Episode 13: Wendelin Van Draanen, MG and YA Author
An uplifting conversation with author Wendelin Van Draanen, where we discuss the therapeutic nature of writing and the silver lining in a difficult path to publication.
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Transcript of Podcast episoDe 13: Interview with Wendelin Van Draanen, MG and YA Author
Thank you so much for joining me for this "Good Story Podcast." I'm Mary Kole, by the way. And I am thrilled to welcome, Wendelin Van Draanen, multi, multi-published author in the children's book space, and author of sort of an interesting new guide on writing and life called "Hope in the Mail," which recently came out. Wendelin, would you mind introducing yourself, please?
Wendelin: Thank you, Mary. Well, as you said, I'm Wendelin Van Draanen, and I'm the author now of over 30 books for kids and young adults and, you know, some of them cross over, too. I have quite a few adult end at this point. I'm the author of the 18-book "Sammy Keyes" mystery series, as well as a handful, stand-alone YA novels, and other projects. My book "Flipped" was turned into a Rob Reiner-directed movie. And I am a slush pile survivor.
Mary: I love it. And it is from that position that you wrote this book "Hope in the Mail." We're going to be talking all about it. I think there's a lot here that is going to be very, very fruitful to writers of all stripes, ability levels, and what led you to sort of arrive at this place after a lot of fiction. Now, it's sort of a memoir, retrospective how-to letter of encouragement for writers.
Wendelin: Yeah, because I get asked the same questions by a lot of people: teens that want to write, adults that want to write, adults that want to write YA. They have all sorts of questions and there are similar questions. And so, I find myself answering these same things over and over because I do want to encourage other people to pursue their passion. And I decided it would be so helpful, really, to get the perspective of somebody who had gone to the school of hard knocks of writing and has learned a lot the hard way and kind of consolidated things into an easily digestible, one place you could find a lot of information.
Mary: And it is that. A lot of your chapters are very short. Some of them more personal anecdotes, some that deal with specific topics, especially toward the end, such as literary agents, series. You had some kind of series questions and sort of requests for sequels and stuff like that in your career. But one of the things that really struck me is here, you write that, you know, you say this book is not a how-to manual for getting published but you write, "My hope is that it's helpful to you as a writer and as a person." So it's not just sort of anecdotes of the writing life but there's a lot in here that is aspirational, inspirational, and sort of, it almost felt like a therapy session at times, too. Can you talk a little bit more about how you arrived at that tone and that focus?
Wendelin: Well, I think people come to writing from different angles and the way that I came to writing is that stuff happened to me. I was not a writer before then. Writing was not my favorite subject in school. It was something that I felt like I could never really break the code of what my language arts teachers wanted in a perfect essay. And wanting to deliver something perfect, it was impossible. So, you know, I focused on math, where I could get the answer right and nobody was gonna tell me to expand on my introduction. So I came to writing as a way of just dealing with anger and just heartache. And I discovered that it was very therapeutic. So when you say that, you know, it was sort of a therapeutic thing, that's what writing was for me. It was therapy to work through this just awful time. And I think that a lot of people have things in their lives that are traumatic to them, or they're just heartbreaking to them, or they just need to work through it. And so writing can be a way, kind of, to sort through how you're feeling and what you're thinking, and maybe come to a different perspective on the same situation.
Mary: I feel like we have had a long coffeehouse chat together. Of course, it was one-sided. It was me reading your book. So I could pull from so many different things that you talk about, but one thing that really struck me is that you call this the goal, right. You call it the goal that you can use, which is your life experience, which is the things that happened to you that maybe you're still working through or want to work through. It's a reinforcement of that "write what you know" idea, which just speaks to taking your experience: good, bad, ugly, and through the alchemy of writing, transforming it into something that, at least, in your experience, you found very fruitful for you, as a creator, especially kind of in this early time you talk about really dealing with some difficult stuff.
Wendelin: Right. I think that if you take the pressures of life and you apply them in the correct way, you're gonna wind up with a diamond. So I think that sometimes the pressures of what it is we experience in life, lend themselves, if we let them, to creative pursuits that other people can relate to. And I think that in writing, connecting with your reader on an emotional level is something that you can achieve if what you're writing is something that you feel in your heart yourself.
Mary: Now, tell me this. You allude to sort of these creative pursuits, the forms of artistic expression that your experiences can take. But, at the same time, you also said that writing was not an easy thing for you, initially. It sort of was an uneasy fit with your, maybe more logical, mathematical structured brain, your logical way of thinking. So how did some experiences in your life, some need for an outlet, how did that point to writing if it wasn't a fit, initially?
