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Twitterview: Trish Doller

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Trish Doller, author of SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL (reviewed here), stops by to play along with our Twitterview series, which celebrates being two years old today (and you can read the full archive of Twitterviews here). Along with talking about the Marine back story, her favorite moment in the book, and, of course, her favorite ice cream, you have a chance to win a finished copy of the book at the end of the post. Without further ado, Trish.

 

Pitch SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL in 140 characters
A young Marine’s struggle with adjusting to life–family, friends, love, death, and post-combat stress–after Afghanistan.

What inspired SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL?

In 2003, I interviewed a Marine home from Iraq. Couldn’t get over how someone so young had seen and done so much. That stuck.

You wrote through the eyes and with the voice of a male main character. How did you get into the mindset/perspective? 
My son’s friends spent hours at our house. I paid attention to what they did, said, and — more importantly — how they said it. 

Travis is a Marine, and he’s inspired by those who do serve. Care to talk about the influence?

Without the Marines who patiently answered my questions, there would not be a SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL. They are everything.
In Something Like Normal, Travis is suffering PTSD — how did you handle incorporating such a huge thing without making it the central plot?
I read the memoir of a real marine who dealt with PTSD. For many Marines and soldiers, it’s a part of life but not the central plot.

What’s your favorite moment in the book? 

When Travis is recalling Charlie’s story of why he became a Marine. I know I wrote it, but it never fails to make me laugh. (Kelly’s note: I loved this scene too).

What should readers walk away with from Something Like Normal? 

Knowing that Travis isn’t an extraordinary Marine and that his struggles aren’t unusual for the real Marines who’ve inspired him.

What was the road to publication like for you? 
Bumpy. My first book was cancelled by the publisher, so my second book is now my debut. Seems to have turned out for the best, though.

Who or what do you write for?
I write because to not write would be unimaginable. I’ve just been very fortunate that others think there is value in what I write.
What was your most influential read as a teenager? 
S. E. Hinton. She was a huge step away from middle grade favorites like George and Wilder into something more unsettling and raw.

Who are your top three writing influences?
Kirsty Eagar, Melina Marchetta, and Cath Crowley. Wonderful voice, wonderful writing, and a bar set very high.

Who do you believe is breaking ground in YA right now?
Steve Brezenoff and Nova Ren Suma are doing really cool things that make me want to be a better writer.

What’s the best writing advice you ever received? 
I asked Maureen Johnson when you know your book is ready. She said sometimes you just have to jump. I think that applies to all things.

What’s your best writing advice to give? 
Trust your instinct. So many times I’ve second-guessed a scene that’s already written as it’s meant to be. Don’t fiddle too much.

What is your writing routine?
Fly-by-the-seat of my pants. Some days I’m on fire. Other days, I spend the entire time on twitter and tumblr. I really need a routine.

What gets you jazzed to write? 
An empty house, plenty of Coke & snacks, and the right music. Since that’s a rare and perfect storm, housework avoidance works, too.

You use visual inspiration for your stories. Give us a peak at your Something Like Normal inspiration. 

I do!

Do you have a writing soundtrack? Share a bit?

My favorites from my SLN soundtrack are This is Letting Go by Rise Against and Bullet by Mat Kearney. The whole list is here.

What’s next for you?
Writing, writing, and more writing.

Favorite ice cream?
Chocolate almond chip.

Want to win a copy of Trish’s book? I’ll pick one winner at the end of the month. 

On passion and igniting it

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This last week has been an education for me.

I’ve always believed words were powerful — that’s why I love reading and talking about books — but it never once struck me how powerful my own words could be. That my own feelings and beliefs and thoughts, when strung together, could cause such a reaction. I never expected people within my own profession to look at what I said and simply react. To take the thoughts I had shared on this blog, read them, then put down their own thoughts to what I’d said.

Then spread them wildly.

I made the conscious choice to step back because I stood by what I’d said. It was, I believe, the first time I’ve written a post on a topic I was so passionate about and not had a second pair of eyes look over them. Every word came from my heart, came from a place of believing that everyone should have equal and equitable access to resources, knowledge.

To passion.

My words came back to me repeatedly and in ways that really hurt. That stomped upon my heart and my passion and my beliefs. That made a mockery out of me in a wide and downright painful way. I watched as a profession I went into because of how much it embraces sharing and knowledge choose to make light of an issue they didn’t understand. An issue that didn’t ignite them or make them feel like there has to be a better way.

I’m sitting in a weird place right now. I feel incredibly vulnerable and lost and sometimes question my own legitimacy and place in the world and regularly ask what the hell I am doing with my life. I read posts like this one — written by an incredibly impassioned 14-year-old — and then I read stories like this one in the New York Times, and they make me pause and think for a bit about where I am in the world. What it is that gets me going in the morning, what it is that makes me care about any and everything.

