Inspiring Blogger Award

YAY! I won an award! WOO HOO!

It's an award for blogging as you may have caught from the title above.

Side note: I love blogging. I started this blog a little more than four years ago because I'd gone to a writing conference and one of the sessions was about creating a brand for yourself and getting your name Out There and this all seemed like something I MUST DO AT ONCE. Very quickly into the process I realized that I didn't have a brand or want a brand and I didn't even know what the word brand meant exactly.

Also, it was going to be very very hard to get my name Out There when only like, four people were reading my blog, and those four people were my mother, my husband, and a couple of my friends.

Weirdly, I realized that I liked blogging despite the low readership. I'd been writing for a long time and I had this vision that the Me of 15 years before would appreciate the wisdom and experience and all around coolness of the present/future me.

I wanted to give back, I guess you could say. Help other struggling writers like that beginner me who were on the same often weary, mostly solitary journey to publication.

I thought I'd have a book deal in a few weeks and I was planning to gush about that on the blog. Instead, I ended up chronicling the next three years of NO book deals. Of rejections and angst and yearning and making peace and redoubling my efforts and failure and finally making peace again. And then I got the book deal.

Ha ha.

When I was teaching high school English and many days looking out a classroom of bored, sometimes overtly hostile students, I'd imagine that there was one kid who was listening and for that one kid, I threw my heart into the lesson.

That's sorta how I look at this blog. I've still got my four loyal readers (Thanks, MOM! Thanks hubby and friends) and a handful of others who've continued to read these posts, and I thank you all too. One of these lovely readers tagged me for this award.

Okay. It's not really an award. Maybe more of a Tag You're It chain-letter-y kind of thing. But you know what? I'll take it. Thanks Susan Brody over at The Art of Not Getting Published for tagging me and now I am going to pay it forward by:
1. displaying the award on my blog
2. linking back to the person who nominated me
3. stating 7 things about myself AND
4. nominating a few of MY favorite bloggers

Seven Things About Me:

1. I just got back from an awesome visit to St. Paul where I sat in on brilliant lectures and readings and discussions at Hamline University's MFA in Children's Literature program. I was there mostly to support my writing friend Donna who is a student in the program and was presenting her critical essay: "Psychic Distance in Non-Fiction Picture Books." (She did an awesome job.) 

2. While I was at Hamline, I met E. Lockhart, Anne Ursu, Jane Resh Thomas, and Laura Ruby! Later, I ate dinner with Carrie Mesrobian and Justina Ireland!  

3. I want to go back to school!! I forgot how much I love being a student, and this glimpse into the MFA program reminded me. I like taking notes and listening to writers speak about the writing process and the craft of writing. I like hanging around with people who like talking about books. 

4. I like listening to Carrie Mesrobian talk about sex and other stuff that was on her mind. For example: furniture. 

5. The only downside of the trip was I missed my dog. I missed my husband and daughter too, but they seemed totally fine--even a little giddy to be rid of me for a few days-- but my dog, my sweet Zooey--was the one I most worried about. 

Yeah. I can't believe I just shared that either. 

But look: 

(That's Zooey a few minutes after I came home. See how stunned and happy she is to see me? Please don't leave me again, Mom. Please please please is what she's saying there.)

I forgot what I was talking about. 

Oh yeah, number 6 about me. I wrote a book called Thin Space. But yadda yadda ya. 

I love that book, don't get me wrong, and I love that I wrote it and it was published and it's sitting on library shelves, but now I want to write another book and another book and another. 

7. I also have a cat.

(This is Zelda. She may have missed me too.
Or not.
It's hard to say)

And now here are a few of my favorite blogs:

*The Art of Not Getting Published. This blog is funny and smart and written by a writer who I am sure will one day be published and then she will have to change the name of her blog. Read it and you'll find a variety of good stuff about books and traveling and art and the law. (The writer is an attorney.) 

*Rachel Writes Things. I've been following this blog for a while. First, because I like the book reviews. Second, because many of the posts are about the writer's publishing journey. It's been very cool to watch her talk about the book she's been writing, and recently she's caught the eye of an agent. Next step, book deal. Crossing my fingers, Rachel...