Wendelin: So I would wake up, kind of cold sweat in the middle of the night and think that I've had a really bad dream and then realize that, no, that was my life. And what do you in the middle of the night? And so, I would just... I think that, also, people journal for that reason. They get their thoughts out. So it wasn't really journaling though, it was more just thrashing on paper. I was just so angry. And the evolution of writing about what had happened, which actually didn't change a thing, I mean, writing about what happened didn't change a thing. And it really, ultimately, didn't make me feel better. But then, when I came across the idea of taking the bad guys in my life and fictionalizing them a little and changing the ending to how things have turned out and corralling these people and putting them in jail. And then I thought, well, why would I put them in jail when I could torture them a little first? So on the pages, I would take these, you know, people in my life, and then I would torture them on the page. And then, I mean, why stop there, why not just kill them off because really... So I say that I came to writing because I needed therapy and also because I needed to kill off some bad guys. And I couldn't do that in real life so I kind of just do it on the page. And that's when I discovered what fiction writing was and how wonderful it could be. It was just, like, thrilling. So from then on, I was hooked.
Mary: So young Wendelin had a redemption arc, and sort of had a hero arc. And that's a triumph over some of the forces in your life that maybe turned out a little less victorious for you. But in the fictional space, you were able to sort of persevere and give yourself those victories.
Wendelin: And really, what a wonderful, I don't want to say revenge, but the outcome, my life is so good now, and that's kind of my point to my readers. If you let the negativity in your life consume you, it will destroy you. But if you fight back against it or if you find a creative way to deal with it, it can ultimately lead you to a good life. And when I compare my life now to, you know, back then, I couldn't even have imagined that it would turn out this well or that I would be this happy. And so writing did that.
Mary: Yeah. And I think you shared a little revenge fantasy moment where one of your tormentors, I think you called them little bad, tried to friend you on social media, completely, you know, "Oh hey. Hey, you," you know.
Wendelin: So we went from the big bad, right, the big bad to the big bad thing to okay, I realize I could do this. So I find myself, you know, I become a schoolteacher, and I find myself surrounded by kids every day. And I remember what it was like to kind of be the outcast because my parents are immigrants, and we were just different, and to feel like the outcast and be picked on by people. And so, I applied what I had applied to the big bad to the little bads of my youth. Like there are people that, I mean, what happens to you, I think, in middle school affects you for the rest of your life. So the people that... Yes.
Mary: You said that middle school, you know, elementary school was maybe a little tamer, but I forget exactly how you phrased it, but you indicated pretty clearly that middle school was sort of the epicenter of bad to freak you, and I can relate to that 100%.
Wendelin: I think a lot of people can because you go from the kind of secure environment of an elementary school or the more secure environment, where usually you have one teacher for most of your day or there is a primary teacher that you have that you can rely on. And then you get into middle school and you switch around a lot and there's a whole bunch of kids you've never...you don't know them. You're just this big swarm of kids and everybody's posturing. You know, they're trying to find their turf or whatever. And so by the time you get into high school, I think people join clubs. They join sports groups and they find their people. But in middle school, man, that's where you can go awry because it's also the time of life where it's very important for you to fit in. It's very important for you to feel like you have your group of friends who understand you and support you. And so, people will do things in that age that would take them in the wrong direction because it's so important for them to fit in.
Mary: Well, they're individuating, too. They're maybe even trying things on, saying, "Okay. Who am I? I know that I'm not this kid anymore." But that opens up a whole vast field of possibilities, some good, some not so good.
Wendelin: So I had a little bad. I had this girl. They tortured me and she really did. I mean, she was terrible. And so when I started writing the "Sammy Keyes" series, realizing after attending the school of hard knocks for many years at this point, realizing that really, you do need to put your protagonist up a tree and you need to throw rocks at them. So rather than putting Sammy Keyes in the more secure environment of elementary school or into high school, I decided that I would put her into that terrifying, you know, phase of life, which was middle school. And then I gave her a nemesis in her life, like I had this person in my life. And so, she became like this fictionalized version of this girl who tortured me in middle school. And then I had such a great time, just beating up on her, you know, on the page, through Sammy Keyes. You know, she beats up on my fictionalized nemesis. I don't know. It's just so childish but satisfying.
Mary: Oh, yeah. And quite literally beats up. And I think you had that moment where you were like, wait a minute. I can't model this kind of behavior with the protagonist.
