Marissa chats with Shannon Hale about her upcoming YA contemporary / fantasy - KIND OF A BIG DEAL - as well as life with young twins (something we have in common!), some of the challenges of writing in quarantine, the self-doubt that comes with writing memoir, and a few of Shannon's tricks for being super prolific. (Hint: she has LOTS of projects going at any given time...)
Books discussed in this episode can be purchased from your local independent bookstore or buy them online from the Happy Writer bookshop.org store (that benefits indie bookstores) at https://bookshop.org/shop/marissameyer
Order The Happy Writer: Get More Ideas, Write More Words, and Find More Joy from First Draft to Publication and Beyond https://bookshop.org/a/11756/9781250362377
Find out more and follow The Happy Writer on social media: https://www.marissameyer.com/podcast/
Marissa chats with Shannon Hale about her upcoming YA contemporary / fantasy - KIND OF A BIG DEAL - as well as life with young twins (something we have in common!), some of the challenges of writing in quarantine, the self-doubt that comes with writing memoir, and a few of Shannon's tricks for being super prolific. (Hint: she has LOTS of projects going at any given time...)
Books discussed in this episode can be purchased from your local independent bookstore or buy them online from the Happy Writer bookshop.org store (that benefits indie bookstores) at https://bookshop.org/shop/marissameyer
Order The Happy Writer: Get More Ideas, Write More Words, and Find More Joy from First Draft to Publication and Beyond https://bookshop.org/a/11756/9781250362377
Find out more and follow The Happy Writer on social media: https://www.marissameyer.com/podcast/
[inaudible]
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the happy writer. This is a podcast that aims to bring readers, more books, to enjoy and to help authors find more joy in their writing. I'm your host, Marissa Meyer. Thanks so much for joining me. One thing that's making me happy this week is that here about a week ago, our family went blueberry picking and came home with buckets and buckets of fresh, juicy, delicious blueberries. And so my girls and I decided to make some blueberry scones and for starters, the scones turned out delicious, but even more important than that, it was the first time baking with my girls in which they were actually helpful. And didn't just like try to eat all of the dough and didn't just get flour all over the kitchen. And as a mom, I have been waiting for that moment for baking to become kind of relaxing and enjoyable with my kids. And so I was like, yay. We have finally made it to this point. And I was so excited. And then of course at the end, we got to eat delicious blueberry scones. So that made me super duper happy this week. And of course I am so happy to be talking to today's guest. She is the New York times bestselling and multi award winning author of approximately 8 million books. She has written for middle grade, young adult and adult audiences. Her works include the ever after high series, the graphic novel memoir, real friends, the goose girl book of a thousand days, princess Academy, the princess in black series, Marvel squirrel girl, the graphic novel Rapunzel's revenge. Co-written with her husband, Dean Hale and Austin land, which was adapted into a major motion picture. Starring Carrie Russell, her new young adult novel, kind of a big deal. We'll be out on August 25th. She also happens to be one of our listeners, most requested authors, which I'm sure is right at the top of her list of accomplishments. Please welcome Shannon Hale. I'm going to add that to my bio Marissa. Now I hope you do star of the happy writer podcast. I need to catch my breath after that bio it's so much, but he was sweet to tackle so much of it too. It's kind of ridiculous. It's a sign of my desperate need for attention and approval, apparently. Yes. And that is how I translated that. Like clearly you just have something to prove it's what it is. And then it's all about being unloved as a child. That's the whole thing. I was bluffing your happy moment too. So we have in common, we both have twins. We both have, and girls so minor nine now, but just yesterday I was going through looking for something in my journal. And I found an entry from when they were two years old. And I wrote that having twin toddlers was like going through life with a live raccoon, tied to one leg and an active tennis pitching machine tied to the other, thinking about you like five that's the age when you have twins, that's the goal five. You just have to get to age five and then things start to change. I wish you would have told me this a couple of years ago. I could have marked it on my calendar. Well, cause when I first had twins, cause I was so desperate for, I didn't, I didn't have anyone really close to me that it had twins and I already had two kids. And so I, every time I saw a mother in public with twins that were older than mine, I would ask kind of desperately, when does it get easier? And I, you know, they would kind of look at my babies and they would be like, Oh, am I on age three? And then as they started getting closer to age three, they started to say, you know, for, it was like, I'm going to be honest too, with you, you know, it's not till age five. That's have some finally when you can take a breath and it was like, alright, that's funny. Cause I could see that story continuing, you know, 10, 13, 26, six is about when it feels good challenges. Cause there's always that they're comparing everything has to be even an equal and their fairness, gosh, drives me crazy. So, you know, and I have two other kids and other parents were like, my kids are like that too. And I'm like, no, I'm sorry. When even like, if one child got hurt and I do anything comforting to one child, like the Mirasee placing my hand upon their hair, the other one just throws a complete fit because it means I don't love her. There's no exaggeration. I know. I