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| SCBWI
France |
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| Meet
the Pros |
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| SCBWI France publishes interviews
both in the SCBWI France Expression newsletter
and on-line. These interviews offer an insider's
view of the international children’s
publishing market. |
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| Janet
McDonald |
Janet
McDonald, Paris resident,
attorney and author of memoir,
Project Girl (An LA Times Best
Book of 1999) and YA novel,
Spellbound (an ALA Best YA Novel
for 2001) recently answered
Ann Jacobus’ questions
for the SCBWI Writer's Day. |
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1.
Can you tell us a little about your background
and what it was that drew you to writing?
My background is this: born and bred in
Brooklyn to overbearing, bookish postal
clerk father and placid, James Brown-fan
mother. In the midst of six (too many) siblings
(just kidding) and scores (too many) of
loud and taxing neighbors (just kidding)
all piled into the dizzying environment
of New York public housing. Good in school
(skipped fifth grade), bad at growing up
(caught shoplifting Judy Collins records.
Hey, it ain't Enron!). Raised on apple sauce
and salt pork (the mother denies this but
the childhood anemia proves it). Instantly
found a plethora or reasons to be depressed,
including but not limited to no black Hush
Puppies for Christmas, mandatory consumption
of horse-sized vitamins, futile yearning
for soft tufts of forearm hair like Jewish
high school friends, brutal sibling rivalry,
nasty lima beans and my lost separated-at-birth
twin (the mother denies existence of any
such person but the lifelong yearning proves
it). Notwithstanding the foregoing (legalese
alert!), French major at Vassar with minor
in Acting Out and junior year in Paris,
journalism master's at Columbia University,
juris doctor at New York University Law
School, all inappropriately interrupted
by a year off here, a year off there, some
trauma here, some drama there. No direction,
less personality, thus became corporate
lawyer. Writing began in a girlhood marked
by intense fantasy life and scribbled stories
about girl gang leaders, grew into a teenage
diary and reams of coed letters and blossomed
into volumes of grownup journals, a few
published articles and ultimately Project
Girl. |
2.
Tell us a little about your first novel
for the young adult market, Spellbound.
How did it come into being? How did you
come to write for the teen market?
Spellbound came about in a manner that is
not very exalted I'm sorry to say. I have
only the Tresor Public to thank. My French
taxes were due and I whined to my agent
about money. "Write a YA, I can get
you ten thousand dollars overnight,"
she exclaimed in her wonderful fuggedaboutit
New York accent. My reaction was "Ugh."
Preachy, pedantic and pat, that's what I
thought all YAs were. "I hate them,"
I protested, "and I don't know how
to write one anyway." "Oh, go
ahead, you didn't know how to write a memoir
either until you did, right?" Agents.
So fearless, especially when the potential
for public humiliation rests with someone
else. But it was either do that or mensualiser
for eternity. At night I lay in bed hearing
that voice, "ten thousand dollars overnight,
ten thousand dollars overnight, ten thousand
dollars overnight." Even the Mayflower
madam couldn't offer that! Decision and
realization came. I decided to try and realized
that I didn't have to take the triple P
route just because others did. I also realized
I hadn't read a young adult novel in decades,
and had actually loved Heidi and Pippi Longstocking
and Rowena Carey and all the early Girl
Power characters. I started writing albeit
skeptically, realized I was connecting with
my own emotional age group, began having
fun, and finished it in a month. August.
My editor barely touched it. Talk about
beginner's luck! Yet, on my first trip to
Las Vegas this past December I immediately
lost $160. Beginner's luck. Go figure.
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3.
What was the hardest part of writing your
first teen novel?
The hardest part about writing Spellbound
was well...actually it was great fun. Oh,
I know, the hardest part was sitting for
ten, twelve hours a day.
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4.
Any recent or past YA literature that influenced
you? Why?
Influences,
not really. I did read Catcher in the Rye
last year and absolutely loved it. Holden,
I feel your pain! Met Leonard Marcus recently
and he so enlightened me about the history,
quality and cultural significance of young
adult literature that I am now eager to
discover this new world of tales.
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5.
How did writing your memoir help/hurt writing
a YA novel?
Writing anything
I think (other than joint venture agreements
and corporate bylaws) has a positive effect
on the subsequent piece of writing. It's
still about conjuring and crafting as vividly
and viscerally as one can (how's that for
some cool alliteration?!).
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6.
Do you expect there to be a cross-over readership
between Project Girl and Spellbound? Who
do you think the books are primarily talking
to?