I wrestled with being depressed in high school, and I wrestled with it deeply in college, especially that first year. It’s been a while since then, and over these years I’ve grown to understand the root cause of feeling depressed came from thinking I didn’t have a passion. That no single thing got me fired up in a way that if I did not partake in that activity, I would feel like I was wasting time or effort or energy. No single thing gave me purpose or merit. When you’re surrounded by people who do have this, who have so figured out who they are and what their goals are and chase them, it’s hard to feel like your own goals or dreams carry any sort of weight. Watching people push themselves in the classroom and outside it, working toward becoming a doctor or a lawyer or anything equally admirable is hard when your goals are much, much smaller. It can make you feel like your passions aren’t passions or that you don’t hold passion or the capacity for it within your heart.

I steeled myself a lot, and still do, when it comes to thinking about dreams and goals. I think about and read about those people who are achieving big things. For so long, I compared myself (and to an extent, I still do that) and wondered why I was where I am age-wise, career-wise, goal-wise, and why I hadn’t done or seen or had more. Why I don’t have aspirations to be a library manager or director or in some sort of big leadership capacity within my professional organization. By 27, after a few years in the field, I thought I’d hit that point. But I haven’t, and I don’t know if I ever will.

I was that wildly impassioned 14-year-old I linked to back in the day; in revisiting old journals, the ones still easy to find on the internet with the right keywords or memory, I found myself talking about not bothering to go to college because I wanted to write. I revisit old journals from college and find myself talking about dropping out of college because I could write (my dream had been for so long to become a journalist and work for a paper because I was realistic in knowing I couldn’t make a living off writing poetry).

But then I look at the journals I kept in graduate school — probably the only time in my life I truly loathed school and everything related therein — and I found such satisfaction in writing about books. In talking about what did and didn’t work in writing. In sharing those books and my thoughts about those books with other people who’d have a light bulb go off. Who’d then read that book and tell me yes, it was great or that was terrible (sometimes those reactions are more satisfying). I found myself passionate about getting other people excited about things.

That’s part of why I’m a librarian, part of why I love working with teenagers — arguably the most passionate people around –, part of why I blog and talk about books, part of why I talk about writing as much as I do. I love getting people excited about the things that excite me. I love supporting people in their pursuit of their own passions and dreams and goals.

I’m lucky to have the opportunities in my life that I do, and I’m lucky to have a support system that not only encourages me in pursuing a passion that’s not top-caliber, not something that’ll be remembered a hundred years from now, not something that’ll bring me awards or accolades or, hell, any sort of financial stability. It is so hard sometimes not to stop and step back and worry about whether it amounts to anything of worth or value or whether it’s just spinning wheels. It’s hard not to wonder how many ways I’ve stalled out before I’ve had the chance to go somewhere further or deeper. Time ticks and you can’t always know whether what you’re pursuing has any meaning.

Passion makes you terribly vulnerable.

I try not to talk personal on this blog because, well, this is a book blog. I’m a non-biased, objective reviewer who aims to be critical and thoughtful. But over the last three years of doing this, I’ve had the opportunity to pursue a passion so deep and connect with other people who find themselves as impassioned as I am about getting other people excited about books and reading.

If the last week has been any indication — and I’m not just talking about this — I’ve found that being passionate means enduring a lot of judgment and criticism. That people are holding you to the same standards to which you’re holding those who you believe have a passion greater than your own. That people look at what it is that brings you value and meaning and wonder whether or not they themselves have that sort of feeling within them. Whether or not they’re exploring their own passions or feel as deeply about something that you do.

I let myself get really upset yesterday about the things people wrote about me. Let myself cry, then get angry. I let myself have that alone, by myself, on my couch. I still dread looking in my inbox whenever there is a new message. Still get a little worried when someone I don’t follow sends me a message on Twitter. Still find my heart racing whenever that post gets shared again somewhere.

The thing is though, I think my passion hit critical mass. My words? They were shared. People were listening, reacting, thinking. I shared and got a lot of other people really excited about things. I allowed the thing that got me going to be something that got other people going.

I acted.

Rereading the NYT article and rereading that post by an impassioned 14-year-old made me realize that what matters is pursuing what matters to you, regardless of what it means to someone else. I’m never going to be famous or rich. I’m never going to have a seven-figure book contract or star in a Hollywood blockbuster. I’m never going to be a doctor or a lawyer or a rocket scientist. But what I am and what I can be, I think, is so much more than a label or a position in management or in leadership by some name or title. I can share and support and love deeply and fiercely and find satisfaction in making the world just a little bit of a better place because of those things.