Wendelin: Yeah, I was, you know, major conflict here at 5:00 in the morning because, at this point, okay, I've got two little kids, I've got this full-time job teaching school, and I'm getting up super early to write in the morning, just a little bit before my kids get up and then, you know, I take them to daycare and then I go to high school and do that whole routine. So I had just this little bit of time and one morning, Sammy Keyes, you know, punches Heather Acosta, her nemesis, in the nose and blood goes squirting everywhere. And I'm like, "Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah." I was jumping up and down and around. I was just so excited. And then I realized, "Oh, wait. No. I'm a mother. I'm a teacher." And I know you're not supposed to be going punching people on the nose. So, of course, Sammy Keyes had to get suspended from school. Put your protagonist up a tree, throw some rocks at them, and your book will be exciting.
Mary: But I think one of the other things that you mentioned that was very interesting for me and I think very relevant to a lot of writers kind of go through the writing process is that you surprise yourself a lot, seemingly, with the way that you write the things that end up happening, the character choices you make. You say that you didn't know Sammy, probably until a couple of installments in, when things finally started to click.
Wendelin: Yeah, and I think that characters are like friends, where you meet them and you like them. I mean, you have something in common. You know, you have a fun time talking, or having coffee, or whatever. But the friends that you've had for years and years and years, you know them in a different way and you trust them in a different way. And you can read them in a different way.
So when I wrote "Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief," which was the first one, it got rejected, you know, everywhere. But I liked her so much, I wanted to, you know, go out to coffee again. So I wanted to write, you know, another element so I wrote the second one. And I liked her even better. And so, I sent that one out also. And while it was being read and rejected, I had an idea for a third one. We went out for some more coffee. So I started the third one and then I started the fourth one, and by the time that the series was picked up, they had four books. So there were four books in this before any of them were bought. And then, going through the revision process because now, finally, at this point, I am to a stage where I have to know how to revise, not just, you know, go through, and spell check, and think, "Oh, that's good enough." I have an editor now, who's making me question things and asking me to do things and holding my feet to the fire. And so, I'm going back to Hotel Thief and I've realized, "Oh, Sammy has changed over time." I know Sammy better now, so I could make some adjustments to the character that I had grown to know. We go back to the beginning of our relationship and I knew her better.
So all the frustration that I felt in these books getting rejected year by year by year because yes, full-time job, two little kids, still writing, getting rejected, the frustration that I felt, then I turned that around and said that was a blessing because I think that's what we need to do in life. It's like you have these hurdles and they hurt. You know, you bumped your shin on this as you're going over and you got this bruise. But then if you can look back and see how that was a blessing because it enables you to do something else that you couldn't have done if you had jumped that hurdle, like, right away, and just sailed right over it. And so, I think that one of the reasons that the "Sammy Keyes" series had 18 installments in it is because I was able to make the first 4 all tied together, all be really solid, and then I could take all the years of rejection and education, and apply them to that first installment.
Mary: And I think this is definitely an unusual series launch story in which the writer wrote four installments of the story and then sold them as, you know, a four-part contract, right. That was your first contract with Penguin Random House.
Wendelin: Yeah, and with an option for more.
Mary: With an option, yeah, but had the house commit so enthusiastically to a four-part series. This is kind of when I give advice to writers, a lot of this goes in the "do not do" column.
Wendelin: Right. And I would say that there is a lot of luck involved in having finally found the right person and having her be a mystery buff, who saw the potential in what I was doing.
Mary: But even there, I mean, there were obviously rejections as you worked your way up to four manuscripts in the series. But even with the editor that you ended up working with, it seemed like there was a little bit of back and forth. They switched houses. They weren't able to acquire your first manuscript that you've sent around. So even with all the luck and how well it actually turned out, it wasn't such a straightforward story.
Wendelin: No. At any point, it could have fallen apart. And I think that your advice is wise. I mean, if I wasn't so naive then, right, I probably would have written the first one, shopped it around, tried to find someone who saw the potential in it, but I guess I'm just a little crazy that way. And I really liked her. Yes, Sammy. I really liked her. And it made me happy to get up at 5:00 in the morning to spend an hour with her before going through my day. It made me happy and I think that that right there is an indicator for...like if you like your character enough to get up at 5:00 in the morning to spend time with them, then they're a pretty good character.
Mary: My children get me up around that time, 5:30, 6:00. I wish I could leap out of bed with the same enthusiasm.
Wendelin: Oh, no, it wasn't a matter of leaping out of bed.
Mary: Okay. So you are still a mere mortal like most of us.