don't have to tell you. It's insane. Yeah. Yeah. We're actually reaching five. Thank you. We're super happy. I'm so thrilled. And they do just get better and better and more interesting with age. Um, so far. So it's been a lot of fun, uh, but the competition and like the words it's not fair have become my least favorite words in the human language. Like I never want to hear that phrase again. Um, okay. You have yet another amazing book coming out. Why don't we start with you telling listeners about kind of a big deal. Thank you. So this, the story of it is there's this girl who's, she's kind of a big deal in high school and she's like the star of all the musicals and everyone's like, you should go to Broadway. And she actually leaves during her senior year to audition for a Broadway show full of confidence. It doesn't make it, it doesn't feel like she can go back home as a failure. So the story starts about a year later and she's, hasn't graduated from high school. She's just kind of hiding out in Montana, being a full time, thinking her life is already over and she starts to read books and literally go into them. And so during the process of this story, she goes into like a dozen different genres of different books and starts to try to work out her own issues within the story of these stories. One of the things that really captured me about this book, and even before I read it and I heard you talking about it here a couple of months ago or whenever that was just the, I mean, the idea of getting swept away into a book of literally getting to put on the role of these characters. It's so vicarious and for a book lover, just that escapism fantasy is so it just gets to your heart. Um, and, and yeah, so just from the beginning, the premise is like I am all in. I am so excited for this. I'm kind of obsessed with for a while. So my book Austin land was basically the same concept in a different way. Um, you know, when I, I loved pride and prejudice, I loved especially the movies and I felt like, or I love the books the most, but maybe more obsessive, you know, like calling for me. And I just wanted, I wanted to step into a Jane Austin story and see if it would feel as good as I thought it would. So in that book I made it, uh, it wasn't, there was nothing fantastical about it. It was, um, there's a resort where people could go on vacation and live out there, you know, Austin fantasies, uh, interact with a cast of characters. So that's the way I dealt with it and that, but I always loved the idea of really going into a story and seeing how it felt. And this was a chance of mine just to like blow that idea up and take it to the extreme and
Speaker 3:Do it is so extreme and so
Speaker 2:Wonderful. I did one thing that I'd noticed as I'm reading it. Um, I felt like I kept coming back to this theme of, okay, books are our escapist and we can use books to escape. And yet I kind of felt like there was this morning woven into the story somehow where it's like, yes, it's good to escape once in a while, but eventually you have to go back and deal with like real life. The danger for me is I find some cottage somewhere. If I didn't have children, I didn't, I'm trying to earn money and I would just read all day long. And when I got tired of reading, I would watch shows
Speaker 3:That's the dream, right?
Speaker 2:We wouldn't have to actually interact with I'm an extrovert. I love people, but I also, I have anxiety disorder. And so there's a lot of anxiety associated with it. And for me there is that temptation. I mean, isn't there to just sort of get so sucked into stories that I don't have to actually engage with the world. I mean, I guess the practicalities would prevent it, but I do feel that pole I'll confess. I did too. I think that's, I think so many readers feel like if we could just sit around and read stories and live in stories all day, who, who doesn't want that it's such a fantasy, it's such an ideal of a lot of problems. It would cut exactly. It would cause so many problems. Um, as we see with Josie, I was, I was saying they would solve problems, solve problems, problems. Exactly. Well, you know, like interpersonal issues, like if you don't have any real life relationships and they don't have any problems with them and it simplifies things a little bit, Melissa, is this me talking from, from quarantine where I think you might be[inaudible] people for four months. It's funny with, with being able to kind of social distance and have excuse for being alone in our houses all the time. There's a little bit of like, this is not so bad. It's kind of nice. It does relieve a lot of certain kinds of my anxiety. And I have to say, I love being with my family all the time, but I did try so hard not to be alone. You know, that's like for, I think everybody is experiencing quarantine differently depending on their living situation. And for me and Dean it's like, first of all, the two of us are never alone. And um, then, but just for me to be by myself, like occasionally I, you know, lock my door to try to get work done and I'll get knocks and calls from children every, you know, two to five minutes. And it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Do you, escape is on my brain. I can. Yeah, no, I get it. I mean, I was going to kind of circle back to this later, but let's talk about that. How are you getting work done in quarantine with four kids in the house? I am really good at shutting out stuff and focusing, um, you know, I think every writer has different strengths and weaknesses and I have many, many weaknesses, but one thing that I think one reason why I've been able to be so prolific is I think it ties into the whole Josie thing. I can get sucked into a story and turn everything else off. As long as I know my kids are safe, you know, then I can, I can shut that off and just focus. Like sometimes people ask me like, what do you lose? What music do you listen to when you write? It wouldn't matter if I listened to music or not, because I, I