to read or take up writing? A. I remember very clearly when my grandfather, Vern, enrolled me in a children’s book-of-the-month club. At seven years old, I was thrilled every month when those cardboard boxes arrived with my name on them. I still own some of those books! We Were Tired of Living in a House and Step Back, Said the Elephant, I’m Going to Sneeze. What an incredible gift he gave me—the chance to escape to another world! From there, I went on to Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys mysteries. By high school, I was spending my allowance on five paperback novels a week. As for writing, my teachers always encouraged me. I was one of those annoying English students who LOVED it when our answers had to be in essay form rather than multiple choice. Q. Did you always want to be a writer? A. I went through the usual career choices growing up. Doctor, flight attendant, rock star, veterinarian. I started thinking about writing in high school and did, in fact, start my college career as an English major, but people talked me out of it. I was told there was no money in it, no jobs, not a chance of breaking into publishing. So I went into psychology, the only other subject that interested me at the time, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Cal State Northridge University. I had every intention of becoming a school psychologist, but fate stepped in. I wasn’t accepted at the one graduate school where I applied (always apply to more than one college!), had just gotten married, and suddenly had to get a “real job”. A bachelor's degree in psychology doesn't qualify you for much, however. Searching the classifieds, the only job that really appealed to me, and that I felt capable of, was, ironically, a job as a magazine staff writer. Somehow I convinced the editors of the teen magazine BOP that a psychology graduate could write, and I got a lovely office with a view of Hollywood! I got to go to movie premieres and parties and would you believe I was miserable? Dressing in pantyhose and interviewing celebrities made me seriously nervous. The only part of the job I really liked was the actual writing, so after four months I quit, vowing to try to publish my own stories. My husband gave me one year to publish something, and if I didn't, I’d have to get a real job again. Since I REALLY enjoyed working in my pajamas, I couldn't fail. In that first year, I managed to get a few small articles published in magazines like BRIDE’S and WOMAN’S WORLD. In the following years, I published short stories and poems before my first novel was finally accepted. Q. Tell us the process you went through to publish your first novel. A. I hate to say this because young writers are, of course, looking for good news, but it was a long, drawn-out, depressing experience for me. I wrote one book, was told by a good family friend that it was boring, and set it aside. Then I wrote book two, and spent a year trying to find an agent. I got horrific rejections, downright nasty letters. I could hardly bear to get my mail every day; the mixture of dread and hope was exhausting. When I finally did get accepted by an agent, she put my manuscript in some cabinet and promptly forgot about it. Six months later, when I finally worked up the nerve to call her and ask what was happening, I discovered she'd left the firm. So I was pawned off to a rookie agent, who hadn't read the book, and who also left the agency three months later without submitting the manuscript to a single publisher. (Maybe my early work was so bad I was driving agents into retirement!) Finally, Agent #3, who owned this very unstable business, took pity on me. She actually sent my book to a few editors and I heard nothing but bad news for a year. Then I got a rejection letter from an editor at Bantam, explaining all the things she didn't like about the book, but also the one thing—the story of three childhood friends—which she did. She said if I’d be willing to rewrite virtually everything, she’d look at it again. As this was the first even partially encouraging news I’d ever had, I was willing. I rewrote the novel, one more year passed, and it was finally accepted. Q. Has the writing business gotten easier since then? A. Yes and no. No, because after I wrote three books for Bantam, I hit a dry run and couldn't sell anything. I also had my first child. Yes, because after going away for a bit, I came back to publishing and was able to sell two more books to Bantam. No, because book three turned out to be a mess, and my editor and I never did see eye to eye on it. I became one of those writers who was “let go” by her publisher and I had to buy back my contract. Yes, because I did land at a different publisher— Berkley—where I published three more novels. No, because even then I was struggling. Though my editor was supportive, my ideas kept falling flat. Yes, because finally, when it looked like I’d never publish again, my daughter reminded me that I’d promised to write a book for her. That promise was my light at the end of the tunnel. Suddenly, I could write