Wendelin: Oh, please. Oh, please. So you've read the description of the environment. And so it was this tiny little place and the bed was the chair for my desk, which was a fold-down secretary, you know, and I had this little computer that I would put up on top. So, basically, I would just roll off to the edge of the bed and then you're in the office state when you're still half asleep. So if you're in the office state, your brain does a wacky thing. You're kind of creative. I mean, you think things that you would not normally think when you are fully engaged with reality. So I found myself, like, it was a good time to write. And I would check myself also, like, if I was working the night before, like, I would not finish the chapter. I would get to the place where I would stop mid-sentence. That's okay because if you wind down, then you have to wind yourself back up in writing. But if you stop mid-sentence and you know where you're going, then you're excited to finish that sentence. And once you finish that sentence, it's gonna lead you to the next one and pretty soon, there you go rolling again. So if you can, just out of necessity, being a mom, you know, having a job, doing all of the crazy things. I would get interrupted a lot. But then it turned out that "Oh, I could jump right back in," as opposed to, "Okay, I need to get back in the frame of mind that I was in."
Mary: Okay, right. Waiting for the muse.
Wendelin: No. There was no waiting for the muse.
Mary: I think this takes me back to... I'm a big "Shark Tank" fan. That's neither here nor there but there is a point, I promise. One of the sharks, Kevin O'Leary, he does speaking, and I was just really curious about how much these guys charge for their speaking fees. That's kind of where my mind goes. I saw his menu of speeches that he gives. One of his speeches is kind of about encouraging women in the workforce. And he says, "If you want something done, give it to a working mother," because we have no time for anything, for mucking around, for sort of waiting for inspiration to strike. I really love this idea of you sort of dropping off in the middle of a sentence so you could just pick back up and there was no warm-up time.
Wendelin: And that is so true. I had a teacher friend and we would get to school, and it would be like 7:40. And she and I, we both had little kids, she and I would look at each other and say, "We get more done before 8:00 than all these people do all day." It was our little mantra to each other, just to kind of encourage each other along.
Mary: So just out of curiosity, you have these four Sammy books. You've learned a lot about Sammy writing these four projects. Now, the series sells and you're in the editorial process. This is a really nerdy craft question, but did you go back and revise early Sammy with some of the things you learned from later Sammy, or did you have to sort of force yourself into like, for the first couple of books, into this more naive younger view of Sammy, even though if you knew her a lot better?
Wendelin: I think that growth within your character is very important in a series. So Sammy world starts the first day of seventh grade. That's when the first book happens. And every installment, she is a month older in the series. So there are 18 books and it takes you through the end of eighth grade. So each book takes place a month later in Sammy world, takes you through middle school. She is a different person at the beginning and she learns from her mistakes as she grows. There is a point in "Sammy Keyes and the Dead Giveaway," where she has the opportunity and, legitimately, to punch Heather in the nose again, only she pulls back because it's the end of seventh grade. She pulls back and she's like, "It's like I've gone back to the beginning of the year if I hit her." So instead, she does something else.
Mary: She's not perfect.
Wendelin: No. Oh, she's far from perfect, which is why I love her because she's flawed like all of us are flawed. She's tough on the outside but it's because she's hurting on the inside. So to answer your question, I knew her as a person better. But that didn't mean I changed her behavior, because otherwise, she would not have punched Heather in the nose.
Mary: My personal mantra is that spite is, like, the best motivator. My husband's like, "That's horrible. Don't tell people that." But...
Wendelin: No. It really is or I think just getting it out of your system and then putting it to rest. Like, don't carry it with you. Get it out of your system. Find a new way of looking at it. The thing that I've adopted in life is that I look back on people and I try to figure out why they are the way they are. It has helped me so much because the people who are annoying in your life, there is a root cause for that. And if you find the root cause, then all of a sudden, you're filled with this sympathy for them. And when you're filled with sympathy for someone, it's just hard to be annoyed by them. So it kind of neutralizes it. And it works so well. I mean, it works well with relatives. It works well with your neighbor. It works well with everybody. [inaudible 00:27:40] everybody, find the root cause and then just find sympathy.
Mary: Wow. I mean, wow. I think, especially in the times that we're living in, this empathy, this ability to be able to see where other people are coming from, is just so wholly missing from a lot of discourse, right. But it's also a requirement for writing. I think this idea of stepping into the shoes of others and... One of the anecdotes that sticks out to me the most in "Hope in the Mail" is this, you know, you were a frazzled mom, you had your young kids in the house, and then a homeless woman comes with a bag of clothes, and she's just looking to get her clothes dried. And, you know, you have sort of an initial knee jerk reaction of, you know, "Oh, I don't want this to be my problem," and then maybe, like "Okay. I'll do it but she can sit on the porch." But then, of course, humanity prevails and you end up engaging with her. And just the conversation that you had with this woman, who you dedicated the book to, ends up in forming a whole character in one of your books.
Wendelin: Talk about how it's so strange to realize that this character that you've created, the misconception that you are driving around is actually informing your life. And if you listen to your characters, which is kind of like listening to your subconscious or your conscience, what is it you should do here? If you have a noble character or a character that's trying to be a better person, what would they do in this situation? And then why aren't you doing that in your own life?