Words and actions are amazing things. When they’re used right, they ignite fires you could never imagine. I’ll never be extraordinary, but I can be satisfied with being ordinary — as long as I let the things I love be the center of what I do. Even if it hurts sometimes.

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield

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The night Becca graduated high school, she and her boyfriend have sex in the back of his car to celebrate. Except, it’s not a celebration when he breaks her heart right there by telling her it’s over. They’re through.

It’s the same night the dead body of a teen girl shows up along the side of the road, rag dolled and broken in the most unnatural of ways.

When Becca hears about the body, her world shatters a little more. She’d always been eager to leave her small town, always ready for a new adventure, but now she’s scared to leave. What’s always been a safe place now feels unsafe, and if she feels that way here, she’s worried how she’ll feel when she’s hundreds of miles away.

With the summer still ahead of her, Becca has a lot of time on her hands to figure out who she is, what her relationship with her (ex)-boyfriend is, and where she wants to go when the season ends. Oh, and there’s also the question of who the dead girl is, how she got there, and how or why she relates to Becca herself.

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone is Kat Rosenfield’s debut and it is a knock out. This book is dark, it’s twisted, and has an incredibly satisfying pay off in the end. Not to mention that it has some of the most lush writing I’ve experienced since Nova Ren Suma’s Imaginary Girls — but more on that later.

The story alternates from Becca’s voice to that of Amelia’s, with Becca narrating forward and Amelia narrating almost backward; since Amelia is dead, we start from the tipping point of her life and watch as events line up that ultimately lead to her end. The two girls share pretty similar stories, and this becomes obvious almost immediately. There’s an age difference between them, as Becca’s just graduated high school and standing at the edge of making a decision of which direction she should go now, while Amelia has finished college and is headed straight for the dream she has for herself. In both cases, the girls have a boy who is a heavy part of their lives.

There is a major difference in their stories though, and that’s perception of control.

While I found myself interested in Amelia’s story, I really fell into Becca’s world. The opening scene is raw and painful — as soon as she’s given herself to her boyfriend James in the most intimate of ways (yes, possible in a car in the middle of no where), he leaves her there naked and broken. And while it’s consensual, what he did to her emotionally and psychologically equates to rape. This is an important plot point, and it’s one that’ll emerge again and again throughout the story in different, and maybe varied and twisted, ways. Becca started dating James roughly a year ago, and it was a bit reluctant. They’re from completely different worlds and backgrounds; Becca’s always been on a scholarly path, always been prepared to leave her small town behind and achieve bigger things at university in a big city. James, on the other hand, isn’t. He’s a townie, never cared about school. Though he’s poised as a typical bad boy, he’s not, and that’s what draws Becca to him. Except she worries by dating him she’s going to break his heart when the time comes for her to leave town. But more than that, she worries by dating him, she’ll give up her own dreams of leaving and choose instead to stay behind with him.

The tension between Becca’s dreams and her reality is believable. We’re immediately thrown into a moment where a decision was made for her, without any input on her part. When the body is found and the town is thrown for a loop over who this is, Becca latches onto solving the mystery. She offers insight into who lives in this small and eerie town, and she points her finger directly at a boy she’s convinced has had a hand in killing Amelia. In the mean time, as much as Becca and James have ended their relationship, they’re still spending time together, and Becca relives their relationships regularly, trying to find the point when things changed. When she changed from being the forward-driven girl to the kind of girl who wanted to give herself fully to a boy and a relationship.

Because I don’t want to ruin the mystery, all I can really add about Amelia and Becca’s criss-crossing story lines is that Amelia’s world is the world Becca deserves, and what Becca’s struggling with is precisely what Amelia figures out. Moreover, everything we’re led to believe about one of the characters ends up changing. Rosenfield does a great job of giving readers a big twist in the story, and while it was something I’d suspected from the beginning, I was ultimately satisfied (and still surprised, not because I “got” it but because it ended up playing out how I hoped it would).

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone offers not only a compelling plot with fully-developed characters, but it’s well-written. The language and description doesn’t take a back seat here. Instead, we’re treated to a small town that feels real and is very visual. The secondary characters — primarily townies, the kinds of people who live their entire lives in these places — don’t feel like stereotypes, even when Becca describes them that way. They’re dynamic, and this comes across through the moments of revealing the mystery of dead Amelia.

Rosenfield’s writing reminded me a lot of Nova Ren Suma’s. It’s literary without being pretentious and without sacrificing plot. More than that, this story had some chillingly similar elements to Imaginary Girls, particularly when it came to setting. When you read a lot of books, it’s always interesting to see where stories are in (unintentional) conversations with one another. While Rosenfield’s story is wholly contemporary, there were a lot of moments when the two stories had a lot of cross overs with one another, and I could so see Chloe in a similar position as Becca and Ruby in the same position as Amelia. Fans of Suma’s book will no doubt want to pick this one up.

