Jennifer Longo On Perfectionism as the Enemy

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 Jennifer Longo, author of What I Carry (Random House Books 2020) is an Indies Next Winter 2020 title and received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, and BookPage. A California native and San Francisco transplant, Jennifer now lives with her husband and daughter on an island near Seattle, Washington. Her every hour is consumed by writing, running, walking her dogs, and reading her way down her ridiculously long holds list at the library. Find photos of Jen's dogs, daily calls to smash the patriarchy, and other fun jazz on Instagram & Twitter.

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?

YES. With this book, there was absolutely a moment a few years ago that made me say, “Okay. Now I have to write this book or someone’s getting punched in the throat.” At breakfast in a restaurant one morning, friends and I were talking about some other mutual friends who had recently adopted a young boy from foster care, it was the child’s first and only placement and his life had been, and continued to be with the unskilled adoptive parents, very difficult.

The kid had been acting out in (justifiable) anger, and one of the friends at breakfast said, “That kid just isn’t grateful enough. He doesn’t know how good he has it.” I had been blissfully unaware of how so many adults blame kids for their lives in foster care, how many grown-ass people actually think kids are in care because of something they, the kids, did. Because no one ever listens to the kids – they listen to adults working in the system about how hard it is for them, meanwhile the kids are actually living it and I’m over here flipping breakfast tables. That moment was after years of my daughter asking me to write a less yell-y and molest-y book about foster care - just to switch things up a little in the genre. I knew I wanted to write a book from one life-long foster kid’s perspective that highlighted the uniqueness of each foster experience, while unspooling some of the lies adults perpetuate about kids in foster care in America.

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

I didn’t do it alone, I can tell you that. My editorial agent (Melissa White at Folio) and my editors at Random House (Jenna Littice, Caroline Abbey, and Chelsea Eberly) are amazing. They knew what I wanted this book to explore and they helped me built the plot to make that happen. I began by listening to, and talking with, some really kind and generous current and former foster youth, by listening to my own daughter and some family members, and those kids’ words and stories became Muiriel’s life.

The plot became a chronicle of Muirirel’s last year in foster care before aging out, which let me highlight past key moments in her placements, and interactions with various adults working in the system, to explore how she and other kids maneuver their lives around those events and relationships. I wanted to hit all the lie-debunking, but still have a story about a human person that felt alive and true, and that ‘one last year’ time-frame, with it’s built in do-or-die decisions, lent itself well to what my editors and I were going for.

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

I mean . . .over three years, my agent and editors and I tore this book apart and started over from scratch at least three, maybe for times. I can get really myopic about one character, or one place, and get soap-boxy about truths I want to make clear, and I can really ruin a plot that way. My team of editors help me see the actual story picture in all my books. Have I mentioned Let us all thank our lord and savior Beyoncé for editors? Because seriously. 

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

This will sound douche-y and I’m sure all writers say this but for real, I have a big problem with too many ideas. I have about two dozen paper notes and as many phone notes and laptop files with fast outlines of books I feel desperately compelled to write. Ideas are never the problem – focusing on one without getting sidetracked by others is the thing – that, and letting perfection be the enemy of the good; I have a WIP I am in love with and I’ve been working on for three years that I can’t get right but I just need grow a spine and finish it, mostly right or wrong or not, because it’s just going to get torn apart and re-written anyway, so what is my problem?

My husband and I talk about that a lot. He is a creative director for video games and when people say to either one of us, “Oh you write books/make games? I have the best idea for a story! It’s about this weasel who has thumbs…” and it’s like okay sounds great, you go do that because I’ve got too many ideas waiting under the window already.

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

Perfect follow up! I decide by picking up the mantle of whichever story I can’t stop thinking about the most (IN the shower, while driving, like it just can’t leave me alone no matter what) and I go all in and then I try to not start something else until I’m done with the thing I’m currently dedicated to finishing . . .otherwise I’ll never have anything finished, just a bunch of half-done stories and that would get me down. Some people can write multiple books at a time and I think that’s amazing. But the way I quell the temptation to jump around is letting myself at least make notes or outlines on other stuff as much as I want – but my dedicated writing time is for The Thing only. 

I have 5 cats (seriously, check my Instagram feed) 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?

First of all, I Stan a queen with five cats, your Instagram feed gives me life. And B. I can’t write very well without my sweet, sweet babies beside me. I have three pals I write with: James Taylor the Cat (She’s a girl) then there’s our two little dogs from the Milo rescue in San Francisco: Henri and June. Henri sits in my lap and I rest my laptop on him, or he sits behind me as lumbar support. God, I love them so much! 

Brooke Carter On Utilizing Her Scandinavian Heritage For 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 is Brooke Carter, a Canadian novelist. She is the author of several books for teens, including Another Miserable Love Song, Learning Seventeen (which was commended by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre as a Best Book for Teens), Lucky Break, and The Unbroken Hearts Club (a CCBC Starred Best Book for Teens).

In 2020, the first book in her Runecaster young adult fantasy series, will debut. Titled The Stone of Sorrow, the book is set in a magical version of ancient Iceland, and draws upon Brooke’s Icelandic heritage and love of rune magic. Book two is coming in Spring 2021, and Book three publishes in 2022.

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?