shut it out. I don't care about background noise. Um, I can just turn it all off. Although I have, the news is hard. News is really hard and that's, there are times when I'll take a break from the news for a couple of weeks, but I feel guilty that I'm not engaging. You know, like I need to know what's going on. And, um, more than anything, I think the, the news instability in the world has, has made it hard, hard for me to write. But what about you? How are you doing it? You know, or, you know, I am now the first couple months was really, really hard. Um, and I like just in general, don't pay much attention to the news. Um, I don't watch the news. I don't listen to the news. Like I'm very disconnected from the world, but when all of this happened, you couldn't, you, you know, like everyone else, I was just fascinated and curious and hungry for every little morsel of information that was coming and it made it very hard to focus and concentrate those first couple of months. Um, yeah, at this point now I feel like I've moved past that and able to shut it off again and, um, and really excited about this book that I'm working on. So that of course helps to, to actually be really excited about the thing that you're so much, it makes a pretty big difference. Oh yeah. Yeah. Do you, have you played that you're like darn excited about, or that you love, but it's at that place where you're not sure how to fix it, you know, something's wrong. As soon as I know how to fix it, like I know what the problem is. I'm fine. I don't mind the work I'll work 12 hour days if I am able to, if my family obligations and I'll wake up in the morning, right. First thing and write all day long until I can't keep my eyes open anymore. But when I don't know how to fix it, the problem solving part of it, um, if I am in that place with a book and I, um, and there's other things going on, the kids aren't in school, the news is bad. Those kinds of distractions. Oh, it's really, really hard for me to force my brain to solve those problems. Yeah. The temptation to do something else can be really strong. Yeah. What do you do when there's something not working? You know, there's a problem to be fixed. Like what are some of the strategies that you use to get past that I have to just do the work. I just have to do the work. Like you said, there's so many things. So this week I have a problem that I'm trying to solve in a manuscript. And, um, I was talking with my son and I mentioned something that I did in high school. And he said that would make a good movie. And it was like, or a graphic novel. And I gave myself permission. I started thinking about it and I gave myself permission to stop working on the thing I'm supposed to be working on. Instead outline a graphic novel because the thought was fresh in my head. And even though I may not write this graphic novel, or if I do it maybe five years from now, it felt good just to write, you know, and just that is invigorating for me. And so then I was able to jump straight off from that back to the other. And I had an easier time writing. So escaping into, uh, like watching shows or doing other things actually is not helpful to me, but escaping into an easier kind of writing, um, is, can shake me out of a phone[inaudible] no, that makes sense. Makes it kind of reminds you that it's fun. Yeah. And I think it must just like turn on a part of my brain. Right. Some part of my brain that was not, was not on fire just gets lit up and then it's easier to, to transition to something else. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I, when,
Speaker 2:You know, when those secret special projects come calling, but there's, there's always a part of me that thinks, you know, ignore it, don't pay it any attention you need to stay focused on this thing that you're doing. Um,
Speaker 3:But, but it's happened enough now
Speaker 2:Where I realized the same, where if I just pause and scratch that itch a little bit, um, then exactly like you're talking about, it's just easier than to get back into the story and to focus on, you know, the thing I'm supposed to be doing right now. I don't ignore it anymore. And I think that's one reason why I, I write so much is because I, I used to always just have one main book. I was writing with something and then I would have something on the side because like, if, when an editor's reviewing manuscript, I couldn't just stop writing for those. I had to be working on something else cause I'm obsessed. And um, but now I I'll have, you know, sometimes half a dozen to a dozen different projects that I'm working on simultaneously. Oh my goodness. And I juggle them all the time and I have found it to be more invigorating to me. Um, I have discovered and everybody's different, you know, that's one thing that you're talking to writers, we always realize is that your mileage may vary. You know, what works for me is not gonna work for everybody. But for me, when I only write one book at a time, I feel like I've nailed myself into a coffin. And I'm just stuck with that one story. So when it's not going well, I mean, Oh man, it just affects my mental and emotional health and I feel helpless and lost. But when I'm stuck, if I can jump to something else that I'm feel more I'm in the mood for or equipped to do right. Then, then I can, it's easier to jump back and I don't let myself give up on a story. So just because it's hard doesn't mean I give up jumping in something else doesn't mean that I'm giving up on the first thing, but it refreshes me otherwise I would spend weeks just avoiding the thing. I didn't want to write and writing nothing. And that would just make me feel worse. Right. So if you have, you know, say, let's say half a dozen projects going at one time, are you actively writing on each of those projects or was it like one is in research phase and one is in writing. One is in revising. Yeah, exactly. An offer, whatever, you know, depending on contracts and deadlines. I actually really try hard not to