Crossover, yes.
The two books together are almost a nonfiction
and fiction version of the same cultural
phenomenon, the project girl. Except that
Spellbound is so much more fun. I see my
audience as composed of people who like
to laugh at the absurdities of our world,
who are eternally hopeful that they can
make their lives work out and who appreciate
a little bit of "attitude" in
someone who is supposed to be downtrodden,
but ain't. And ya KNOW dat!
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7.
Do you think there is such a thing as a
Janet McDonald "voice" or "subject"?
I have many
voices and can't wait to give them all a
moment at the mike, but I have only one
subject...dramatic pause...ah mince, I can't
think of anything. Let's say it's the alien
soul.
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8.
Did you do any special research for Spellbound
with your readers in mind?
No research
was necessary for Spellbound, other than
phoning my nieces (all four of whom are
young mothers) to find out things about
babies (hey, someone has to be a childless
spinster saving the earth from even more
overpopulation!). I would get answers like,
"No, Aunt Janet, a newborn baby CAN'T
eat apple pie, duh!" I guess if I wrote
about something utterly outside my experience
like girls growing up in Iceland, I'd have
to do some.
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9.
What do you want young readers to take away
from your books?
Young readers
should look up every word they don't know,
write out its meaning and put it in a complete
sentence. (Remember those exercises from
school? You'd have a list of ten words and
it would be like "The day was perspicacious.
The day was audacious. The day was intransigent.
The day was quixotic." Too funny!).
Other than that, I guess I just want people
not to stay too bummed out for too long
by life, see that there can be surprises
and second chances and rebounds. Oh, how
preachy, pedantic and pat!
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10.
Do you think teens are different today or
are dealing with different problems than
we faced? Why or why not?
When I was fifteen
I decided I would never have children because
the world sucked and I didn't want to bring
anyone into it so they could suffer. Externally,
the world seems to be sucking even more
now, or maybe I'm just paying more attention
to it. Or maybe each generation gets its
own version of that same phenomenon and
has to come find a way to live in that context.
My formative years were marked and marred
by the Vietnam War, bloody civil rights
struggles, deaths of cool idols like Jimi
Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and bad hair days
for everyone. Teenagers now have to grapple
with the war on terror, civil rights taking
a back seat to the new patriotism which
has taken hold of me as well, deaths of
cool idols like Kurt Cobain and Aaliyah,
and bad face jewelry for everyone. But you
know what, you still have to battle your
body, make people in school like you, hate
your parents at least for a moment, discover
sex, learn the lyrics to One Minute Man
(Missy Elliott, just in case...) get money
for Limp Bizkit tickets, pass all your classes
and get into college AND not get caught
looking at this or that body part in the
mirror. So, plus ça change... |
11.
How would you describe your writing and
editing process?
Long procrastination (which I euphemistically
call cogitation) and intense spurts. I start
writing straight off with a vague or no
notion of where I'm going, then when I have
a character or I try to let them lead the
way, take me to their friends, let me listen
to their music, look in their armoire, meet
the parents. Sometimes I will take a stronger
hand and look out for them, place them in
the best situation. It's really like friends
hanging out. |
12.
Do you have a writing group? Or other preliminary
readers?
No writing group
but I do show early chapters to a couple
of close friends whose literary take on
things I respect. |
13.
Any advice for other YA writers?
Advice. Always listen to Sarah McLachlan,
Missy, R Kelly and Limp Bizkit while writing.
Chopin only if you're stuck. Radio Nova
is good, too. Every few hours get up and
dance wildly. Drink lots of water. Munch
on pistachio nuts and pretzels. Do not bathe
or comb hair unless outside employment is
involved. Have fun. Characters are real
people, only invisible. Hang with them.
Talk aloud to them. Miss them when they're
gone. |
14.
What next?
Spellbound is
the first of a trilogy. The second book,
Chill Wind is Aisha's story and is almost
in galleys. I'm writing the third, Payback.
But first, I am revising a separate YA called
Starchild which is quite different from
the trilogy, much more along the lines of
Catcher in the Rye in the sense that it
is internal, written in the first person
and not at all a project story. I'm on a
year-long writing sabbatical from law practice
and am enjoying the freedom to write. Otherwise,
I have an essay coming out in October in
O (as in Oprah) magazine, a Booklist interview,
you know, doing the fifteen minutes of fame
thing. I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.
You
go, girl! (And thanks!) |
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