Yes! I am Icelandic-Canadian, and I’ve always been fascinated by my family’s culture. During an MFA class many years ago taught by the wonderful author Susan Juby, I workshopped—on a whim—a rough first chapter of this book. It was very loose, but the main character of Runa was fully formed in my mind. She was named after my amma (my grandma) Gudrun, and was inspired by her strength.

Icelandic myths, the magic, the fantastical creatures, are all so wonderfully weird. I studied Scandinavian Literature during my undergrad and one of the things I loved about the ancient sagas and the modern stories was how deeply flawed the characters were. They all had a darkness I could relate to. My book evolved in that same tradition—the epic journey of a broken person through darkness and magic.

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

This book, the first in a three-book series, is very much about a journey. It’s an interior journey for Runa, as she has to come to terms with a destiny she never wanted for herself, and it is also an external journey to find a mystical location and save her sister. Runa’s goals were so clearly defined that I just kept throwing obstacles at her along the way.

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

Yes. I always outline my books, and I’m a stickler for structure because of my screenwriting background, but it is inevitable that the characters will make choices that deviate from the plan. I’m not totally sure how that happens, but it’s a good thing. You get into the zone and the story goes where it wants to. The tough part is making sure all the threads tie together in the end. It’s especially difficult when writing a series, or books that play with the element of time.

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

I have the TOO MANY IDEAS disease. I have to keep a folder on my desktop that just contains random snippets of ideas. I just shove them in there. Sometimes they inspire a whole story and sometimes not. I find I get the most ideas when I’m writing a tough part in one of my books. I think it’s my brain’s way of distracting me.

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

That can be agony. Ultimately, I choose the book I’m daydreaming about, and the characters that feel like they have the most to say. Writing a book is a sustained creative process. It has to feel passionate to me. I’ve definitely abandoned a few projects partway through.

I have 5 cats (seriously, check my Instagram feed) 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?

I don’t have pets (right now), but I do have kids. They are plenty distracting, but also endlessly inspiring. I used to worry that having kids would make me less productive, but if anything it has taught me to be very protective of my writing time. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Suzanne van Rooyen On Tackling Challenging Novel Ideas

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 Suzanne van Rooyen, a genderqueer, tattooed storyteller from South Africa. She currently lives in Finland where she finds the heavy metal soothing and the cold, dark forests inspiring. Although she has a Master’s degree in music, Suzanne prefers conjuring strange worlds and creating quirky characters. Her novels include Obscura Burning, The Other Me, Scardust and I Heart Robot.

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?

The inspiration for every book I write always seems to come from a different place. For I Heart Robot, my YA dystopian romance, I was inspired by a scene in the Terminator TV show where Summer Glau’s android character starts teaching herself ballet. This made me wonder what might make a machine want to create or participate in art? Could a robot ever be considered a musician? And those questions solidified into my android character Quinn who had a passion for the violin.

For my latest book, the one currently on submission, I was inspired by the music video for Walking on Car’s song Speeding Cars. The video is dark and magical and I wanted to know more about the story behind it, so I started crafting my own. The book that resulted from that source of inspiration is actually quite a departure from the original ideas presented in the video, but the song, lyrics, and visuals still resonate with me.

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

This is always what I struggle the most with. I am not the best plotter. Once I have a sense of the characters and the setting, I try to focus on the conflict. What is the worst thing that could happen to these characters? What have they got to lose? And I start building the plot from there. While I do try to plan and outline, I often find that things aren’t working somewhere around the 30k mark, that I’ve forced something instead of allowing the story to develop organically, or that I missed an opportunity to increase the conflict and raise the stakes. It’s pretty typical for me to rewrite the first 20k-30k of every novel I work on before I’m happy to actually finish the story.

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

Oh absolutely! In fact, the novels for which I think I’ve got a solid plan with a detailed outline, are the ones that end up changing the most. And I quite like this. I like being surprised by my characters. I like giving them some free rein to develop and grow even if it derails what I had in mind. I don’t think I’ve ever written a novel that hasn’t evolved beyond what I originally had planned.

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

Yes! I often feel inundated by ideas, drowning in the all the stories I want to write. I always make a note of my ideas, whether they’re snippets of conversation, an idea for setting, a particular image, or a ‘what if?’ The problem is turning those ideas into fully-formed stories, having the time and determination to commit to any given project. This year, I want to try to turn more of my ideas into stories though, even if they’re shorts or novelettes. Not all my ideas are novel-worthy and that’s something I plan to explore a little more.

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

It really depends which characters are screaming loudest in my head. Sometimes I can hear their voices really clearly or I am just in love with a particular story concept so I’ll work on that. Other times I try to go with the idea that’ll force me to become a better writer, the one that will be more of a challenge, the concept that might even be a little scary to tackle.

I have 5 cats (seriously, check my Instagram feed) 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?

I have a shiba inu called Lego: this is his Facebook page. While he’s a little big to snuggle in my lap while writing, he’s usually in my study or somewhere nearby to provide the necessary emotional support. He’s also a great listener and lets me talk through ideas, plot holes, and story issues without ever interrupting or criticizing. To honor his role as my writing buddy, my main character Tyri in I Heart Robot has a cyborg shiba, just like my Lego, called Glitch!