Parenting, I hope. Doing readings. I make very tasty Linzer tortes and broccoli soup. I’m awfully good at giving birth too — quickly, no drugs, etc. — although that definitely has a limited appeal.
Is there anything you absolutely can’t do?
Ski — the chair lift terrifies me. Find a crashed computer file. And my husband tells me I should never go into the field of recycling.
What’s the most out-of-character thing you’ve ever done?
Jump out of a plane. I was in college, and my boyfriend dared me. It was incredibly beautiful.
You’re 44 years old, and you have three kids and 18 books. I can barely manage to get my grocery shopping done! You must have an incredible writing regimen.
Regimen? No way. Does anyone with three kids have a regimen? My children know that they come first with me, which means I will schedule tours, when possible, around school plays, softball games and ballroom competitions. It also means that I am continually interrupted. These little breaks have gotten less frequent now that two of my children can drive and my husband is a stay-at-home dad.
It means I can go on tour for months at a time without batting an eye, work through school pickup at 2:45 p.m. without breaking stride, or head off on a research expedition without thinking twice. My husband’s choice to stay home has been an amazing gift to me — a freedom and ability to write whenever I like. But for many years, I had to squeeze in my work around child care schedules, and that made me develop a very firm discipline. I write quickly, but I also do not believe in writer’s block. When you only have 20 minutes, you write — whether it’s garbage or it’s good — you just do it, and you fix it later.
Do you write every day?
I don’t work on weekends … although I have been known to sneak up to an office when I’m in the middle of a chapter — I hate leaving my characters hanging! But other than that, I’m a workaholic. I will start a new book the day after finishing a previous one. What you need to remember, however, is that there’s nothing I’d
“I don’t work on weekends … although I have been known to sneak up to an office when I’m in the middle of a chapter — I hate leaving my characters hanging! But other than that, I’m a workaholic. I will start a new book the day after finishing a previous one.”
rather be doing than writing. My kids know that I need it like some people need medication, as a preventative, because when I don’t write for a few days, I get predictably cranky. They’ve become used to sharing me with people who don’t really exist but are incredibly real to ME while I’m telling their stories.
Do you always know the end before you write it?
Let me put it this way — I think I do, and I’m usually wrong. When I start a book, I juggle a what-if question in my head and push it until I feel like I have a good story. I figure out what I need to know and do my research via the Internet or e-mail, and, in some cases, getting down and dirty (more on this later). I start to write when I come up with an excellent first line. And then I keep going, chapter by chapter, exactly in the order in which you’re reading it.
Often, about two-thirds of the way through, the characters will take over and move the book in a different direction. I can fight them, but usually when I do that the book isn’t as good as it could be. It sounds crazy, but the book really starts writing itself after a while. I often feel like I’m just transcribing a film that’s being spooled in my head, and I have nothing to do with creating it. Certain scenes surprise me even after I have written them — I just stare at the computer screen wondering how that happened.
For example, the scene in The Pact where Melanie nearly runs Chris down with her car. Or in Keeping Faith, when Millie Epstein resuscitates. Or in Salem Falls, that last scene (don’t you dare peek ahead).
When I was writing Plain Truth, I called my mom up one day. “You’re not going to believe what’s happening to Ellie!” I told her. I think she said I was scaring her and hung up. I know it seems a little unnerving, but I love the moments when my characters get up and walk off on their own two feet. In my new book, Sing You Home, one of the main characters did something very stupid that’s going to hurt him in the long run, although I keep telling him not to!
Did you know how My Sister’s Keeper was going to end?