Original subtitles

Dear Judy, I think the main point of

kids books is to show that things that

happen to you also happen to other kids.

It makes kids feel that they are normal.

I thought I was weird for doing and

thinking some things, but your books

make me feel okay.

That's from Brian, age 13.

To me, this is a class about um being

free. It's not as scary as you think,

but you have to be willing to take that

chance. It's risky. And I hope that

during the course of this class, you

will learn what I learned, which is

nobody could teach me to write. I can't

teach you to write. But what I hope I

can do in this master class is share

with you what I've learned about writing

over 50 years. The best advice I can

give you if you're starting out or even

if you're caught in the middle is um

don't give up and don't listen to anyone

who tells you you can't write because

the person who's saying that has no idea

what's inside you.

I'm Judy Bloom and this is my master

class.

What was I like as a child? Well, it's

funny because I always ask writers when

I meet them, what were you like as a

child? because I'm so curious, you know,

I was um I was very small. I was

anxious, but I was also I like to make

people laugh. Uh tremendously curious

and imaginative. And I think that's the

big thing, you know, the imagination

never stopped. The stories that were

inside my head, I kept a secret because

I was afraid if I told anyone, "Guess

what I have inside my head?" They would

think I was crazy. So, this was

something that was just for me. Um, I

don't know what my mother thought

because I could spend hours outside when

I was eight years old. Um, bouncing a

pink spalding rubber ball against the

side of the brick house, uh, red brick

house. And I would do it for two hours

before dinner. And, um, of course, I

wasn't just bouncing a ball. I was

running the stories inside my head.

wonderful stories um melodramatic

stories and I loved them and I was never

lonely. I had friends and I loved being

with my friends but this was my special

time alone to be with my stories and um

so that's why I'm so curious about what

were other writers like as children. I

was fearful. I was very fearful. Uh, a

lot of the things that my mother was

afraid of, I was afraid of. But for

instance, there was a church a few

blocks away. And when we were in the

car, and I was very small, maybe three,

maybe four. Um, I was terrified of the

stained glass window. I called it the

lady with no face. And my mother, it's

really funny. Um because

she never she she didn't judge me on

this. Um she just said it's coming and I

would duck down in the front. We didn't

have seat belts or car seats then. I

would go down on the floor and cover my

face and she would say, "Uh, it's okay.

We've passed." And she never, you know,

questioned me about this. It was just

that, okay, Judy is afraid of the lady

with no face. Judy is afraid of dogs.

Judy is afraid of thunder and lightning,

which I'm still phobic about. Um, but

all kinds of things. And surely it was

that imagination. What was it about the

lady with no face that was so

frightening?

So I was that kind of child, fearful,

anxious,

um, but also a performer.

That kind of two duties, two sides of

one little girl.

When I took piano lessons, and I loved

taking piano lessons, um I made my

practice sessions

much more exciting for me by keeping a

notebook and I invented um a group of

students that I had. I gave them names.

I gave them what what I now know are

backtories, but I had no idea then. I

was like 10 or 11 years old. And um and

so when I practiced, I practiced as not

as Judy, but as one of my students and

some of them were terrible and I had to

write that down in the notebook and some

of them were better. And again, they

each had sessions. They continued I kept

that notebook with my students and

continued to see them as their teacher

uh for a long time. I never shared my

stories with anyone. I never told my

parents I had stories inside my head. I

certainly never told friends, "Guess

what? I have stories inside my head."

Because I always worried that they would

think that I wasn't normal. Being normal

was very important to me. As you know,

if you've read some of my books, uh

these kids just want to feel that

they're normal. I wanted to feel I was

normal. I had the sense that these

stories

put me somewhere else outside of the

normal um circle and I I wanted to so

they were mine. They were private and I

guess I maybe I liked keeping them

private. It was something just for me.

Again, I was never bored. I was never

lonely because uh I had them with me all

the time. When I played with paper

dolls, for instance, um that was very

dramatic. I often played doctor and I

would cut off their limbs and then

reex them and they were so grateful to

me. Uh, and I can remember a friend of

my mother's when I was almost 10 years

old saying to my mother, "She is too old

to be playing with paper dolls." And my

mother told me that. And I was both

horrified that someone thought I

shouldn't be playing with paper dolls

and thinking to myself, "You have no

idea what I'm doing.

You never know where an idea is coming

from. It certainly comes from

your own life and experiences, but it

also comes from everything out in the

world, everything that you see, that you

hear, that you read, something that

someone tells you. Uh just one little

tiny something can spark a whole book.

For me, when I wrote Margaret,

I was um you know, deep inside the child

I was. And even though her family is

nothing like my family, her friends

aren't really like my friends were. But

you know the imagination takes over but

the feeling the feeling is something

that you know and then you take off with

it and your imagination

you know you just imagine this whole

story that evolves slowly as we'll talk

about but um but it's that deep down

feeling because the best stories

do come from deep inside. That doesn't

mean they're coming from your life, but

they're coming from deep inside. There's

something that you hear that resonates

and it it's like just coming up and

coming out.

If you want to write, you're absolutely

a people watcher

because otherwise

why would you write? How do you invent

characters? You see things. That's how.

So, it's really all about listening

everywhere. Listen in the elevator.

Listen on the street. Listen in

restaurants. Listen wherever you are.

Doctor's offices, supermarket,

everywhere. Listen. you're going to hear

things that are going to um help you

get an idea or a character. When I'm

writing,

I do have antenna that stick up and

they're going around and around around

and picking up everything, every little

detail. I'm observing everything. I

remember once writing down something.

I've never used it. Feel free to use it.

Um, I saw a guy in a suit and he was

getting on his bike probably to go to

work and he um, you know, was he was

putting those I don't know what you even

call them, the little things that make

your pants tight so your pant leg

doesn't get caught uh, in the spokes or

whatever. I saw him doing that, bending

over. It was a certain way of bending

over and putting them on. And I made a

little note of that because I thought

that's that's really good. I'm going to

use that someday. I have not. So,

permission granted. But that's what it

is. You're walking on the street, you

see something. All of those details are

going to help you create characters that

are real.

I think the heightened awareness is

definitely something that people can

work on. Yes. And and carry that little

notebook with you, a tiny little one,

and you know, or talk into your phone or

say everything that you see and hear

during that period. Go out for a day,

for instance, and have the heightened

awareness. be in that state and write it

all down in some way and come home and

see what you have and I bet you you will

have a lot. Deanie, for instance, came

from a conversation that I had with a

woman I knew and who tearfully told me

that her daughter had been diagnosed

with scoliosis. I had never heard of

scoliosis and she was so so so upset.

And then I talked to her daughter who

seemed to be taking it in stride

and that was the idea for Deanie. I mean

Deanie is pure fiction, you know, par

about parental expectations. I think um

Dean's mother's has pigeonhold her

daughters. Deanie's the beauty, Helen's

the brain.

Um, and so I was very interested then in

parental expectations and how we

sometimes can do that to our children.

Uh, but that was just one little

conversation.

A scene in um, it's not the end of the

world. An important scene I think came

from I had taken my little children out

to it was like a Howard Johnson kind of

diner restaurant and behind me

was a family having a conversation and

um an argument and a teenage boy. I

couldn't see any of them. I could just

hear it and I was writing it down as

fast as I heard it on the paper

placemat. Writing it, writing it,

writing it. What are you doing, mommy?

My kids were saying. I was like, shh, be

quiet now. Mommy's listening. And that

teenage boy got up and stormed out of

the restaurant. And I did turn around

and see him. And that became an

important scene in It's Not the End of

the World. And the dialogue that I wrote

down was dialogue that I used in that

story. So again, you never know, but you

have to be aware. You have to be tuned

in. That's what it is. Tuned in.

I think every fiction writer uses his or

her own life. Why not? Um, but if it was

just the truth of our lives, how boring

would that be? It would get old really

fast. I got a letter after I had written

several books from a teacher who said

that she was um doing a project that

summer and she was writing to adults in

creative fields asking them what they

had been like as children and I thought

I can't answer that letter

but it gave me a great idea for a book

and in trying to answer that letter

I wrote wrote a book starring Sally J.

Freriedman as herself, maybe to explain

to myself

what I had been like as a kid. Now, it's

fiction, but it is my most

autobiographical book. my family, the

kind of child I was, the stories that I

told, my tremendous

fear

um of losing my father. Uh

such a burden for a 9-year-old child to

carry. I now know. But when I was 9

years old and for a little while

separated from my father,

um, I worried terribly and I took it on.

It was my job to make sure that he was

safe, that he would not die the way his

two brothers had died at age 43.

And I became ritualistic. And in part,

this was also bargains with God. But my

rituals were I will get a 100 in my

spelling test if you make sure that

daddy is safe.

And you know,

when I think about that child now,

the idea that I was walking around with

this burden, but at the same time

laughing and learning to turn cartwheels

and having a good time living in Miami

Beach for a year. Um, but that this was

on my mind. Death was on my mind.

fear of losing my father was on my mind

and I probably would never have thought

to write that book or tell that story if

I hadn't gotten this letter from this

teacher. So again, when I say you never

know where ideas are going to come from,

but be aware because they're always

coming and that one little idea is going

to unleash so much else. You don't know

what's there waiting with that one idea.

The mood that you're in when you're

writing a book will

come into the book, I think, and be a

mood of a book. When I wrote Tiger Eyes

um in New Mexico, I had moved to New

Mexico and I had left Los Alamos where I

started out and uh and I left a marriage

that took place there.

Uh, and I got down to Santa Fe and I

knew that I wanted to write a book about

a family in a place and that place was

going to be very important

to the book. Uh, and the family story

actually came from I don't know I heard

a story about a young girl who's lost

her father and um the mother picked up

and moved to another place where she had

family.

I had no idea when I was writing Tiger

Eyes. It was a long time after,

maybe not until we made the movie of

Tiger Eyes, that I realized

this book

is about the loss of my father. My

father, who I worried so when I was 9

years old, would die at 43,

died suddenly at 54.

And I adored my father.

And in my family, we didn't talk much

about loss. My mother didn't. If my

father had been living, we would have

talked about it. But my mother didn't

talk about anything.

And I thought I was writing about one

thing and maybe I was the story of this

girl who had lost her father suddenly

and the mother moved them to another

place. I mean, that didn't happen in my

life.

But that loss, that pain,

that's what

Tiger Eyes is all about. That's what

came up from inside. And when I realized

what it was about,

it must have been very cathartic for me

to write that book about a girl

who feels this pain and this loss. I

know in Tiger Eyes there's a scene,

you know, every time I've ever read that

scene aloud, I burst into tears. I can't

tell you why that is. Um, it involves a

Christmas Hanukkah present that she's

bought for her father in New Mexico.

It's a candle. I had a candle like that

because I lived in New Mexico for a long

time and it had five wicks and it burned

down, but I never got to give that to my

father. Um,

but there's something about her giving

it to her father even though he's not

there anymore, he's dead, that just

makes me dissolve. I think that's a very

personal decision what to use and what

not to use. And again, sometimes you are

using your own personal feelings and

experiences and emotions and you don't

even know it. You don't know it until

after the fact.

I have gotten great ideas in the shower

and the one that I remember best is a

whole book came to me in the shower and

that was super fudge and I guess it had

been about eight years since I wrote

Tales of a fourth grade nothing same

characters and I wanted to write another

book but I just I didn't have an idea

for it and then suddenly I was in the

shower one day and covered with soap and

shampoo. And it came to me and it was so

such an easy idea if I it's laughable to

say it out loud. It was like, okay,

here's what happens. The family has a

new baby and we go on from there. And

there it was. And it was because I

wasn't sitting at my desk trying to

think of something. I was doing

something else. and the doing something

else I think frees your mind to, you

know, create. When when I see people I

go on a morning walk every day and when

I see people with their headphones on

and I know they're listening to music or

they're listening to a podcast or

something, I think to myself, "Oh, what

a shame."

Because

that's a time that I would get my best

ideas just not thinking of them. Just

going away and doing something else and

letting your mind roam.

If I get an idea, I don't just sit down

and start writing about it. It's living

in my head for a long time. It's on the

back burner. It's cooking. I have one

simmering right now. I used to keep a

little recipe box, one of those little

metal recipe boxes, and it was called

Judy's idea box. And I kept that for a

long time. I don't think I ever wrote a

book using one of those ideas. But

having the ideas, that's the thing that

gives you security to know that there's

another idea. Because I've always

thought, suppose I never get another

idea. Suppose it just doesn't come. Then

I would like that security of knowing

that there are things I've clipped from

the newspaper or ideas that have come to

me or something that I've heard. One

little snip of conversation as you're

walking along the street. You have to

have a place to write them all down. I

used to think I don't have to write this

stuff down because I'll remember

everything. And then I found out

actually

I wouldn't remember everything. And the

older I got, the more I knew I better

write all this down now because I'm not

going to remember it and it's too good

to lose. There are some ideas that just

go right up here and they stay there and

it's okay even to have more than one

swimming around inside your head. But

then the time comes when I decide

I don't decide. Let's face it, I don't

decide. Something else, something that

we don't understand, decides. And that

character, whoever that character is,

takes the front burner and the other

ones go to the back burner. And it can

be years, could be months, but it could

be years that one is sitting inside

there. So it usually comes with a

character and a basic very very loose

idea and then I will start a notebook

and I will scribble scribble scribble

scribble everything that I can think of

having to do with this character. And

then there'll be other characters. And

then there'll be dialogue, snips of

dialogue, and there'll be little scene

ideas. And I will put everything into

this notebook for a long time, maybe

months, until the day when I say to

myself, or I don't say it, but I know

it's there. I'm ready. I'm going to

start. But I'm never alone because I

have my security blanket. I'm I'm never

with the blank screen or the blank page.

I've got my security. My security is my

notebook. And I won't stop scribbling in

the notebook until the very end of the

book. I will continue to scribble,

scribble, scribble because the ideas

will just come fast. And if I'm lucky,

furiously, and I'll just want to get

them all down somewhere. And if you saw

one of those little notebooks, um, at

the very end, you would see probably

little red check marks. Yeah, I got that

in. I got that in. I got that in. No, I

never got that in, but that's okay. Oh,

look. Here's a dialogue. Here's a

situation. Never got it in. Maybe I

should. Maybe I can find a place. So,

it's my best ideas, I think, come with a

pencil in my hand.

For Margaret, what I remember is saying,

"Now I'm going to write a book. Forget

the rules." I had taken a class and

there were some rules about children's

books. Everything has to be tied up

neatly. Children can never eaves drop. I

mean, all the things that are just so

not true for me. So, my idea was I'm

going to sit down now and I'm just going

to start telling this story that I know

to be true based very much on um my own

sixth grade experience although very

different in terms of the characters.

But am I was I like Margaret?

Yes. I was small. I was skinny. I was a

late developer. I was obsessed by the

idea of growing breasts and getting my

period. That was so much a part of that

one year of my life. Oh, I tried

everything. I had a little bra and I

tried socks in it and I tried toilet

paper. Maybe I didn't have a bra yet.

Maybe I just put cotton balls inside my

t-shirt and they fell down. And I tried

socks and that was like a little over

overkill.

And um I just played with the idea of

when will this happened to me. A lot of

my friends in sixth grade developed

years before I did because at 12, you

know, some of them were fully developed.

They had their periods, they had

breasts, they were as tall as they were

going to get. And I was just this little

skinny Judy. And so that was a very big

part of it.

Puberty, the whole idea of growing up. I

really wanted it. I wanted it. And I've

met a lot of kids who are just the

opposite. They say, "I never wanted it.

I cried. I never wanted to grow up." But

I did. I wanted to grow up. I think the

fantasy

of

a lot of children is to be grown up.

That's what we that's what we played at,

you know, we wanted to be grown up. So,

I was going to put that in in this book.

I was determined to put this in. Whether

it had ever been done before, I don't

know. I didn't care. I was going to do

it. And it never occurred to me to be

afraid to do this, that there would be

any problems doing this. This was real.

This was again the reality that I knew.

Um the question of religion and how do

you choose a religion that was fictional

and it's interesting when I think about

the book today. It's really so much

about

uh finding your place, finding what you

believe in. Margaret went out there

looking for God everywhere in churches

and synagogues, but she never found the

God that she had obviously inside the

the God that she talked to, that she

confided in. I had my own relationship

with God, a very private relationship

with God that I also would never ever

have told anyone about, but that was

true. I did say, "Are you there, God?

It's me, Judy, not Margaret."

So, for Tales of a Fourth Grade,

nothing, the character of Fudge was

definitely inspired by my little son,

Larry, when he was that age. Larry was

probably he was past toddler age by

then. He was probably in first grade or

something like that. Um, but I

remembered, you know, all of those

wonderful antics and yes, he was the

definitely the inspiration

for it. That story about Fudge

swallowing a tiny tiny turtle came from

a newspaper article that was given to me

by our babysitter.

and she said, "I know you're starting to

write books and look at this story. I

thought maybe you would like this

story." And there was this wonderful

story. And every day there was a

follow-up story in the newspaper about

this little boy. So in the newspaper

story um were the X-rays were the

laxative that they gave him to try and

get this little turtle out so that they

would not have to do surgery.

Um, and I just followed it every day.

And that's where that chapter came from.

It came not that didn't come from my

imagination. I don't think I ever would

have imagined a small child swallowing a

turtle. And then eight years later came

super fudge.

And how many years later came Fudgemania

and then double fudge. If you look at

it, I think I wrote those five books

because Sheila the Great I wrote

immediately as soon as I finished Tales

of a Fourth Grade Nothing. I knew I

wanted to give Sheila her own book and I

didn't have the next idea until we went

to Maine for the summer and I saw that

swing and I knew that that swing in the

front yard of that house was Sheila the

Great. And the idea of taking Peter's

family with Fudge and Sheila's family

and putting them together in one house,

that was the idea. And then everybody

that I met in Maine that summer, I wrote

the book in Maine, went into the went

into the book. Bicycle Bob, there was a

Bicycle Bob ran the bike shop. Sawyer's

Market. There was a Sawyer's Market.

Sheila of Oz. Sheila Winski owned Oz

Books in that little town, Southwest

Harbor, Maine. So, everybody went in and

you know, yes, it's imagination and it's

fun and it's creative, but that doesn't

stop you from using everybody along the

way.