*Mary Cronk Farrell's blog. I met Mary at a conference and then read her riveting book Pure Grit, the true story of American nurses who were taken prisoner during World War Two. Somewhere in there I signed up for Mary's newsletter, which links to her blog. Every few weeks I get an inspiring email that features the story of a historical or modern day hero.

*Stacked. This is THE blog you must follow if you love reading YA books. Two librarians, Kelly and Kimberly, write book reviews and analyze trends in book publishing and point out all kinds of cool--sometimes uncomfortable observations-- about teens and reading and life itself. 

And for a dash of fun, there's my new favorite,
*Carrie Mesrobian's Conversations with My Fake Boyfriend. If you're a writer and you're procrastinating, check out the conversations Carrie REALLY had with one of her fake boyfriends. Guaranteed to make you smile.

PS: Before you go about your day, I leave you with this lovely picture of ice circles drifting upon a Minnesota river:

Interview with Patti Edmon

A few years ago-- okay, it was more like ten years ago-- I was living in Lexington, Kentucky, and I was (sorta) pursuing my writing--working on a novel, collecting rejections for another novel, but mostly NOT writing. Mostly, I was driving around Lexington with my kids, taking them to piano lessons and viola lessons and watching them practice soccer and attending school board meetings and being the mom who went on field trips and made cupcakes for school functions.

The other moms I met along the way were just like me--on the surface--carting the cupcakes into the classroom and sitting on the soccer field sidelines, alternating between sweating our butts off and shivering with cold. We'd talk about what teachers we wanted our kids to have and how to throw together decent crockpot meals or we'd complain about the weather and the crazy Lexington traffic.

Very rarely the talk would turn to something else. Work. Or work we used to have before we quit or went part-time to raise our kids. Hobbies. Goals.

Dreams.

I always felt really weird talking about my writing. It was personal. Private. My writing dream felt silly/pathetic/selfish. It wasn't something I went around blabbering about.

One day I was dropping my daughter off on a play-date. My plan was to take the two hour break of time and drive downtown to the main library and work on a revision. Somehow I got to talking to my daughter's friend's mom about what I was doing and she told me she liked to write too and she was also working on some art and suddenly we were talking about the creative process and the work and time involved, and before I left, she was thrusting the book Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True by Elizabeth Berg into my hands.

The book was illuminating, and I realized I'd found a fellow creative companion in this mom. But our daughters didn't have any more play-dates and then my family moved from Lexington, and we lost track of each other (except for brief moments on Facebook). But once in a while I'd think of her and wonder how she was doing, what she might be working on, if anything.

Until one day a few months ago, BOOM, suddenly, this woman -- her name is Patti Edmon -- began sharing her art on Facebook, and I was entranced and excited. She's an artist, I thought. Look at that!

So I wrote to her and asked if I could interview her and she very kindly agreed...

Me: Patti, I've been looking at your paintings and I am totally in awe of your work. Can you tell me a bit about it? --the medium you use, the subject matter you're drawn to?

Patti: Lately I've been working with bright colors and lots of detail – flowers, angels, abstracts. The base of every piece is acrylic paint – on canvas, board, paper, whatever’s handy. I love to layer – in most every painting there are layers of papers– tissue paper, scraps, old book paper, along with found objects and ‘stuff’, along with pencil, pens, markers, chalk and pastels.

Over the past few years I've done a lot of assemblage, collage and painting, but I paint entirely from a place of intuition rather than reality. I greatly admire those who can capture a setting or person but I’m too impatient and I like for my work to come from my imagination.

Me: I like that: "a place of intuition, rather than reality." I always ask writers where they get their ideas. We like to think there's some logic behind it, as if we choose--well, maybe some writers do.

They say, I want to write about this particular subject or whatever. But most of the time, it seems like the idea or ideas just pop up. Is that how it is for you?

Patti: I often do a series, such as The Sistahs and Angels… one recent painting was based on song lyrics, but I usually start out putting color down and seeing where it goes. That’s a primary difference, I think, between writing and art. When I was writing fiction I had a character in mind and capsule idea of the story. When I paint I can literally just pick a technique, substrate or color palette.

