Gordon Jack On The Election As Inspiration

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today's guest for the WHAT (What The Hell Are You Thinking?) is Gordon Jack, author of Your Own Worst Enemy. He always wanted to be a writer. In third grade, he put that on his “What I want to be when I grow up” list, just behind astronaut and professional dog walker. While working towards this goal, he had jobs as an advertising copywriter, English teacher, librarian, and semi-professional dog walker. The Boomerang Effect was his first novel. He lives in San Francisco with his family.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

I was inspired to write Your Own Worst Enemy by my editor from Harpers. We were talking about my next book and she said, “Why don’t you write about a high school election?” and I said, “You mean, like the movie Election?” and she said, “Yes, exactly like that.”

I love the movie Election and wasn’t up for writing another bit of fan fiction (My last book The Boomerang Effect is a rip off, I mean homage, to a P.G. Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster novel.) I decided instead to write a novel about an overweight teen cast on a humiliating sitcom, which my editor hated. Maybe I should write about a high school election? I thought. When I asked my editor about it, she loved the idea and that’s when I started writing Your Own Worst Enemy.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

The reason I didn’t want to write about a high school class election is because they’re kind of boring (at least at my school). Only a few people run and there’s never really much drama. The trick, I found, was to make the teens as competitive and immoral as some of our politicians. So, I modeled the three candidates in my book after Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump. Once I did that, the writing got way more interesting (and therapeutic after the 2016 presidential contest).

In the early drafts, the plot revolved around a love triangle, which I know sounds weird for a political satire. Brian’s dilemma of working for Stacey but being in love with her opponent mirrored my own conflicted feelings of supporting Hillary but secretly loving Bernie. I felt like Hillary had the most experience to be president, but Bernie had all the energy and radical new ideas.

I didn’t introduce my Trump stand in until much later when I realized the book wasn’t as funny as I wanted it to be. Tony became my Trump character and Kyle his Steve Bannon. Tony wants attention but doesn’t really want the responsibility. Kyle helps him tap into the part of the electorate that’s being ignored and weaponizes people’s anger. Hilarious, right?

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

That’s what I call writing. Does this not happen to other people?! What’s their secret?

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

Well, that depends. Coming up with ideas isn’t too hard, but coming up with good ideas is a challenge. For example, I’m working on a story now tentatively titled, “My Future’s In The Toilet” about a teenage girl who walks into a bathroom stall at prom and comes out at her 20-year-high school reunion. I love the concept, but I’m having a hard time making the story more than a series of brief encounters where the main character learns about her friends’ embarrassing secrets.

First drafts suck. I know they’re supposed to suck, but that doesn’t make them any easier to write. Whenever I’m writing a first draft, I’m reminded about how bad a writer I am and I don’t like being reminded of that. It’s not until the 3rd or 4th draft that I begin to see my genius again, until I show it to someone and they tell me I suck and to keep revising. The story evolves and changes significantly the more I work on it. Who knows, by the time you read this “My Future’s In The Toilet,” could be about a dog that saves a small town from a tornado.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

I usually go with whatever character I want to spend the most time with. I imagine I’m hosting a dinner party with all the people in my head (I never invite Fred though because he drinks too much and chews with his mouth open). The person I want to sit next to is usually the story I want to write because I’m interested in this character and what’s going on in their life right now. If that person turns out to be an insufferable bore, I’ll find an excuse to leave the table and start loading the dishwasher, which is what I usually do when I’m procrastinating with writing.

I have 5 cats and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

If by writing buddy you mean strong coffee and Pop Tarts, then yes, I have a few writing buddies. I find it hard to compose anything without them.

Learn more about Gordon Jack and Your Own Worst Enemy by following all of his stops on the blog tour, and enter to win a copy!

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Mary Crockett On Using True Crime to Pursue Fiction

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today's guest for the WHAT is Marcy Crockett, author of How She Died, How I Lived and the coauthor with Madelyn Rosenberg of Dream Boy. A native of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Mary grew up as the youngest of six children in a family of misfits. She has worked as everything from a history museum director to a toilet seat hand model.

In her other life, she's an award-winning poet and teaches creative writing at Roanoke College in Virginia.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

I was following the story of a young woman from my community who had been reported missing. When she was found dead, I felt… I think the closest word is gutted.

I know it’s a story that plays out over and over again in our headlines--a young woman raped and murdered, left for trash beside the road. But somehow I felt all the outrage, all the grief for those countless acts of violence, in this one young woman’s death.

I don’t know why it hit me so hard. I think the word “friend” might have been used to describe the killer. He was her “friend,” whatever that could possibly mean. She was kind to him, and he had used her kindness against her--to lure her into an isolated spot where he murdered her.

How She Died, How I Lived is a story sparked to life by grief and rage. It’s also a story continually seeking the solace of healing.

I had so many questions that I needed to write--about the far-reaching effects of violence in a community; about friendship; about how young women can face the world knowing with certainty that someone out there, given the chance, would kill them.