When my daughter was in fifth grade, she

came home and we'd sit at the dinner

table and she would tell us stories of

what was going on in her classroom,

which was absolutely unbelievable. And

if I had a fifth grade child telling me

that today, I would go to school the

next day and

I don't know what I would do. Squeeze

that teacher. But she had a teacher who

had no idea what was going on in the

classroom and some pretty terrible

things were going on. Now, they weren't

happening directly to my daughter who

was the shy, quiet child who sat in the

back and observed, but it certainly it

certainly got to her and frightened her

because she would come home and talk

about it. And that is where I got the

idea to write Blubber. I might never

have written Blubber, but the school bus

culture, my children were then in third

grade and fifth grades, and I knew that

school bus culture, and I listened to

the kids, and I knew the kids, and they

spent a lot of time in my house. Now

again, you don't have to have kids to

write books about kids, but when you do

have kids of the age group that you're

writing about, which I did for a little

while, certainly you're going to get

ideas from those kids.

I have this feeling that those of us who

write or maybe work in any creative

field, there was something about the way

we were born. Something about the way we

were children

that

set us apart. We're not better. We're

not worse.

We're not really different, but this is

something that we have inside us.

Moraurice Sak once said, "I've never had

children, but I was a child." And I

think that's true of all of us um who

write for children. We

are in such touch with the children. We

were that little Judy, whoever she is. I

mean, she's right there, you know, and I

have such memories, you know. Can you

remember the way your classroom smelled

on a wet winter day? All of the details.

Um,

I have them. They're with me.

Other people don't. And that's fine. But

I think that's a difference between

those of us who choose to write for

children and those of us who don't. If I

were trying to get you to go back into

your childhoods,

uh maybe I would start with school

and I would say put yourself into your

whatever grade. Put yourself into your

third grade classroom. Who's your

teacher?

Who's sitting around you? What are you

doing? I mean, I can go back today into

my third grade classroom

and um and it's all there. Uh you you

have to you have to make a real effort

to do that, to go back and to find those

details, no matter how long ago it was

and how much things have changed. And

you know what? If you can't really get

there, then absolutely

go into schools, ask if you can, you

know, help out at a classroom or you're

writing a book and you need to observe.

I know lots of people who do that during

the course of writing a book, you want

to be able to see it.

I hated secrets when I was growing up

and I remember that they were always

keeping secrets from the children. Don't

tell the children. Don't tell the

children. Don't tell tell them what what

what and what I made up in my head in my

stories was usually

much worse

than what I would have learned had my

parents told me the truth.

Um, so I think there's that, you know,

secrets that that adults are keeping

from children. Uh, things that they

think children don't understand that

children actually do understand or want

to understand. So, I like writing from

that point of view. But again, you have

to put yourself back into the child that

you were. But a lot of times adults want

to forget about it and block it out

because it was tough.

Because there's no kid

who grows up without having a lot of

problems. Nobody. And the things that

you have to come to terms with and go

through and the way you're treated and

the way you've treated other people. But

sometimes you have to force yourself

back there.

When I started to write and I got the

first two books out of the way, then I

knew that I wanted to write about kids

on the cusp. I like the idea of the 11

12 year old um just on the edge because

somewhere around that age you find out

that your parents are real people.

It's not just mom and dad who are there

for you, who belong to you. They're real

people

with good points and less good points.

and you start to learn about that and I

think that's really interesting and then

also at that age everything is a first

you know it's all new and exciting when

I was 12

everything was in front of me everything

was possible

and I think that's what really got me I

really wanted to write about that all

those possibilities when I started to

write for kids I vowed I would never

send the the kids away to Aunt Becky's

house or granny soandso's house and not

deal with parents. In those days, there

were a lot of books that didn't deal

with parents and kids. And I've had no

way I'm going to deal with the parents

and the kids um together in the same

house if that's the way they live. I

mean, most kids live with a parent and

have to deal with that person, that

person's moods, that person's likes and

dislikes and uh stresses and everything

else.

So, it their lives are their lives are

complicated

and I wanted to deal with the real that

reality.

real stuff um wasn't there for me when I

was a kid. I couldn't read about real

stuff. I couldn't read about real

families

when I was growing up. And I wanted to

desperately I desperately wanted to read

about real life. I wanted to find

some kind of family that resembled mine

in a book. But I wanted to read about

nittygritty stuff. I wanted to read

about people who didn't always get

along. I wanted to read about secrets

that were kept from kids. I wanted to

read about

um puberty. Oh, I was so interested. I

was so fascinated. But there was no

place that I could read about it and I

wanted to. And you know, we talked about

it, my friends and I talked about it

endlessly.

And some of the crazy things, especially

about sexuality, that we came up with,

somebody's babysitter told her this,

somebody else thought that she read

this. And I had one friend who had a

book

about getting your period that made

absolutely no sense to us. And my father

tried, you know, he tried to explain it

to me, but it came out some something

about lunar cycles and and when the moon

was full, I came away thinking all women

all over the world had their periods.

And wasn't that wonderful? And I can

remember looking out the window at the

full moon and thinking, when will that

happen to me? And so I was determined

when I started to write that I was going

to be honest and put them in my books.

And um and Deanie masturbates,

but I never heard the word masturbation

when I was a kid and neither did Deanie.

But she knew she had a special place and

if she rubbed it, she could get a good

feeling. And I knew the same thing. And

I wanted that in a book because if I had

had that in a book, that would have been

so

helpful, such a relief to me to know,

even though I was lucky that my friends

talked about the special place and the

good feeling. And it turned out that we

all had a special place and a good

feeling. But I have a writer friend who

said she read that book too young and

she thought that her special place was

right here on her side and she rubbed it

and rubbed it and rubbed it. She was

probably eight and she waited for the

good feeling but it didn't come but you

know it didn't hurt her to read the

book. It maybe she asked a couple of

questions to her parents. Well, good,

right? Nothing bad happened because she

read the book. So, I wanted to get in

those things that I felt would have been

helpful to me and things that I knew

um were true.

Difficult subject matter is, you know,

doesn't just have to do with sexuality.

It has to do with um

divorce. when I was writing it's not the

end of the world that's a difficult

subject matter and it's the same with um

um just as long as we're together

there's a divorce in there and kids are

struggling with that they're suffering

um here's to you Rachel Robinson you

know a disruptive child in the family I

mean these are all

difficult but real subject matter

Writing a book like In the Unlikely

Event with very difficult subject matter

uh was hard. And know that if you're

going to write about difficult subject

matter,

it's going to be hard to write it, it's

going to be hard for people to read it.

Not everybody wants to read that book of

mine because it's it's tough. And that's

okay. I had to write it. I had to tell

that story. But no, going into it, it's

going to be tough. Here's a rule that my

great editor, Dick Jackson, once came up

with when we were talking about this,

and he said,

"If it doesn't advance the story or

illuminate the character,

it goes. But if it does if it does

advance the story, whether it's language

or behavior

or it does illuminate the character,

it belongs.

And that's something that I think is any

one of us can take with us and use.

That's a good way of thinking about it.

But I wouldn't stop. You know, if you

are writing

something that you think is

controversial,

write it. Get it in there. You can

always take it out. But if you feel it

belongs,

go with it. When I was writing my

earlier books in the 70s,

um, kids did not have there was no

internet. They didn't have a place to

have their questions answered openly and

honestly. They didn't necessarily have a

support group where they could sit

around and talk about these things,

physical issues, puberty,

um what's happening to our bodies. I

wanted

kids to feel

that they were all in this together. It

wasn't they were okay. I guess that's

the whole thing. You're okay.

You know, you're normal.

No problem here. Just because your

parents won't talk to you about it,

you're still okay. I think I wanted

that. I think I wanted them to feel that

themes. A word that makes me ill.

I remember in sixth grade we had to do

book reports. Instead of reading books

for book reports, I invented my own

books. And I always got an A on my

invented book reports. And I didn't if I

really read the books. So it was much

more fun to make up my own books. I

don't know what my themes are because I

don't think in terms of themes. what I

don't I usually someone tells me like

I'll read a review or I'll read a piece

about my book and it will say the theme

of this book is and I'll say oh that's

what I was writing. Um so I stay away

from thinking in terms of themes and I

think you can too. I don't do messages

either. I don't like to think in terms

of messages. I think message books are

not good. Um,

so that's not how I ever want to think.

Even though a book like Blubber,

I'd rather that in a book like Blubber

and specifically in Blubber that the

young reader comes away thinking and

knows right from wrong. They already

know right from wrong. I don't have to

hit them over the head with a message

and say, "It's wrong to treat people

like this." No, that wouldn't work. That

would turn the young reader off. So, I'd

rather present situations and characters

and

leave it to them to come away thinking

about what it is.

We all have to be very very careful to

be the kid when we're writing. So of

course we're never ever talking down to

them. We're never ever preaching.

We're not an adult

telling children a story about being a

kid. No. No. We are that kid. That's

where we are. We might know a lot more

because we're adults.

Um, but we don't announce that.

That might come

through character and action

and dialogue,

but we never ever are an adult

talking down to a child. I don't care if

you're 5 years old. You're a real

person. You have real feelings. I'll bet

you remember because I certainly do when

you were young about certain adults uh

who

always talk down to you. Oh, little cute

thing.

But really,

if I meet a 5-year-old,

I want to talk to that 5-year-old as a

person,

not as an adult saying, "You're such a

cute little thing." even if she is a

cute little thing and she probably is.

Uh so you because we don't ever want to

lose sight of the fact that children are

human beings and they have feelings and

emotions

and

they have curiosity and imagination

and we don't want to forget that. So

when we're writing, now I'm preaching to

you. I'm sorry for that everybody. Um,

but when when we write, we write as we

are them.

My very best teenage characters are in

my adult novels. They're in Summer

Sisters. They're in In The Unlikely

Event. um they're in smart women. Those

are my best

teenage characters. So when I first

wrote wifey, that was the first adult

book after many children's books. And I

decided that I wanted to write this

adult novel and oh my god, everybody

told me this is going to ruin your

career and you have to use a different

name and and you can't do this and blahy

blah. Well, as soon as you tell me I

can't do something, I'm going to do it.

That's the badass coming out. Even

though the fearful, anxious child grows

up into a badass

woman. Okay? So, don't tell me what to

do because I'm probably then I'm really

going to want to do it. Or maybe that's

childlike. I don't know. Um, but to find

a voice for wifey

took me three or four months to find a

way to tell it. But

once I did the the writing the nothing

is any different. It's just as hard.

Then I wrote Smart Women, which is full

of teenage characters, some of my better

teenage characters, I think, and also

women. And it's told from various

viewpoints. And um

uh it's it it's just what world are you

inhabiting? And then if you're going

back and forth, you're inhabiting this

teenage world and then you're inhabiting

this world of parents.

Well, for me it's fun. I like that. It's

uh

it's again it's a challenge. I like to

be challenged.

Voice, I think, is equally important

for younger readers and

adult readers.

Pace,

I think, is essential

in a book for young readers.

Boring is the biggest turnoff. I like

energetic writing and I like fast-paced

writing and I don't care what age I'm

writing for. Although I know that an

adult audience will give me, they say a

100 pages. I'm not at all sure of that.

That adult readers will give you a 100

pages before they put your book down.

Kids are not going to do that. You've

got to hook them right away. Um because

they're not going to give you a 100

pages. And certainly when you're writing

for a young audience, you want that

first sentence to be like, "Wow, I

really want to know what this is about."

Try to get them on that first page. And

even with a an adult audience, um,

you want it to be compelling right away.

What I did do um when I was starting out

was I went to the library and I came

home with armloads of books. This is

when I was starting writing for

children. I came home with all of these

books and I would sit down at night and

read them and then put them in piles.

Boring. Don't want to write books like

this. No, this doesn't appeal to me. Oh,

this is fabulous. And Beverly Clearary

books. Um, I fell off the sofa laughing.

I mean, they were so perfect and so she

so got into the child. She was just

wonderful. There's no way to explain

Beverly Clearary except that she was a

genius. And she probably didn't know

that either, you know. She just she just

did it. bringing home the children's

books from the library just, you know,

inspired me. Um, and let me know what I

wanted to do and what I didn't want to

do. Sometimes figuring out what you

don't want to do is every bit as

important as what you do want to do.

Because if you say, "I don't want to

write books like these," then that's

helping you figure out what you do want

to write and why.

So that was a very valuable exercise for

me and I encourage everyone who writes

to me asking about writing for children

to do that and also to see not just the

great books the classic books that are

out there but the books that are being

published at the time when you are going

to try to be published because that's

very important too. What is being

published now? Here's the big thing. How

do you really learn to write?

You learn to write because you're a

reader

and you read and you read and you read.

How else could you possibly know how to

put a book together? You read and you

see, oh, I see how it's done. And you

can start here. You can start with

dialogue. You can start with action. You

can start with an interior voice.

There's no right or wrong way. But you

would never know any of this if you

weren't a reader. So when I meet people

who say, "I want to be a writer, but I

don't really like to read." I know that

they're never going to be writing

because how could you possibly? I always

loved reading. Always. By being a

reader, you're always studying

how to be a writer and you never stop.

I never cease to be inspired by

a good book. And so there you are.

That's the homework, isn't it? To keep

reading, keep studying. How is it done?

That's how we learn.

So, I've chatted with you about how

ideas usually come to me um slowly over

a long period of time

and now comes in the unlikely event

which came in a flash in a way no other

book has ever come to me. No book will

ever come to me this way again. So, I

want to share this with you, too,

because it could happen to you. In

January of 2009, I was sitting in an

auditorium in Key West during an event

that we have every year, a pretty great

event called the Key West Literary

Seminar. And it's it's a seminar where

the audience is almost all made up of

readers. There may be some writers in

there, too, but it's not a learn to

write. It's about reading and the guest

speakers are all writers and it's

usually around a theme and in 2009 the

theme was uh new voices in literature.

So we had a lot of new writers there,

younger writers. I'm on the board so I

know a lot about what goes on. But after

lunch is usually a sleepy session. You

know, people are like, "Oh, there's a

lot of eyes closing." And here is this

wonderful new young writer, unknown to

almost all of us then, named Rachel

Kushner, who has since become very

famous. But then she was talking to us

about her first novel, TX from Cuba, a

book that I had read already because I

knew she was coming and I liked it very,

very much. So I was interested in what

she might have to say and she talked to

us about how she got the idea to write

this book which was um this is the way I

remember it anyway. Stories that her

mother had told her. her mother, I

think, had grown up in Cuba um just

before Castro and the revolution when

when it was when it was just beginning

to change. And maybe her mother lived on

a on a plantation. That's the way I

remember it.

Pineapples or whatever. And this book

was inspired by stories that her mother

told her about growing up in Cuba in the

50s.

The only reason this is important is in

the 50s I heard this in the 50s

and I swear to you it was I was struck

at that moment. It was like electricity

went through me in the 50s. And

I had a story. I had a story that lived

deep inside me

that never came bubbling up until that

moment. In the 50s. What a simple

sentence. How many times had I said in

the 50s myself? But when Rachel said it

on stage in the 50s, stories her mother

told her about growing up in the 50s,

this entire book came to me at once with

characters and plot and um

before I left the auditorium that

afternoon,

I knew this book the way you might see a

movie. It just went right through me. I

had this story. I'm a writer. I'm a

writer. I've been a writer all these

years. So for 40 years that I was

writing then or more, I had this story

deep inside me and I never thought to

tell it

which to me is crazy. You know, how can

a person who's a writer have a story

like this, such a great story,

and never think to tell it, not consider

it, and say, "No, I'm not going to tell

that," or, "I don't know how to tell

that," or, "I'm not ready to tell that."

But it never occurred to me to tell it.

And it wasn't as if I had forgotten it.

I hadn't.

But until that moment,

I wasn't ready. It didn't occur to me to

tell this story. And so, I went home so

excited because I knew I I already had

three families. I had three young women.

I had everything. It just seemed to me

everything. Although when I look at my

notebook now and the notes that I made,

I realize I didn't have everything. But

I had enough.

Um because when I was 14 years old in

Elizabeth, New Jersey, my hometown,

in a period of 58 days,

three airplanes, commercial airplanes

crashed. Now, we were very, you know,

flying was new then commercial, you

know, people didn't fly around the way

they do now. Uh, and we were very close

to Newark airport, very close. And so,

three planes for entirely different

reasons

crashed in our town. Um, and I don't

need to tell you the whole story, but

one just a block or two from my junior

high.

One that almost went into the girls high

school. We had two public high schools,

sex segregated um, when I was growing

up. So, the girls went to Baton High

School. This plane came almost through

the window uh just as school was letting

out,

but it managed to get over the roof and

crash into the neighborhood.

Um the pilot of that plane was a local

Elizabeth

man and I'm sure that he knew that that

was the girl's high school. Of course he

knew. He lived right near there. He

lived in the neighborhood and somehow he

got that plane over the school.

But you can imagine what this is saying

now to the kids. Junior high, high

school, the third one in the middle of

the night fell onto the into onto the

grounds of the only orphanage in town.

So to the kids,

they were after us. Whoever it was,

somebody was after us.

When I came home so excited and knowing

that I had to tell this story,

I for the first time maybe did my

research and read all

of these newspapers. I have this much

research.

I never did real research for another

book because I was always writing

contemporary stories and I didn't have

to do research. But in this case, I did

three at least three months before I

ever attempted to start writing the

story. My research consisted mainly of

getting copies of the newspaper stories

because it was

the newspaper men. They called

themselves that the reporters who told

this story.

If this happened today, you can imagine

I mean we'd be glued to our TV sets to

the internet. So it was a very different

time and people got their news from

reading the papers and the language that

was used the the the descriptive pros

that was used then of course no reporter

would ever be using that today or

allowed to use that today. I can't

imagine such a thing. You know the plane

fell like a great angry bird. um

to me now looking at it, wonderful

descriptive pros and and and many of

those stories um they had by lines of

course and I just felt when I was doing

this so connected to these reporters. I

just felt that I knew them.

They were they were my friends, these

reporters who were doing this. I fell in

love with research, with the process of

doing research. And my husband, who has

written several non-fiction books and

done a lot of research, knew exactly

what I was talking about when I said,

"I'll never write another book without

research." Because talk about a security

blanket.

My own notebook was always my security

blanket. But in this case, I had this

much research. I had so much. I had such

security that I was never afraid to come

to work at my computer because I knew

that there would be something wonderful

each day coming out of those stories.