Me: Maybe we're not so different. I like to free-write. Put the pen on the page or start typing. Worry about revising later. Do you approach a painting that way too? Or at some point do you plan out where you're going with a piece?

Patti: I haven’t yet painted from a sketch, but I think regular doodling, like journaling, keeps the creativity active. The times I have tried to achieve an idea or end result I end up so far away that I usually just jump in and play. I’m happiest when I’m in a state of ‘flow’ described as total immersion, i.e., unaware of time, surroundings, thought, etc. And, editing in art is adding something to see if it works, or putting in the recycled bin.

Me: It's interesting --that editing in art is about adding. In writing it's more about cutting. The similarity is how a lot ends up in the recycle bin. So many drafts that didn't end up working. I like how you approach what you do as play. It has a much nicer ring to it than work.

I always ask writers how many books they wrote before their first book deal, and how many rejections they received along the way-- do you have many paintings "in a drawer"-- early attempts that you now would not display? Or projects you worked on that went nowhere?

Patti: I have a great deal of work – the entire evolution – in my studio, pieces I did in workshops, experimental pieces and art I didn't produce with the intention of sharing. I believe that art is similar to writing in that we don’t usually share our journals and a lot of the work is, well, part of the journey.

Me: That's the key-- trying not to think about those earlier efforts as time wasted but as necessary practice.

What kind of work schedule do you have every day?

Patti: I try to get to the studio every day, but that doesn't always happen. I like to paint in the morning, before the distraction of all the below! I spend anywhere from an hour to three or four, depending upon the project.

Me: When we met, we were young moms with the carpooling and PTA stuff, but now the kids are older and somehow there are still tons of things to do (or tons of things we think we have to do) and it's a struggle to let that stuff go so we can work play. Is that how it is for you? How do you balance your creative time with your other obligations?

Patti: I used to view doing the dishes, dusting, laundry, meal prep, and other household chores as obligations. Now I am obligated to paint first and use whatever time/energy left over to make it appear as though I’m on top of everything! I started making art in 2006 after I ‘retired’ from our marketing/advertising business due to a chronic illness that still claims time and energy and it’s frustrating but I don’t watch television, read the newspaper or have much ‘idle’ time, which I think some call it relaxing.

Me: I like this attitude!

You're selling paintings now. Has that changed how you work? I guess what I'm asking here too, is if you--as an artist--have changed now that your work is getting attention commercially? Do you have to use time that would have gone into painting, to promote?

Patti: I've had pieces in several shows over the past few years and sold here and there but now it is different. I don’t have a gallery – yet – and I worked on a marketing plan during the holidays and have entered several juried competitions. The business end of art - pricing, marketing, keeping up with my blog, shipping – is a challenge, but it doesn't interfere with painting time and it hasn't changed my approach to art!

Me: I like this attitude too!! Art first. Everything else, second.

What are you working on now?

Patti: I’m working on a series of angels, notecards, and incorporating new supplies and techniques. I need to be working on my studio, as it’s a disaster after my recent creative bender. After the holidays I plan lots of experimentation.

Me: I am so excited to see what you create next. Thanks so much, Patti, for chatting with me today.

Readers, if you are interested in seeing more of Patti's art -- it is available for sale -- check out her website www.pattiedmon.blogspot.com for more details.

Patti Edmon

Lexuses and Coffee Tables and Designer Handbags and other Wants I Didn't Really Want but Wanted anyway (also how I know it's time to read The Artist's Way again)

I am not much of a wanter of things. Ask my husband. I drive him crazy before birthdays and Christmas.

What do you want? he asks me, and usually, I shrug and say: Nothing. Or sometimes I will say something like, Well I just got a kinda expensive haircut, so that can be my present.

He ends up buying me stuff and I admit I like what he buys me. Nice cushy slippers. A fancy tablet. A vacuum cleaner that roams around the room on its own (I suspect I may trip over it and crack my head open, but that is a post for another day.)

