Marissa chats with Lisa McMann about her newest middle grade fantasy - THE UNWANTEDS QUESTS: DRAGON SLAYERS - as well as the joys and challenges of writing a character who is exactly 50% good and 50% bad; how important it is to cultivate children's natural creativity; one cool way to add visual interest and a personal touch to school visit presentations; and the fan-made app dedicated to the Unwanteds Series (and yes, Marissa is super jealous).
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
Find out more and follow The Happy Writer on social media: https://www.marissameyer.com/podcast/
Marissa chats with Lisa McMann about her newest middle grade fantasy - THE UNWANTEDS QUESTS: DRAGON SLAYERS - as well as the joys and challenges of writing a character who is exactly 50% good and 50% bad; how important it is to cultivate children's natural creativity; one cool way to add visual interest and a personal touch to school visit presentations; and the fan-made app dedicated to the Unwanteds Series (and yes, Marissa is super jealous).
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
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 help authors find more joy in their writing. I'm your host, Marissa. Myra, thanks so much for joining me. We are about one week into our September contest. And this month we are asking listeners to post photos of their writing assistance. AKA, who are your free or not. So free friends that hang out with you and may or may not be helpful while you're trying to get some writing done. You can check out the contest post on instagram.com at happy writer podcast to learn how you can enter two winners, will each receive their choice of either one of my books or a book from any previous podcast guest, the contest is open internationally and ends September 30th. I think there are 30 days in September, uh, the last day of September. Pretty sure it's the 30th. Um, on that note, the thing that is making me happy this week is the pur of my cats. We have two cats and I mean, sometimes they can be super obnoxious when they want my attention and I'm trying to get some work done and they try to climb onto my wrists and get on my keyboard. Um, and it doesn't always work out so well, but sometimes they will just sit nicely next to me while I'm working and her and pur. And it is one of my favorite sounds in the world. And I feel like there have actually been scientific studies that a cats purr can lower blood pressure. I feel like I've read that somewhere. I might be making it up, but we're going to go with it because it certainly seems to calm me down sometimes. Anyway, that is, what's making me happy this week. And of course I am so happy to be talking to today's guest. Her debut novel wake came out way back in 2008. And since then she has written nearly 30 books for young adult and middle grade readers. Her books include the wake trilogy, the visions trilogy, the going wild series and the unwanted series dragon slayers. The sixth book of her current unwanted quest series comes out this week on September eight, please. Welcome Lisa McMann. Hey Marissa, how are you? I am excellent. How are you? I'm great. And I think you just gave me, uh, another reason to get a cat because of the low blood pressure thing. I mean, at any moment, my blood pressure could just spike. So I think I do need to get a cat. There you go. Is it, have you been looking for reasons to get a cat or is this totally like, just spur of the moment? You know what? I could use one of those more that I suppose we had cats on and off and I really loved them. Um, but we are currently pet lists at the moment, so yeah. Well, and it's fun if you can get a kitten, I mean, there's nothing better than a kitten other than, than they have to grow up. This is true. Yeah. Um, so I have to tell you, Lisa, I don't think you know this, but back in 2008, I was working on my first book cinder and I like realized at some point that I was writing young adult fiction. I thought before that I was just writing science fiction and didn't really realize that this was going to be pitched toward teenagers. And I was like, Oh no, I'm definitely writing in this age group. I should go explore this genre more and learn more about young adult fiction and wake your first novel had just come out. And it was one of the very, very first white books that I ever read. Oh my gosh. It's so nutty to me to think that that was like almost more than 12 years ago. It was even like before I read the hunger games or any of that. Oh my goodness. Yeah. The hunger games didn't even come out until a couple of years after that, after I thought it might be. I wasn't sure what the timeline was. Exactly. I think so because when I was writing the unwanted, um, it wasn't out. And then when I got my Kirkus review for the unwanted, they compared it to Harry Potter and the hunger games and people always thought that I got the inspiration from the hunger games and I would have to just keep saying no, actually it wasn't out yet. Oh. When I was writing the book. Isn't that funny? Yeah. No, my inspiration was more like Narnia. Yeah. And that's a great review. Like let's just compare you to the two biggest books series of the last 20 years, you know, it's, it's been, uh, the review is one that we've just kept using over and over again since 2011, when the first book came out. So I'm never giving up this comparison