Um, and indeed many characters did come

out of the newspaper stories.

The danger of course is you fall in love

with your research and you want to use

all of it. And I learned this from my

husband and you can't because

he explained to me that you'll pick up a

book that's been well researched and

sometimes it takes you out of the story

and you know that this person who wrote

this book has just done such a great job

with research and can't bear to leave

anything out. And so I learned from

George that no matter how much you fall

in love with it, if it's not advancing

your story,

you can't necessarily use it. You

probably can't use it. But it's still

wonderful that it leads you down this

path and exciting. And it also puts you

for me um the research put me back in

the 50s. remember I actually was there

in the 50s. I was a 14-year-old um Mary,

my protagonist, is 15, but still it's

the same. I wanted her to be as old as

she could be and still be a student at

that junior high. So, she's in ninth

grade. And I needed that because I had

another very important character,

Christina, who was a senior at the girls

high school. I needed Mary to be in

junior high because only then were the

boys and girls gathered outside their

home rooms every day talking about why

this is happening to us and what could

it be from zombies to communists to what

what is the reason that this is

happening to us and why did they choose

our town or was it a mistake as one of

them said maybe they meant it to happen

in New York, but they missed and they

landed in Elizabeth. They crashed in

Elizabeth. So research is both positive

and wonderful and gives you a sense of

security when you're writing and there's

that danger that you have to be aware

of. But I would say put it all in in the

beginning and then as you

read through it and continue to write

about it, you'll take out what doesn't

need to be there. You'll always enjoy it

for yourself, but it won't need to be

there to tell your story.

So, while I was writing the book, um

maybe even before, I talked to all of my

friends, people I'm still in touch with

who grew up with me and would remember

that time. And from every single one of

them, I got some little tidbit, little

piece of gold that I used in the book.

Um, everyone, you know, had different

memories, but one man who I went to

school with, uh, remembered that, um,

his mother had a babysitter hired to

take care of his little sister and that

her son was the pilot of one of the

planes.

Just that little bit, she became Mrs.

Barnes. I named her Mrs. Barnes. became

a major character in the book, very

important character in the book. And

each person gave me one little story

like that because all of our memories

are so different, but the shared

connection there of the memories. And

people say to me, well, how did you

research Pixie Pink lipstick? And I

said, I didn't research it. I wore it. I

remembered it, you know, because it was

during my lifetime. And my husband would

say, you know, you're writing historical

fiction. And I would say, are you

kidding? I'm not writing historical

fiction. This was during my lifetime.

And he said, "Enough, set.

In going through the notebooks, I just

pulled some pages from one of them

because I really wanted you to see what

goes into it. This doesn't mean you need

to do it this way. Why why would you?

But this is what's worked for me for so

many years and this is just one example.

And in this case, I thought that I knew

the whole story. So in the notebooks, I

I don't know. I found how much I didn't

know and how much I wanted to put in the

story. And that's what the notebooks

helped me find.

example for you on um

this is now uh

April 2011

and I think it was 2009

when I actually got the idea and this is

what it says. Oi h I read what I have. I

have next to nothing. I have to start

from the beginning. help with a lot of

exclamation points. It also says, "Who

are these characters?"

This is a really important note for me

because it means I read what I had and I

didn't know the characters

and that was my job

to make you know the characters and care

about the characters. So I had to dig

deeper and deeper into who were these

people

because there was just an idea of them

at the beginning, not the reality of who

are they really. So I think those two

notes I don't know they mean a lot to me

now and I hope that they mean something

to you. The reading what you have and

finding out ah I have next to nothing.

What do I do? I go back. I go back to

the beginning

and I try to go deeper, more layers,

more complexity,

more story.

I have another page here that is

shocking to me that if I hadn't seen

this, I would have told you that I knew

all the characters on that day in 2009.

And yet this note says

question. Could somebody be a reporter?

Maybe Benny's uncle. Now Benny became

Mary. Name was wrong. She became Mary

and she has a young uncle.

I thought from the beginning I knew that

Uncle Henry was going to be one of the

most important characters in the book.

He certainly turns into one of the most

important characters in the book. But on

this day, I didn't know that. I wrote

myself question, could somebody be a

reporter?

And of course, Uncle Henry became the

reporter that has all the bylines and

these are his stories and he is

essential

to this book. But I didn't know it. And

I surprised myself by finding that out.

I have a note here about Natalie and it

says, "Dentist privilege siblings,

housekeeper, eat dinner promptly at 6:00

so the housekeeper can go home.

Laundress in basement all day on Monday.

No one tells Natalie anything about

anything.

Um, this becomes Natalie's family. Her

father is a dentist. Um, they are a

privileged family. The mother comes from

money. She has siblings. She has a

six-year-old

sister, Fern, who is a very important

character. In telling this book, I'm

using a lot of young characters from

Fern who is six to Natalie and Mary who

are 15 to Christina who's 18. So there

are a lot of young characters in this

book. And I think that's, you know, that

goes back to

I I like to write books for children. I

like to write books about kids.

I knew a family that had um a laundress

who came and spent all day Monday or

someday, I don't remember which day, in

the basement. I had seen her I had seen

her ironing their clothes. This seemed

to me I was a dentist daughter, but we,

you know, we didn't live this way. This

family lives this way because again the

mother comes from money and the father

is a dentist. But this is not my family.

This is Natalie's family. Very

different. Um so yeah, I knew a family

who had a housekeeper who made them

their dinner and then went home every

night. So they had to eat early. And um

once I think I was invited to stay for

dinner and it was we ate at 5:00 because

whoever the housekeeper was was then

going to leave. So yes, you know, of

course when you're writing fiction, you

use everything that you know and have

seen and have experienced. You don't

invent everything. You invent a lot.

That's called imagination. But you pull

details from things in real life that

you knew.

I'll just um share one thing. I see this

here. Christina is a character who works

after school at the dentist's office.

His name is Dr. O in the book Dr. Osner.

His name changed many times too from Dr.

Shiffron and finally wound up Dr. Osner.

Don't ask me why. I have no idea. It

just seemed to fit. And then he's called

Dr. O. I didn't know that was going to

happen. I maybe I got tired of writing

Dr. Osner and so I started to call him

Dr. O. Um and Christina is a character

who's a senior at high school and um she

will have an offer to continue to work

for him after high school. She's not

going to college. She's going to be

working. So

Dr. O has a shelf in his office in his

not in his dental part of his office but

in his little back office. He has a

shelf of plaster of Paris statues. And

this is for his temper because when he

gets frustrated and has a temper, he has

something to smash.

And my father had that. And I knew that.

He never told me, but I knew that. And

maybe I knew that from his nurse, who is

very much um the character of Daisy,

lovely Daisy, is inspired by my father's

nurse, who I called Miss Fay, and she

appears also in starring Sally J.

Freriedman as herself. But I think I

think it was FA who told me that she

bought these plaster of Paris characters

like Disney dwarfs and things that you

would paint but if you smash them they

broke into a million pieces and that my

father who had a temper. He was a very

gentle, generous, kind man, but he could

have a temper and then he could throw

one of these down. And I'm sure it was

FA who swept it up.

Christina in the book, this young woman

after after witnessing the second plane

crash and the horror, just

horror of it, the flames, the people

running out of their houses, horrible

things. She sees it. She's a witness.

And then she makes her way to Dr. O's

office and Dr. O and Daisy are gone.

They have gone to help someone else. And

she comes in and um

she feels a sense of peace and quiet and

ordinariness that she needs. And she

changes into her uniform and she sits

down to call patients to cancel their

appointments.

and she

in a rage over what's happened and the

horror of it, she takes one of these

plaster of Paris

characters and she smashes it

hoping to feel better.

She doesn't,

but she then cleans it up.

I have here a whole series of Greek

names. When I was trying to name

Christina's family, many, many, many

Greek names. I must have researched

that. And here I say on a page,

these names are getting worse. No wonder

they use nicknames.

I don't even know what I mean by that,

but it's it's it's when I'm trying to

find names for all my characters. And

there are a lot of nicknames. Rusty,

whose real name is Naomi, but she has

rusty hair. Um, this says Benny for

Bernice, but of course, I changed her to

Mary for Miriam. Irene sounds glamorous,

but I kept that name for the grandma.

Irene, I like that name.

There's a lingerie shop in the book and

I have a series of names for that until

I came up with Nia's lingerie. I have a

page here from one of my notebooks and I

have a feeling that in every notebook

there are pages like this when I'm just

sitting there daydreaming about the

title. What will be the title of this

book? And like so many of my books, I

had no title. But I have titles here.

The sky is falling. The winter of our

question mark. The end of childhood when

we question mark. Looking up out of the

sky. Winter sky. Falling. Falling.

Falling. The sky is falling. I write

that over and over. Falling apart.

Falling in love. Falling from the sky.

Uh, of course, none of those are good

titles. and none of those became the

title.

I find um in the notebooks a lot of

questions to myself

and I think that's good, you know,

asking myself questions. Um

could she work after school? Could she

work at Natalie's dad's office?

Maybe she'll become his nurse after high

school. These are just I'm developing

the character of Christina and I'm

asking myself questions. There are a lot

of questions here um as well as things

that will never

never wind up in the book. So

this is again from the notebook, not

from a draft. And I know that because

it's in my own handwriting and there's

no computer anything on this page. So

I'm I'm working in the notebook. I'm

writing everything down that I can think

of for days and days and days and weeks,

months maybe. I'm just writing this

stuff down probably as I'm doing my

research. And this says save for part

three on the night of the third crash.

And it says her parents think she's in

bed asleep and she is in bed but not her

own.

She's with Jack and maybe they've gone

too far. And now Christina is crying and

already worried she'll get pregnant and

ruin her life. It's just before midnight

when Jack walks her home. It's cold and

clear. Jack says it'll be okay. And she

doesn't say anything. Jack says trust

me. She looks over at him.

You know, there is I like that as I read

it, but that's not the way it is in the

book. There is a scene where and maybe

she says because I hope I left that line

in. I really like it. Her parents think

she's in bed asleep and she is in bed

but not her own. There is uh a a very

fully developed scene um with Christina

in Jack in bed for the first time and

Christina is thinking to herself and

this all comes from this little note.

Christina is thinking to herself,

you know, she's seen the second crash

and she's thinking to herself, "Oh, I

don't want to die a virgin. at least I

want to know what it's like to do this

thing, to feel this thing. And she

consoles herself later by saying that

maybe that's when she says it to herself

at because there is going to be a third

crash this night and Christina and Jack

are going to see it and they're going to

be on the scene. And in this crash, the

one that lands on the grounds of the

orphanage, there are survivors. The

plane breaks in half.

Don't ask. I don't know how this could

be. But there are survivors and Jack and

his brother Mason, another very

important character, are pulling people

from the plane.

And there are explosions.

Every time they get somebody out,

there's another explosion, but they keep

going back in. And this is following

Christina and Jack in bed together

having sex for the first time. And um

it's heavy. There's a lot there's a lot

to it. But I'm telling you this because

that comes from this moment. Just

writing down this little note to myself

and then saying save this for part

three.

I have a note to myself that says do

someone on the plane. This is the first

plane. And of course, I knew a lot about

who was on the plane because of my

research. And I learned that there was a

young dancer on that plane. She was on

her way to Miami because she had a gig

at a nightclub there. She was going to

be dancing there. And I didn't know then

her real name was Doris Ruby. I have

since had letters from her relatives.

Um, and I, uh, she went from being Carol

Lee in early drafts or early notes to

being Ruby. Ruby Granic is her name, and

she's an important character. And it

says, uh, make it more real, get to know

her, make her younger. She's in Walter

Winchell's column here. Um, let Uncle

Henry, I don't know what because it just

ends there.

And um but that's just how you know a

character

comes. Do someone on the plane make it

more real. Get to know her. And that's

where um the character of Ruby comes

from. I knew true things about her

because of the research. But then the

imagination takes over. I gave her a

family. I um let you see her with her

family on the night that she's packing

to go on this trip.

So, we're more invested

in her when we find out what happens.

And she lives then through Natalie

in some crazy kind of way. That was pure

imagination.

I didn't know anyone like that ever. I

mean, and that's the thing, you know, I

tell you, yes, there are a lot of things

that come from my life. There are a lot

of things that come from other people's

lives, people I've known, um, things

that I remember, but the every bit as

much comes from that thing that we have,

our imaginations.

That's what our ability, that's our

talent. We have imaginations that allow

us to tell these stories.

after the book was published and I was

going around the country um on a on a

book tour and even out of the country

there was never a place that I went

where there weren't people in the

audience who remembered who were there

who were related to someone who was on a

plane. There was a connection at every

single venue. In fact, um I wrote about

a young girl. She was uh it was her

graduation from high school. It was her

gift, a trip to Miami and she was going

with her mother and she was maybe 17

years old and she was on a plane that

crashed.

one of those planes. Um, I don't know

how this is possible, but there were

survivors. She was a survivor. And I

wrote about her because she was in a

newspaper story that I didn't make her a

character. She was in a newspaper story.

She had been interviewed by the reporter

in the interview story. She came She

came to one of my events.

It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. We

stood up there and hugged and I said to

her, "Did you ever fly again?" She said,

"I flew the next week. I wasn't giving

up my trip to Miami and I've been flying

ever since."

I loved her.

There's nothing more important than

character when you're writing. And you

know, I think if you ask any writer, no

matter what that person writes, it's

going to be the same thing because

any book is about the characters more

than

plot or anything else. It's the

characters that make

the story work.

So, I would, if I were you guys, um,

really work at developing character. So,

how do you do that? You have to get to

know who your characters are. And I

think there are different approaches. My

my approach is often is is always I have

to write it to find out who it is when I

start on day one. No matter how much I

think I know because I've been keeping

this notebook and I have backstory and I

have little details to come and use and

for security. Um I still on day one I

don't know that character. I don't know

how that character is going to surprise

me. And

that's how I get to know my characters.

My characters will surprise me. This is

good for me. This is very good. So I can

sit at the dinner table that night and

say to my family, "You will never

believe what Karen did today." And then

they listen. You know, they humor me as

if I'm talking about real people because

to me they are real people and they're

becoming more real every day as I find

out who they are. That's the thing. You

have to know them. You have to get to

know them. You have to believe in them

as if they are real people because to

you they are. you know, they may only

exist in a book, but they are real.

That's the only way, I think, to make

your reader feel

um deeply connected to your characters.

For your reader to say, I felt that I

was reading about myself or I felt that

I was reading about friends. I felt that

I was reading about real people. That's

because they are that way to you. So

character is everything. Without

character, there's nothing. So, you

know, spend a lot of time with your

characters and getting to know them. And

the way that you get to know them can be

different from the way I get to know

them. But my way is they don't come

alive until I write about them, until I

put them down on paper.

Well, how do you build characters? I

mean, what is a character? Character is

what you're thinking,

the inner voice, what you're saying

versus what you're thinking.

um and and a series of details. And I

don't mean, you know, little quirks that

you should repeat throughout like she

licked her lips and then 10 pages later

she licked her lips and 10 pages after

that she licked her lips. But but um you

want to find very real

details. Well, I once had a letter from

a kid that said, "You know what I love

about your books? um they brush their

teeth, they go to the bathroom, they do

things that regular people do. And I

think she was talking about the scene in

Margaret where um early on they've just

moved to the suburbs and grandma comes

unannounced from the city to the door

carrying bags from her deli in New York.

sure that they wouldn't have the same

kind of delies in suburban New Jersey.

And so, um, Margaret then goes upstairs.

She's very excited to tell her parents,

"You won't believe who's at the door.

It's grandma." And she goes into her

parents' room and either her mother or

her father, I can't remember which one,

is brushing his or her teeth and

spitting and saying, "What?" and and

that's what appealed to that child

because I think it was real. So, you

know, you you want your characters to be

real. I don't care whether you're

writing fantasy or you're writing

dystopian or you're writing um reality,

whatever you're writing, mystery,

adventure,

the same details

will help you make your character in any

of those books, in anything that you

write

with characters.

It's all about them and it's all about

making them come alive to the reader,

which I think means making them come

alive to you.

There's a scene in Margaret early on

when she's just met these girls. She's a

new girl at school and they invite her

to join their club, which they're just

going to invent this club. And at this

club, they're going to have boy books

and keep notes on boys. And Margaret

doesn't know these girls very well, and

they certainly don't know her. And

there's a line here I like. They agree

that they need a good club name. They're

trying to come up with a good club name.

It got quiet. Everybody thought I didn't

really think, but I pretended to.

I mean, that's funny. You can also know

what he or she is thinking about what's

being discussed, and that's fun. You

know, you want to have fun um with your

characters. Even in the most serious of

books, I think there has to be room for

humor.

I am emotional

and I do let that emotion come out and I

think you have to um

you can't tell

your readers how to feel. You don't ever

want to do if I see a movie or read a

book that tells me how to feel. No, I'm

out of there. You know, I'm angry. I

resent that.

So, there's a there's a fine line, I

guess, between

telling

and showing

through your characters. I mean, you

take a writing class, it's the first

thing you ever hear is is show don't

tell.

Um, but somehow

I want my readers

to feel emotional. If there's something

emotional going on in the book, I want

that. But I don't set out to do it. It

has to come naturally through the

characters and through their inner

voices,

what they're thinking and feeling and

what they're showing.

It's because of what your character

does. It's the action. It's the inner

voice. Again, it's it's putting your

character into a situation and showing

us the character, but not telling us um

Jane just felt so angry that she threw

something across the room.

Instead, it's Jane

picked up and threw it across the room.

Jane picked up her hairbrush and threw

it across the room. So, we never want to

say um you know, I'm analyzing here and

I'm telling you I'm so nonanalytical,

which is true, but I I again, I want to

try and bring this all out. So, you you

don't ever have to

say how your character feels.

In fact, we don't want to say how our

characters feel. We want them to show us

how they feel. I mean, you're developing

characters.

Characters have emotions.

And it's good to let that come out

or to take it away. Take it away. And

that's another way of dealing with it.

You know, we don't want it to be

we don't want to be pounded over the

head with it. We want to find it. We

want to come to it ourselves as readers

in Deanie. Um

Deanie is having an awful time and you

know she's been diagnosed with scoliosis

and she's wearing this medieval brace

that thankfully nobody has to wear

anymore. Um, and she comes home from

school and she she's been this beautiful

girl and everybody's always told her,

"You're so beautiful. You should be a

model." And her mother says, "Deie is

the beauty and Helen is the brain." And

and so everything is about her beauty.

