Fiction author Robin Brande talks about writing, reading, and other vital matters

As I mentioned last week, I have two novels due at the end of January. One is a novel I originally wrote back in 2005. I’ve written three other novels since then, including the first one to be published, Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature. That makes eight novels in total that I’ve written, seven of them in the last five years (actually, in four years, since I didn’t write anything new this year).

And because I’ve written three novels since the one in question, I know I’ve learned a lot and can do better. Every time you or I write something–whether it’s a novel, a short story, an essay, a blog post–we get better at writing that particular thing, don’t you find? That’s why no novel is ever wasted, even if it doesn’t end up published. We’re learning to be patient with ourselves and our writing careers, right? Because writing is an art and a skill, and we get better and better the more we practice.

But I still love some of the novels of my past, and I hope and plan to see several of them on the bookshelves eventually. So now I’d like it to be Novel #5’s turn, and that means I need to spruce it up.

So I’ve decided to do a ground-up rewrite, treating my 2005 effort as a skeleton that now needs more meat on its bones. And that means I’m going to do some fresh research.

Step number one for me with these last few novels is doing what I did last Friday: I pick a high school near me, dial the administrative office, and ask to speak to a counselor. When the counselor comes on the phone, I explain that I’m a writer and I’m doing research for my next YA novel. This is the kind of thing you have to make yourself comfortable doing, even if you aren’t published yet. Because what the person on the other end of the line is hearing is “writer . . . research . . . want to ask you some questions, if you have some time next week.” What I’ve found is that people really enjoy being part of a novelist’s research. Whether it’s a teacher or the owner of a frozen yogurt chain or a brainy high school science student (all people I’ve interviewed for various novels), people are more open than you think to being quizzed about all the nuances of their lives, from what books and magazines they read to how many hours they sleep to what they love and don’t love about their particular jobs or schools.

Plus I always supply some treat. Like for my meeting with the counselor this morning, I asked her what she’d like from Starbucks. She seemed pretty psyched about that. “Ooh, one of their fun frozen drinks.” “Like a caramel macchiato?” “Ooh, yeah!”

Plus, she doesn’t know it yet, but I’ll be putting the counselor’s name in my Acknowledgments. Everyone who helps you with your novel deserves a nod.

I’ll make sure I show up on time this morning–since we always value our sources’ time–and I’ll bring her a fancy coffee drink, and then I’ll try to hold our meeting to only about half an hour. I know everyone has a schedule, and even though our meeting may be this counselor’s most entertaining one of the day, I know there are still plenty of students and co-workers who will be clamoring for her attention.

And here are the things I’ll ask:

–Can I have the current class catalog? I’d like to see what classes kids here can take at every level, freshman to senior, basic to AP.

–What would a typical junior year look like for a girl like my main character? (For example, with Evolution and one of the novels I wrote after that, I asked what classes a science-oriented student would take, both required courses and electives.)

–When in the school year would she start worrying about SATs and the state standardized tests? What scores would a girl like her get?

–When in the school year would she start worrying about college applications? Would she come talk to you about those, or try to figure them out on her own? What about scholarships? Would you help her research those? Is there any reason she’d prefer to do that research on her own?

Beyond that, I’ll freestyle it. I’ll listen to her answers, see what other questions arise naturally from those.

I really enjoy this part of my research. I love going back to high school. I love sitting in on classes to get a feel for how it is these days. With one of my recent novels I also cajoled about ten students into meeting with me separately, one-on-one after school or on the weekend, in exchange for me buying them each a meal. I fit all those interviews into a week by doubling up, sometimes seeing two students a day, working around their busy schedules. I asked them about their classes, their after school jobs, their study habits, the TV shows they watch, what music they listen to–all sorts of things that might have seemed pretty mundane to them, but which helped me flesh out my characters’ lives. I can write a lot from my own past, but there’s no substitute for getting out there and gathering as many real-life details as you can find from today’s living breathing teens. There’s only so much you can fake–even fiction needs to sound real.

So that’s what I’m up to today: step one in my ground floor rewrite. I’ll digest what I learn, then open up my old manuscript and see what I can keep and what has to go. I expect the process to take me through the end of December. I want to send the new manuscript to my agent in early January so she can look it over and tell me what she thinks. If I need to do more revisions, I’ll still have a few weeks left in January before the thing is due.

And meanwhile I also have a 3,000-5,000-word essay due for an anthology December 15, and there’s this second novel my editor will be expecting to see in late January with all the revisions she suggested, so yeah, a little busy here, folks.

But you know what? I’m really, really happy. I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed my purely writing life until I’d been away from it for so long this year. As much as I enjoyed getting out there all over the country and meeting so many fabulous people in connection with the release of my novel, I actually do much better living my insulated life of writer, wife, and dog mom. Not that I won’t still go out there and do the public thing from time to time, but for now the idea of not being able to leave my desk for a few months while I pound out the work sounds pretty great.

Plus I managed to gain about 18 pounds this year with all the travel and weird schedule and weird food and pseudo-stress (happy stress is still stress, right?), and so I’m looking forward to getting back to normal as quickly as possible.

How’s that for some serious self-disclosure?

So you’ll understand why I’m curtailing the blog posts for a few months, although you’ll notice from the comments last Friday that I’ve already capitulated on my plan to give it up entirely. I think I’ll still show up on Tuesdays and Fridays, so I hope you’ll do the same.

For now, though, off to work.

[UPDATE:] I ended up spending an hour and half there, not only talking to the counselor, but walking around the grounds with her while she introduced me to some of the teachers whose classes I’ve asked to sit in on next week–AP English, AP History, AP Chemistry, AP Calc. Just the thought of Chem and Calc makes me sweat. But if my girl character has to take those classes, the least I can do is sit in on a few for her.

The counselor was SO NICE. So generous with her time, so good about giving me lots of information about what my character would be going through in her circumstances (which I briefly laid out at the beginning of the interview).

What I didn’t mention before is that this high school happens to be my old high school. I haven’t walked those halls since . . . a while. And as the counselor pointed out, same linoleum, same lockers–not much has changed, other than the look of the students. And, of course, the classes they have to take. I guarantee I was never made to set foot in a Calculus class just so I could get into the state university. Gulp.

A great use of my morning! I love being back on the research track. And now I get to look forward to going back to high school next week, including having lunch in my old cafeteria.

Now it’s time to go make sense of my hastily-scribbled notes before I forget what they translate into. I can write quickly, but I can’t always read it.

Later.

Technorati Tags: Writing, Publishing, Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Novels, Book Tour = Weight Gain

Posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 5:02 am under Writing . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. . Both comments and pings are currently closed.