credit we would be bankrupt. I'll get her this though and a couple others on my list that we don't have in paperback. I always like hearing her take on the YA stuff. She loved Luna. We'll see what she thinks of Foster High.
I don't think it was discomfort, since she also "forgot" to read the PDF I'd gotten for her, which wasn't my work. But she reads my books all the time and has even done some fanfic based on The Dark Lines, so I don't think being uncomfortable had anything to do with it. LOL
Jo wrote: "Maybe with a Chance of Certainty was a great read. If I trusted my 16-year-old with my Kindle, I would have passed it along to her.Welcome, John! Looking forward to finding out more about you and..."
Why thank you, I am a fully loaded and unlocked Kindle.
I am guessing that's how you say you're an open book in the 21st century.
John wrote: "Why thank you, I am a fully loaded and unlocked Kindle.I am guessing that's how you say you're an open book in the 21st century. .."
LOL. God, I hope the term "open book" doesn't become as unfamiliar to our grandkids as "dial the phone" is to our kids. I love paper books, and still buy my favorites that way for rereading.
Slang is definitely changing with time...hopefully that one won't.True story: in 2000, I was teaching special ed in a small, rural school in Maine. One of my students, age 11 or 12 at the time, had a habit of repeating himself when he was excited about whatever he was talking about. One day, after about half an hour of hearing the same three things over and over, I said to him, "Sheldon, you sound like a broken record."
He looked at me and said, in complete seriousness, "What's a record?" He wasn't being a wise guy...he really didn't know!
I thought for a second and said, "Sheldon, you sound like a skipping CD."
He said, "Oh. Sorry," and stopped repeating himself for the rest of the time he was in there that day.
hahaha @ Jo... no insult but it's called getting older.. Makes the past turn into 'The Good Old Days'!!!BTW Welcome John.. I'm looking forward to reading your book..
So any questions about the book or writing in general? Can you tell I'm bored? lol
What made you decide to start writing?How old were you when you began writing fiction?
Why did you choose YA fiction specifically?
What are the names of the cartoon animals you live with?
What works in progress or in the planning stages do you have if any?
The Outsiders by SE Hinton. I was in juvenile hall and my mom brought me a copy and it changed my life. I really wanted to be able to affect people like she had affected me.Just after that so 13 and my first story was called The Outsider. To say SE Hinton would sue the living shit out of me for it is an understatement. I can only pray I have gotten better :)
Because it is the time in our lives when we need heroes and villains, good and bad and to be told we are not alone so badly that it makes a hole in us if we don't. For me that hole was filled by comic books, I want to fill that hole for gay teens by telling them, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. And you know be amusing at the same time.
Little Eddie, Baby Faith and Bratta.
I have a fantasy YA book coming out next month called Distant Rumblings loosely based on a Midsummer's night Dream. Book three of the Foster series called Raise Your Glass after that and then a paperback edition of all three Foster books edited and collected for YA readers specifically. Which I am HUGELY anticipating.
And THANK YOU for asking something. I was dying over here :)
You're welcome :) It's early yet; I'm in the Eastern time zone, but some of our other members are in later time zones. And some are over in Australia and New Zealand and might already have gone to bed for the night...It's a tricky time of day to get a response right now. I loved The Outsiders, but yeah, S.E. Hinton might not have appreciated your homage. LOL.
I LOVE A Midsummer Night's Dream. On the adult romance side of things, I wrote a short story a little over a year ago using Puck from that play, and I'm six episodes into a blog-only serial story that continues from where that short story left off.
Sorry, derail...
Very cool about Distant Rumblings; what publisher is that from? And I'm excited about your paperback Foster High book; I'll be getting a copy of that to share with my 16-year-old.
It's from Dreamspinners young adult imprint. I'll post when I know more about it I promise :)
Cool. I've heard a little about that new imprint; I keep meaning to look into it. I'm a Dreamspinner author on the adult side of things. (under my other name.)
Oh very cool. Not sure I have anything adult yet :) everything is Foster based or YA.
I like YA (as I said on the "why read YA?" thread some of the truest books that engage me the most are YA.) The Outsiders was one of my favorites from the moment I read it, and both my daughters love it too. At one time we had three copies in different stages of decrepitude in the house. I'm so glad you found it at the right time to be inspired. (My thing was to write sequels to my favs, including that one.)
I also love MSND - I threw Puck into my Valentine with demons story here (well, one of them.)
I gave Maybe With a Chance of Certainty to my kid (she's 16) - she liked it, said all the car analogies sounded like some of the guys she used to go to school with.
You said you have more girls in the next installments. (Book 2 is waiting on my Nook - it's been a busy week for me.) Do you find it harder to write teen girls? Do you have a reality-checker female person you run things by? (I've pressured a couple of the guys on this thread into giving me teen-boy reviews for my stuff - thank-you Thorny and BJ.)
I find most girls are people too :) Meaning besides the way they approach certain situations, most girls I know do not act outside what the norm of what I consider "normal". So when writing women I try to write the women I know and give them the respect and emotions I have observed. One of my pet peeves is when male writers either write women as men with breasts or airheads. So I try to avoid that completely.