And suddenly

that's been taken away from her, she

thinks, because of the brace. And what

does she do? She has this beautiful long

hair and she picks up a scissors and she

chops it off. Now running through this

book is a movie called Splender in the

Grass and Deanie knows that she was

named for the character Wilmaine who's

called Deanie in the movie. In the movie

Deanie goes crazy and cuts her hair off.

And so Ardini feels that she is going

crazy and she is going to prove it by

cutting her hair. And she chops off her

hair in her room alone. The hair is

fallen all around her. And then her

mother calls, "Deie, lunch. Lunch is

ready."

And she's amazed because suddenly she's

hungry.

You know, she's back to being a person

again. and she steps out, doesn't say a

word about her hair, you know, and her

mother practically faints, but she's

hungry and she goes for lunch. And you

know, that kind of comes from um in my

own life when my father died.

I remember all of the people coming to

the house and thinking I used to think

before I experienced this. Why would

anybody

who is, you know, feeling this terrible

loss in her life, why would anybody want

other people around? And I I understood

then that

I was terribly sad. There were people

around. And guess what? I was hungry.

They had brought food and I was hungry.

And I asked myself,

"How can you be hungry? How can you

possibly want to eat at a time like

this?" It was the day of the funeral. We

had just come from the funeral. How

could I be hungry? But I was. And so I

think that's important, you know, the

the height of emotion and the ordinary

the ordinariness of daily life.

Put them together. See what happens.

Don't tell the reader. The reader will

experience it on her own.

A lot of my characters are outsiders. I

guess I've never thought about that, but

looking back,

um, I see that they are moving to a new

place.

So, I had that experience. I lived in

one house really from when I was 2 years

old until I graduated from high school.

But in the middle there, um, in third

and fourth grades, we moved to Miami

Beach for the school year. My mother was

funny. My mother would not go until she

thought hurricane season was over. Never

mind that we had to start school in New

Jersey and then by Halloween, my brother

and I were in another place in another

school where we were new kids. I was the

new kid. It's bad enough to be the new

kid or hard enough to be the new kid at

the beginning of the school year, but to

come in after everybody else at

Halloween,

that was something. And I did it twice,

third grade and fourth grade, although I

wrote about it in Sally J. Freeman, and

I put her in fifth grade. So,

it was my experience. I know what that

felt like to be a new kid. So, I often

move my characters around. I mean,

Margaret's a new kid, you know. It's

Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting

to write a character who um who's the

outsider for one reason or another.

Deanie becomes an outsider because of

what happens to her. She feels alone and

isolated.

Although she has very kind friends who

are with her, she doesn't necessarily

feel that, but she is lucky to have

those friends. So I think

being an outsider is an interesting

place to be

for your character. Not for you

necessarily, but for your character.

So, in starring Sally J. Freriedman as

herself, a family story set uh in the

late 40s. Um actually my most

autobiographical book

uh because it takes place in Miami

Beach. As I've said, I went to Miami

Beach for two school years and um being

separated from family,

all of that was very hard. But Sally, I

think of all of my characters, Sally is

the kind of

child I was

curious, um imaginative.

I despise the secrets that

parents and grandparents kept from the

children. I hated secrets. To this day,

I hate secrets and I think it's because

of that. But in this scene, um, the

phone rings and of course there's always

a great fear that something will have

happened to Sally's beloved father.

That's what Sally's afraid of. But in

this case, it's very good news. And the

very good news is that there is going to

be an addition to the family. And that's

how they put it. An addition. Oh,

congratulations. That's such wonderful

news. That's the best news. An addition.

An addition. Sally thought, "What does

that mean? It's got to be something

good. They're all so happy. An addition.

Maybe Aunt Betty has passed some kind of

arithmetic test. No, that's silly. It

has to be something else. I am so sick

of secrets. Why doesn't anybody ever

tell me what's going on? When Mom and

Mafanny were off the phone, Douglas

said, "That's great news for them, but

personally, I wouldn't want one." "I

should hope not at your age," Mom said.

And she and Douglas and Ma Fanny laughed

together.

So Sally thought Douglas Douglas is her

brother. Douglas understood about the

addition too. So she was the only one

who didn't know. Well, she wasn't about

to admit it. Then Douglas would make fun

of her, saying her mind was a blank or

that she was just a baby.

What will the addition look like? Sally

asked, figuring she could find out what

it was by playing 20 questions. Who can

say? Mafanny answered. As long as it's

healthy, we won't complain. I still

can't believe it, Mom said. Just when I

was expecting the worst, it turned out

to be the best. And she's already 4

months, Ma. Fanny asked. Yes. I guess

she didn't want to get her hopes up

until she was sure. Remember the last

time? How could I forget? The last time

what? Sally asked. The last time Aunt

Betty was pregnant, she lost the baby

after two months. Mom said, "Oh, she's

going to have a baby." Suddenly, it all

made sense. "You dummy," Douglas said.

"What? You think she was going to have

an elephant?" "No," Sally said. "An

addition."

Makes me laugh now. It is an addition.

Mom said it's an addition to the family.

Oh, in addition to the family, Sally

said, "Now I get it." Mom gave Sally a

hug. You are so funny sometimes.

It's that it's so awful to be young and

not to know.

That scene actually is a scene from my

family when the phone call came that my

aunt and uncle were going to have a baby

and they did call it an addition. And my

cousin, the addition, who's 10 years

younger than I am, still refers to

herself when we're talking together as

the addition, which I love.

Often when you're writing a letter or

when your character is writing a letter,

it's so much easier to say things in the

letter

that you would never

say to anyone. And I I can tell you this

because of all the letters that I've

received over all these years.

I know from a lot of kids who have

written to me that it's easier to write

a letter, just put in everything and

seal it and drop it in the mailbox

to someone that you are never going to

meet. You're never going to see that

person at the breakfast table the next

morning. You won't have to be

embarrassed by what you put in that

letter. You can pour out your feelings.

You can pour out your heart in a letter.

So, a character can do that too. And

even if you don't use that letter,

that will help you find the inner voice.

So, Sally in Sally starring Sally J.

Freriedman as herself. Sally writes

letters to her father. She's separated

from her beloved father because the

family had to go to Miami Beach for the

school year because her brother was

sick. And the doctor said, "No, no, no

New Jersey winters. You need to be in a

warm climate." So, she's bereft without

him. She's she's a very happy kid. You

know, she misses him terribly, but she

she says it all in letters. She can ask

questions

in these letters that she might never

say at the breakfast table. And also,

she trusts her father with these

thoughts and feelings that she's having.

She trusts him

to keep it to himself and to she knows

that he's never going to disappoint her.

Have your character write a letter to

you.

Write a letter revealing

something about herself.

I've never thought of that until just

now. That's a good idea. Letters, um,

conversations.

That's why I keep the notebook

and I write down all the snips of

dialogue that I can imagine. And those

snips of dialogue will then work their

way into the book somewhere usually.

But along with that will come the inner

voice. Doesn't matter if it's first

person or third person.

Still your character will have an inner

voice.

voice is really, I think, the way that

you choose to tell your story.

It's not necessarily a person's voice.

It's it's a character's inner voice. And

I keep saying this, but it's true. There

are so many ways that you can tell a

story and tell it well,

and there is no right or wrong way. But

I have certainly gone through periods

where I don't know how to tell a story,

how I want to tell a story. And so I'll

sit there, you know, writing it in the

first person a little bit in the third

person, um, trying to figure out,

letting other characters talk about my

protagonist

until I come up with a way to tell the

story. That's the voice of a book. So,

whose voice is it really? Well, it's

your voice. It's your voice. It's your

decision that you're going to tell a

story in this particular voice. It comes

from you, but it belongs to your

character. Everything contributes to the

voice of the character. everything from

mood to how they see the world to how

they see their family and their friends

everything. So there's another exercise

for us, you know, write down all of

this. You won't know it all, I think, in

the beginning because as you write, you

find out, you learn, and all of that

contributes to the journey to the inner

voice. um

and to ultimately to the success of your

book.

The voice will come to me um as I'm

writing slowly. It's you you know

Margaret was there right away. Are you

there, God? It's me, Margaret. It was

there. And again, I didn't know

anything. And sometimes I have to tell

you, I think you're better off not

knowing too much. I know when it's wrong

for me because it's just not working. It

just isn't working. It's just not coming

to life. It's just not there. It's not

making it fun for me if writing is ever

fun. So sometimes it's fun. I just can

feel when it's wrong. And that often

helps me, you know, get rid of that. Get

rid of that viewpoint. That's not

working. I don't like that character. I

don't like that character's inner voice.

I don't even want to tell the story

about this character or with this

character and go someplace else and see.

And often that's what it is. It's, you

know, just keep trying. I know I keep

coming back to this, but in developing a

voice, one of the best things that you

can do is be inspired by someone else's

development of a voice, which means

reading. Because reading, again, you're

going to say, "H, this is good. This got

me right away." And for practice, you

know, you you can imitate a voice.

there's no one there in the room with

you. You can do that. You can try it.

I'm going to try writing it like he did.

Uh, and let's see what happens. Not a

whole book, but little bits and pieces.

And by doing that, I do believe that you

will develop your own original voice.

Names are funny. Um, kids always want to

know, "Where do you get your names?

Where do you get your names?" And in the

beginning, they popped into my head.

Just look at Margaret and you'll see

what era it is. It's it's Margaret and

it's Nancy and it's Gretchen and um I

can't remember who else it is, but but

you know, those aren't even names of

today. It doesn't matter to a kid who's

reading the book now. They think I wrote

the book just for them. Now, today,

never mind that she's wearing a velvet

party dress and her mother sets her hair

in big rollers.

It's not what it's about. It's about

Margaret, internal Margaret. So, names

have always come to me easily,

except that when you've written a lot of

books, it's like, wait, didn't I use

that name already? And occasionally

I want a name

that I can't think of that isn't coming

to me. So, here's a little secret. Uh, I

go to the phone. Well, there used to be

phone books. Now there aren't phone

books anymore, but I needed a good last

name for

Rachel Robinson.

Rachel Robinson's

family when they came to America way

back I don't know how many generations

um they had a different name and it was

changed as they came into the country as

so many names were changed and I

couldn't think of what that name would

be so I went to the phone book and I

looked down the list of Rs and I found a

long involved multi-consonant

name. Um, and that's how I found her

name. When I was writing in the unlikely

event, my early drafts, all of my

characters have names that they came not

to have by the time I finished the book.

The names weren't right. Um, Mary was

called Benny. Don't ask me why. Um,

Ruby, a fabulous name, was called Carol

Lee. I just knew. You remember I told

you how I saw my note to myself? Who are

these characters?

Well, they weren't Binny and they

weren't Carol Lee.

I didn't know them well enough when I

gave them those names.

And they changed and Mary

became Binnie's name and Mary is a

protagonist.

And Carol Lee, who is a dancer, became

Ruby. I love the name Ruby. I wish I had

named my daughter Ruby. If I had a dog,

I would name the dog Ruby. I think your

names have to be right for your

characters. You have to believe that

this is who they are.

If the names don't feel right,

rename them

until they do feel right. Because,

you know, I don't want to say that a

name comes with a personality because

that's not true. But

for us as writers,

it does have to do with who they are,

who they become.

It's like playing a part. I mean, I

always say, you know, I I used to want

to act when I was a kid and writing then

I wanted to direct, of course, too, but

writing um satisfies that urge because

you have to become your characters.

you you have to be able to inhabit them

and not just the protagonist, but you

have to be able to get into

all of your characters because I don't

believe that they're ever all good guys

or ever all bad guys. And so you have to

be able to

sympathize

with everyone and see everyone's point

of view.

Um, in order to make it work,

I have a lot of empathy for all of my

characters.

Um,

is it too embarrassing to say I love

them? They're part of my life. They're

You know what? You're living with these

people

every single day for months at a time,

in some cases years at a time.

you had better feel for them. So for me,

yes, I have great empathy for them.

Sometimes I don't like them very much,

but I still feel for them. And I think

that's that's important. You have to

because you want your reader to not just

one character that you have to know. I'm

sorry to say. You have to know all of

them and you will come to know all of

them as you you bring them to life

during the writing process.

The one thing that's never changed is

the way that I write dialogue or

approach dialogue. Um, it's always been

the same from the beginning because I

think this uh

this ear that I have for dialogue, I

think it's always been there. I think it

goes back to my childhood and and the

stories in my head when people were

always speaking in my stories and or the

conversations that I overheard

or

didn't get right but thought I heard.

Uh, I've always, you know, I'm

fascinated by

putting people together and seeing what

happens. And one of the things that

happens when you put people together is

they talk to each other. And so that for

me is the great pleasure of writing. And

I won't even begin to tell you all the

things that are not great pleasures, but

writing dialogue is my greatest pleasure

when it comes to writing.

Dialogue helps you advance your story.

Here's a scene

um and here's dialogue in the scene. And

it's advancing not only your story but

your characters because through dialogue

you learn a lot about your characters.

It's giving your characters knowledge

that they might not have had. Dialogue

helps me know who the characters are. So

even if other things aren't working,

I'll learn that.

But it won't be the dialogue that will

tell me that. Or maybe I won't be able

to write dialogue between two characters

if I don't understand what's going on in

the book. If I don't understand what's

going on in the story and why are they

having this conversation, then out it

goes. No matter how much fun it is to do

it, it's got to advance the story and or

it's got to illuminate the characters.

It can't just be there for no reason

because it's fun.

And I have to say that to myself all the

time because dialogue is fun.

What makes good dialogue is believable,

realistic,

um the way people really talk dialogue

and dialogue that's going somewhere.

Uh, and what makes bad dialogue is I

don't know people characters who talk in

full sentences and never interrupt each

other and um

talk in some literary way that's not the

way people talk to each other. So, it's

it's it's a question of capturing

um the voice, capturing

the way that people talk when they're

talking to each other on the street. um

you know in the workplace,

wherever, they don't talk in paragraphs

unless they're telling a really good

story. You know, the other person would

say, "Oh, go on, go on." But usually

it's give and take, give and take, give

and take. And I like dialogue between

more than two people. It's fun. And what

you can do also, and what I like to do,

is not necessarily say each time which

character is speaking because if it's if

it's working, you can usually tell,

especially if it's only two characters.

You can't necessarily if it's three. But

if it's two characters, you don't

necessarily have to say Nancy said or

Judy said because your reader will know.

You want to practice your dialogue. And

that's so easy to do because

you're listening. You're walking on the

street. You're listening to people's

conversations. Write it down. And then

maybe continue.

And what's going to happen after you

stop listening to them? You know,

wherever you are, listen to people

talking. Listen to the way they talk. We

don't talk in, as you must know by now

from following me, we don't necessarily

talk in complete sentences and we tend

sometimes to go all over the place and

not stick to a certain topic. And the

way people talk is really important. The

way people interrupt so important. You

don't get to finish it. I'm not getting

to finish my

And then you did. So, you know, there

are interruptions.

There are all of these things that are

going on in dialogue and you learn so

much about the character

and

it moves the story along.

I think I hear my dialogue so I don't

tend to talk it out loud as I'm writing

it. It's like they're talking in my head

and I am writing down what I hear them

saying. I don't know that I can explain

that. Do I really hear them?

Do I just think that I hear them? I'm

not sure. But but it comes from

someplace someplace that I'm not aware

of. So I my sense of it is is that I

hear them talking and I'm transcribing

what they're saying

and I don't think it through too much

because then I would spoil it. I hope

that if dialogue doesn't come naturally

to you, you'll practice. You'll you'll

sit there at the computer and you'll

practice make up conversation after

conversation after conversation.

Um, and anything can start that, you

know, just anything you've seen or heard

or something you would like to say to

somebody else and then that person in

your mind is saying something back to

you and let it go go go and read a lot

of books that have great dialogue. You

know, flip through. It's easy to find um

because there'll be a lot of short

sentences and white space and and that's

good to put in between everything else.

Okay, I'm going to share with you an

embarrassing moment. Um when I was

starting to write, I wrote uh I was

writing a long book. Of course, it's not

I I wrote two long books that were never

published and shall never be published.

Um, in addition to many picture books

that same. And I decided that I would

write this whole novel

without ever using the word said. That

said was such a boring word. He said,

she said. So, I wasn't ever going to use

the word said. So I had my thesaurus by

my side. My characters exclaimed and

they beguiled and um they did everything

but say every word that's in the

thesaurus. You can find them all and

then throw them away. Throw away your

thesaurus when you're writing. And I did

I did the whole book that way. The whole

book. and shouted and whispered. Well, I

I sometimes use that because why not?

But for the most part, what you find

when you do that little exercise

uh is that simple is better. And now I

never do anything except he said, she

said. And I don't like I don't know why

I don't like this, but I don't like said

Judy said Jane. I like Judy said, Jane

said, but that's my preference and

there's no rule about that. I just think

that is off-putting when I'm reading it

in a book. Um, so yeah, a good rule for

writing in general is simple. Simple is

better. And that doesn't mean you can't

use the big words that you know and want

to use and write beautifully. You can

write beautifully, great, but you still

have to do the characters and the

dialogue.

Slang is something interesting. I try to

stay away from slang. When I started to

write all those zillions of years ago,

um, somebody said, you know,

what's in New York now, or I was in New

Jersey. What's in New York? What's in

New Jersey now? What's the in-word in

New Jersey now? That was the in-word in

the on the West Coast um, two years ago.

And that's how it travels. So, be very

wary of using slang because that will

um date your book. If your book is dated

in 1947,

well, great. Then you can use whatever

you want because that's history.

But I tend not to use slang and I think

that

um gives it a much longer life

and doesn't date the book so much. when

it comes to grammar. Uh, oh, I have been

I have been chastised by many a teacher

because I listen to kids talk and I know

how they talk and it's not always

grammatically correct. And in Blubber,

for example, there's a whole dialogue of

so he goes and then she goes and he goes

and then she goes and she goes and he

goes and I knew that that was how kids

talked because, you know, they were in

my house all the time and I heard them

and I really wanted to use that and I

wasn't grammatically correct in a lot of

dialogue in that book and maybe also in

the narrative. Jill Jill is the

narrative voice in that book, but

I wanted to be true to how children

talk.