sign up a project until I've at least written the first draft as I've had situations before, where I've sold things under, you know, all like sell a book and then they want it to be a three book deal. And I don't know what the other two books are going to be, you know, that kind of a thing. And then by the time I deliver the second or third book, they don't actually want anymore what I've done, you know, and then you're, but I'm stuck with this contract with a publisher who maybe is not super excited about it and then doesn't really work hard to sell it. And you know, that, that kind of thing can, can happen. I've worked with, you know, a dozen different publishers and in published, uh, like I dunno about 35 books. So, um, I've had, uh, I've worked in a lot of areas and a lot of different people, a lot of things. And what I've discovered is I really don't want to presale something until I know what it is to make sure it's in the right home. But, um, but somehow I've ended up with, with the situation, the very one I didn't want to be in where I've got show meetings going on. So, um, but yeah, there's so much review time. So it hasn't really been an issue because I write something, I send off a draft and while they're editors reviewing that and they could take days to months to review it, then I've got something else I'm working on. I've worked on a lot of shorter things. So some revisions, you know, not all revision might take a month or two, but a princess and block revision might only take two to five days. You know? So a picture book revision might take just a few days instead of a few weeks. And so it's easier to move between them graphic novels, screenplays, you know, like the T script, uh, you know, there's so many different kinds of things and it helps me not get bored cause I'm kind of person that will get bored. So I need to keep stimulating myself. So I don't just get lazy and feel like it's all the same. Yeah, no, that's
Speaker 4:So smart. That's such awesome advice.
Speaker 2:I kind of had that same experience where I sold my second series, the Renegade series years before I was actually to put where I could start writing it. Um, and it changed in my mind so much from like writing that first initial synopsis and selling it to my editor. And then three years later when I actually started sat down to start writing it in my head, it was totally different, but I felt stuck and locked in. Um, and so I love that you talk about that and that that's thing that happens when you get to this point in your career. And I'm the same way now. I feel like I just want to write a draft or at least get somewhere into the draft where I feel really confident and in love with it before then, you know, locking it into a contract of any sort. Yeah, exactly. And I, and I recognize that that's a place of privilege that I have because a lot of writers need that advanced to live on in order to write the thing. Right. But because I'm a fairly fast writer I can be writing in between other projects that I'm living on those advances. And then, you know, it kind of all works out in the long run, but I totally get the people who just, they need the advanced upfront before they write it. They have to sell on concept. Some people can only write one book every two or three years and they couldn't possibly live without the advanced, before it was right.
Speaker 3:So I wanted to ask you just kind of going back to kind of
Speaker 2:A big deal. Um, one thing that I loved, so Josee, hi,
Speaker 3:Who's just like the cutest name ever. Josie PI. Um, she has this dream of being
Speaker 2:Broadway performer and she has this ritual where whenever she goes to perform, she kind of almost sends a prayer essentially up to the muses and I perform for you. Um, and I loved that and it made me wonder, do you have any sort of like pre-writing rituals or something that kind of, I dunno, it puts you on a, more of a spiritual plane with your writing? I do not. I don't. And I think part of it is this kind of guerrilla warfare type of writing that I learned to do. My, my first book came out the same year that I had my first baby. And so I really had to just train myself to write at any point at any given time, you've got 15 minutes, he's distracted by something for 15 minutes open up that laptop and just right away. So I really don't have, I don't could be any special place or I don't have any special circumstances that I don't have. I'm not a superstitious person, but theater people often, I mean, the theater is full of superstitions. So it felt like a very good thing for a theater person that, you know, I could totally imagine her kind of really dramatic high school theater, you know, training them in this way is that you honor the muses and creating the news as though they're real people that you have to almost that the act of theater is an act of worship. Oh my gosh, I was in theater for years and I met these people and they're real. And I had door them to my toes, but they're wacko in the best possible way, how that does felt like a true thing for, for her character to embrace. It did
Speaker 3:Very true to character. And I don't know, I found it kind of inspiring cause I'm the same way. I kind of write where and how I can fit it in on a lot of days. And so
Speaker 2:Exactly like you got time, you sit down and you get to work. Um, but I love that idea of kind of being in a communal space with the muse. Um, and I don't, yeah. I don't know how maybe helpful or not helpful it would be. I just think it's a really lovely thought. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is too. It, honestly, this book I've been working on for so many years that as we're talking, I'm trying to remember if I made up the muse mythology or if I, if I, if that this, I mean obviously the concept of muses I didn't make up, but yeah, my particular take on them. I can't remember if I made it up or not.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's so funny. I love it. When that happens.