a book for no other reason than to please my child, and the pressure was off. I wrote out of joy and nothing else and wouldn't you know it? That book, GIRLWOOD, became the most sought after book I’d ever written, and my career in young adult fiction was born. A career as a novelist is an up and down, yes and no kind of thing, but I can honestly say that after 20 years, I think I’m finally getting the hang of it! Q. What kind of research do you do for your novels? A. A lot! But it’s all the stuff I'm interested in anyway. Plants, animals, auras, spirit guides, ghosts. How could I not love researching stuff like that? I buy many, many books, and travel to wherever the book is set. Mostly, I just try to live the way the characters do. While writing GIRLWOOD, for instance, I foraged for plants and learned how to make fire, and those are skills that will be with me for a lifetime. Now while I'm writing GREENSPELL, I get to research the very alien (to me!) world of virtual reality and gaming. For SPIRIT CALLER, the book I am working on for my son, I'm delving into spirit animals, and along the way I found my own—the owl! Q. What is your typical writing day like? A. After I drop my kids off at school around 8:30, I pour myself a cup of coffee and get to work at the computer. With first drafts, I tire quickly. Two or three hours is usually the longest I can last, then I have to clear my head with a hike or work in the garden. But for editing, especially when the book is close to being done, I can go all day. My favorite part of any book is the next to last draft, when I’m merely changing a word or two here or there. Finally, the problems with the plot have been fixed and I’m happy with the story. Up until that point, I usually have extreme doubts about the book. I’m sure I can never fix it, that I’ll never like it, and that I’m just kidding myself about this writing career. Then suddenly I get over some invisible hump and there it is, the story I had envisioned. Writing is a magical process. Q. Do you use an outline for the plot when you start a book? Do you know your ending? A. When I first started out in this business, I didn't use outlines. For some writers, that’s fine. For me, it was a mistake. My early books meandered so badly even I wasn't sure what they were actually about! Eventually, I reined myself in and started making step sheets. A step sheet is basically an A to Z diagram of each major scene. I don’t have to follow every step I've laid out, I can mix them up, change them, delete them entirely. But the idea is that when I get stalled, I can simply look at the step sheet and say, “Ah, now I’ll do scene J.” There are no muses involved in the middle of a book. It’s grunt work, and a step sheet is extremely valuable at this point. As for endings, I usually think I know the ending, but by the time I get there everything has changed. Even with an outline, or a step sheet, the stories still go the way they need to go. Q. If you could do anything else for a living, what would it be? A. I love building things. Gardens. Houses. Web pages! I love making things look good. If not a writer, I think I would be an architect or a landscape designer like my brothers. It would certainly still be something in the creative field. Q. Tell us about your family and home life. A. I live in Boise, Idaho with my husband, Robert, and two children. Robert and I are childhood sweethearts. We met on a blind date when I was 15 and he was 18, and we've been married 20 years. He’s the stable one, thank goodness. An engineer, with a regular salary. He’s never been anything but supportive and gracious about my impractical career. We grew up in the Los Angeles area and moved to Boise in 1990 for a quieter, more outdoorsy life. We built a house in the mountains and lived there for 8 years, only reluctantly coming back to civilization when our kids reached school age. My daughter is 13, an artist, and my son is 11, a great backpacker and a third-degree black belt. We love our bright green house and the jungle garden I've planted around it, but my favorite place is our VERY rustic cabin—a 1940’s, electricity-less log house tucked beneath the pines and between two rivers. We pump water in from the streams and though we close it up in winter, one year we skied in 10 miles for Christmas. It was a challenge, but we made it! Q. What are you working on now? A. I'm at work on two books! First, GREENSPELL, about a girl who stumbles across a mysterious ruin in the woods, and a wild boy inside it. And second, SPIRIT CALLER, about the rites of passage of boys and the spirits who guide them on their journeys. Q. Do you like being contacted by readers? A. I LOVE being contacted by readers. I would never want anyone to feel they couldn't approach me. For me, the whole point of writing is to move someone, to make someone feel better, or give someone hope. When I get a letter or email telling me that I've done that, it makes everything worth it. I answer all my email at claire@clairedean.net. |
Claire Dean
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