I felt they could learn correct grammar

and I didn't, you know, I wasn't going

to give in to the

it's your job, it's your job, Judy, to

teach them correct grammar. I I didn't

think so then. But actually, I tend to

use

grammar now. So, maybe they did teach me

something. I'm not sure.

Here's something. I'll flip through a

book, right? And if it's dense, dense,

dense, dense, no paragraphs, no

dialogue, I don't want to read it. But

dialogue lightens up your book on the

page. You want white space on the page.

Dialogue gives you that playlets. I

often put in little playlets in my book.

It's like a little play within a scene,

but it's just another way that I

sometimes do dialogue. And I'm thinking

of a classroom scene where I might name

the characters and and the name would be

on the left uh where with a script it

would probably be above the dialogue. So

it would be Jane colon

D in italics Charlie

in italics da da da. Now now you're all

going to start writing plays and that's

good. But it's just another way. There

are little playlets all the time in the

school scenes in in the unlikely event.

These school scenes which are very very

important because there has just been a

tragedy and

the kids are trying to make sense of it

and there are a lot of kids. There are a

lot of characters.

And so

maybe I decided that these little tiny

schoolroom plays that I call little

playlets

uh were a way to

get this information across.

What's this one thinking? What's that

one thinking? Um because what they're

thinking is really it's so much bigger

than they are. How can they possibly

understand

uh a plane crashing a block from their

school

uh on a Sunday and had they been there

what might have happened?

So they have to come up with reasons and

it's you know it's it goes from aliens

and zombies to communists of course

because it was the 50s so everything was

about communists to the smart girl who

said it's sabotage

sending everybody else to the dictionary

to find out what is sabotage.

Uh, so I put in these little

playlistlets. Maybe I was taking a break

from straightforward dialogue. I'm not

sure. Maybe it was because

it was Mary

uh

my inner voice character

listening. And it was better to do it in

this little play form than do it in

straight dialogue

because then what? She wouldn't have

been participating.

So this way she can give it to us as a

little series of plays within the

classroom. And you do get to know who

some of these characters are within the

classroom. And I remember going back and

having to write down all these

characters names because there are so

many of them just within her home room

where these little playlets take place.

So I have boys and girls and I think it

was a way even for me to figure out or

to make them human because there were

too many of them.

When people who write for young people

ask me, and they often do, you know,

are you right? You writing for today's

young reader or today's teenager? Don't

you have to change everything about the

dialogue?

And I say, "No, I I don't." And I think

the reason that, you know, kids can read

Margaret today and think that I've

written it about them is

I don't know that dialogue changes from

generation to generation. I mean, just

like feelings don't change from

generation to generation.

The way we live, you know, the um the

electronics, all of that changes, but

what's inside doesn't change. And to me,

dialogue doesn't change. I tend not to

pay a lot of attention to language when

I'm writing dialogue.

Um, I hear what they're saying. And so I

don't say to myself, "Oh, this book is

going to be read by a 10year-old, so the

dialogue would be a lot different than

this book that's being read by a

50year-old." Um, no, because it depends

who's doing the talking. You know, it

it's whatever is right for that

character. And that goes to knowing your

character. It's not about age group.

It's not about age. It's about, you

know, what are they talking about? Why

are they talking?

What's the mood? What's I mean, is this

an angry discussion? Is this something

fun? Does she want something from her

mom? Uh, does her mom need something

from her? What is this all about? I I

just let it come out. I just let it come

out.

It can get tricky when it's a lot of

characters talking. So, it's usually not

that many are having a conversation at

the same time. two to three. I don't

know, maybe there's more. Um, you need

to label who's saying it so the reader

knows who is saying this. Sometimes I'm

reading a book and I'll go back because

the writer has done just that. But I

will have missed who is this? Who's

saying this? And I have to go back to

the beginning of the dialogue where it

says Andrew said and then go all the way

down and find out who's still speaking.

That's not good.

That's not good. Your reader shouldn't

lose track of who is saying what. What

we all want to avoid, of course, is

wooden dialogue. And so, um,

you know, I don't think you should think

it through too much. I think you should

put down whatever you think it is. And

if it turns out to be wooden dialogue,

you're going to take it out or do it

again. Um, when you feel freer, do

whatever it takes. do a dance,

sing a song, but

get yourself to that place where you

feel free and it's okay. You can talk

things through to yourself with yourself

and maybe that will free you up to just

put down this dialogue. reading and

reading and reading

you will find what's good dialogue, what

you think is good dialogue and what you

think is wouldn't tense not very good

dialogue and you will learn from that

just by reading it and reading it and

going to the next book and finding it

finding it um because it's there. It's

in every novel there's dialogue

and it drives me crazy

when

people don't sound real. If I'm reading

a book, I I'm I judge

a lot of what I read by the dialogue.

You know, I don't care if a critic tells

me, "This book is so lyrical. It's

exquisitly written." But if the dialogue

isn't there, if the characters aren't

there, forget it. It's it's it doesn't

do it for me. Beautiful writing is

wonderful,

but it has to be combined with other

things to make it work, and dialogue is

one of them.

I'm going to share a couple of examples

of dialogue which sort of embarrasses me

that it's from my own books but you know

here I am. Um and this is uh this is a

little moment from Tiger Eyes.

Um Davey the the protagonist has just

met Wolf in the canyon. She's uh she's

grieving her father who died suddenly.

She's she's at a loss, completely lost,

and her mother has moved them to this

new place where she doesn't know anyone.

And she's gone off on a bicycle, uh, and

she's come upon this canyon, this

beautiful canyon, and she climbs down

it, falls part way down it, but there

she is. And Wolf finds her at the

bottom. Wolf opens his knapsack. He

offers me fruit and cheese. I take an

orange and a piece of cheddar. "You have

sad eyes, Tiger," he says. A bright

smile, but sad eyes. He waits for me to

say something. I don't.

You want to talk about it? He asks. No.

Okay. We sit quietly for a moment. Maybe

someday, I tell him.

Maybe someday I'll tell you about it.

Okay, he says, but not today. Whenever,

he says, I nod.

It's kind of sad.

He recognizes something in her and she

isn't going to tell him anything, but

she recognizes something, too, I think.

or she wouldn't say um maybe someday but

not today because she doesn't talk about

the loss of her father with anyone.

Father actually was shot and killed in a

holdup in his 7-Eleven store and she

found him. So I mean this is a very

traumatic moment in a sad but I hope

ultimately you know her journey her

journey ends upbeat. When your

characters are reluctant to speak,

that's saying a lot, too. I because then

you're knowing you're knowing she can't

talk about this and she's not going to

talk about this. But the way she says

maybe someday,

you get the feeling that that day will

come when she'll tell him.

And of course it takes almost the whole

journey before she is able to tell him.

Sad cry.

So in Then again maybe I won't. Tony uh

has moved to a fancy suburb with his

family. uh they've gone from being

making ends meet, but suddenly his

father has discovered something and

they're wellto-do and he's not sure that

he likes it at all. And Joel is the boy

next door and he's not at all sure about

Joel. But Joel has a sister, an older

sister, Lisa, who gets undressed at

night with the shades up deliberately

because she knows that Tony is watching

her. Tony actually has a pair of

binoculars, so he's watching her very

closely. And now Joel has invited Tony

over to his house um to say that he

knows where Lisa, his sister, keeps her

secret diary. And wouldn't that be fun

to see that? And Tony is thinking,

"Yeah, that would be fun." But here's

what happens.

So, um, this is Joel now.

Give me a hand with this mattress," Joel

whispered. "She keeps it under here."

I held up the mattress while Joel

searched, but all he came up with was a

note. It said, "Too bad, Snooper. Your

sister's smarter than you think." "How

about that?" Joel said. She found out

and she moved it. "Well, never mind.

We'll find it. It's got to be in here

someplace." He started searching her

dresser drawers, then went to her desk,

dressing table, and finally to her

closet, but he couldn't find it

anywhere. I could tell he was

embarrassed because he promised he'd

show it to me, and now he couldn't make

good on his promise. "I'm really sorry,"

he said. "Forget it," I told him. I

didn't want him to think I cared much. I

like what characters are thinking, that

internal voice, what they're thinking

versus what they're saying or they're

not saying because that really that's a

very intimate thing for the reader to

know what someone is thinking and then

hearing what he or she is or isn't

saying. It it gives you a lot of insight

into the character, I think. I mean, we

know here that Tony would love to see

this diary, but he's not going to ever

admit that to Joel. Like, ah. So, I

mean, that's a really simple example of

what we're talking about, but

maybe it works.

So, to set up this little moment in um

in the unlikely event, Mary is about to

meet, this is a spoiler again, Mary is

about to meet the man who is her father.

She never knew who her father was. Her

mother never told her anything about him

and suddenly she is going to have ice

cream with her father. Her mother does

not know this, but it's been set up by

an aunt. So now they're at the table.

She took her seat at the table. The

waitress asked what she'd like. A dish

of plain vanilla, please. One scoop, hot

fudge, nuts, whipped cream, marishino,

cherry. The waitress held her pencil at

the ready. Plain, please. Okay, just a

single scoop of vanilla in a dish. Isn't

that what I said the first time you

asked? Mary thought. But instead of

screaming, throwing a temper tantrum,

yelling at the waitress, who wore red

framed cat's eye glasses turned up at

the tops with rhinestones in the

corners, Mary said, "Yes, thank you."

Saying it like that with such authority

made her feel calm in charge of her

feelings.

Mike Msky, her so-called father, said,

"This is awkward for both of us." She

knew he was looking at her, but she

refused to meet his gaze. "Maybe for

you," she said. "But it's not awkward

for me. I couldn't care less."

Of course, she cares terribly, but she's

not about to admit that.

I really like that scene. Of course,

it's a much longer scene than that. And

she gives her so-called father a really

hard time.

She's angry and and shocked. I mean, she

had no idea her aunt was going to bring

her into this place and present her with

her father, who she's never never known.

And I like the way first she's been to

the restroom where she's afraid she's

going to throw up because she's so upset

at this whole thing. And the scene that

I just the little the few moments that I

just read are when she comes back from

the restroom deciding that she is not

going to throw up in front of all of

these people and at this restaurant and

instead she's kind of going to stick it

to this man who is her father. She's not

giving an inch. And I like the way she

says saying it with authority made her

feel calm.

So the idea of the word plot makes me

very nervous.

Plot? No. I think no. I can't do plot.

Don't ask me questions about plot ever.

But I realize

that plot is really telling a story and

I tell a story. So maybe the story that

I tell is the plot. But if I'm ever

asked, you know, about how do I come to

do a plot? I I can't. There's something

there's something about the word that

just intimidates that makes me so

uncomfortable because I would tell you

if you ask that plot is my weak point

and yet I look at the books and I

realize well I've written all these

books they probably do have a plot um

which I prefer to think of as telling a

story. So plot for me is a mystery.

I start a book on the day something

different happens in that character's

life. when I was writing then again

maybe I won't and again had no idea what

I was doing because I started that book

the day after I sent Margaret off for

you know to a publisher having no idea

if it would be accepted or not. So I sat

down and I started to write then again

maybe I won't and I wrote and I wrote

and I wrote there was a terrible problem

with the beginning because it was

overdone. There was we didn't need to

know these things. It wasn't the day

something different happened in his

life. It was just about his life. It was

all those things that I said you write

in your notebook and I had a good editor

to say to me, I think maybe you know

this isn't necessary here and where you

want to start is here. And that of

course was the day that something

different happened in Tony's life. And

so that's how I approach it now on the

day that something different happens.

And that journey to get to the end of

the book, that journey that the

character is taking to get to the end of

the book, that must be the plot of the

book. But I prefer to think of it as the

story that I'm telling.

And how do you get from here to here?

That's the story. Now, there are certain

books that I've written that I do keep

very careful um track of what's going on

and in the unlikely event, you know, was

very complicated. Many characters,

different family groups, lots of things

happening. I did keep track. I had a

like a track notebook. Okay, this is

what what's happening here and here and

here. And

someone other than me could say, "Well,

that's the plot.

There it is." But for me, it's the story

I'm telling.

A scene is where something happens.

So,

you know, a scene takes place somewhere

and it's between

more than one character, two, three,

four, however many. And and then

that scene ends. And that's something

that you're going to figure out yourself

where that scene ends. Again, you might

write and write and write and keep

writing it. and you'll see that uhoh no

that scene really ended here. That scene

is over and then change pace. You change

pace and you're somewhere else. I've

always wanted to write a book that was a

series of scenes. When I started in the

unlikely event, in my mind, I saw it as

a series of scenes without

the um without the narrative that

connects scenes. In most cases, I just

wanted a series of scenes

and it didn't work for me. It just I

gave up on it very quickly. Everything

got too complicated. There was no way I

could do it. I still like the idea of

it. So, it's something to put away and

think about. But normally, so you've got

this scene and something happens in this

scene that turns that changes that

illuminates and

you go from there probably into

narrative.

And that's how you pace.

And then there'll be another scene. And

eventually all these scenes add up to a

story with a plot

and a beginning and a middle and an end.

When I approach the writing of a book,

and if I could advise anybody,

you can't think of this as a book

because that's so

scary an idea. a book a book 200 400

pages I'll never be able to do that so I

never let myself think that way I think

only one scene at a time one

conversation at a time if scenes occur

to me out of order and they will and I

hope they continue to I'll write them in

the notebook it's like oh well I'm not

ready for this but let me write it down

I write it in notebook so I don't lose

it. I have it and I can come back to it

if I want to. And often a scene like

that will

lead you on your way. That's very good.

You get a scene somewhere in the middle

that comes into your head. Write it down

somewhere. There's a lot of editing that

goes on, you know, your own editing

um because you realize that. So, I'll,

you know, often I certainly wouldn't

want to lead you guys astray.

I

I'm a messy writer. A very, very messy

writer. Aside from Margaret and Tales

Over Fourth Grade, Nothing. I'm a messy

writer. And that's okay. My editor once

saw my office with p papers thrown all

over the floor and the rest of my house

was very neat. And he said to me, "I see

now this is where you really let go.

This is what I mean by you come into

that little room and you're free. You're

free to throw your papers on the floor

and you're free to go from this scene to

that scene or wherever you need to to

go. You're free to experiment and try it

all out.

And that's how you get through the

journey.

For me, surprises are everything. Um, a

good day is when my character surprises

me. Not everyone writes this way, but

there are a lot of people who do. We

call it, I think, the writing to find

out. And

over the course of the book, in finding

out, there are surprises.

And this is welcome. Yay. Yay.

Surprises. I love surprises. I like to

be surprised by my characters. I don't

like surprises in real life. I have to

tell you that. But in writing, I like it

when it happens.

Does it really happen? I mean, people

say to me, "What do you mean surprises?

You're the one in control. How can it

How can that be?" You know, you're the

one making this happen. For instance, in

Blubber,

there comes a moment when there's a

trial in the classroom. And when the

class puts this girl on trial, Jill says

she needs a lawyer.

Did I know that she was going to say she

needs a lawyer? I don't think so. I

think that's one of those surprise

moments when your character surprises

you.

No lawyer, no trial. If Blubber doesn't

get a lawyer, Blubber doesn't get a

trial. And she changes everything in

that moment. I tend not to evaluate

whether there should be a twist or a

turn here or there. I just tend to write

it and I don't know if it's working

um until I see it in writing.

It's important that the reader really

care about the character and be involved

with the character before you drop some

major something on them so that they

they really care what happens. So in the

unlikely event, Ruby the dancer, we get

to know her. We see her go out for a

drink with her friend. We know what her

plans are for the future. We meet her

family. We're invested in her when she

gets on that plane. And even on the

plane, we're invested in the book that

she's reading and in the way that she

sees that her life, except for her

talent, which saved her and changed her,

um, made her life different than her

seatmate, who was probably her age and

was married with two little children.

That wasn't what Ruby wanted. So, we're

we're invested in her. This is all a

spoiler for those of you who haven't

read the book. I'm sorry. Uh, and when

she goes down, and there really was that

dancer who did get on that plane. Um,

well, it's just devastating. It's

devastating to know that this young

woman, so we we knew her. We were

invested. And I think even with Deanie

um a much uh simpler

story to tell one point of view from

Dean's point of view. We have to know

her. We have to know who she is before

something happens to her. So maybe

that's part of the plot. Get to know the

character. get to know the family, the

friends, her hopes, her dreams, and then

put her in a terrible situation

for her.

I like flashbacks. It can, you know,

certainly illuminate your characters and

um help you tell the story forward once

you know everything that happened. I

like backstory. Backstory to me is very

interesting. If I'm reading a book and

I'm interested in a character, I want to

know that backstory. That's harder to do

maybe in a kids book because it may be

harder for a young reader to go back and

forth that way. But don't quote me on

that. I'm I'm not sure. But in terms of

using flashbacks, I think fine. And what

else I think is fine is write those

flashbacks. That's your backstory. And

if you don't get to use it, fine. At

least you you know more about your

character and that's what counts

settings. Um in the beginning I never

thought of settings. I was born and

raised and when I started to write in my

20s I still lived in suburban New Jersey

and I knew it very well. So, it never

really occurred to me to set a book

anywhere else. Uh, Fudge is an

exception. Fudge lives in New York City

for the first book, but then he moves to

New Jersey, then he goes back to New

York City. Um,

so I I never gave a lot of thought to

the settings. I mean, all the little

towns in New Jersey that I knew, I would

set the books there because place wasn't

important to me in those books. Later

on, I wrote books where place was very,

very important, where place becomes a

character. And it's interesting because

if you know a place really well and you

ra you read a book that someone has

written set in that place, you know that

person doesn't know this place. It's

okay. It could still be a really good

book, but you know that. And so I I

didn't want to ever do that. So Summer

Sisters is set on Martha's Vineyard, a

place where I had spent 20 summers. And

I understood how it worked and I knew it

at least from a certain point of view. I

knew my view of Martha's Vineyard and I

understood it and I understood the

island and I felt that Martha's Vineyard

was every bit as important a character

as Vixs or Caitlyn

in that book.

Um, when I wrote Smart Women,

I lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And

again, the the story in Smart Women is

falling in love again at 40. Um, and

bringing all your baggage and and your

children with you and what is that like?

