Eight things you don’t know about me and Revolution 19:
Most likely you know very little about me, beyond my official bio that’s floating around the ‘net…this is my first book, after all. So here are a few random facts about me and Revolution 19, in no particularorder:
1. I’m a superstitious writer. I have a pair of “writing rings”—they’re actually guitar strings twisted and soldered into rings—and I wear them only when I’m writing.
2. I hate first drafts! A blank page scares me. Once I get something down, I’m happy digging into revisions, but that first draft…torture. One trick I have is to type first drafts single spaced, with a small font and wide margins, so that I don’t obsess over how many pages I’ve written or failed to write.
3. One of my bad writing habits is that I massively overuse the word “suddenly” in first drafts. “Suddenly” is rarely ever helpful—it actually slows the action down just when you’re trying to describe something quick happening—so I don’t know why I keep using it in early drafts. I always do a word search for “suddenly,” and go back and kill most of them.
4. I’m married to another YA writer (Wendy Wunder, author of The Probability of Miracles). We met in the MFA in Creative Writing program at Emerson College in Boston.
5. Another odd writing tic I have is I don’t like to use the verb “asked.” I’m always saying “said” when the character is asking a question…my editors have to catch that for me. I guess it’s an overreaction to the old writing rule that you should avoid flowery speaking verbs and just stick with “said,” because it’s invisible to the reader and that’s what you usually want.
6. The first draft of Revolution 19 had a character named “Trask,” who never made it to draft 2. He was an underground rebel in the City, and he ended up betraying Nick, Kevin, and Cass. He had nice hair. He was ruining the book, and had to go. Sorry, Trask.
7. I have specific music needs when I’m writing. There’s a lot of pop-punk and guitar-driven stuff that I listen to when I need energy, but when I’m really focused and writing, I listen to “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis over and over. Music for writing can’t have lyrics, because the words get in the way of my words. The music can’t be so relaxing that it makes me sleepy, but also can’t be so engaging that I focus too much on it. “Kind of Blue” nails it.
8. Like many writers, I’ve written an unpublishable “trunk” novel…one that was a necessary but painful part of the learning process, that never saw the light of day. Mine was titled “Graham’s Grove.” That’s all I’m going to say about it.
Interesting post, thanks for sharing with us
This book sounds fantastic!