John wrote: "One of my pet peeves is when male writers either write women as men with breasts or airheads. So I try to avoid that completely...."
:) - a little pet-peeve reversal?
And you probably have a better memory of your teen days from your younger vantage point than I do.
Kaje wrote: "John wrote: "One of my pet peeves is when male writers either write women as men with breasts or airheads. So I try to avoid that completely...."
:) - a little pet-peeve reversal?
And you probab..."
LOL I have a weird honeycomb memory when it comes to stories. i can read then books at a time, put a book down and pick it up three years later (did that with a Wild Cards book) and was like I read it yesterday, it is the same way with my writing. Every time I go back to a story I find myself in the same place where I was when I left off. I have stopped writing mid word in the middle of a sentence and open the file and finish it a month later. I have no idea why because I cannot remember where my damn keys are five seconds after they left my hand, but with reading and writing my mind seems to be insane.
John wrote: "LOL I have a weird honeycomb memory when it comes to stories. i can read then books at a time, put a book down and pick it up three years later (did that with a Wild Cards book) and was like I read it yesterday, it is the same way with my writing. Every time I go back to a story I find myself in the same place where I was when I left off. I have stopped writing mid word in the middle of a sentence and open the file and finish it a month later. I have no idea why because I cannot remember where my damn keys are five seconds after they left my hand, but with reading and writing my mind seems to be insane...."
An enviable kind of insanity.
So...my new YA fantasy book came out...I got my actual physical copies today. I think I danced around the house for like an hour.My cats are sure I am nuts now.
John wrote: "So...my new YA fantasy book came out...I got my actual physical copies today. I think I danced around the house for like an hour.My cats are sure I am nuts now."
Isn't it cool to get the physical book in your hands? I was the same with each of mine - I got four copies of the first one and I laid them out to look at for about an hour.
And what do cats know - they think dignity is more vital than celebration.
John wrote: "So...my new YA fantasy book came out...I got my actual physical copies today. I think I danced around the house for like an hour.My cats are sure I am nuts now."
Actual copies??? SO let me get this straight--I can purchase an actual copy--send it to a PO box and you scoop it up and sign it and send it back???
Cause you know that's what I did with Lanyon right?? SO you have to have a PO Box right John--you're killing me here!!!
Yeah I would do that. I also signed like thirty copies for Dreamspinner...each one had lyrics from an 80's song that I thought fit the book...you know people getting those will have NO idea what they mean lol
John wrote: "Yeah I would do that. I also signed like thirty copies for Dreamspinner...each one had lyrics from an 80's song that I thought fit the book...you know people getting those will have NO idea what th..."Excellent--I will be knocking at your PO box John--is the info on where to buy hard copy on your actual website?
No I know Amazon sells them, not sure if there is cover art there yet (which is odd in itself). I am not sure where the actual website is, I have seen in on Barnes and Nobles and Amazon...that's about it.
John wrote: "No I know Amazon sells them, not sure if there is cover art there yet (which is odd in itself). I am not sure where the actual website is, I have seen in on Barnes and Nobles and Amazon...that's ab..."that is great!! am shopping there now!
This should be ithttp://www.amazon.com/Distant-Rumblin...
Or someone has a book an awful lot like mine.
John wrote: "This should be ithttp://www.amazon.com/Distant-Rumblin...
Or someone has a book an awful lot like mine."
Not likely with an art cover LOL - I've had my cover guys show up on other people's books though. I do love that cover you got.
So do I. So far been blessed with great cover art, am wondering if I get new art for the paperback version of Foster series?
John wrote: "This should be ithttp://www.amazon.com/Distant-Rumblin...
Or someone has a book an awful lot like mine."
got it John!!!
Fairly sure I said this elsewhere but just so that others may see it:John, I have thoroughly enjoyed having you as our author of the month! You are a great guy, a true gentleman and a great sport! Thanks for letting us get a glimpse into the amazing playground that is your imagination! I wish you all the best!
It was all my pleasure, you guys have been a hoot!
As my month comes to end, I want to thank you all for having me and my imaginary friends. (Sorry about that couch, send me the bill) You guys were a lot of fun.
John wrote: "As my month comes to end, I want to thank you all for having me and my imaginary friends. (Sorry about that couch, send me the bill) You guys were a lot of fun."OMG--but I just bought more cheetos and yoohoo!!!! Where are you going?? Oh, that's right--you DO have a life. HAHA!!!
Our best to you John!!! We love you and your work!!!
John wrote: "As my month comes to end, I want to thank you all for having me and my imaginary friends. (Sorry about that couch, send me the bill) You guys were a lot of fun."The whole lot of you are welcome back any time. We can always buy a new couch.
Just wanted to pop in and let you guys now I am giving a digital copy of my new book away...the rules are up at my blog...http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
Tell a friend :)
YA LGBT Books
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Maybe With a Chance of Certainty (other topics)Maybe With a Chance of Certainty (other topics)