And I wrote the book

set in Santa Fe. And then I read it and

I thought, "No, I can't do this." I knew

Santa Fe really well, but Santa Fe was a

small town. My teenagers were there, my

husband's teenager was there, his

ex-wife was there, our friends were

there, and all the children's friends

were there. And I didn't want to hurt

anyone. And I also didn't want um, you

know, people to play games. Oh, I know

who that is. Oh, I know who that is. Oh,

did they really do that? And of course,

it's fiction, but it was set in Santa

Fe. And so, I decided to go on a quest.

And the quest took us, George went with

me to places around the country where I

thought um single women might come from

different places with their children

after a divorce to start a new life.

And we went to a lot of places.

We went to Northern California and I

can't even think of the names now to

tell you all the places we went. We went

to Port Towns and we went here and there

and we wound up in Boulder in Boulder,

Colorado.

And I had never lived in Boulder, but it

seemed like the right place that my

characters, remember this book was

written when I did this, my characters

would come to Boulder to start a new

life.

And in 8 days in Boulder, um, I

pretended to buy a house. I, you know,

found houses for my characters. Yes.

Took pictures. This one lives here. This

one lives here. This is where they work.

Workplaces for all schools,

um, restaurants,

everything.

And then I changed the setting from

Santa Fe to Boulder.

Not a good idea. Not a good idea. I did

it. But I knew I knew I didn't know life

in Boulder. I knew that. I had a

secretary then who was um uh just a

fabulous

person, a reader, a writer. Uh and she

had lived in Boulder and

she kind of vetted it for me. Um

and and it was published that way. And I

have always felt big mistake. But I did

hear from people who lived in Boulder

and said, "Oh, I didn't know you were

from Boulder." So I guess it can work,

but I don't think it's a good thing to

do. For me, it's not a good thing to do.

I have to know a place to set it there.

That's me. Other people, you could do

research. You can go spend a little time

there, you know. You can go any place,

but I like to have been there.

When when um Caitlyn invites Vicks to uh

Venice

for her their 30th birthdays,

um they're in a hotel where I actually

stayed. So, I knew what those linens

felt like on the bed. I knew that. I

knew how the big shutters were drawn in

from the from the midday sun. I knew the

restaurant. I knew the canal that was

there because I had stayed for a week.

That's all. But you know, Vix is going

for a week and she's going as a tourist

basically. So, it was okay. I didn't

really live there. I didn't need to

because she wasn't going to. But I knew

enough to make it feel real to me. And

that's the kind of detail that I need to

make it feel real to you.

What makes for a satisfying ending is um

is different for everyone. I think I

have always

um

done open-ended

endings for my children's books because

to me

it's it's a tiny piece of a child's

life. A week, a month, a year,

maybe two years. I can't think of what

might have been two years. Most of them

are a year. and

that kid's life is going to go on and

the family life is going to go on. But

whatever story I was telling

is over. That story is over. But life

isn't over. And so I never wanted to tie

it up neatly at the end. Some people

don't like that that I don't do that.

But that's how I felt. Summer Sisters,

an adult novel but about young people,

is very open-ended. And a lot of people

didn't like that and wrote to me to say,

"You have to tell me what happened to

Caitlyn. You owe it to me. I, you know,

I read this book and I was really

involved in these characters' lives. I

need to know what happened to Caitlyn."

and I can say I really don't know. I can

give you a list of the things that I

think might have happened to Caitlyn and

they don't buy it. They say don't tell

me you don't know. You wrote the book.

But really, I wrote the book from

Victoria's point of view. Other people

jump in and speak about the story, but

Caitlyn herself never speaks. We only

know Caitlyn through all the other

characters.

So, we don't really know what happened

to Caitlyn.

And so, I left it like that. I felt that

was the end. Um,

in the unlikely event, I don't know.

They're all so connected and there's so

much tragedy in the book that I wanted

an uplifting ending. I wanted it to be

uplifting

and I think it's very satisfying.

You know, I've always thought of um my

books as

uh life goes on and it can get better

and um you got through this and you're

going to find a way to get through

whatever comes next. So,

I'm I'm an optimistic person myself and

I like to

end with a feeling of optimism.

By the time you get there, it's like

this tremendous

relief. It's like throw yourself on the

floor and I don't know, scream that at

last it's over. It's over. I kind of

know I know when it's ending. I sense

that it's ending now. Um,

you know, when you're just starting out,

you might not. You might keep going.

Although I don't know why anybody would

keep going if they didn't have to.

It's so hard and it's so great to come

to the end. I I think most of us know

we're at the end because we know the

story that we were telling, but again,

it's that journey. I think I know where

I'm going. It isn't necessarily exactly

the way I imagined it when I imagined

this is where they're going, but it's

it's pretty much getting there. And that

doesn't usually change a lot.

There are stories that um may go on too

long and they should have ended back

there. Um, I've read books where I've

thought that or, you know, books that

have like three different endings. It It

could have ended here or it could have

ended here, but it ended there. Um, I

don't know that I've ever written books

like that. I hope not, but it could

happen. I do have an idea when I start

out where I'm going, and that would be

where I'm ending. And I should also tell

you that along with the tremendous

happiness of

finishing getting to the end and that

whether that's the first draft or the

13th draft

um

then comes

the sense of loss.

You've lost these people that you've

been with every day.

sometimes for years

and you've lost them. They're done

and you miss them.

And it's it's um

it is a period of almost like mourning,

you know, because they've been a part of

your life. You get up every day, you

know what you're going to do. You know

who's going to be there for you. all

these characters and then comes the day

and I think the longer you're working on

a book um the harder it is to give them

up and let them go and let them be

published and

it's tough.

It's emotional.

We're storytellers

and so stories do have a beginning and

an end. And I guess they have a middle

too. That's what I've heard anyway.

Beginning, middle, and end. So a story

does come to an end.

And that end is very important

because

your readers have given you all this

time. they've given your characters all

this time. Now, it won't always be the

ending that will satisfy them. Often, it

won't satisfy them. But that's not your

job.

Your job is to tell the story as well as

you can

and end it as well as you can.

So, my process, it's really fairly

simple.

I think it's in my head and then it

transfers down into my notebook. And my

notebook gives me the security that I

need for that first day that I decide to

start writing the story. And I will

never stop making notes in my notebook.

Not until not until it's too late. Not

until the book is in and I know it's

set. In a first draft, I'm just trying

to get down everything that I can get

down so that again I'll have something.

I won't have to face a blank screen or a

blank page because I'll have something.

I have my security. I really need those

security blankets that I have. I

definitely couldn't write without them.

I could not go forward without them. Um

so get it all down. Get down anything.

Don't worry about it. That's the whole

point. You don't have to think, "Oh,

maybe this isn't working." You don't

have to think that now. You're in a

first draft. You're just getting

everything down that you can get down.

And then you'll have plenty of time,

more time than you want to give to it.

You'll have plenty of time to come back

and reassess and see what there is and

see what you can make happen.

I'm a person who has to print out all

the time. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm

using a lot of paper. I try to use both

sides. I print out every day

and everything that I write all around

it and over it and under it. That's

very, very important for the next day.

My most creative moments come with a

pencil in my hand. There's something

that connects, you know, the brain and

the hand. And I don't know where those

ideas come from, but they seem to come

with a pencil. There's a little detail

that I love, and I don't know where it

came from, but in the book, um, here's

to you, Rachel Robinson. Rachel's father

is a school teacher. And I know I didn't

know this in the beginning, but

somewhere with the pencil, it came that

he's so nervous before school starts

every year that he's always swigging

Pepto-Bismol.

And I like that. That's one of those

details that you don't know where it

came from. It wasn't in my head when I

was thinking about Rachel's father and

who is he, but it came it came during a

draft.

I have that terrible time in the middle.

I don't know anybody who doesn't have

that terrible time of the middle. You

know what's going to happen? How am I

going to fill up all these pages?

Suppose nothing happens. Suppose I don't

get an idea for what's going to happen

to them. And again, that having

something there, the security of the

notebook,

um the security of notes all over your

printouts, that helps me. And the middle

of a book is hard. It's probably the

hardest part, actually. The beginning

can be fun. You know, you're just

getting into it. And the ending is

exciting because you're you're wrapping

up. You're coming to the end and that's

reason for celebration. But the middle

the murky middle and you don't want the

murky middle because you can lose your

readers. So if it has to be murky the

first time to get through it, fine. But

eventually it's going to be made up of

scenes that murky middle. It's going to

be made up of scenes that carry the

action forward. It's moving your story

forward. It's it's illuminating your

characters and you're getting to know

your characters. Your readers will get

to know your characters. Surprising

things may happen in the middle. And I

think this is why a lot of people um

feel more secure with outlines.

And I'm not saying that I never outline.

Even though I love the surprise of not

knowing what's going to happen and

letting my characters surprise me and

writing to find out and all of that,

doesn't mean that I don't stop and make

little outlines along the way. If I get

an idea, especially and I don't want to

forget it, write it down right then. Um,

and I think you'll find that you will

get through the middle, but you don't

want to bore your readers in the middle

of the book. A lot of people will say,

"I started that book and I really liked

it and then uh, I couldn't keep going.

It just

it just lost me or I was lost and I

didn't like it." So, you want to make

sure that

you you're going to get rid of the murky

middle, even though we can call it that.

Um, because that has to come to life,

too.

When it comes time for the second draft,

then I'm I'm excited. And maybe I've

taken a week off, you know, after the

first draft. I don't know. Or maybe it's

the next day. But I'm excited now

because

now I'm starting again and I'm going to,

you know, I've got these big pieces and

of the puzzle and I'm going to kind of

put this puzzle together. There may

still be pieces that don't fit and

pieces that have to be recut. Um, but

I'm starting again from day one

and I'm trying to write it now

more as a story with detail. I'm trying

to really get to know the characters. I

probably don't know them well yet. I

would guarantee I know I don't know them

yet. Um, but I'm trying to find out more

about them and more about this story and

how it's going along.

And that will be um

a longer process maybe than a first

draft. And I will stay longer at work.

I'll come back after lunch. I'll read

what I have and I'll work another hour

or two on it after lunch. And then I do

like to leave it at a place knowing that

when I come back the next day, there's

something good. I won't try to finish

that whatever it was that seemed to be

working. I'll come back so I can do it

the next day. I don't mean don't get

down everything. You don't want to

forget it. At least scribble it. But I

like to leave myself in that good place.

I I know of writers who come back and

type over the last 10 pages that they

wrote the day before. Again, these are

exercises. These are finding your way.

And I can't stress this enough. Finding

your way is what this is all about. And

you can listen to everyone who has a

personal way of doing it.

um and get good ideas from each one of

them and try them out until you find

your way.

When I talk about revision, for me,

revision is not, you know, the little

edits. This word instead of this word,

this is spell drawing. It's nothing like

that. It's big. It's the whole picture.

It's the whole story that's evolving.

Some people are able to do all of this

in their heads before they start. I had

a friend who it was all in her head and

every day she sat down and she wrote 10

pages and at the end of 30 days she had

a 300page book that she would send to

her editor. It was a book. It was there.

She had that kind of mind. I have a

messy mind

and um and my writing is a process of

cleaning up the mess, but letting the

mess come out, letting the mess be there

all over the floor if it has to be and

then slowly cleaning it up, making it

work, making a story, making the

characters. I could never figure out a

whole book in my head really. So the

second draft is finding out finding out

more being surprised along the way and

getting to the end of the second draft.

I always say, "Okay, if I died during a

second draft, what would anyone be able

to make sense of this?" And my answer is

again, probably not. But it's growing.

It's getting better. I'm more excited

about it every day. I hope. I hope. You

know, because if I'm not, then it's not

working.

I'm going to have to do it again. I'm

going to have to or continue to think

through it. It just means I haven't

solved the problems

and it just is going to take a lot more

solving.

in a second draft. Um, I'm not so much

trying to solve the problems of the plot

or the storytelling.

Uh, I'm probably trying to go deeper

into who are these characters

and

and by finding out about them, that's

going to help me tell their story and

move forward.

And I'll hope that when I read through a

second draft, there will be little bits

that delight me along the way. Maybe

it's a maybe it's dialogue. Maybe it's a

scene that I'll really like. A lot of it

won't wind up in the final book, but

some of it will be there from the first

draft. Some dialogue will always stay.

There might be a scene that will always

be there because it just came and it's

good and it works.

And eventually you get a feel for that

and you get a feel for

especially if it's not working the

heartbreak of

it's not working.

But I don't give up. I don't give up. My

revision process has to do with the

characters and the story. I mean it's

the same thing. That's what the

characters are there to tell a story.

So, I can't separate the characters from

the story. Yes, I can say, "Oh, I know

what Rachel's father swigs Pepto-Bismol

before school starts because he's

nervous." And that's the kind of person

he is. He's a worrier. Um, and he will

be that way maybe through the book, and

that's good that I know that. But still

more and more good things happen as the

drafts go up in number. So a third draft

will be many more things will come. The

interesting thing really is that I know

now that some of my best stuff will come

after I'm working with an editor.

Maybe in the first time or maybe not

until we have our second goround. The

some of the best stuff will come at the

very end. Just as I said, some of the

best is at the beginning, but some of

the best will come at the very end if I

because by then I know things that I

didn't know in the first, second, or

even third drafts. Every time I go

through it, I am identifying places

like, uh, this doesn't work. I'll I'll

write comments, uggh,

forget it. No. Uh, and I'll ask myself

questions on there. Well, what is she

doing here? What is what is this all

about? And that will help me in the next

draft.

So, I don't necessarily try to fix it

then. Um because I like to have all of

that. Again, that all becomes security

to me. I know what I'm going to be

doing. The hardest part again is facing

the blank screen, the blank page, so I

never want to be in that position. I

always want to have plenty of notes.

There are times when I actually make

lists to track my characters. Um, and

especially in a longer book, I have to

track my characters, track their

development, track what they've already

done and said on what page they've done

and said that. Um, so I know and

sometimes it doesn't come out right. But

for the most part when I'm revising, I'm

revising as a whole. But again, there

are times in longer books when it will

be just this character and then this

character and then this character and

I'll make little, you know, I'll make a

little notebook about tracking

characters and tracking events because

that's very important and consistency is

very important. Book has to make sense.

I think an old-fashioned work ethic is

really

essential

because

writing is your job if it is your job.

Writing is my job. And so that's the

only way I can get it done by forcing

myself. I'm I pretend. I've never Well,

this isn't true. Most for most of my

writing life, I have worked at home. Uh

that's not always easy, especially when

you have family and things going on.

But, um my kids are grown now. I have my

own little room, my own space,

uh where I can go and lock myself up

for as long as I need to. If you want to

write, if you're serious about writing,

maybe you're already writing,

um, you have to do this, you have to

make the time. I know we all have heard

of people who get up at 5 in the morning

and they do their writing for the first

two hours and they get things done. I

could never do that. I'm a morning

person, but not that early a morning

person. Um although who knows if I had

been desperate to do that if I had had a

job outside also you know I'm I was

trained to be an elementary school

teacher and let's say that I had been

working as a teacher um but I was I had

this burning inside me that had to come

out

because it's not just that you sit down

to write. I mean, I think you need to

you need to let this out. It may be a

fun idea to think, "Oh, I'm going to be

a writer." But the reality of it is

it's not that much fun. It's fun when

you have a book on the shelf that you

wrote and say, "I wrote that book. How

did I do that?" That's fun. But the

writing itself is not

fun. It's it's hard and and you have to

keep at it day after day. So, I think if

you've got another job, if you've got

small children that you're taking care

of, um other things get in the way and

other things do get in the way. Other

things got in my way, too. Um

when you're doing this book, you have to

keep at it.

between books, you know, I I used to go

when I started out, there was so much

there was just so much inside me that

needed to come out that I went from book

to book to book to book for a long time.

And I was I was fast and it was

spontaneous and it just kept coming and

I needed it. And then after a while, I

um relaxed about it more

and

would take time off between books.

And now I take a lot of time off between

books if I want to. If I want to.

You know, when I was young and I started

to write,

it was always on my mind that my father

had died so young and so suddenly and I

believed that my life would be short and

I had to get in as much as I could. I

just wanted to get it down. I was just

so desperate to let everything out that

was inside me and and get it down. Um,

and now I realize nobody would say, "Oh,

poor Judy. She died so young." So, I'm

not in such a hurry anymore, you know.

And also then I got happy in my personal

life. And let's face it, I mean, what's

going on in your personal life does

affect your writing life, can affect

your writing life. I don't see how it

can't, but it but it's good. And

actually during some of the worst times

in my own life,

I was able to continue to write. And

that did save me. That did save me. I

was able to go into this other world of

characters and story and forget what was

going on in my own life. So yes,

yes, I did write through the worst

times. And I look back and I don't know

how, but I did it.

I don't believe in the expression

writer's block. And I have to say that

no writer's block. Put that out of your

mind. There are good days and there are

less good days and there are times when

it just seems not to be coming. And what

I suggest, what I do myself is just get

up, walk away,

go do something physical because the

physical helps the mental

come to where you need to be. So, I was

living in Santa Fe and I was writing

Tiger Eyes

and I was at that point I think I was

working with my editor already and we

were talking about a scene and it just

would not come. I wish I could tell you

what the scene was. I can't remember

exactly what it was, but I remember

exactly where I was walking. And I was

walking, walking, walking in Santa Fe up

and down the hills. And

and during those walks,

the solution came to me and I got it. I

got it that way by not really focusing

on it, but by doing something else. And

I can remember calling my editor and I

was very excited because I figured it

out. I know what to do. I said and then

I did it.

You really can't go out there today

without an agent. It's completely

different than it was when I started.

Um, you know, my first three books were

unagented books

because writers were still being

uh they were still being discovered in

the slush pile which meant that, you

know, manuscripts were just coming in

and somebody was reading them. Uh, but

that doesn't happen today. that editors

don't want to see a manuscript, as far

as I know, that doesn't come through an

agent. So, your first job is to

get that agent's attention and make that

agent want to find out more about you

and then hopefully find the right editor

for you. I asked my agent

this question about how does a new

writer find an agent today? And she

said, "You have to write an incredible

one-page query that's just a knockout

that just captures this person's

attention." Um, you have to

let them know who you are by the voice

that you're writing this letter in. This

is, you know, got to really knock them

out. So,

like everything else, take your time,

you know, make sure make sure that it's

a good letter. Make sure that it's got

the names right, her name and maybe her

author's names. um tell her or him a

little bit about yourself,

uh about what you're writing. And if

it's fiction

and the agent is interested,

he or she is going to want to see

chapters, maybe a whole manuscript.