This post is about wanting. Wanting things. Wanting dreams to come true. Wanting to craft a certain kind of life for yourself, especially when the life you are leading seems to be slipping away or it's a life you've fallen into or it's a life that's veered off on a different path from what you once upon a time envisioned.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a writer. I also wanted a nice stable family and home life. For a long period of time I did not know that I could have both. I sort of plodded along, giving up writing for family and then daring to think that maybe I could still be a writer too.

Cue New Agey-style sitar music, light an incense candle, plump up a pillow on the floor, and sit in a lotus pose upon it, because I'm gonna tell you a secret:

You can have what you want. 

The trick is you have to be able to verbalize the want. You have to imagine that you can have such a thing.

This is much harder than it seems on the surface.

Go ahead, right now, make a list of what you want. Objects. Dreams. Watch how a voice jumps in to say it's silly or crazy or impossible or selfish.

Seven years ago my family moved from one state to another. I left behind a teaching job I loved and dear friends and a much-adored house. I turned forty that year and the combination Move/Possible Mid-Life Crisis was a jolt to my system. I'd always been writing, but the writing had become a hobby that slipped slowly down my to-do list, until some weeks it wasn't on the list at all.

I moved into a new town where I knew absolutely no one and the kids were in school all day and I didn't have a job outside the house and the house was old and drafty and uncomfortable, and I realized I was uncomfortable.

I wanted something.

I wanted to call myself a writer again.

I found this book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, and no offense to Artist's Way followers out there or Julia Cameron fans, but I started reading the book and immediately mocking it in my head. Julia Cameron talks about stuff like rediscovering your inner lost creative child and how you need to play and take yourself out for artist dates and let the Creator speak through you and other whack a doodle stuff like that.

It's a twelve-week course. With exercises. Like listing what you want.

Julia Cameron says you don't have to believe in it for it to work.

I didn't believe a damn word of it, but after much pooh-poohing, I wrote a list of wants, things I didn't even really want all that much. A new coffee table? Who gives a crap, but okay. I'll put new coffee table on the list because I don't like the one we have.

A designer purse. Hmm. Why not?

Our van was breaking down at the time, the fanbelt literally falling off whenever you made a left hand turn in the rain. A new car would be cool. How about a Lexus?

Here's something bizarre. I never showed anyone the list, but that year a neighbor gave us a coffee table. One of my brothers gave me a designer purse for Christmas. My other brother passed on his old Lexus to me.

I wrote more lists. I want a yellow kitchen. (done. That was easy. I bought a couple of gallons of yellow paint and painted the kitchen myself.) Ditto the herb garden and the row of asparagus plants and the new windows to keep the house warmer.

I want a published book on the library shelf. 
I want to speak at writing conferences. 
I want to go on a book tour. 

Once I started, I couldn't stop. The list scrolled out. I wanted more and more.

When I wasn't wanting, I was working. Painting the kitchen and planting the herbs and asparagus. And I was writing. I was writing like a maniac.

Over the next two years I wrote three novels and a bunch of short stories. I wrote articles and started this blog. In September, 2013, six years after I made the Want list, my book Thin Space could be found on library shelves.

I don't know what happened but somewhere in there I got pretty much everything I wanted-- (except for a dining room table. I don't know why I put that on the list.)-- and I was grateful and happy and humbled and honored, but I was also incredibly busy and the new life I'd crafted--the one I had always dreamed of having--became normal and then somehow became meh and even, at times, bluh.

What do you want for Christmas? my husband asked me a few weeks ago.

Nothing, I said.

I've been writing, and it's so hard. I read reviews of my book and I believe only the bad ones. The book I am writing right now sucks.

But this morning I was sitting in my warm yellow kitchen and I pulled out The Artist's Way again. I read the beginning and immediately started mocking it. What a load of absolute hooey, I said to myself.

And then I started making a list.

Two Sure-Fire Ways to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions

Resolutions are big in my family. 

We make them and mock them. We egg each other on to keep them. And break them. 

It helps that we write them down. 