Mary: So tell me this, this is a question I hear all the time. You said, you know, I wrote "Hope in the Mail" because it preempts a lot of questions that you hear regularly like, "Where do you get your ideas? How do you get published?" So I think in the time that we're living in today, when we talk about empathy, when we talk about this experience of sort of stepping outside of our own shoes, what do you think about this sort of very charged publishing question of writing outside our experience, whether that means our lived experience, our gender, our background, writing sort of a story that we don't have firsthand experience with. So you have written a homeless character, for example. What do you say to writers who now hear all of this talk about, you know, people of color wanting to represent themselves on the shelves, rather than, you know, seeing white writers writing characters of color, this sort of very, very big and emotional debate? How do you approach that when you think about writing a character who you don't necessarily have firsthand experience living?
Wendelin: First and foremost, you need to approach it with respect and with the willingness to do the work. I think it's an important discussion. I think we're in a time of listening and a time of being more aware of others, and their perception, and their view on things. And I really do think it's a good time to listen to the broad spectrum and also the chorus. If enough people feel that way about something, then there's validity to it. There are changes that need to be made. So for me, personally, I mean, I have a book, "The Running Dream," which is about a girl who loses her leg in an accident. She's a track star and she loses her leg. And the one thing she loves in the world is to run. She just thinks her life is over. So I am not an amputee and the thought about writing about an amputee was daunting. So I wanted to make sure I represented that experience with as much authenticity as I could. And so, I spent two years researching it. I spent a lot of time with people who are amputees, who helped me create that character. So I think that coming to a story from a place of respect for the characters that you are creating is really important.
Mary: I completely agree and I think it goes back to, you know, we were kind of joking about being willing to listen, being willing to see other perspectives and you know, how it's almost a cultural punchline that people go huddle in their corners of Facebook now and become unwilling to sort of engage in meaningful dialogue. But I think what you're saying is exactly right. This ability to listen is going to serve any writer, coming from a place of respect with good intentions. And also, just being able to sort of amend your perspective and let other perspectives in and take that kind of very conscientious approach to rendering something outside of your own experience on the page, I think, is the bare minimum of what we should be willing to do as writers in this current day and age.
Wendelin: I think that intentions are important but they're not everything. So if your intention when you write something is one thing, but that isn't how it comes across. I think intention shouldn't be completely discounted. But they aren't everything. There has to be something to back up your intentions. It requires effort, and it requires an openness, and it requires contemplation. Is this really a story that you should be telling?
Mary: Right. And I think that you even mentioned in "Hope in the Mail," sort of your process of going back and forth with "The Running Dream," and maybe feeling a little bit insecure about choosing to tell that story and some of the lengths that you went to. But I think it's a very valid question and it's one of your very critically-reviewed books. And I think a lot of people are very happy that you went ahead. But it was still on your mind.
Wendelin: Well, it was. And I think that if you keep it in the forefront of your mind, then you will do the work.
Mary: Speaking of doing the work, I want to go back to early Wendelin in the publishing game and talk about your first manuscript and a bit of pretty devastating feedback that you received in the mail about a year after you first submitted it. What kind of feedback did you get on that book?
Wendelin: Oh my gosh. You know, there was a lot of really negative feedback. Are we talking about "How I Survived Being a Girl?"
Mary: Yes, and a tall order to basically cut the manuscript...
Wendelin: Cut your book in half, uh-huh. I didn't know what I was doing, okay. And that is one of the reasons that I wrote "Hope in the Mail" is because I know there are a lot of people out there that also wished they had, like, a guide to help them through this, because yeah, I didn't. I had been submitting work, you know. I'd been getting rejected and I got a very long...well, I don't know. It was a letter from an editor, who actually, you know, said my name, instead of "We're sorry this is not right for us at this time." It was, like, a nice, thoughtful letter. And she said, basically, "Well, if you cut it in half, I'll look at it again." There are a lot of words that you're throwing to the wayside when you cut something in half. See how ignorant I was about just publishing and the industry, I did not know that what I had written was a children's book.
Mary: Really?
Wendelin: Yeah. I read "Dandelion Wine" by Ray Bradbury and it was about the magic of growing up. And, of course, I was an adult now and it reminded me of, like, the mischief my siblings and I got into when we were growing up. And so I thought I'm gonna write my own version of "Dandelion Wine," and so that's when I wrote it. And then I send it off to adult publishers. And somehow it wound its way around to an assistant. Was she an assistant at the time? She was down the totem pole, okay. And it would up on her desk. She was like a prereader, I think. I don't know what her title was at the time but...
Mary: Intern number 7.