for sure. For sure. Yeah. Well, that's awesome. Like I said, I can't believe that was so long ago, but your book was very influential to me in my, my early writing days. So thank you. And I feel it's special connection. That's, what's so lovely of you to say. And it's so funny that, you know, it's coming out 12 or 13 years later or whatever that you read. My first book, that's just crazy to me. I love it. Um, so now you're of course on, I don't know what number 28 29 books do you know off the top of your head? How many books you've read? I think dragon layers is 25 or 26, but I've got a couple more in the works. Okay. Uh, so congratulations on your thing. You're plugging right along after all these years. Um, why don't we start with you telling listeners what is the unwanted quest series and this new book dragon slayers about? Wonderful. So the unwanted quest series is a spinoff series of the unwanted series, which has seven books. And that series is complete, but when I finished it, I just loved those characters so much that I wanted to keep going. So I set the new series, the unwanted it's quests 10 years after the first series ends. And I needed a new set of characters, um, main characters, although a lot of the characters from the first series carry over into the new series. They're all just 10 years older. Um, but I had, um, established a set of twins in the first series, uh, who were babies. They were two years old by the time the first series ended. And, um, they are now 12 and they just happened to be the most magical people are to Mae has ever seen, but the problem is they can't really control their magic and it's destructive. So they have accidentally, almost killed people with their magic. Um, and so everybody in the world of RMA, the magical world is a little bit nervous around them. Um, they, you know, never know what's going to happen. So the book begins with Thisbe and Pfeiffer STO, uh, they're identical twin sisters. They're the younger sisters of identical twins, Alex and Aaron who are now in their twenties, um, who were the main characters in the first series. And they find out that, um, some dragons from the first series have returned to art may in need of help. And so they decide that they're the ones who can help these dragons. And they set off on an adventure to save some captive dragons in the land, uh, in the land of the dragons. Um, but that turns out to be the probably, you know, the silliest decision they've ever made because with their uncontrollable magic, they're really not terribly useful. So everything goes wrong. And, uh, but now we're on book six dragon slayers, which, uh, they've grown a lot by now. And, um, this would be one of the twins is facing a dilemma. They have an enemy who's the largest, anyone in this world has ever faced the revenue year and Thisbe is going to try something completely unconventional in order to save all of the people of RMA. So six books in how many times do you think you have tried to give that summary? No, it's so hard. As you know, you've got a series it's hard with a series because there's so many people who haven't read the first book yet and you don't want to, so you kind of want to pitch the first book and not spoil things like you said. And just, uh, so it's, it can be a little bit tough. Like you're, you know, if walking on something slippery to figure out how to share with the newest book is about without actually giving away anything or so, and I know whenever a new book is coming out, that's the one you're most excited about and what to tell all the things, but you kind of have to keep it close a little bit for sure. And then, yeah. True. It's a spinoff. So as you mentioned, I mean, there was another whole series taking place 10 years before. Um, and did you say that the first one of that series came out like 2010? It was 2011. Yeah. So it's actually, it was, it was nine years ago yesterday that that book came out the first floppy anniversary. I was reminded by some fans that it was nine years. Exactly. And so that was very exciting to know. That is very exciting. No, I think it's fun to kind of keep those dates, um, as little, little hallmark moments. Like let's remember this moment in my history that was really special. It was such a special book to that first book of the unwanted. Um, I was writing it when my kids were in elementary school and they're like 26 and 23 now. But, um, back then, you know, they came home from school one day and they helped inspire the whole series. So it was just this wonderful family thing. And they helped me with some ideas for the book. Um, but yeah. Do you want to hear the story of how they inspired it? I do. Now that you've hinted at it, I absolutely want to hear this story. It's one of my favorite stories of how I got an idea for something. Okay. So basically they were in fifth and third grade and, um, my son and daughter Kilian and Kennedy, and they came home from school one day and they had a letter in their backpacks that said, dear parents, we are so sorry to tell you that we have to eliminate the arts classes from our school. I know it's the worst thing. And I was devastated for my kids because my son loved to draw and my daughter loved to sing an act. And I looked at them and I remember saying, wow, kids, I'm so sorry. This kind of feels like you're being punished for being creative. And then is, it happens