Every year, for the past fourteen years, we've hosted a New Year's Eve party with the same group of friends. One of the party-goers, the most resolute of the resolution-makers, (for the purposes of this blog, we will call this person "Deb") records everyone's resolutions. She used to do this on a scrap of paper, but one year her resolution was to buy a blank book that would be used for the sole purpose of recording resolutions.

"Deb" has now become the Keeper of the Resolution Book. 

"Deb" with "the book." It's "fun" to flip through this book
and see what resolutions we made (and broke) over the years.

I know that not everyone is a fan of making resolutions. If you want to make a goal, make a goal. is what some people say. Why do you need to do it on Dec. 31? 

Also, a lot of people make resolutions and then break them like, three days later, as many gym workers will tell you. 

All true. But there is a reason why resolution-making on New Year's Eve has become a tradition. (See here on Wikipedia about how it can be traced back to the Babylonians and the Romans.) (Another fun Wiki tidbit: 88% of all resolution makers fail.) 

Anyway, after fourteen years, "Deb" and I consider ourselves experts on how to make--and successfully keep--resolutions. If you want to be one of the 12%, read on.

1. Say your resolutions out loud. In front of a witness. Or fifteen.

There's power in verbalizing what you plan to do. I would venture to say that it is the very first step in achieving any goal. You've got to name it. Lose ten pounds. Run a marathon. Finish a novel. Whatever. You won't do it, if you can't say it. And having witnesses adds a bit of peer pressure, people who will hold you to it. 

Last year my husband and I made a joint resolution to visit cultural sites around the city. We took pictures of the various sites and sent them to the Keeper of the Book. 

A Chihuly sculpture at the Columbus Museum of Art

Side note: Attending a Food Truck Festival does not count. According to "Deb."

Sometimes the peer pressure aspect can really spur you on. For the past four years my husband resolved to paint the trim on our house. Last summer we vacationed with "Deb" and family and they joked about how that resolution had become something of a rolling resolution for my husband. Ha ha, they said to him. Wonder what your resolution will be this year? 

We got home from vacation and my husband painted the trim on the house.  

Which brings me to number two. 

2. Set a low bar. 

Painting the house trim is hard. I do not recommend resolving to do hard things like that. Lose weight? Run a marathon? Who are we kidding? 

When my kids were little, simply getting dressed and venturing out of the house seemed like a fairly big deal. I had only one resolution:

Wash my face every day. 

I confess that I did not always achieve this lofty goal, but it was something to shoot for and most days, I did, in fact, manage to accomplish it. 

Now that I think of it, I was usually the only person who remembered and successfully kept my resolution. 

So forget everything I said. 

Make resolutions. Or not. Break resolutions. Or keep them. 

Whatever you do on New Year's Eve, I hope it is done (or not done) while surrounded by dear friends.

Cheers.

Last year on New Year's Eve moments before the resolutions
are shared and recorded... and forgotten.

Fun Times Juggling Carnivores and Vegans

It's just not Christmas until The Sausage Maker catalog arrives in the mail.

The Sausage Maker, as I'm sure you know, is the one-stop shopping guide for smokers, stuffers, grinders, and mixers. There are also pages of vacuum sealers, dehydrators, cheese making presses and fermenting pots. But we use it, of course, to buy our annual supply of sausage casings. My husband is Danish, and one of the Christmas traditions in his family is to make his grandmother's homemade potato and pork sausage to serve on Christmas Eve.

Making potato sausage is a complicated procedure that takes pretty much all day. It involves peeling potatoes, mixing it with the ground meat, stuffing the casings, gently boiling the sausages, and later, frying. We always have mishaps.

Example: broken casings or sausages bursting in the boiling water.

In our house, there's also always some kind of engineering involved. Since we never spring for the sausage stuffer equipment found in the catalog, we need to figure out how to hold the slippery casing open whilst stuffing it. One year we used an asthma inhaler container. Last year, an M&M canister with both ends cut out.

[I keep saying WE but there is no WE about it. I have nothing to do with the grinding or the stuffing or the engineering machinations. Although, I will help peel potatoes, and later, I'll watch the stove while the sausages gently boil--and inevitably burst.]