Speaker 2:I think I may have, I think I took quite a bit of license with, um, the original myths, the ones that I could unearth anyway, but I always do a good amount of research, but especially when you're writing fantasy and which I think this qualifies as fantasy on, honestly, I don't know what it is. It's a musical comedy romance, fantasy contemporary with a 10 page comic book sequence and multiple genres. So it's like just the easiest classification. Librarians are going to love me when they are going to shelve this. They're going to be like, thank you, Shannon. You make our job so easy, but it is, there are fantastic elements. And so when I always give myself a lot of leeway, I'm not writing historical fiction when I write my fantasies, even if I take some inspiration from real times in places like you can, you know, like when I, uh, wrote princess Academy, um, the village, um, it's, uh, they are they're quarriers they quarry stone. And I did a good deal of research on what it was like to quarry stone. Pre-industrial like marble and granite. And what I found out was, um, the way I wanted to use certain concepts in my book just weren't realistic. So my answer was, Oh, make up a pretend stone.
Speaker 3:I know
Speaker 2:Have to deal with how heavy it is and how it would be too hard to haul up and down like pack of one wagon full of blocks of stone. I don't want to deal with that. I don't want to have to explain the special wagons they use and how many it took. And it was too complicated. So I'm like my is just lighter than marble
Speaker 3:Well, creative license. I mean, that's, you know, some, you gotta do what you gotta do at the moment.
Speaker 2:Well has to get there somehow. That's the way I don't write nonfiction historical, I guess I've written a couple of memoirs and those I guess are technically nonfiction and they are so much harder because when you're, when the story isn't working, you can't just make crap up. Actually you have to actually just kind of rearrange and find ways to tell it differently to make it work because it, you have to still tell the truth. I, uh, it's hard. I don't memoir. Yeah. I have never written anything memoir or autobiographical, but I can assume it would be so tough. I think my biggest problem would be constantly being afraid that my life's not really that interesting. Why would anyone want to read this? Absolutely. A hundred percent. I, I, uh, it was very, the whole process was very weird for me and I touched so much. I mean, you deal with self doubt, of course, all the time in any creative profession, but added to that was like, who do you think you are? You know, on a normal day it's who do you think you are? That the story that, the story you want to tell anybody else would be interested in reading, but add to that. Who do you think you are to this story? You want to tell about yourself? Anybody would find interesting. Why do you think anybody cares that some people were mean to you in fourth grade? Could you be any more self centered and auto judge? These are the voices in your head when you're writing memoir. I did not expect it to get published. I was writing it for my daughter and that, that the whole thing worked out. I was sure it was going to be a very quiet small book. And, um, that would be the end of it. And instead I've never had both of them, um, real friends and best friends, cause I've been to now, I've never had books that I had faster responses to it within a week of coming out. I was getting letters from, from people that had read it 25 times. Oh my gosh. And that's the power. And that's why I do it is because when you can say, it's true when kids are going through hard times and you give them a story about a kid going through a hard time that they, and they get through it. But as you can add to that, that this really happened. And look, this person also writes these other books that you like, and they turned out okay. Like that's, that's powerful. And, um, and the whole, that whole process amazed me. I couldn't believe anybody, anybody cared. So you just never know. I think that's the thing. Like, I don't know if it's some with you, but sometimes like I'll write a book and I'll think this is the one everybody's going to love this. This is like, and so all the points people go crazy for this. And then it just nothing, you know, no, like just does not catch the Zeit Geist and nobody reads it. And you're like, and the reviewers don't like it and it just kind of dies on the bike and you're like, huh. And then you write a little quiet book that nobody's gonna read and suddenly boom, like you just can't predict. Yeah, no, that's so true. Um, but I can, I mean, obviously being an outsider perspective here, but real friends, it does not surprise me one little bit that it had such an amazing reaction. Um, and because for the reasons you talk about that, that visceral connection for a kid to be reading about another kid, who's, you know, struggling with friendships and am I likable and all of these doubts and concerns, and that is such a strong reality for so many kids growing up. Um, and so I, I mean, I read it when I was, I don't know, in my early thirties and still felt that strong connection. So I can only imagine the sort of fan mail that you get for it. Oh, thank you. It really is so much of that is just, um, lay when fam and her illustrations, you know, the illustrations were fabulous for straight the right partnership. It just, all the whole thing felt, I was just going to say in an Anna Green Gables voice, it felt providential.
Speaker 5:Nobody says,
Speaker 2:So there we are.
Speaker 5:So I wanted to, we keep getting away from kind of
Speaker 2:A big deal, which is the book we're supposed to be talking about, but you have written so many amazing things,
Speaker 5:But kind of a big deal.
Speaker 2:You did write about a million John Aras into this book. There's a bodice ripper romance element. There's a zombie apocalypse storyline, a super hero graphic novel. There's my favorite part that had me literally laughing out loud. Um, when she's looking to find a young adult title to go to, and she comes across the books, I had to write it down air of poison and dreams, sequel to child of charm and T
Speaker 5:I think I read these books,
Speaker 2:Like I've seen these on my shelf.