with writers. As you know, we ask what if all the time? And I said, what if there really was a world where children were punished for being creative? And my son, the 12 year old said not just punished sent to their deaths. And I got this super chill down my spine and I'm like, Oh my God, that's horrifying. But also how do we write this? So I started working on this dystopian novel. That was, you know, it opens up quite dark, but I really wanted to bring some joy into it too. And so there's this magical or that sort of offsets the dystopian world. And it's a little bit of a balance between the two worlds that we, we follow. One of the twins, Alex and there's Alex and Aaron, Aaron stays in the old world, which is the dystopian world and Alex is unwanted and he sent to his death and he finds himself in this magical world called RDMA. And that's history love that story. I mean, it makes me really sad to think how many schools have had to cut arts and music programs. Um, but, but what a great way to take that inspiration and run with it. And because being creative, it's such a natural thing for kids, like they're necessarily so important need creative people to, or we need to like foster these creative ideas in kids in order for them to invent the next most amazing thing. Absolutely. And I, I believe that there is not a job or career in the world that wouldn't benefit from creativity and outside thinking. Like, I just think it's such an important part of how humanity advances and grows for sure. But I also, I loved one. I loved that idea that there's this concept of a world in which creativity is seen as a bad thing as punished, but then you also then flip it to like the exact opposite when they go to RMA, because now not only is creativity a good thing, but that's like literally the source of magic, which I thought is so cool. And for a kid to think that, uh, right, or writing or drawing or dancing or any of these creative outlets could like result in true magic. I just think that's such a fabulous concept. Thank you. So it was such a blast to write, and honestly, I get a little bit of emotional thinking about the fact that I've already written the final book in the series and that's, that's going to be the end, you know, that'll be the end of everything. So, um, but it's been such a joy. Yeah. And, and that is then book seven. That's coming out next year. Is that correct? Yes, February 2nd, I believe. Okay. So close. Do you have any thoughts, do you think that you will ever return to this world or do you really feel like that is going to be the end of this story? Good question. Um, I never say never, but I'm pretty sure this is the end. Yeah. Well, congratulations on being done or almost done with it. I know that's really exciting to reach the end of a series and series with so much content, so many books in it. I'm sure it feels just like a huge accomplishment. It does. I'm, I'm very proud of it. It's been such a big part of my life for the past 10 years or so. And, um, it's just been a joy. My kids grew up with the series, you know, they went from elementary school and now they're adults in creative jobs. I should add just because those classes were taken away doesn't mean it didn't mean that they didn't pursue their dreams. So my son is an artist. He's a professional artist and my daughter is a professional actor, so it's turned out. Okay. Yeah. Awesome. I did. You reminded me of when I was reading the book, the first one of the unwanted quests, uh, one of my favorite moments and it's something of a small detail, but there's this part where the characters have to make new dragon wings and they do it using like vines and flowers and things taken from nature. And I found that to be just such an appealing image and it kind of made me think, Oh, that would be a really fun craft project to do with my kids. Cause I'm like in the homeschooling mindset right now and try to think I teach art to my children. Um, for sure. Yes. Um, and so, and so I just, I loved that idea and thought that would be like a really fun activity for us. Um, which then made me wonder, like, have you in writing this book about that draws on so much from art and creativity, do you get like art projects from young readers inspired by these stories? Oh, I do. It's the best thing. I get a lot of drawings and I tend to post them on my Instagram account too. Whenever somebody tags me on Instagram with their drawing, um, if I've got room for posting it, I do. Um, but I've also gotten a lot of kids making the spell components, like scatter clips. That's a major spell throughout the entire series. And I get a lot of kids just creating their own scatter clips and bringing them to me at an event or, um, I've gotten some in the mail and one time I had somebody write a song and perform it and send it to me. And I thought that was just the best. Yeah. Oh, that's so great. It's so magical when the store is going to inspire so many beautiful things. I agree. One of the other things that I found so interesting about the series, um, is that dragons can look at a person and sense how much of that person is good and how much of that person is evil. And I love that. Like as a writer, one of my favorite things themes to play with is like that, that gray area, how much of a person is good and how much is evil and the decisions that we make and our motivations, et cetera, et cetera. I