Wendelin: So anyway, she wrote me this letter and sent it to me, "Cut it in half and I'll look at it again." I'm like, "Children? This is for children? Don't you understand what I'm doing? This is supposed to be like Ray Bradbury." And then my husband, who's been putting up with me not being published and with seeing all my pouty rejection face, you know, for years and years now. He's like, "Woman. If you ever want to get published, you should read what this woman says and then do what she's asking you to do." And so, I pouted for, you know, two weeks. And then I started just pulling out whole chapters and I could see what she meant because I had some distance from it because it had been, you know, getting rejected for a while. And so, [inaudible 00:38:28] my protagonist, she was kind of meandering. She just sees the sides but went to nowhere. And then it could be streamlined and then, you know... So I did the work and I sent it back.
Mary: And intern number 7 was right.
Wendelin: You know, she wasn't an intern. She was an associate editor.
Mary: Okay. That is sort of the starting ground.
Wendelin: That book, "How I Survived Being a Girl," I mean, it took a while, going back and forth. It was the first book she acquired and it was my first book sold. And we have done all three, four books together since.
Mary: No. That kind of love story is very unusual in modern-day publishing and this survived her moving houses, correct?
Wendelin: Yes.
Mary: That's pretty amazing.
Wendelin: It's kind of an old-fashioned model but I think, it's really nice. I mean, I know other authors who... They don't have a home. They bounce around and I understand why because editors bounce around. Then you're left with an orphan book somewhere that the new editor is gonna come in. That's not her baby. She's not gonna treat it the way that the person that, you know, bought it, will. I mean, there's a lot of turmoil within people moving houses and things changing and...
Mary: I was gonna say sometimes the series peters out. It's also pretty unusual to see an 18-book series.
Wendelin: And so my editor told me that she wanted to see "Sammy Keyes" to the end, too. Like we had this plan that, you know, a month at a time through middle school. So we had this plan and getting to the last book was important to her as well because this was her thing, too. So I think that it contributed to her stability in [inaudible 00:40:36]. And so, we kind of went through that journey together, which spanned almost 20 years.
Mary: That's incredible. So I'm actually really curious to go back to a little bit earlier, I've actually heard of "Dandelion Wine" inspiring because it is kind of this category melding thing. It ends up reading a lot more like some children's books. And a lot of people sort of take it as a version for such. But I'm actually surprised that you didn't know what category you were aiming for when you first started writing.
Wendelin: Well, I tell you, I didn't know a thing. I just knew I had to get to work by 7:00. And I didn't have a writer's group. I had my husband who is a writer and a wonderful person. He's very supportive. And I encourage all writers to find someone in their life who is supportive and encourages them because it is so hard to get rejection, you know, day after day, and not get... Just over time, it will wear you down. But if you have someone who's in your corner, who's helping you kind of, and encouraging you to cut your manuscript in half so someone will look at it again, you know, if you have somebody in your life who's like that, that is how you make it through. It's hard to do on your own. Some people find writers' groups that are that way. And having the life that we did, he and I were our own writers' group. And that made for, I think, success for both of us.
Mary: So then, Sammy is younger, kind of in the middle-grade category and ages up, as you mentioned. And then you said that having your kids and having them grow into independent readers inspired you to go down into chapter book, for a quartet, right?
Wendelin: Yeah, the "Shredderman" quartet. That really was inspired by my kids and their kids and just kind of seeing...because I have boys. They weren't as anxious to be readers as I was when I was a kid, let's put it that way. And so, we'd go to the library, we'd check out all these books, we'd come home, and, you know, of course, I read to them in the beginning. I was reading to them and they were upside down and backward, with their feet on the wall. And I was slapping them around and I'm saying... Well, that sounds terrible. But, you know, slapping their little legs gets through them right away. And they say, "But Mom, it's so boring." "No, it's not boring. It's good. Give it a minute." "No, can we do something else?" So you have those conversations and then you start looking at the page and you realize, "Okay, this is not holding this child's attention for what reason." And just trying to analyze that and then just kind of on a lark, I started writing about Shredderman, who was very much like my older boy. And they would come home from school wanting me to read to them what I had written next. And when they would be upside down and backward, with their feet up on the wall, and they would say, "Mom, there's nothing happening. I realize, "Oh, gosh, yeah. Okay, I need to fix this."
Mary: Tough crowd.
Wendelin: Yeah, I know. They were the barometer for the writing of that and that was fun. I really enjoyed that and then it became this thing. It became a Nickelodeon made for TV movie, so that was pretty awesome.
Mary: Fabulous. Well, speaking of your other movie, I mean, who can keep track?
Wendelin: Oh no, there's just the two.