Speaker 5:Mmm.
Speaker 2:So now writing in so many different genres, just within one book, what was that like kind of getting to dip your toe into these different stories and these different tropes. It's so fun. Well, of course I have, I've written a lot of different genres, so I've written fairytale and fantasy science fiction. Uh, I've written romantic comedy and superhero murder mystery. Um, you know, I don't know, I don't know them all, but I've done. I've done a lot. And I've when I was in high school. No, when I was in college, I, and I knew I wanted to be a writer if I didn't feel like I was good enough to be a writer, but I still wanted to write. I didn't like I had anything to say. You know, I didn't have any stories burning to tell. I just kept reading and absorbing and wishing that I could write. And I used to do this thing where I had this long document where I would write a paragraph as though it came out of the middle of a book that already exists. And, and I would, I would study books of different genres, you know, like how much dialogue they have or, you know, how long the sentence structure is or the way they describe things, how adjective is it? And, you know, and I would, I would analyze these different books for the style that they use, the different genres for the style they use. And then I would write random paragraphs. And I don't know how many I had, I mean, maybe a hundred of these that I'd wrote as practice, which is a silly thing. I've never met another, another writer who did this. But, um, but I think that was always in me is like the playfulness, the fun, the fun part of like experimenting with genre and crashing genres together. And I actually think of all my books as being two, as Sean wrote a mashup between two different genres. And I'm conscious of that as I'm riding that spend my, from the very beginning of my career, that's always been my thing even though, um, I've never really, I don't really talk about it. I'm not, I don't think I've ever had like a critic notice that or anything, but, um, so that's very, that's something that I just have fun with. And I, you know, with books like Austin land, I love Austin. And I also want to poke fun at the fandom of Austin and, and those, you know, a little bit of the style of Austin and the weird way we, we fall in love with fictional characters. And so with Austin, I was really experimenting with that. Cause it was, that was my first comedy that I wrote is how do you love the thing and make fun of it at the same time? And I realized that that's my favorite kind of comedy is I don't like the punching down comedy. I don't like insult comedy. Like you want to dry out the funny parts of it and laugh at it while still loving and adoring it. And so really all the different genres that I, that I played with in this, I like tried to like, you know, for example, the zombie apocalypse one, which was fun when like pull out the kind of ridiculous tropes that are in these books and yet in a loving way, because I adore those books, you know, so it is a fine line, um, to do. And I, and I hope that I pull it off, but because it is, it is kind of a risky thing. It is a risky thing that you, you don't, for example, the first book she goes into as a romance and romance is one of those genres that people really belittle. And mom and I, that's not me. I, I love romance. I read romance, I write romance, but I, um, but I also want it to laugh at it at the same time in a loving way. So yeah, that's, that's the tricky line. Well, I think he walked it very well, you know, and I, it's very obvious that we're poking fun a little bit at these different stereotypes and the, you know, just the ridiculous things that happen in the romance storyline, where the hero swoop threw away quite literally. And it's so over the top, but it feels very handled very much with appreciation and admiration. And th that this is something that it's fun, fun to read. It's fun to experience, and let's, let's allow ourselves to get swept away in it. Um, and so, yeah, I, I felt like it was done with a very loving, respectful voice, but also in a way that as a reader, I felt like I'm allowed to laugh at this because it is hysterical. Yes.