Probably you'll think any agent that

wants to represent you is a great fit in

the beginning anyway. You know, you'll

be excited. this person likes something

about you or your work. So, of course,

that's great. Um, you'll go with that

person.

If it turns out after a while that it's

not a good fit for either one of you,

uh, you might have to find another

agent. One good idea is check out who is

the agent representing the writer of the

books that you like. you know all I mean

it's easy to find that out and sometimes

it will be in the book in the

acknowledgements my agent soands so or

you can find out by going to the

author's website probably often it will

say represented by um so and so and

that's a very good thing to do and then

when you write your knockout query

letter you can mention that I really

loved so and so's last book and I know

that you represented her

and that's good.

You don't want to send anything out to

that agent

until it's absolutely

as good as you can make it. And this is

where I say, I know you know it really

well by now. Don't get bored. Don't get

lazy and say it's good enough. Put it

away for a little while. Come back to

it. And you may only get this one

chance. So, make sure it's your very,

very best effort.

And in that period when you feel you're

ready to send it out and you put it away

for a few weeks before you read it

again,

that's the time to read aloud. Read

aloud then and listen and edit as you go

because

once it's published, it's too late. And

the way that I know this about reading

aloud and doing it while you still can

is that um when it was time to do an

audio book of

the first fudge book, Tales of Fourth

Grade Nothing, they asked me to read it.

Well, I don't know if I would do that

today, but once I read one, I had to

read all five of them because and I

never listen because I hate my own

voice, the sound of my own voice. But

there I was in the studio. It was my

first experience reading uh for an audio

book. And as I read from Tales Over

Fourth Grade, Nothing, I kept improving

it. I was editing as I went. And the um

person in the booth, the producer would

knock on the glass

and stop me and he said, "You made a

mistake there." you know, and I would

say, "No, I'm not making mistakes. I'm

making it better because I wrote this

book and I know I'm making it better."

And he said, "Judy, it's too late. You

know, the time for that was before it

was published. It's published now.

People are reading it and people are

going to be reading it along with the

audio book, especially children at

school. You have to read every word the

way you wrote it. That was a terrible

blow to me because I just felt I could

make it so much better. So, what I'm

saying is at the end before, you know,

take the time, read it aloud, and you

will make it better. You will, and

you'll have that pencil, and you know,

we're not talking about major rewriting.

We're talking about that fine tune

editing that you do and that you will

hear as you read it aloud.

You're listening for the flow. You're

listening for is it smooth?

Um is it fun to read? Is it does it get

bogged down here? Is this paragraph so

long

that it's just a bore? You want to make

it as clean as you can because that's

going to help catch the eye of

of an agent. And there's just one thing

I have to keep saying, and that is

every editor wants to discover that new

talent, that new voice, that original

fresh voice. Every editor wants that.

And they're not looking for the trendy.

Um, they're looking for something

original and fresh.

And that's hard. That's hard. But I

don't want you to be discouraged by some

of what I'm saying here because

you will you will be discovered

if you keep doing this. and it's your

best and it's fresh and it's new and

it's original. An agent is going to find

that and an editor is going to welcome

it and you'll be on your way

today. I think a lot of you um are

probably in writer groups and you read

your work aloud to each other and you

talk about it in a kind I hope way a

kind and positive way. Uh and that's

great. I I didn't have any of that. I

didn't know anybody who wrote. So I

didn't have a support group. So, I'm not

used to sharing my work with people

before it goes to an agent or an editor.

But if you have that, that's good. And

maybe the people in that support group

or that writing class are asking you

questions. Everything will depend on

what your story is and who your

characters are. The more specific the

questions, I think, the better.

Um, are you going to question yourself?

I don't know. I'm not sure that you

will. And that's why if you're in some

kind of group, that could be helpful.

Having a fresh pair of eyes look at your

work is always a good idea, but you have

to be careful

because you don't want

hurtful negative criticism.

You want

you want positive criticism. And by that

I mean

it's criticism

but it's with

support.

I was discovered in the slush pile

at a new young publishing company called

Bradberry Press by an editor, Dick

Jackson.

I had no idea how

how lucky I was

that Dick Jackson took me on. I once

said to him, "What did you see in my

first book? It was Iggy's House. what

did you see in that book that made you

want to do it? And he said, I saw the

next book and the book after that and

the book after that.

And you know, not everybody gets as

lucky as I was to find the perfect

editor for your work

early on and somebody who was willing to

work with you for the next 10 books

and

we were a team and I learned so much

from Dick. uh and I wish that for

everyone. He finds in a writer the right

way to release

what they can do

and he helps them find the best way to

tell their story. So, in working with

Dick, we talked a lot about characters,

about story, but more about characters

really, because characters always lead

you to what is this story and what's it

about? Um, and it was always through

sitting together face to face at his

desk going over things and Dick would

ask me questions.

And I learned from Dick

when I'm not working with him to ask the

same questions. They're not as good and

I get lazy and I don't always do it. But

I learned from him that that in

answering these questions, I release

something inside that I know much more

than I've presented in my early drafts.

There's much more in there. And that's

why I say for me sometimes the very best

surprises, the very best moments,

emotional moments come at the very end.

I always always listen

and I in most cases always give it a try

what they're saying because why not? I

give it a try and if it's wrong, it

won't come to me. It won't come when I'm

trying to revise along that line. It

just won't work. And then I know it's

wrong and I can say this isn't working

for me. This isn't right for me.

Sometimes by figuring out what's not

right again, you'll figure out what is

right. So, but I never am offended by

what an editor says because an editor

by that time by the time you're working

with an editor, an editor has accepted

your book. This is fabulous, right?

Except that I work with Dick Jackson the

first time, editor, writer together with

no promise of publication. I doubt that

that happens much today. But he cared

enough about Iggy's house. he saw

something in it that he was willing to

call me into his office and to sit with

me for a couple of hours and talk it

through

without promise of publication. But it

was so exciting and you know it got me

going and the book was so so much better

the next time I sent it in which I think

was maybe a month. I mean, I really came

home and I was fired up and I revised

the whole book and it got better and

then I sent it back to him. And then

came the most wonderful day of my life

and it will be, you know,

the day that he called to offer me a

contract. And I can still tell you what

my advance was. It was $800.

And I said to him, "But I read in a

magazine that it's supposed to be a

thousand." And he said to me, "But we

want someplace to go with the next book,

don't we, Judy?" I mean, it sounds funny

now, but you know, it was it was

fabulous.

It's never that exciting again

as the first time.

So, my advice is if you're working with

an editor, listen. Don't be offended.

Try it.

Maybe he or she has a point and sees

something. If you close up and you go

away, it's over. You know, the editor

will sense your willingness.

You're learning. You want to learn from

this editor. And this editor wants to

help you write the best book that you

can write because what do you have to

lose? You have everything to lose if you

say no

and everything to gain by being open and

being willing

and letting it run around in your head.

There's nothing that any of us write

that can't be made better or tighter or

leaner

or whatever. But so there's always room

and I would always listen. And when

you're known as somebody who's open and

willing, I think that makes a big

difference to your career as a writer.

So you have to learn to revise. But the

editor is always waiting to see can this

person take a suggestion and run with it

and what's going to happen. And

sometimes it will wreck your whole book.

I mean, you know, it will just be wrong.

You'll want to please so badly that

you'll wreck it. You have to watch out

for that, too. Willingness. Openness.

Yes.

Don't go all the way over and completely

rewrite your book and make it into

something new when it was working. It

was working well enough for an editor to

want it.

Don't destroy it. We're all in danger of

doing that when we know it so well.

Time to let it go when you start to

destroy it.

So there I was writing Summer Sisters,

two major

characters starting at age 12. I didn't

know where they were going, but then

other characters voices started to come

in. Women's voices. Phoebe, I think, is

um Caitlyn's mother, wanted to say

something

and then somebody else would come in and

want to say something. And so I was

letting these women come in and their

inner voice, it was their inner voice

commenting on the action and the

characters and their own lives, letting

us in on their own lives. Don't ask me

where this idea ever came from. I have

no idea myself.

So, I got in trouble because I didn't

know what I was doing. And had they gone

from age 12 to 17 without these adult

voices popping up here and there, it

might have just been the story of the

summers that they spent together between

12 and 17.

But somehow it wanted to be it wanted to

be more. It wanted them to grow up. It

wanted them to fall in love, have sex,

get married. Um,

and the voices kept coming. So, it was a

very odd book and I was kind of lost and

I didn't know where it belonged or who

would ever publish it. And um my agent I

I had an agent for 30 years and we were

to be together for the rest of our lives

but she died which wasn't fair to her or

to me. I adored her and she so helped

make my career a wonderful wonderful

agent. Tough tough. No fufu fruit, don't

call me and tell me about your butter

dish or about your love life. I don't

want to know about that. And so I never

did. But we were best friends in a

professional way. Anyway, she sent it to

my

editor publisher who I had worked with

on wifey and smart women.

and she was a wonderful editor,

wonderful publisher

and she rejected it.

And I want to tell you after all those

books and a lot of success that really

really hurt.

She said

as people do who are rejecting your

books,

I don't know how to publish this book. I

don't know how to make this book a

success,

you know.

But basically

she didn't like it and she didn't want

to publish it. That was the most painful

time in my life as a successful writer.

I'll see if I can tell you this story.

And I went out on my bike and I was

feeling very sorry for myself. I was

feeling very

hurt.

And I was in Key West and I went out on

my bike and I came upon Bob Stone,

Robert Stone, the great writer. There

are a lot of writers in Key West. Bob

died a year ago, but when he was there,

there were a lot of writers. We all got

together

regularly. We never talked about

writing. We talked about real estate and

we talked about what was going on in Key

West. Never about writing. And there was

Bob coming back from the beach, just the

two of us on a little path. And he said,

"How are you?"

And I got off my bike and I said, I just

started to cry. I said, "This is the

worst time I've ever had in writing a

book." And I told him what happened. And

he patted my back. We weren't close, but

that day we bonded forever.

patted my back and he said, "You know,

I'm having an awful time writing my

book, too."

That book was Damascus Gate. And of

course, and we were on the bestseller

list together, and that was wonderful.

And I'll never forget his kindness and

generosity.

After that rejection, I went back to

work on it. And I think that's when it

became

a deeper,

more interesting story. It went longer

in their lives. The women's voices came

in.

Um,

and I started to like it. I started to

understand it.

But even then it went to uh another

publisher editor

who I'm very very fond of and there was

a pow-wow at the publishing company.

This was awful. I have to tell you this

was one of the worst days of my life. Um

and I walked into a room. I was

unprepared for this. And there were

probably seven editors from different

imprints

sitting around who had read the book

throwing things at me. I mean, oneon-one

with an editor. Yes. 7 to one. No. No.

No. No. And I came out of there just

ripped. I just felt ripped apart. I

didn't know where I was or what I was

going to do. And um Carol Baron, who is

one of my dearest editors and friends,

said, "I know. I know how to help you do

this."

And she did. And I don't know how, but

just talking with her, uh she believed

in it, number one. She said, "I know how

to make this work. I know how to make

this a success.

And just talking to her, it was

summertime and I went back to then I had

a little writing cabin on Martha's

Vineyard. Went back to my writing cabin

and I worked day and night and day and

night and I'm not kidding. Day and

night. I'd break for dinner, come back

and work until bedtime. Worked till I

couldn't keep my eyes open. And it I

just it was there. I just knew it was

there. And that's when I let the men in

to have their say the way the women

were. So then I could have Lamb, the

father, Sharky, the brother, um maybe

even Brew, the lover. I could have them

all come and finally it just all came

together. And it came together with a

lot of music. Um, and I talked to a lot

of young people about what were you

listening to in I think it starts I

can't remember when it starts. It it's

it's takes place a lot when they're

young in the 80s. Um, and so all of my

children's friends who were now pretty

grown,

they would come for dinner and they

would say, "Oh, I know I know what she

was listening to. She listening to

Blondie or she's listening to whatever."

And I and I got out all this music and I

was listening to all the music and

something just clicked.

It was probably a month, that's all that

I kept going on it.

And you know what? I was so so afraid

when Summer Sisters was about to be

published that it was going to be the

end of a wonderful career. It would just

ruin me forever. I couldn't. I was

terrified. And George, my husband, said

to me, "Well, if you're that afraid of

the reviews and what's going to happen,

let's just leave the country." And I

love that idea. Let's just leave the

country and come back and it'll be over.

But I couldn't because I had to go on

the biggest book tour of my life.

And it was wonderful. It was my I had

just turned 60. And so, um, it was a

real celebration of everything. I had

Kleenex boxes on all the tables when I

was signing because everybody was crying

and I was crying with them. You know, it

it brought me all those wonderful women

and men who grew up reading my books,

who were now grown up themselves and

were reading Summer Sisters. It was a

highlight of my life.

Rejection is a fact of life if you want

to be a writer. Um, it's never easy.

It's painful.

Uh, but you know, I think determination

is every bit as important as talent. You

can have all the talent in the world and

if you can't take it, the rejection,

negative reviews, you're just not going

to do it. You're going to stop. So, uh,

you know, I took a writing class and,

um, started sending things in very

quickly and for two years I got

rejections back. The first rejection

sent me into the closet for a good cry.

And after that, I I more determined. I

said, "Yeah, well, okay, maybe they

didn't like that one, but wait till they

see the one that I'm doing next." And

that's going to change it. And then not

to wait, not to send something in and

wait to see about rejection. Um, but to

just start working on something new, I

think is the best therapy because then

you're involved in in another story and

you can say to yourself, well, maybe

they didn't like that one, but wait till

they see this one. Um, so it is a fact

of life and and it's never easy, but I

think you just have to learn to deal

with it.

I know that the early rejections that I

had made me much more determined. They,

you know, I went from being a crybaby to

being determined. I can do this. They

might not know it yet, but they they'll

say, "I'm going to do this. I know I'm

going to do this." Um, and so I think

that's an important attitude and

attitude is a lot. Some people are so

turned off by any kind of criticism that

it paralyzes them and they can't do it

again. It's so funny about my rejection

letters. I have kept all my rejection

letters. I think I have a folder with

every one of them. I had a letter um

from an kind of semi-professional

very very early on. You know, that

husband knew somebody who knew somebody

and sent an early picture book

manuscript to him and he wrote me a

letter on onion skin. That's that thin

thin paper that we used to use. Must

have been three pages long. But I just

remember how it started.

Um,

I'm sure you're a really nice girl,

Judy, but get out your hanky and get

ready to have a good cry because you

just can't write.

H, I'm sure you're a nice girl.

I had someone else once tell me, "You're

a nice girl, Judy, but you'll never be a

writer."

That's really makes me feel good now,

right?

We know

those were both guys, of course.

Okay. I have a series of rejection

letters from the precursor of Tales Over

Fifth Grade Nothing, which was a short

book called Peter Fudge and Dribble. And

um this is from a company called Parents

Magazine Press that I had read about.

Dear Miss Bloom, this is a very good

story. Well written and with mood

sustained right to the end. I wrote in

the margins, "Wow."

Unfortunately, I'm not sure it is a

children's story. I think parents would

dig the the humor of the situation more

than children would. Give it a try. In

any case,

this was then considered by me a

fabulous rejection letter. If you get

any encouragement in a rejection letter,

yay, celebrate, right? But I think it's

funny now. I'm not sure why I kept all

these letters. They've stayed with me

for well 50 years, right? 50 years. So,

I'm glad that I have them. I think it's

so important to remind yourself of how

you started and how far you came and

that you've survived the ups and the

downs of the writing life. And it's

never smooth going.

If you're scared to be rejected, well,

you're never going to find out if you've

got it and you can be published. So, put

that out the window. You can't be scared

of it. What is it? It's some person

sitting at a desk somewhere that you're

probably never going to meet saying that

he or she doesn't like your book or your

writing or isn't really the right person

to publish it. So, what? Okay,

the next person may love it. So you have

to get over the fear of being rejected

and there is a lot of fear of being

rejected. It hurts. So practice, you

know, accumulate the the rejection

letters and it'll get easier. It will.

So

don't stop. Don't stop. And it's never

too late. Just keep going.

You're doing this after all. You're

doing this because you have to. You're

doing this because you love it. Because

it it relieves something that's inside

of you. That's why you're doing it. So,

you're not going to let one person or 12

people or maybe 78 people stop you from

doing what you need to do.

after you're published, all that joy of

being published and then wham, you have

to face reviews. Uh, some people say

they don't read their reviews. I'm not

sure I believe them, but maybe I'd like

to say that I'm too curious a person, so

I read my reviews. And I've had my share

of great and terrible. And I remember

writing. I had a scrapbook when I

started to write and I kept all my

reviews and all my letters in this

little scrapbook and I got a

particularly nasty review once I think

in school library journal and I just

wrote in red ink you [ __ ] and other

words on it and that made me feel better

you know but I don't sit down and write

a letter to the reviewer

uh to say anything. There was one review

of starring Sally J. Freriedman as

herself and it was in Publishers Weekly

and it was by a reviewer who had liked

my other books, my earlier books. And

this review was so painful,

so awful

that it got to me in the way that I'm

telling you, don't let it get to you.

But it got to me and I took that big IBM

select electric typewriter that I had

and I carried it. It was heavy and I

carried it out of the house. I lived in

New Mexico. I lived um there's a like a

canyon, like an aoyo next to the house

and I held it over this aoyo

and I was going to throw it in. I

thought I cannot do this anymore

because this that book was so important

to me, you know, and it was my most

autobiographical. So, it was like this

is personal. This isn't just a review of

my book. That's how I felt I think that

day.

And I held it there

and then this little voice went off in

my head and it said, "Wait, you're going

to let this one review, this one

reviewer

stop you from writing?

That's crazy. That's one opinion. Don't

do that."

And so I turned around and I carried it

back into the house. And what's really

interesting is that I later at a

convention met that reviewer and she

came up to me and she apologized. She

said, "I I was in a terrible mood that

day. There just, you know, this is how

things happen. We don't normally know

this."

She said, "I read about the cockroach in

the chowine," which was a little detail

in my book because it really happened to

my brother. And she said, "I lost my

lunch

and I punished you for that."

And what do I say?