Mary: Hey, that's more movies than I have so that's fantastic.
Wendelin: I don't mean it to sound that way because I know that actually having something made is so rare.
Mary: So rare.
Wendelin: I mean, a lot of people have their work options and it starts going down the pipe but it just doesn't get made. And so having two things actually made is not, there was no just... You were making it sound like I had all sorts of films, so.
Mary: That's me. That's me and my snarky voice. But what I wanted to ask was I was alluding to "Flipped" and my next big kind of craft writing question for you was, so we have Sammy, we have Shredderman, different age categories. We have "Flipped," which sort of, the whole concept of the story is that it takes different points of view. And how do you find your voice, not just from character to character but for different age groups, too?
Wendelin: As I think it's important for us to listen to each other, I also think it's important for us to listen to our characters. And sometimes though, I'll slip something in that we didn't expect them to say. And that's when they're talking to us and that's when we need to listen. And so, Juli had a sort of romantic voice and she likes to wax poetic about the beauty of the tree, whereas Bryce's, "Dude, you know, let's go play basketball." I think being surrounded by sons and, you know, a husband, I think that the boy voice is not a foreign thing to me. And I'm pretty good at channeling voices but then once you get started, they become their own people. Once you get started on any characters, they become their own people. And they'll say things. And then when you hear them say things, you realize, "Okay. That's their voice." And then you follow it.
Mary: And one of your pieces of advice in "Hope in the Mail" was to literally listen and you gave this image of these cocktail napkins, wishing that you could just scribble things on them, even if there's a thief racing into your house, but they're giving you some really good dialogue. Do you just find yourself still doing that or is it something that you use to sort of kickoff this ability to channel voices?
Wendelin: I think the kickoff is a good way to describe it. And especially like I have so many books and it's really important for me, just my own bar, is to not repurpose the voice, to not use the same voice again in a new project. I don't want to rewrite the same book with a different name. I want to write something unique. I want it to have a different purpose and I want it to have a different sound. And so, sometimes if you hear something and that is different from anything else that you use to springboard a voice or used in a voice, it can elude you later if you don't write it down. But having it and then having that trigger, the style of speaking that, you know, where it came from, I think that can really lend itself to unique voices in your writing.
Mary: I think the most acute example of this happened to you when you went for breakfast in Birmingham.
Wendelin: Oh, right. Sorry. I was thinking of breakfast itself. So we had the two little kids at home and my publisher flies me to Birmingham, Alabama from California, for breakfast, with some librarians at some conference. Who knew what it was? It was [inaudible 0:48:38.469] but, you know, I know what that is. Okay. There I am and I'm like, "I flew all the way. I'm jet-lagged. I missed my connection." It was just hell getting there. And here I am at this breakfast and right after breakfast, they whisk me back to the airport and they send me home. And Mark's like "Did you really just fly to Birmingham for breakfast?" And I go, "Aye."
Mary: But this wasn't your last connection to Alabama. After you kind of swore off tight turnarounds like this, it actually ended up germinating in a book.
Wendelin: Right. Because it turns out, and again, the silver lining thing, you will find that all your experiences somewhere will show you a silver lining. And so about a year after my breakfast in Birmingham, these librarians that had been at this conference, contacted me about coming to do a weeklong school session at their middle school in the Birmingham area. And so, I wind up going there for a week and I was just immersed in the way they spoke, their hospitality. It's just everything about it was so different than California. And so after I came home, I took notes on the things they were saying because they were just hilarious to me. You know, dumber in the wet hand or matter in the wet hand, dumber [inaudible 00:49:59], okay. So there were these things that they said and they were just... You just draw a little picture in your mind. And so, they helped me, actually, put this list together, and then there I had this list. Who knew what I was gonna do with it? But then, one night, I'm falling asleep and this boy is talking to me and he sounds Southern. And so I'm like, "Who are you and what are you doing in my brain?" But the story starts just kind of coming out. So I picked up a yellow pad and I just, you know, legal pad, and I just started writing what he was saying to me. I was, "How bizarre." But that's kind of how your experiences, they get into the big stewpot of your brain and then, you know, they gurgle in there for a while, and then finally, it's time. We're ready. We're ready. Yeah. I hear voices, okay. I think all authors are a little bit crazy or need to be because we hear voices and our characters feel real. And we might talk about them like they're alive.