Potato Sausage Making is my husband's operation, with some help from our son. Christmas Eve you will find them, setting up our kitchen like it is a science lab, my husband laughing, my son saying "Ew," every few minutes.

I should mention that sausage casings are made from hog, sheep, or cow intestines. You can buy plastic inedible casings, but COME ON, PEOPLE, you may as well buy a casing shaped like a football.

(a casing shaped like a football.
Also, a baseball bat)

The sausage making tradition is always interesting, and this year it is about to become more interesting when my visiting brother from California arrives, just in time for the Christmas Eve peeling and grinding and stuffing.

Visiting brother from California is a vegan. I haven't looked this up, but I am pretty sure that vegans do not eat intestines.

Finished Homemade Non-Vegan Potato Sausages

I admit that I had been a little anxious about the menu-planning coming up over the next few days. But I turned to my trusty Sausage Maker catalog and lo and behold, on page 39, I found the solution:

Now, if I can only figure out a way to hide our annual tray of assorted cheeses...

Don't Come Early to the Rally (and other advice for would-be protestors)

Yesterday I got metaphorically booted out of a government building.

I was sorta flabbergasted. I've never been asked to leave a place in my life.

The guy-- a security guard at the Ohio Department of Education--was totally nice about it. A few minutes before we'd been sharing a laugh, so when he told me to leave--and not just leave the building but stay off the entire property and make sure I was standing on the sidewalk, and not blocking the stairs or the street--I thought he was joking.

He wasn't.

I walked outside, stunned, and stood on the sidewalk, making sure I did not block the stairs or the street, and feeling weird and, okay, outraged.

(The building in question.)

I was too early, is what the problem boiled down to, and when you're participating in a rally, apparently, you need to be on time and not expect to sit in the lobby of the Ohio Dept. of Education while you wait.

It all worked out in the end. As rallies go, this one was pretty mild. A few protest signs. Speeches and chants. All of us crammed in on the sidewalk clear of the stairs. Moms. Dads. Kids. Teachers. A cool group of nurses.

(the cool group of nurses)

I guess I should tell you what this raucous protest rally was all about. This week the Ohio Board of Ed is voting on a measure that could potentially put discretionary positions such as P.E. teachers, art and music teachers, librarians, nurses, and guidance counselors on the chopping block. The way things stand currently in Ohio, schools must have 5 out of 8 of these positions per 1000 students. 

Money's tight in Ohio. The state's cut money to the schools, and the schools are doing what they can to deal with the loss of state support, which includes raising taxes and cutting jobs. But their hands are (fortunately) tied by the 5 of 8 Rule. 

Now some school board members, in the guise of giving local school districts "freedom," propose doing away with the 5 of 8 standard. They say it won't lead to the loss of discretionary positions (which some have called luxuries), but, come on. Who are we kidding here? 

The sad truth is that wealthier districts will find a way to keep art and music and librarians in their schools, while other districts--and children in those districts--are going to lose out. 

People gave impassioned speeches.

A mom talking about how the arts helped her child. A child talking about her ADD and how much being in the theater made a difference. A guidance counselor speaking about kids in crisis. A college student describing how music made him what he is. 

My friend Susan Yutzey, a retired librarian and president of the Ohio school librarians, spoke about how kids need help more than ever in analyzing and understanding the vast amount of information they are bombarded with each day. I spoke about how librarians saved my life and about how I've seen first hand what districts look like without librarians--

(hint. It's not pretty)

--and places where the libraries are the heart and safe haven in the schools and what a difference that makes to children (and, okay, if you're concerned about fff-ing test scores, I'll tell you a secret: a librarian in your school will help ya' out there too.) 

The speaker that made me cry was one of the school nurses, when she talked about saving a child's life. Literally.

The news came. The little kids held the protest signs-- tombstones. We all chanted "Keep 5 of 8."

No one got arrested or burned anything down. 

But then again, no one really pushed us-- a group of mostly white middle aged middle class parents and little kids. Our outrage is of the white middle aged middle class parent variety-- frustration and sadness to think that our elected representatives are making poor decisions that will have real effects on what happens in our children's lives-- Will they be able to play sports? Will they have a librarian in their school who knows their names and what books they like to read? Will they have a guidance counselor to help them cope with bullying? Will they be able to play in an orchestra or act in a play?  

