I woke up at 3:30 this morning thinking about the chapter I’m revising. I took this as A Sign. When the Muse kicks you in the rear end in the middle of the night, you might as well get out of bed. I’m glad I did because this is turning out to be a scribblecious day.
I am fascinated by the excellent questions that poured into the Comments section yesterday. I will answer them when I know this draft is going to make it in under the wire, aka next week.
What other writing process questions do you want me to answer?
Finally, because I made such a fuss about the terribly written demand for help from a student in November, I think it’s only fair to post an email that came in last night. This one is a wonderful example of how you can get an author to write back with the information you need. Teachers, feel free to share this!
S., who is my favorite 8th grader in the world because of this letter, wrote:
Dear Mrs. Anderson,
I am an eighth grade student and am doing a 30 page report about you
and three of your books( Speak, Catalyst, Prom). I have gathered
information from numerous sources but I seem to be needing more,
thats at least what my teacher said. In your interviews with
teenreads and St. Petersburg, I managed to acquire some weird
information, aka what clique you were in in high school. If you know
of a good website or have any information that might not be out
there )like what kind of writing you do, and what you are working on
now…..) that would be greatly appreciated. I think your books are
amazing and so touching. My favorite one is Speak, when i read the
book, i felt her pain. thank you so much for being such an amazing
author!
THAT is how it’s done, my friends. (For the record, I wrote her back and suggested she use the Tags on my LiveJournal as an index. It’s the fastest way to come up to speed on what I’m doing.)
A round of applause, please, for S!
Well done, S!
And you, too, getting up so very early. I managed a stanza for one of my Jane Austen poems at 3:30 p.m. in the dark the other day. Something woke me up (a dog/cat/kid making noise), and my brain decided to come up with a stanza. I’ve learned to write them down or they are gone forever. I’ve also learned to keep a notebook open to a blank page, and I now write in the dark by concentrating on forming the letters properly. Thus far, I’ve always been able to make it out, even though it doesn’t look all that great.
Scribblecious!!! I love it!
🙂
e
This is mousesnovel, with her new lj account 🙂
Yay for research! I haven’t had to an author’s project, but if I do…
*Shrug*
(pretty weird, seeing as I’m around the same age as most of the people who probably request information from you!).
Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I got around to reading Twisted; before, I had only read Speak. I loved it. I think you did a really good job with the grittiness and I found myself really liking Tyler. Admittedly, I do read way more books with girl protagonists, so I’m not sure I know enough to make a statement about it, but I thought Tyler was extremely sympathetic. 🙂
I also like how though, I didn’t really think their father was a good father (no offense, as I know how easy it is to get attached to characters), he still wanted to be one, after his own father hitting him. I’d elaborate, but I don’t want to give spoilers, so you probably know what I mean, anyway. Also enjoyed the ending: it was open-ended in a way it wasn’t happy or sad. I love those.
It was a really good book! I’m going to try and read all your books…I’m interested in Fever next. ^_^
Sorry to comment twice, but…
I was going to wait to ask this, but since you asked for more questions about the writing process, here’s another. Feel free to answer it after all the others, since you’ve already answered two of my questions (under mousesnovel), already. ^_^
Could you possibly respond to the question in my entry here: http://maramouse.livejournal.com/856.html …when do you know a book is ready? (Ignore all the stuff about my age and novel, I really don’t need advice on that; I understand that most people think kids shouldn’t be worried about publishing at this age, and I understand that, but my case is backstory in the other entries). Yes, as a published author, you have deadlines, but what about your first book? How did you know it was ready then? How did that work?
Yes, I suppose I should search for info. *blush* Don’t want to be the lazy researcher! I’d still like to know how you “knew it was ready”, though. 🙂
*claps for S*
You got up at 3:30, I went to bed at 3:30. Go figure.
Who assigns an eighth grader a 30 page research report? Sheesh.
More power to you, S. More power to you.
I’ve never bothered to mention this in all the time I’ve been on your LJ reading your posts, but my college YA Lit class was where I first read “Speak”, and it garnered the most lively discussion all year long and really blew the class away. And they were all grownfolks.
We did another of your books in that class, the one about yellow fever, and it was excellent also. 🙂