just find all of that really fascinating about humanity. Where did that idea come from this idea that the dragons would be able to specifically tell like, exactly how much good or evil you are? I think it was in the, when I was writing the first book, the quest series, when this being Pfeiffer and Seth have gone to the land of the dragons with hucks, the ice blue dragon. And they're just sort of resting thereafter, quite an ordeal to land, um, and dev appears the character named dev. And he, um, I just had this idea for who he would be, that he would sort of waver between being a person that helps the good side and potentially move to the other side as well. I wanted him to be sort of half good and half evil, and I wasn't sure how to present that. And then I came up with this idea that the dragon would be able to tell and would reveal that. And it ended up being the most fun. I've had creating a new character in a while. I really love the character of dev and his, you know, sort of, he's just right between half and half. And just that just opened up this cool world for him. And in what choices he would make throughout the series. Yeah. No, I love that. And I feel like I could tell, like you were having a lot of fun with his character and that concept. Um, and as a writer, like I found myself even thinking, you know, how, how would I accomplish that and how much, like making sure that you're never pushing this character too far to the good side or too far to the bad side. Did you, I mean, were there times when you had challenges with his character and trying to decide what path he should take, because you really are trying so hard to keep him right in the middle? He is, he is 50% good and 50% bad. I can imagine it would create some difficulties too. It does. And I think as a writer, one of my natural tendencies is to just make everything okay. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of writers have that where we just want everything to be okay. And the readers kind of tell us they want that, but they really don't. Yeah. We have to have that conflict in order to make the story interesting. Um, so, but I tend to push him to the, the good side. And so I would always have to reign myself in a little bit and throw something in there that was despicable, which I think makes him even more likable. So does, he's a super enjoyable character. Thank you. I love writing him. And he grows a lot throughout the series as well. Yeah, no, I like characters where I can't tell what they're planning or thinking or what they're going to do next. I mean, that adds, it just adds a lot of fun. What percentage do you think you are? That is a great question. Oh my goodness. You up to the truth machine. Wow. I've never gotten, that's such a great question. I would have to say I'm probably slightly more good than evil. Just slightly like 55, 45, maybe 60, 40. Okay. That sounds reasonable. But you know, I don't know. I don't know. It'd be hard. You need a dragon to come and look you over and let you know. I really do, which reminds me of a really funny thing that just happened. Um, the new book, the seventh book, which is already available for preorder is listed, um, on Amazon as weighing 1,845 pounds. And so if you preorder it, it prompts you to, to, um, set up delivery because it's so heavy. Right. I just have I ran across this the other day and I mentioned it to my agent and he said, well, what does it come with? Uh, a dragon attached, right. So heavy. And I thought that was such a cool idea that we should, you know, maybe that's the way I can get a dragon over here to test me and see how evil I really am. That is hysterical. Oh my gosh. Those algorithms. Yes. Oh, it was just hilarious. I do love it. I mean, if you could like somehow make a really big dragon swag, every preorder comes with its own dragon. That would be fantastic. I'm going to work on that. So each of the books in this series are, or I'm sorry, each of the series in, in the unwanted world are going to be seven books. How much planning do you do an advance when you're going into a series? That's going to be so lengthy with the original series? I wasn't sure if there would even be one sequel because we had to see how it did in the market. And it, I think it was, we were getting close to it coming out when my editor said, okay, we're getting some good preorders here. I think we're going to continue with the series. So can you give me an outline of what the rest of the series looks like? And I'm sitting there going, Oh, okay. How's this going to go? And at first I thought it was going to be a trilogy, but then as I started to develop some cool ideas and pulling some things from that first book to expand on, um, it became five books in my mind. And then by the time I was writing book three, I thought, no, it's seven. And I had it all laid out and I felt really good. I always knew how it was going to end, but I didn't know how long it would take to get there. So, um, that kind of went slowly there. And then when I did the new series, the quest series, I think I thought that one was going to be five. And then that turned into seven as well. I'm glad to hear you say that because that's one of my, I don't know if the problem, but for me, things always end up taking longer and extending far beyond what I think that they will at the beginning. I think it's because we once were actually