--and not the kind of outrage that I can only imagine you'd feel when, say, for example, your child is shot to death by someone in a position of authority. 

Once upon a time, I was a child growing up in poverty in a single-parent home. One year we did not have a car. One summer we lived in a tent at a campground. There was a death in my family. And violence. The course of my life was set on a certain trajectory.

But I went to good schools filled with "luxuries," schools where there were teachers who cared about me, librarians who knew my name and put books into my hands. I was exposed to music and art and (even though I didn't like it much) P.E. I had a great guidance counselor who walked me through the college application process. 

And I was nudged onto a different path from the one seemingly set in the beginning. 

Interview with Jenny Torres Sanchez

One of my favorite books this year is a little book with a long title: Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia. Last post I talked about why I pick up books-- and the result of the not very scientific survey is that they are books written by authors I know, either virtually or in real life. But that doesn't explain why certain books resonate with me.

I picked up Frenchie Garcia to read on a trip to Orlando for a Florida librarian conference. The book had been on my radar for a while. It was released around the same time as my book, and I was keeping up with the competition. I knew it had received a starred review from Kirkus, for example. And that it had made it onto their Best Of list at the end of the year. Jenny had been a member of the same group blog YA Outside the Lines. And a few weeks before, I'd bumped into her agent, the lovely Kerry Sparks, at another conference, and saw Jenny's book at the conference bookstore.

When I found out that Jenny lived in Orlando and would be coming to one of my events, it seemed like one of those serendipity things. Why the hell hadn't I read her book?

I read the entire thing on the plane down and was blown away. Jenny was sitting in the audience of my shared book signing with Jessica Martinez, (they are friends. The YA writing world, if you haven't guessed it by now, is small and tight) but all I wanted to do was switch places and sit in the audience myself and pepper Jenny with questions about her brilliant book.

So, I didn't get to do that, but after the event, I cornered her and requested an interview.

Which begins now...

Jenny: Are we having coffee?

Jody: Why not? I love coffee.

Jenny: Good. Let’s have coffee as we talk and sit on plushy chairs….oh, or let’s be on a Ferris wheel. With coffee (the carnival just came to town and I see the Ferris wheel every day as I drive to the bookstore where I write.)

Jody: All right. We're on a Ferris wheel and drinking our coffee. I hope we are turning very slowly...

(Jenny Torres Sanchez possibly sitting on a virtual Ferris wheel) 

Okay, Jenny, you know I loved loved loved Frenchie so much and am recommending it to everyone I know. I must ask the question that every writer is asked--but I don't care!! I want to know!!-- where do you get your ideas?

Jenny: I don’t know. Great answer, huh? Okay, let me talk through this, because I’m serious about not knowing. Usually it starts with a character. They sort of show up and I know they’re going through something rough, but I don’t immediately know. So they hang out in my brain for a while as I figure out what has happened to them. I don’t remember coming up with the ideas for books at all, actually, at least not with The Downside of Being Charlie or Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia.

I just peeled back layers of my characters and wondered, “Okay, why is he/she this way? What has he been through? What is she dealing with or covering up?” And then the stories just started forming. With the piece I’m working on now, believe it or not, it started out with a line from a story I wrote years ago while in high school? Maybe college? An image actually, that has stayed in my brain and has become a kind of a little string I pulled and keeps getting longer and longer and more tangled and I’m like, “Wait, there’s a whole story here!”

Jody: You talk about these characters or ideas sort of simmering in your head for a while-- what do you do at that point? Do you plan? Or do you just start writing and see where the story goes?

Jenny: I make up as I go. I’m terrible any other way. Planning never works for me because I can’t stick to the outline. My characters end up making all these other decisions and the story takes different turns. I know outlining works for a lot of writers, but when I plan, my writing tends to sound forced and just doesn’t really ring true. So, I let the story go where it wants to go and worry about editing later.

Jody: I haven't read your first book --The Downside of Being Charlie (it's on my TBR!). Was it the first book you wrote or do you have a few novels stuffed in a drawer?