Mary: I think you do have to be marginally, you know, tapped into a different dimension to really make a go of this writing thing because as you say in this wonderful book, "Hope in the Mail," you had a lot of work-life balance issues. You know, becoming an author isn't... You'd sooner get rich buying a lottery ticket. You know, it's not the easiest life and it's not the easiest, most clear-cut creative pursuit to get into either. So you have all these amazing experiences but one thing that really stuck out to me from the book and also from the way that you described your process here, because we have a lot of writers listening who are developing their own process, who are learning their own craft, who are getting to their own projects and kind of figuring themselves out. One thing that really has stuck out to me is that you're a conduit, almost, you, personally, for these characters that speak to you, these experiences. You know, you tied together a sticky Sammy conundrum about her age and her grade level on an airplane, completely unrelated to anything that was happening, you know. So things just seem to come to you and you sort of just tackled the pantsing versus plotting debate in "Hope in the Mail" as well. What would you say to writers who maybe don't hear the voices, who don't sort of have these brainstorms? I would imagine that it's discouraging to want to write but, yet, maybe not have that kind of brain. Do you have any words of advice for writers who need to tune in still to that part of themselves or who function completely differently?
Wendelin: Well, I have a scientific mind. I have a math mind. I do not have a natural writer mind. And it became more and more of a writer mind over time because I spent time with my characters. And I think that that is key. If you're kind of stuck on your story, you don't know where it's going, don't tune away from your story, and like, you know, binge watch something on Netflix. Don't get on Facebook. Don't do all those escaping things that we do to avoid facing what we don't know how to do. So how do you get to the next chapter, the next page? How do you get back into a story that seems stalled? And the way to do that is to open a conduit like you talked about. You are a conduit but you need to open it. And you can't open it, just open close. You can't do that. You have to let it stream in. And sometimes, you know, it's a little clogged and you've just got to encourage it to flow through.
So when I'm writing a story or even when I'm thinking about what it is I want to write, characters I want to write, I don't watch TV. I don't do all the social media engagement things that can just whittle away our time. I spend time doing chores with the characters in my head. I will vacuum. I will, you know, trim the hedges. I will do all sorts of cleaning and buffing and stuff while I am plotting. That is what I'm doing in my head. I'm not listening to music. I may be listening to the Mary Kole podcast but that's an exception. The rest, I am just thinking about my story. And I am immersing my brain in the characters and dilemmas of the people that I have in my head. And when that happens, when you run through these little scenarios in your brain, you see your character getting in a fight. You see them like, da da da da da. And you listen to them and you realize, "Oh, this is where they need to go." Because then, you're unplugged, then you had your breakthrough, then it's gonna start to flow. But you have to spend time with your characters in your story and just immerse yourself in it.
I am a madwoman. When I am writing a story, I am just consumed by it. That's what it is. You need to be consumed by your story and let all the other drama in your life, you know, let the dishes, well, unless you're plotting, do the dishes then. It's like let other things go. They don't matter. What matters is your story and you have to be consumed by your story. And once you allow yourself to be consumed by your story, it will unfold, you have to kind of force it. You have to force your brain to default its thinking to your story.
Mary: Intuition. I think, really, that has been a touchstone of our entire conversation here. But it's listening to your creative back brain, which is what I call it, which is when you're not kind of butt and feet writing but you're still kind of writing on the back burner, listen to conversations, listen to people around you who have different experiences, and listen to yourself as you're trying to bring a story for us. I think it is a receptive mode.
Wendelin: I think that most of writing takes place away from a keyboard. And that you also have to, actually, you know, put your fanny in the chair and do the typing. You have to do the work of it.
Mary: Which is the 5:00 in the morning thing.
Wendelin: Yes. But after 5:00 in the morning, I'd be driving to school. I'd be big to teach, you know, and I'd be thinking about my story. There are times during the day I'm just thinking about my story. It would default. I would train my brain to default to thinking about my story, instead of letting it wander off towards other places that serves no, you know, benefit. And so, by the time I got back home, got back to my seat, got back to my keyboard, I had something to write. I knew where I was going. I was chomping it to bit to get it down. So a lot of writing takes place away from the keyboard. You have to do both.
Mary: Well, this has been a tremendous conversation. Once again, my guest, Wendelin Van Draanen, you have your latest book out now which is called "Hope in the Mail" from Knopf available now. But I would love to send one of you, "Hope in the Mail" in the form of the book "Hope in the Mail," lessons on life and writing, how to be a great writer and a great person and a better listener to all of the ideas and the life around us. I loved reading it and I can't wait to share it with one of you. I will post some details on how to enter on Kidlit, K-I-D-L-I-T. I will leave a little entry form there. And Wendelin, I can't thank you enough for sharing all your insights with us.
Wendelin: This was wonderful, Mary. Thanks so much for having me. I really do enjoy your podcasts and look forward to all its coming installments.
Mary: Oh, thank you so much. The pleasure was all mine. And to all of you listening out there, this has been "The Good Story Podcast," and here's to a good story.
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