writing the story. We get to know the characters and what they do, and they give us so much potential. You know, there's so much potential for deepening everything. You know, it's hard to describe this, but it's like, once you start writing and you get to know everybody and you see what this world is that you're, you're writing in, there's the, the possibilities are endless. And I think it's sometimes hard to rein it in. Like I could probably keep writing in this world for a long time, but it just feels like the right place to end. Right, right. No, yeah. Reigning it in is, is a challenge for me, um, in exactly what you're saying. Like I start getting into this world and getting really excited about it. And pretty soon your imagination is going wild and all of these new ideas, different obstacles, they can face in different villains. And what if we did this and what if we went here and it can be really difficult to, to, you know, come pull back from that. Cause you just get so excited. You want to share it all with the readers. For sure. And also if you start doing too many of those things, you know, going, starting so many different threads and going down different roads and stuff, it makes it even harder at the end to wrap it all up. Yes, definitely. Where there any subplots or ideas that you'd had to cut from the original series, but then you were able to use in the quest series? No. Um, the fact, I don't know how many people are like this, how many writers are like this, but I think a lot of writers tend to write extra and then have to cut. And I am always a sparse, right. So my stories, my manuscripts are short and then I build later. So I don't, I don't really have any thing that I can think of that I had to cut because I've always started out so sparse that I've needed to add new layers of storylines to the books. Right. That makes sense. I'm the same way. My, my first drafts are very minimal and then grow and grow and grow from there. Yes. Sometimes they grow too much. Cause you have the first series in wanted series. Um, with these characters that I imagine your readership really fell in love with and felt very strongly about. And then the quest series now is 10 years in the future, but you're bringing back a lot of those original characters, but they're older. Um, and now a lot of them are in their twenties and they're grownups and have more grownup things to deal with. Was there, I mean, did you feel any pressure, uh, bringing back these characters and knowing that your readers probably have really strong feelings about what they wanted to become of these characters? Yeah. I did feel a little bit of pressure. I really, I think when a reader is engaged in a story and then they think about that character 10 years down the road, it could be very different from how I think of that character, 10 years it's down the road. And so to, to make, you know, a young character into an adult is, um, was really challenging. And Alex in particular, who was the main character, the first series, his whole outlook on life has changed over the course of these 10 years. A lot of stuff has happened to him. Um, he was, um, permanently injured in the end of the first series. And, uh, he's got these sisters who are doing this magic that can hurt people. And so he's stressed out about that and he's in charge of them taking care of them. And so he, his whole personality really had to change because of all the things he's gone through. And I think that was a bit of a challenge for some readers at first. Um, but then some other of the characters, I think people really loved the way they turned out. And so it was just, it's a little bit of a mix. You get an idea in your head of the way someone's going to be. Um, and that can be a little disconcerting, I think, as a reader. Yeah, no, I'm sure. But I would also think, you know, fun. And then there's these characters that you just have such a deep connection with. It would be fun to go back and be able to revisit them and see how their lives are progressing over time. And I know as a reader, I think I would really enjoy that and get a kick out of it. I think the vast majority of readers have really loved that and embraced the way that the adults have turned out to be. And they especially love to see like if some of them got married or, you know, there's a new child in this series and they're like, Oh, that's so cool. So that's really been a lot of fun as well. That's all I care about. Did they get a happily ever after for sure. For sure. And even for the twins, like you mentioned, they were just babies in the original and then to see them grow up and watch them develop into their own characters and get their own adventure to go on a, I think it's super cool. I think that's a great idea. Thank you. It was really actually something I purposely did when I wrote this new series to make this set of twins very different from the first set of twins in the original series. Well, as a mom of twins, I always love seeing them in fiction. It's one of my new favorite tropes, so Oh, good. People ask me a lot. Are you a twin or why did you choose to write about twins? And I think the reason I chose twins is, well, one reason was because I needed two people who were very close to be split into the different worlds to, from one of them to stay and one of them to be separated. Um, but I've always been fascinated