Jenny: I started a couple of middle grade books when I was in college but I never finished them. Before writing novels, I mostly wrote short stories and I got a lot of rejections from those. But The Downside of Being Charlie was the first book I really set my mind to finish, and when I did, I started querying agents (I got a lot of rejections during this process too). Lucky for me, my now agent

Jody: Kerry Sparks--

Jenny: Yes, Kerry. She saw something in it and took a chance on me.

Jody: Is she hands-on when it comes to revision?

Jenny: Yeah, definitely. My stories can get lost, sort of wander around in circles, or sometimes they keep trying to get through a brick wall by running into it repeatedly. And I think of Kerry as this guide who points out little paths I missed and need to explore. And someone who reminds me to walk around the brick wall or climb over it. She’s fantastic.

Jody:  Speaking of revision, do you have a process for that?

Jenny: (Insert laugh track) Ahahahahaha…ha…ha…ha…sigh. Yeah, so I’m all over the map with that. I mean, I definitely revise, but it’s not a very disciplined approach I guess. Sometimes I go back to what I wrote the day before and spend forever getting that paragraph, just that one paragraph, right.

Jody: OMG I do that too. It's a sickness.

Jenny: I know. Right? Other times, I’ll do a whole chapter. Or I’ll revise starting from the end of the manuscript and work my way to the beginning. It’s a bit chaotic, my process, but it works for me. Mostly. I think. I hope.

Jody: Switching gears a bit, what kind of work schedule do you have every day?

Jenny: Wake up. Do the school drop off thing w/ my two oldest kids and then drop off the smallest w/ my mom so I can write for a couple of hours. That’s it. Those couple of hours is all I have to actually sit and work, so I make sure I use every second of it. I’m pretty protective of that writing time, but I think you have to be.

Jody: I'm impressed. I had the hardest time writing when my kids were younger. There were so many things going on and writing kept falling further and further down the list. How do you balance your writing time with your other obligations?

Jenny: I guess what works for me is keeping it all separate. When it’s writing time, it’s writing time. That’s all I’m focused on. I don’t worry about other things I have to do, I don’t use that time for anything else, I just sit and write. Likewise, when it’s family time, I make sure not to even attempt to write.

Jody: Writing time, family time, and then there's a whole other big chunk of promotional time, which these days, means being on social media. What's your take on that?

Jenny: Hmm, I should probably talk more about my books on social media. But what I actually do is tweet a bit about them when they come out and give a few away. And then I tweet a lot about other things like music and art and things I love like other authors and essays that I find interesting. I guess I tend to use social media as more of a “hey look, isn’t this cool!” kind of thing than a promotional tool.

Jody: People are tired with the whole "BUY MY BOOK" kind of thing anyway.

Jenny: And that's good because I’m not great at constantly promoting myself on social media, so I do what makes me comfortable and I’m okay with that.

Jody: You mentioned before that you're working on something inspired by story you wrote in high school. Can you share a bit more about that?

Jenny: It's a weird story. There’s no other way to explain it. It’s weird, but it’s been a lot of fun working on it so far. It’s still in that fun stage where I don’t want to kill it yet. It’s in the early stages, so I’m still hush hush about it. But basically it came from that short story I wrote (and actually never finished).  But sometimes stories do that, don’t they?

They stay with you for years and then suddenly surface again. In a weird way, I think they’re kind of writing themselves a little in the back of your mind, just waiting for the right time to come out. Anyway, I’ll share the image that inspired it too. It’s of a woman’s bloody pinky dangling from her hand, the tip of her finger gleaming with shell pink nail polish.

Jody: I'm getting chills.

Jenny: That’s about all I’ll say, but it’s interesting what happened to her. And how it affects the main character. ;)

Jody: Well, I now I've got a future book of yours to add to my TBR. Jenny, thank you so much for chatting with me.

And dear readers, if you'd like to more about Jenny and her books, check out the links below.

Jenny Torres Sanchez
Website: Jennytorressanchez.com
Twitter: @jetchez  
on Amazon