This books doesn’t really answer those questions--but to my mind, it at least puts them out there. Which is about the best I can do.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

For me, it’s all about character. I did my best to get inside the head of my narrator--or maybe I let her inside my head. Then I followed where she wanted to go.

And I have to say, where we ended up surprised even me.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

I have never had the plot firmly in place. At all. Ever. Haha. Not kidding.

But oddly enough, though I’m an eternal pantser, the novel I’m dreaming about now has a pretty good plot arc already established, though I haven’t written a word as of yet.

So maybe I’m changing! And that’s a good thing. If I’m not growing as a writer, I’m not really writing.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I have more ideas than I have time to write them. I’m a slow writer, so the issue for me is finding the story I will want to stick with through for several years to get it into its final form. That’s a big commitment. I need to feel an important connection with the story. I need to believe it matters in some way, even if only to me.

I’m really lucky that I’ve had that connection with How She Died, How I Lived. It’s a story I truly believe in, and for me, the years it took were worth it.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

It’s not easy! I have one story, for example, that is burning a hole in my brain, but I know I’m not ready to write it yet. It’s going to take a ton of research. So the plan is that while I write my current WIP, I’ll follow through on the research for my next project. That way, it’ll be ready to go when it’s time for the next thing.

I also have an idea for a funny contemporary that I want to write with a coauthor. I think humor is much more fun to write with a partner, so I’m just waiting for someone to be open at the same time I’m open to take me up on that! Hopefully, that’s something I could juggle while pushing solo projects ahead simultaneously.

I have many cats and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

Cat-butt-face is an actual medical condition, and I have it. My face attracts catt-butt. The doctors cannot help.

That said, I have three excellent writing buddies--Mr. Paws, Lady Grey, and Daisy, my enormous hound who thinks she’s a lap dog.

Elizabeth Tammi On Making Mythology Your Own

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today's guest for the WHAT is Elizabeth Tammi. California-born and Florida-grown, she's currently in Georgia at Mercer University as a Stamps scholar. Her debut, Outrun the Wind, releases November 27.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

As long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with Greek mythology and history. I was a huge fan of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson stories, but even before reading them, I was intrigued by the mayhem and magic of the Greek pantheon and heroes. Though I’d heard the name ‘Atalanta’ in passing many times, it wasn’t until I was 18 that I actually read a detailed account of her story, and it didn’t sit well with me. I was impressed and captivated by Atalanta herself, but so much of her story made zero sense to me. Why would she kill the men she raced? Why did her father really bring her back home?

Questions piled up, and weeks later, she hadn’t left me alone. I started inventing my own answers and adding new characters (while shifting and altering plenty aspects of her myth) until it made sense to me personally. I also took the opportunity to answer other questions I’d always harbored about Greek myths, like the true nature of serving as one of the goddess Artemis’s huntresses, and how being an Oracle at Delphi might actually affect a girl. In short, things that had long bothered me about Greek mythology finally got their resolution through this book. It was inspired purely out of my own spite and confusion.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

I first allowed myself to take immense liberties in changing aspects of the story of Atalanta. When retelling an old story, I think I hesitated at first to find the balance between respecting the origins and writing my own tale. It’s a tricky boundary, but I focused on creating new, original characters that could serve both as their own people, while also heightening certain aspects of the original myth. I used a few general timeline points from Atalanta’s original mythology as plot guides, and filled in the blanks between with scenes that I thought offered a new perspective on what was really happening with her, Kahina, and the other characters.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

To an extent, yes. I’m a pretty big believer in extensive planning and plotting prior to drafting, but I’ve certainly had far too many instances where I’ll realize that I’ve just written myself into a logistical plothole nightmare. I think most authors have been there. I do my best to avoid that, and there’s been instances where characters will ‘take the wheel’, and say or do something that alters a scene slightly. But for the most part, I tend to outline extensively so I hesitate less as drafting.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

Flashes of concepts and aesthetics come to me frequently, but fully-fleshed ideas are rare for me. Outrun the Wind sometimes feels a bit like cheating, because while I definitely completely reimagined Atalanta’s story, there’s still a lot inspired by the original mythology. On other stories I’ve written and am writing, I’ve had to try a lot harder to create thorough, smooth plots. I’ve found if I can come up with at least a handful of characters and a main dilemma, I can usually ‘snowball’ my way into a full story. It just takes a lot of mental energy! Stories don’t really drop on me. I have to fight for them to become defined.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

I’ll sit down and write out, by hand, as much of the plot of each story that I have planned out. Whichever one is more fleshed out and thorough is the one that’s ready to move onto the drafting stage.

I usually have at least one or two cats snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

I’m far too easily distracted even when I’m just by myself, unfortunately. I’m in college as well, so no pets for me right now. I have a dog I adore back home with my parents, but she’s too cute for me to focus on writing, haha! I’ve found I can’t even listen to music while writing. If I’m editing, music is fine, but especially when drafting, I just need to be alone and preferably with a caffeinated beverage on hand. So yeah, maybe my writing buddy is a caramel latte?