by, uh, twins and, and I had five sets of twins in my school growing up. It was not a huge school. I mean, there were probably 130 kids in my grade and there were five sets of twins and I just thought that was just amazing. And so, you know, I was friends with them and um, just really have always loved reading about twins. And sometimes there are almost bordering on like a supernatural connection between them. Do you tell me about your twins and their connection with, well, I mean, it's just such a special relationship, um, and to, to grow up with someone so close, they go through everything together, just knowing that they're always gonna have each other as they embark through childhood. Um, I, I think it's so special and I love as their mom getting to watch them grow up and develop their own little games that they play and all of it. I mean, there's just, I think it's a really unique relationship. That's so cool. Yeah. I love it. It's special. I love having twins. They're the best. Aw, that's neat. I bet it's difficult though. I mean there's moments, but there aren't any siblings. I think there's going to be moments. Yeah. True. True. So writing these series, these big Epic series, lots of characters, uh, lots of subplots. Do you have any methods that you use for keeping things consistent or for reminding yourself of little details that you need to pull into the next books? Like what's your system? I have probably the worst system of writer in that. I keep it, most of it in my head. And it's even for these long series, I, I know I should do better. I know I should have some big board on my wall with all kinds of little notes and the strings connecting them and stuff like that. I don't want to do that. I don't know how to do that. It doesn't, it feels like I'm using something if I'm planting that much or planning that much. But, um, I do keep occasional notes on my phone if I'm doing like a read through and I have to remember something for the next book, I'll just keep a list of things that happen in this book that I need to remember for the next book. Right. And that's about it. I really it's, it's, it's a terrible system and I don't recommend it. I actually, I love that. That was your answer though, because I've talked to writers who like are all over that spectrum from, I don't keep any notes whatsoever too. I have a 200 page documents that I refer to, you know? Um, and I think it's good for aspiring writers to hear that the difference in where you can fall on the spectrum and still write very successful cohesive books. Like I don't think there's any right or wrong. I totally agree. And I think it's so important to emphasize that there is no one right way to do anything. When you're a writer, everybody has their own methods that work for them. My husband is a writer and he's the kind of guy who would have a 200 page note for his manuscripts that he's working on. So, um, but he works really well that way. And I just look at that and I go, I feel dead inside. That's not how my brain functions. That wouldn't be exactly. Um, I, when I was, uh, cyber-stalking you to prepare for this interview, um, I saw on your Instagram that there's an unwanted app. Yes. What is this? Tell me, how did you get an app and what does it do? It is the best thing, honestly, and I had nothing to do with it. So this wonderful young man named Elias came to my agent in an email and said, I'm trying to become an app developer. And I want to have some stuff on my resume. So I happened to also love the unwanted series and I thought it would be cool if I made an app for the books and for readers to come and chat with each other and talk about the books and, um, you know, list all the different magic spells and all the characters and, and stuff like that. And he, we were able, there was a lot of red tape, but we had to clear it with the publisher and, you know, make sure he was only including stuff that was available to the general public and stuff like that. Um, and he developed this wonderful app and it is absolutely, I am blown away by how cool it is and you can get it for your iPhone or, or Android or whatever. And it's just called the unwanted. And he holds chat there regularly where I'll come in every few months and I'll just do a chat where everybody can write their questions to me. And I speak the answers and they can hear me. And so we do that and there's, I mean, hundreds of kids have found this app and they just all share their art there. They can share, um, their, uh, fan fiction. He's made this wonderful place for creative kids that, I mean, I'm getting emotional talking about it because it, I wish I'd had something like that when I was a kid. That is so cool. I, I love the idea. I think that's a marvelous story and so cool for this guy to like take on the initiative like that. That's awesome. He's a serious, like he is such a go getter and he just went out there and he made it the best thing he possibly could. And I'm so proud of him and he's just the nicest kid, a kid, he said, he's 19. But, uh, you know, he just took on this huge project and just made it into something really special. So, uh, if anybody's out there who loves the unwanted books, check out that app. It's really cool. Yeah, that is brilliant. And I gotta admit, I am super jealous. Well, I'll pass your name along to him in case he's read your books and he wants to make you an app.