I read the bulk of Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone in one sitting, and it’s the kind of book I see myself picking up again to revisit. It’s ultimately a book about life choices and about life and death, as well as how life choices can impact whether you’re living or you’re dying. While there is a lot of focus on romantic relationships and how those impact choice-making, Rosenfield never lays down a message about them. They’re neither good things nor bad things but things in and of themselves and they impact an individual’s choices. Moreover, the book successfully twists reader perceptions when it comes to characters, too: there aren’t clear cut villains or victims (aside from Amelia) but rather, everyone in the story comes to be who they are through the choices they make. This is the kind of book that’ll speak to readers who feel they’re stuck somewhere or stuck in something they can’t move forward from and it’ll appeal to readers who enjoy a good mystery, too. I think it’ll end up being a favorite of 2012 and one that sticks with me for quite a while.

Review copy received from the publisher. Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone will be available July 5.

So You Want to Read YA?: Guest Post from Swati Avasthi

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This week’s “So You Want to Read YA?” guest post comes from Cybils-award winning author Swati Avasthi.

Swati Avasthi is the author of SPLIT (Knopf, 2010) which received the Cybils Award, the International Reading Association Award, a silver Parents’ Choice Award and has been nominated for 13 state awards.  Her second novel, CHASING SHADOWS (Knopf, Fall 2013), is a part graphic novel/part prose hybrid—her attempt to use an innovative form. Visit her at www.swatiavasthi.com.

 

No Bow Required
About 10 years ago. I was browsing in a Children’s bookstore with my three-year-old son who adored books, who sat and “read” them for long spans, turning the pages, talking to them, “reading”/saying all the memorized words. And, after two hours of him reading and browsing, I was bored. (I know, I know, a shorter attention span than a three year old, yep.)
I wandered over to the YA shelves and a cover caught my eye.
But I hesitated.
Like many YA writers, I grew up when YA wasn’t a category or a section in the bookstore. I thought of “teen lit” as Sweet Valley High romances and shunned attempts to home in on the teen experience in Saturday Afternoon Specials with their sloppily-tied bows on the end. The weren’t honest; they were just … lessons, thinly disguised.
But then again, there was that cover! (Yes, in truth, I started reading YA and then writing YA based on a cover. Thank you marketers; apparently, your awe-some powers can be used for good).
I gobbled it at home, making my poor son impatient.
I didn’t know books for teens could talk to them honestly. Jane Resh Thomas says, “I think it is a sin to tell lies to children about the world as a place of sweetness and light or about the world as a place of misery and agony.” I didn’t know contemporary realism could tell kids the truth: life is ambiguous and no emotions are simple. Stick a bow on that.
Until recently, I hadn’t reread Speak, afraid that the book that drew me to the genre would pale on rereading, that after teaching writing and learning to look for cracks in the techniques, it might not withstand my scrutiny.
But I re-read it anyway. And now … I love it more now because I see how hard it was to do.
Contemporary realism knocks me out when the form—the structure, the time management, the evolution of the character—mimics the emotional journey of the protagonist. That way the reader’s experience is linked to the journey and the honesty in the piece resonates. I love novels that take big risks and find a new way to tell a story, novels that innovate making novels well…novel.
Check out how John Green uses time in Looking for Alaska; how Pete Hautman varies point of view in Blank Confessions; how A.S. King alternates time periods in Please Ignore Vera Dietz; how memory can be captured in a painting in Brian Farrey’s With or Without You; how Gene Huang incorporates myth and story and identity in American Born Chinese. Or what Larbarstier does to the unreliable narrator in Liar. Or how Julie Schumacher’s Blackbox creates punch-to-the-gut chapters that are a single sentence long.
Laurie Halse Anderson (author of Speak) said once, “One of the things I most love about writing for teens is that they are open-minded and embrace new narrative techniques. I love playing around with new stuff.” I love books that love that play, that innovation.
YA is a form filled with innovation, and why not? It’s a form that is written for teens (like my still-avidly-reading son), who are the definition of innovation, who are in the process of self-evolutions, who are seeking honesty as they try to make themselves new—no bow required.

Cats and Canadians: Me elsewhere

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I’ve got two posts on other blogs running today I wanted to share.

First, check out the roundup of Canadian YA Lit in celebration of Canada Day over at YALSA’s The Hub blog and please add your own suggestions in the comments.

Then, head over to The Readventurer for my take on Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Does the movie do it better than the book? Are they even the same story? I may or may not have included a lot of cat images.