Speaker 6:Mmm.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned superstition earlier and there was a kind of, a lot of talk of superstition of course, with the theater throughout the book. Um, but I also, I loved the little girl, is it Mia and Mia also kind of, you know, this child that Josie is nannying for, um, creates these superstitions and there's, there's, there's deeper reasons for the things that she's doing. Um, but I just thought she was such a Darlene character. And when I, the things I loved was that she has it in her mind that it is bad luck to see a bookstore and not go in. Yes. Is that based on a real thing because I really want it to be, um, it is now it is now let's make it a thing. Right. I think it should be a thing like a it's bad luck to see kids selling lemonade and not buy a cup from them. Although I have made an exception for myself during the pandemic. I'm not quite ready to do that, but my kids said that they wanted to start a lemonade stand here a couple of weeks ago. And I was like, well, we live at the end of a col-de-sac. So I know my kids are obsessed with selling things outside. I kind of hate it, but yeah, you know, I had in, when I was in college, I went, when I was in my MFA program in creative writing. And we had a visiting author who I won't name who was horrible and sexual harassee Pulitzer prize winner. Anyway, um, he, uh, one of the things that he said was that children are not interesting, so never include children in your stories. And I kind of kept a mental catalog of everything he told me and tried to do the opposite, so horrible. And I disagreed with him so profoundly. So that's how I'm in children's books. Oh my gosh. That's hilarious. What an influential talk that was very influential to just a D bad that guy was. But anyway, um, so this it's, but I will say it is hard to write a young child. It's hard to do it in a way that readers are okay with, if you really cause, you know, you've got five-year-olds at home and me is five in the book and this is the girl that our main character nannies. Um, if you really describe what they say and do all day long readers would hate that because the reality of is they're loony and they're messy and they're inconsistent and they're bratty and all of those wonderful things that they're developing brains need them to be, but it would be really hard to read about it. It'd be hard for people for readers to just like them. So you have to find a way to allow that. So a lot of young, young children in stories, the writers just pretend like they're actually 10. You know, the toddler is actually 10 years old and behaves like a 10 year old because it's not realistic. So you have cautious, they're precocious and they should be, but you have to find a way to describe them and allow them to be the age they are without overwhelming the reader with it. It's true. So it's tricky. I actually, uh, often avoid writing very young children because it's hard to pull off. And I revised me up for seven years trying to find the right way to do, to deal with her. But one aspect that we don't, I don't, it's not blatant in the book, but, um, she has obsessive compulsive disorder, which is something that I have a lot of experience with. So you're talking about the superstitions. That's how Josie is kind of thinking about it because she doesn't have the experience to understand that what she's seeing is OCD and this little girl and OCD is really common in young children or OCD behaviors, and they may not actually have the disorder. Um, it's sometimes really hard and a kid that young to know, did they actually have the disorder or are they just going through a phase where they have the behaviors? So, uh, but that's, uh, because I like experience and an understanding of it. That's what I was interlacing into me, his character. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that didn't come across to me in my reading and interpretation of her. Um, and, but I just really loved her character. And part of it might be because I do have five-year-olds the same age. Um, but I, I just adored her and, and that she reminded me of my kids and some of the really lovely,
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so nice. I'm glad to hear that. Cause if someone was around five-year-olds that, that means a lot, one time I wrote a short story and this is me telling tales behind closed doors, but anyway, I'm sure no one's listening. Right, right. I can edit it out. It's not that bad. I think I'm okay. But anyway, there's this, it's a, it's about a babysitter, a 12 year old. She babysits twin four year olds. And I, I, um, gave all of the dialogue and the things that the four year old said and did, were taken directly from my twins who were four at the time. And I was thinking of it as a humor piece. It was a comedy. It was a little funny, little slice of life of how overwhelmed this 12 year old was babysitting these little twins. And then at the very end of the story, she, you know, arranges to come back another day, the babysit again for this mom. Anyway, the editor, as I'm reading her notes throughout, I was kind of confused by a lot of the notes she gave. I couldn't quite understand which, what angle she was taking on the story until the end. She said, I don't get why the babysitter agreed to come back to this house of horrors. And I realized that she'd been reading it like a horror story. She thought I was writing a horror story. I thought I was writing a comedy, a slice of life comics. And, uh, that made me laugh. His editor didn't have children at the time. And I was like, Oh, it was too real for her. Oh, that is funny. Is this story available? Cause I'm now very curious about it is it's called babysitting nightmare and it's in an anthology called funny girl and it may feel very relevant and realistic to you might, it might, it might help hit very close to home. You'll read it as realism. Oh yeah. That's it's the day in the life. And there were actually several different editors I worked from the project. So, you know, nothing against this editor. Um, it was just a funny, like, you know, different, different experiences coming in and understanding his story in a different way. Yeah, it is. I mean, writing is subjective and reading is subjective and we all bring our own viewpoint, our own glasses to it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Shannon, we are going to wrap this chat up with the happy writer lightning round. All right. Okay. If you could get sucked into any book, which one would it be? If it's just for a short time, I would love, I would love to visit us Dan or Anne of green Gables or, um, or actually one of my, you know, princess Academy or goose girl series, because those are just the books I spent the most time with. And it feels a little unfair that I can't just hang out with those characters, but if it has to be for a longer time, it has to be somewhere that has indoor plumbing.