Speaker 3:There you go.
Speaker 2:How do we make this happen? We'll work on it. That is so special. And so cool. Okay. One other thing that I wanted to talk with you about is on your website. You have a space dedicated to doing all their visits. And of course, a lot of authors do author visits and school visits and whatnot, but I felt like the site, your website was far more professional and complete than any that I've ever seen, where you actually like break down. Here's my speech. And here's what I will talk about. And here's my PowerPoint, which for one, I just think is super clever. Um, but then I just also want to talk about like doing school visits and speaking events. And how do you feel like that plays a role in your overall career? I love doing school visits. Um, I mostly do them when I'm on book tour when a book comes out and for the next few weeks following, because I write two books a year. So I mostly have to focus on writing, but, uh, I've developed this PowerPoint presentation over the years since the first unwanted book came out and it's just been so much fun to perfect it over the years as each new book comes out, I change it just slightly. But one of the things that, um, has contributed to the success of this particular PowerPoint is the fact that my son is an artist. And when he, when the first unwanted his book was about to come out, he was 17 and going into his senior year of high school. And so I asked him, will you, um, draw some art for me so that I have something to show kids when I'm out doing my school presentation. And he said, are you gonna pay me at first? I said, are you kidding? And then I realized something very important in that is that I cannot draw and I really wanted, and I thought, you know what? Art is valuable to me. And so I said, Kelly, and I'll tell you what I will pay. You I'll give you money for college. So you could become a better artist. And so he thought that was great. And we struck a deal and he started drawing things for me at age 17. And now 10 years later, he's improved so much, you know, and I get to show these drawings and how he has improved in his art over the years. And with each book, he draws one or two more things for this, for the series. And it's the kids love it because they can see all in the space of a few minutes, how much better you can get at your art, your craft, just by working on it. And they can see from book to book, how much better he gets. And then I show him these amazing posters that he's doing for me now. And, you know, they just think, wow, you know, maybe I can do that too. That is so great. And I love how, I mean, it makes for a great parallel, whether it's, you know, drawing or writing or anything that a kid might be interested in doing, being able to see the growth that's subs. That's smart. I like that. I can see why that would be a popular presentation. Yeah. And it's nice because I've done 14 books in this series, so I'm really good at it. Now you don't have to go back to the drawing board every time. Exactly. Are you doing virtual events now? Yes. Um, I'm doing zoom, mostly zoom. Um, but uh, at the moment I feel like our poor teachers are just trying to figure out how to get through day to day stuff. And so I, I have a couple of things booked for this fall with schools, but, um, mostly I'm doing zoom events with bookstores. Yeah. And I think that's going to be, we're going to have a little bit of a light year this fall and we'll see what happens, uh, as, as things start to feel normal again. Yeah. I know my publicity team brought up doing, trying to do virtual school visits and that was a couple of months ago. And I think since then, everyone has just been like, nah, teachers that have enough trying to figure it out, how to teach their subjects without also trying to figure out how to get all the kids set up to watch it an author presentation. So exactly. And I don't blame them. I would just feel so much for our teachers and librarians who are going through so much right now. Thank you teachers. We love you teachers in library. Love you. You can do this. We have faith in you. We believe in you. Okay. We're going to wrap up this interview with our happy writer, lightening round, starting with you ready? I'm ready. Okay. I'm ready for this. What book makes you happy front desk by Kelly Yang? I've read it probably a year ago and it's one of the books that I just keep remembering. It's this wonderful immigrant story. Um, about a family who runs a motel and the, the main characters 10 years old, I think, or 12. I can't remember now, but she sort of runs this hotel. And I always think back to when I was a kid and I, I wanted, I didn't want to run a motel, but I wanted to run a candy store, just being behind the counter and, and selling things and using the cash register. That was always something I loved. And I ended up being a bookseller for years. Um, probably because of that dream, but I just love the story of front desk with this young girl who has to deal with grownups. And she also has to deal with some racism in her school and learning how to make friends. And it's just, but it's, it's deals with some tough things, but it just gives me so much joy. And so that's what I would choose there. Oh, this is supposed to be a lightning round. I should answer nobody ever treats it like a lightning rod faster than the next one. Well, we'll see about that. Oh, okay. What do you do to celebrate an accomplishment? Yes. Now is as good a time as any COVID. I celebrate by buying more puzzles.
Speaker 4:I love puzzles.
Speaker 2:We've been doing puzzles every day and I loved them and I just got a huge box of them delivered the other day. So awesome for me, it tends to be a fall and winter activity. So I haven't, I don't know that we've really done any during, um, but it's one of my favorite things. It was like a fall or winter thing, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Although you're in California. So I don't know that you really get a fall or winter. Not too much, but we do get a lot of rain here in the winter. Yeah. But no, that's one of my favorite things is to like, have a hot beverage and listen to an audio book and work on a big puzzle. That's so nice. What a great image. Um, how do you feel the creative? Well, um, I usually, okay. So my work day is like I work for about five hours in the morning and then my husband does too he's writer as well. I think I said that. Um, but then we take a break for about three or four hours and we watch reality TV and then we do another writing session in the evening. So I would say reality TV. I also love to cook and that somehow I get ideas generate during that time. The moment when you can't actually stop and write something down, you know, when I get a lot of ideas. So what advice would you give to help someone become a happier writer? Oh, wow. Um, quit writing. Just kidding. That's a joke. Um, don't quit writing. You know what I think the feeling that I have today, I've just turned in, um, some line edits on a manuscript we're about ready to go to copy. And it's the feeling of finishing something that I think is probably, um, a way to really be happy. So finish, finish what you start lastly, where can people find you? I'm on Instagram, uh, Lisa underscore McMahon and Twitter, the same, um, Snapchat, Facebook, I think that's it. Oh, I have a blog on word press, um, which is sort of sparse. And there's a spot on my website, Lisa mcmahon.com where people can sign up for my newsletter, which is a, I call it my fairly infrequent newsletter comes out maybe once or twice a year. So that's it. Excellent. Lisa, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much for having me. It's been so much fun to talk to you, you as well, and I wish you much luck with, uh, the book coming out this week and the completion of the series next year. How exciting. Thank you so much readers. Be sure to check out Lisa's many books, including the unwanted quest series book six dragon slayers comes out this week. Of course, we always encourage you to support your local indie bookstore if you can. But if you don't have a local indie, you can also check out our affiliate store at bookshop.org/shop/marissa Meyer and help support indie bookstores all across America. Please subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review. If you're enjoying these conversations, you can find us on Instagram at Marissa Meyer, author and happy writer podcast. And don't forget to check out our contest and submit your photos of your writing pals until next time, stay healthy and cozy in your bunkers and whatever life throws at you today. I do hope that now you're feeling a little bit
Speaker 1:[inaudible].