Speaker 7:Do you find that you
Speaker 2:Miss characters from books that you wrote a long time ago? I do. And I know that's probably unhealthy and weird, but I really do like old friends. Like where are they? Why don't they call? Yeah. No, I'm, I'm the same way for sure. If you could perform on Broadway for one musical number, what song and what musical would you choose? Oh my gosh. What a good question. I love musicals. Oh, I wish I could sing and dance. Let's assume in this scenario, you are an extremely talented performer. Honestly. I love the energy and fun of the big musical big ensemble numbers. Like I wouldn't want to do a solo. Like I would love if I could tap dance and do anything goes a big number like that. That's just, that would, that would be fantastic. Something happy and fast paced where the audience is just grinning so hard. They can't stand it. What do you do to celebrate an accomplishment? I'm bad at that? I have to tell the truth. I'm bad at celebrating myself. I'm always like, don't, don't get a big head. You haven't done that much. Move on to the next thing. The morning I found out that I won a Newbury honor. I immediately went back to work and started revising work book. I was, I didn't take her five minutes off. Um, I don't allow myself to, which I don't think is healthy. I think you should. I think you should celebrate in some way, sometimes language and I are the worst. So they went fam and I have done, she illustrates princess in black and real friends and best friends. We're doing a picture book series together. And we are the worst when we get, I'm sorry, this is a lightening round. I should be fast, but that's fine. Now we do this all the time and we have not learned our lesson where we'll get news about how, you know, our, our book just passed the 500,000 sold Mark or our, a new idea sold at auction for, you know, with the 12 house house has bidding or something amazing like that. And we'll get on the phone with each other and go, Oh my gosh, what are we going to do? I know, I know. I know. We need to think about what charity we're going to donate. Um, our earnings to your right. Yeah, this is too much. I agree is bad people reading this book. Are they hurting? Are they sad? I know. I feel so bad. Then we're like, okay, we got to stop this. We have to take a moment and go, yay. Well, I will say it's a year now my, I don't know, 23rd or 24th interviewee. Um, and it is not uncommon to hear from writers who say that they really struggle with this and celebrating their accomplishments. That's interesting. Can you do it? Can you celebrate it? I do. I am a big advocate of the celebration for you. Um, everything I, I celebrate every tiny little achievement, even if it's just like taking a bubble bath or, uh, you know, giving myself half an hour to read with a glass of wine or something. It can be something small, you know, sometimes I will do like take out and I'll tell the kids we're getting takeout tonight because I finished my final draft, you know? Yeah. I'm actually, I'm better at celebrating the milestones of work completed than I am at celebrating things like awards or bestseller list or something like that. Absolutely. Yeah. They fell out of my control and I feel like if I celebrated those, then I don't know. It just feels weird. Like, I don't feel like I did anything to earn those, but completing a draft. I know I worked really hard on that. And so I can take a minute and go, Oh, you did this good. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm, I'm the same way. Those, those types of accomplishments definitely feel bigger and more real. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. Um, what advice would you give to help someone become a happier writer? Oh God. I'm so bad at advice. Well, what we were just talking about, I think actually makes a lot of sense in that of celebrating the work you do and not worrying about waiting for accolades or response. Yeah. I think, um, that's when I find myself most unhappy is like looking for and waiting for outside accolades. Whereas if I can focus on my happiness on the daily work and what I can control, then I, then I'm happier. That makes sense. Yeah, totally. I just had the thought, so kind of a big deal is coming out in a few weeks. Uh, we should decide now what you're going to do to celebrate the publication of another fabulous book. Oh my gosh. And I never do that. I never sometimes a day, the day will go by and I forget I have a new book out
Speaker 7:CNN.
Speaker 2:No, I'm terrible. So I should, okay. I'm going to do something. What should I do?
Speaker 7:Mmm.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, obviously a lot of things are off the table with the COVID thing going on. Um, but I don't know, maybe plan like a fun family movie night or something. I love it with food. I mean, it's all about food for me. I could make like a special order from a bakery or something that I would never make. That is a lovely idea. Okay. I'm going to do that. And if I can just plug for the listeners, if you preorder the book for us residents, you can upload your receipt to a site the McMillan has, and you can an enamel pending. I mean, these really cool Anella pins that are shaped like a book and they say kind of a big deal. They're adorable. So you want a free enamel pin and you're going to preorder the book, make sure to check out, upload that receipt to the website. And I've got, I've got the website link, uh, in my pinned tweet on Twitter. Okay, awesome. Uh, and that segues right into my last question, which is where can people find you? Uh, I'm on Twitter at hail Shannon and I have a website, Shannon hill.com and that's about it because I really don't do anything else because he meant so many things to write when the children were raccoons in tennis ball pits. I mean, priorities.
Speaker 7:Thank you so much for joining me, Shannon. This was so
Speaker 2:Much fun. Thank you. Marissa is always so much fun to talk to you. Readers, definitely check out kind of a big deal when it comes out on August 25th, uh, or as you heard, you can preorder it now and get yourself a really cool enamel pin. I love that. And of course, if you can, we always encourage you to support your local indie bookstore. Please subscribe to this podcast. So you'll always be in the know about new episodes. You can find me on Instagram at Marissa Meyer author and at happy writer podcast until next time stay healthy and cozy out there in your bunkers and whatever life throws at you today. I do hope that now you're feeling a little bit
Speaker 1:[inaudible].