Yeah, it was really hard. I mean, I

don't know what I said. I don't think I

said anything. I was so taken aback. But

this just says to you, this is one

person's opinion.

One person doesn't like your book. That

doesn't mean it's the end. It doesn't

mean you stop writing. It doesn't mean

you don't have talent. And that's when

you have to be determined. You have to

have such strong determination. You have

to want it so badly and need it so badly

that this rejection cannot stop you.

Sometimes even negative reviews can be

constructive. I think I I especially

think of a couple of rejection letters I

had telling me um why they weren't going

to publish the book. And by the way,

that of course in in my day when you

could send directly to an editor, that

was huge when someone wrote you a

letter, a personal letter, not just, you

know, some form rejection letter and

said, "This is why." And I came across

that not long ago. and I wrote on it.

She's absolutely right. And I've totally

rewritten this book. It was Freckle

Juice. I've totally rewritten this book

and I believe I sent it back to her and

I think she published it. So yes, you

can get again that kind of feedback.

This is what doesn't work for us about

it and maybe it's right. Not so much in

reviews though. Not so much in reviews.

By then your book is published. So, you

know, is it constructive? Is it going to

help you? I don't know. Maybe with the

next book, but some people just don't

like what you write. And that's uh you

know, that's somebody's opinion. Don't

dwell on the negative ones. You know,

what good is it going to do you?

Memorize the positive ones and think

about them. And remember that most

readers aren't reading reviews anyway.

They're going to the bookshop or the

library and they're choosing your book

for other reasons. Um, what's done is

done.

My experience is that after you go

through this wonderful experience, yes,

we accept your book and we're working

with you and you've done all the

revisions and the copy editor is through

with your book. Um,

before that,

your publisher editor is going to want a

title because they present your book at

sales conference and sales conferences

way before your book hits the

marketplace. I have been caught in the

position several times of not having a

title. I once had Dick Jackson call me

and say, "Judy, I'm presenting this book

at sales conference tomorrow and I need

a title now."

That turned out to be starring Sally J.

Friedman as herself. I

I don't know. I have trouble sometimes

with titles. I mean, are you there, God?

It's me, Margaret. First line of the

book. Then again, maybe I won't. Last

line of the book. Would I would I give

something such a long title as are you

there God? It's me, Margaret. No, I

wouldn't. You know, we all just call her

Margaret. But there it is.

I

I didn't have a title for um Summer

Sisters. I had a long list of

musicals. I wanted a musical title. I

wanted a song title

from the era that these girls were

growing up. And I had oh so many titles

and Carol Baron, my wonderful editor,

said to me, "Judy, you're missing the

best one. It's so obvious, Summer

Sisters." And I said, "But Carol, it is

so obvious, Summer Sisters." And she

said, "That's what this book should be

called." And of course, once she said

that, I went with it. I once had lunch

with my beloved agent Claire Smith many

years ago. And I had no title for a book

that became Just as Long as We're

Together. And the way it became that was

I had no title. And we were singing

songs at this lengthy lunch. We were the

last people in the restaurant. And we

said, "We have to find a title." We were

singing kind of camp songs to each other

and

that's a line from a song. Um, what's

the song? As long as we're just as long

as we're together. Uh, we won't have a

barrel of money.

Singing a song. Oh, no. That was side by

side. And maybe just as long as we're

together is in there in another verse. I

take it all back. Stop. So anyway, we

were singing songs and we came up with

one song that had a line in it. Just as

long as we're together,

something about the weather,

we'll be fine. And it was that was good.

Just as long as we're together. Write

down everything that you can think of. I

mean, that's me, the scribbler. I would,

you know, just take a page and write 25

possible titles on it once I actually

did that and sent it to my editor and it

became Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing,

which was one of the 25 titles that I

had on there because I couldn't come up

with a title. In the unlikely event is

interesting because of course I didn't

have a title and again I wanted a

musical title. There's a lot of music

mentioned in the book, popular tunes in

the 50s, and I wanted to use one of

them, but I think probably Carol didn't.

And so I was talking to a friend one day

who had never read the book. I hadn't

sent her the book, and she said, "I'm

I'm pretty good at this. Tell me what

it's about." And so we sat and I told

her a little and I said, "I'd really

like something

that has to do with flying."

And she sent me the next day something

that flight attendants say all the time

in the unlikely event. And I thought

that is perfect. That is what this book

is. It's a series of unlikely events.

And I think that somewhere in the book,

um, Mary, maybe she's a grown-up, is

looking back and saying, "Life is a

series of unlikely events, isn't it?

That's what life is."

So, I'm ever grateful to my friend

Pamela for the title.

Cover art is a whole other thing. I have

been through

so many years and so many covers because

you know books get re recovered

especially children's books if they stay

if they stay in print they're constantly

being recovered.

The one that strikes me as the funniest

is the paperback

cover of Are You There God? It's Me

Margaret. It was my first paperback

book. When I started publishing, there

weren't paperback books for children,

which is so odd. I mean, really, is that

true? I guess so. So, uh, here comes the

paperback cover for my first book in

paper. And wonderful Dick Jackson calls

me on the phone and he says, "Are you

sitting down?" I said, "No." He said,

"Sit down. I have something to tell you.

It's purple and green. She's got long

blonde hair. She's wearing an orange

puffy sleeve dress. And she's six months

pregnant.

In the book, she describes herself right

away as having brown hair that's growing

in and it's all pinned with bobby pins,

but here she is. They apparently did a

study in those days and found that girls

were most attracted to purple. Purple is

my favorite color, but would I have

chosen this for Margaret? Probably not.

And since then, Margaret has been up and

down and all around. And currently, she

has a a cover art that looks like a

text.

Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret.

Dot dot dot.

In the unlikely event, Carol Baron, my

wonderful editor for that book and for

Summer Sisters, Carol created, she knew

what she wanted for the hard coverver

book and it was a dynamic cover. I have

to say it was bold and you could see it

and it was different than a lot of other

books. Then came the trade paperback and

I was

to say I was underwhelmed

is not telling you the truth really. I

could not believe it. And it looked like

uh it looked like they were trying to

reach a YA audience

and it was so wrong for the book and

they sent it to me like the night before

and they said this is it. This is the

final. I had had many many many covers

that they had sent to me before and they

were really not good, not strong, had

nothing to do with the book. And then

comes this one that they said this is

it. But look, you can have this color

turquoise or that color turquoise. Lucky

you, right? And I have been unhappy with

that cover from day one now. It's out in

mass market. It's got a great great

cover.

but too late for the trade paperback.

And I think that

that kind of

mistake in covering a book, making it

look as if it's for the wrong group.

I think that really does hurt a book. It

can also help a book if it's the right

cover.

There are some covers that you're just

so attracted to. It's like, I have to

find out what's in this book. This is

the greatest cover. In the UK, Summer

Sisters was published as to look like a

romance novel. It was it it should have

had someone else's name on it. And it

was just totally wrong for the book. The

book failed in the UK

where it did well in the US and

now that I have a bookstore,

I think um what makes for a great cover

is when I put it up on a shelf and you

can see it. You can see what it is. It's

bold enough to read the title and the

author's name from across the room. And

the colors are

right. The colors are pleasing in some

way or stand out in some way. I can't

tell you how many books go up on the

shelf and you just there's nothing

there. You can't see anything. And I

wonder why because surely

marketing departments, art departments

know this. Um, sometimes you have to get

right up to it before you can read it.

Maybe that's maybe that's what they

want. I don't know.

I'm a person who hates categories. I

don't like to tell anybody what age they

need to be to read a certain book. So, I

don't like, you know,

telling kids this is a book for this age

group or you get this many points on

your accelerated reader test if you read

this book because this is for a

10-year-old and you're only an

eight-year-old. I really don't like

categories. And I love what Moraurice

Sendak said, which was, "I do not sit

down and think I'm doing a book for

children. I am telling a story and I'm

illustrating it." And whoever wants to

read it is welcome to read it. And

that's kind of how I feel about books.

There are wonderful children's books

that should be read by everybody.

Sherman Alex's fabulous book, The

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time

Indian. It's a wonderful book and it's

published YA

and great because it's great for young

people to read it, but it's also great.

I happened to leave it on my son's

bedside table once and he didn't know it

was YA and he picked it up and read it.

He was 50 and he said, "This is one of

the best books I've ever read. Everybody

should read this book."

Yes, that's how I feel, but everybody

isn't going to take it off the YA shelf.

And there are adults who, you know, love

YA books and go to YA books, but and

there are kids who are ready to go into

the shelves with adult books. So, I

don't like categorizing

books, but that's a reality. That's a

reality of the marketplace. That's how

it is. And there are different book

buyers

in stores that specialize in children's

or YA or adult fiction,

mystery,

women's fiction, something I don't

understand at all. What does that mean?

We don't have men's fiction. There's

fiction. Who wants to read it? gets to

read it and make up his or her own mind.

A lot of us who write for young people,

we have sat around for years now saying,

"Okay, if Catcher in the Ry were

published today, would it be published?"

Ya

and the many different answers and kind

that kind of changes with the year and

what's in fashion, what's trendy and

what isn't. And it might be, who knows?

Writing to trends is a mistake always

because by the time your book reaches an

editor, that editor may be sick of the

trendy whatever it was.

You know, vampire books were so trendy

for a while, but I don't see them

anymore.

Maybe they're there, but I don't know

about them. So, I think always always

dig deep inside yourself.

Write what's there. If you love fantasy,

absolutely write fantasy. You know, I

think that we write very much what we

like to read. And so the reader of

science fiction, the reader of fantasy,

the reader of mystery may become the

writer of those genres.

But I like the real life stuff that I

was finding in my parents' bookshelves

when I was 12. I like that. I wanted to

know about the real world. And so I like

writing about the real world. So I was

lucky that when I came along,

real life fiction was something that

publishers were looking for. In fact,

when I read in a magazine about Bradbury

Press, it said that they were a new

young company looking for I forget what

they called it, but basically I call it

realistic realistic fiction for young

people. So that's but that was my

natural inclination. That's what I'm

interested in. I'm interested in real

life people. I don't think I'd be good

at trying to do fantasy. I have a lot of

imagination, but my mind doesn't work in

a fantasy way. It works a lot of

imagination in a real life way. So,

I've never been tempted to,

you know, break out of that. I don't

know what I would do. What would I try

to do?

Write dystopian fiction? I don't think

so. Science fiction. No, I wouldn't be

good at that.

Online marketing, marketing of your own

books has become really, really

important. And if you're about to be

published, I think your publisher, your

editor will ask you to please go online,

do Instagram, tweet,

you know, Facebook, have your own

website. It this is really, really

important. And I have seen books, good

books, books that friends of mine have

written. And I have seen them go from,

you know, they weren't getting any

publicity. Their the publisher wasn't

putting a lot behind it in terms of

marketing or book tour. And I have seen

some writers who are just great at this

just go to town. They're all over the

internet. and it builds and it is very

important and it doesn't cost any money

and it is a great way to promote your

book and if you're not thinking of that

yourself already

you should be and you'll be asked to I'm

sure um it's hard for some people to do

that they don't like it but there are

fun ways to do it and there are some

people who are just great at doing it

and you and study how they do it. They

do it without, you know, saying, "Look

at this book I wrote. It's so fabulous."

But in little ways, in funny little

ways, self-deprecating ways, you will

know about their book and you'll be

interested in it. And I think that's

really uh that's here to stay.

The first time it ever occurred to me

that Margaret

could be seen as controversial was when

I gave three copies of the book to my

children's elementary school and the

principal of the school, a man,

decided that these books could not be on

the shelf in the library of his school

because

in the book

Margaret gets her period. And this was

something that he considered,

I don't know, beyond what a child should

be allowed to read. Never mind how many

girls in fifth and sixth grades already

had their periods. that this could be

considered controversial was I never

really thought of it. I never thought

I'm doing something really controversial

when I was writing the book because I

went into that determined

to be honest and

that was such a part of my experience

being in sixth grade.

the the longing

for in my case it was the longing for

getting my period and being normal like

the other girls and I just wanted to to

share that in a way with my readers. I

did get a phone call from a woman early

on who asked me if I had written that

book and I proudly said yes I did and

she called me a communist and hung up. I

mean, you know,

such odd odd

things, but it wasn't really until the

80s. Margaret was published in the early

70s, maybe 1970, I can't remember, 71.

And um and the 70s the 70s was a very

good decade for children's books,

children's writers. A lot of us came

along in the 70s writing,

I think, books that we wanted to be

honest

and open. And because the 70s was a much

more open and honest decade than what

was coming in the 80s,

this was good. And Richard Peek and

Norma Klene and Paula Daniger

and so many of my the writers who became

my contemporaries.

We all started out together in the 70s.

And it was a good time for us. It was a

good time because editors were willing

to take chances on new writers

and and it was a good time for the kids.

My kids for instance who were growing up

then I brought them home the most

wonderful books and those books I think

meant a lot to them as they were coming

of age. books about real life, real

people, real feelings, the things that

were inside them. And they just both

loved to read, I think, because they had

these books

in the 80s along with the presidential

election. Uh it was Reagan. Uh the next

day the sensors came out of the

woodwork. You know, we are going to

demand that these books be challenged

and removed.

We don't want our children to read these

books. Therefore, no children should be

allowed to read these books. That was

the attitude. That's what happened. the

American Library Association, the calls

that they got to challenge books

quadrupled, I think almost overnight.

And we got into a a period where,

forgive me for using that word, where

our books were challenged,

sometimes banned from schools or school

libraries. Not public libraries, not

bookstores, but public schools and

public school libraries.

That's where the effort was made to get

rid of our books. It was a tough time. I

felt alone. I felt

sometimes

did I doubt myself? I don't think so so

much as as the hurt that came with that

that I'm trying to do something that I

think is a good thing. I'm not trying to

harm children.

And

um that was painful

until I found the National Coalition

Against Censorship. And once I found

this wonderful small effective

group, I joined up with them and I found

my people. They were there trying to

help us and help kids keep the books

that they wanted to read. And that was a

great great time for me. And I still am

very active with that group today and

I'm thankful for them.

Times are very different now, but I have

to tell you books are still regularly

challenged.

Sherman Alexe's fabulous book, The

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time

Indian, is challenged and often removed

from the shelf. And why is that? What is

it about that book?

Its language,

which is real, which is true.

It's masturbation,

which is to those who want to censor

like that is the worst topic in the

world. That's worse than having

intercourse

when really it makes for very safe sex.

Um, you know, so there's a kid who's

masturbating. I've written about

masturbation, too. And I can tell you

that that is the biggest no no around.

And that book that I wrote, Deanie,

for a long time, kids never even knew I

wrote that book because

the sensors successfully

had that book removed. It's back. I'm

glad to say it's back. And Sherman

Alex's book is a book that I think

everybody should read. I don't care how

young you are or how old you are. It's a

book that really speaks to kids. If if a

boy comes into my bookshop and doesn't

know what to read, I will take that book

down from the shelf and say, "You know,

I think you might like this book."

So as a writer, you have to go into that

little room

and leave the fear outside and get that

sensor off your shoulder so that you

don't self censor because all of this

sensor's wishes to challenge our books

has made a lot of writers afraid.

And so they're going to self censor. You

don't want to do that. You want to write

what needs to be there. Get it all down.

Later, if somebody tells you, "Oh, I

think you really should take that out."

Well, that's going to be up to you if

you want to have the argument with an

editor

and make your decision. My dearest

editor, Dick Jackson, we were working on

Here's to You, Rachel Robinson, and

there are three teenagers in the family,

and the middle child is a disruptive boy

of 15. The amazing thing to me is that

Charles doesn't use foul language

throughout the book. He's so smart that

he's able to articulate what he wants to

get across without going into

four-letter words. But here comes a

moment when he is so angry

and he's in the kitchen late at night

with his younger sister Rachel

and I think they're drinking grape juice

and he toasts her and he says, "Here's

to you, Rachel Robinson. Here's to my

whole [ __ ] family."

I know that's what Charles would say. I

know it and he needs to say that. And

Dick Jackson said to me, "This is up to

you, Judy. I just want you to know if he

says that, we're going to lose book club

sales. The book clubs will not take this

book. If he says frigin family, the book

clubs will take it. Up to you."

And I went home

and I thought about this and my son

walked in. Uh I don't remember how old

he is, but he was past school age. He

was a grownup. And um I told him about

this

and he said to me

like he couldn't believe this. He said,

"You're Judy Bloom. If you can't be

honest, if you can't use the word that

you know this kid would use,

then who else is going to be brave

enough to do it?

And so I told Dick, "This is what

Charles would say. Charles has to say it

and I'll take my losses, but it has to

be the right word. It has to be honest.

And so he says, "Here's to you, Rachel

Robinson. Here's to my whole [ __ ]

family." And I have had a lot of letters

about that. And I write back and I

explain it. I'm not telling your

children they can say [ __ ]

I'm saying this is what this character

would say in this situation.

You as parents can say to your kids, "I

don't ever want to hear you say that

word." And they're going to say it

anyway, but maybe out of earshot.

So, I'm proud that I stood up for what I

thought was the right thing to do. And

I'm ever grateful to my son.

It seems impossible looking back um that

this has been my life and that I've been

lucky enough to find a way to use the

creative energy that has been inside me.

Um,

it seems impossible that 50 years have

gone by because it feels like yesterday

really that I was starting out. I

remember um

when Margaret was published and it was

reviewed in the New York Times, which

seemed like an impossible thing anyway.

And it was in a roundup of seven books

and it was reviewed last. and it said

the best of the seven and something else

wonderful.

And I thought, oh my god, maybe

that's when I really thought maybe

I can do this. Maybe I am a writer.

That's when the first time that it

really hit me, I think, um, that this

impossible dream

was coming true.

I've had plenty of bad reviews since

then, but that first one that made me

feel

that I could be a writer.

Before email,

I used to get so many letters um from

kids who read my books that in the 80s I

decided to put it put them together in a

book that I called letters from Judy,

what your kids wish they could tell you.

Because so many kids wrote about I can't

tell my parents, so I'm telling you.

Because of course it was safe to tell

me. So they poured their hearts out and

their guts and they gave me they asked

me their questions and um I thought I

wanted to share this book with parents

with teachers and with other kids you

know who could see themselves. The

letters are connected with

autobiographical

essays. Um, so you find out a lot about

me and I share a lot about what the

children were writing.

And these are a few letters from that

book.

Dear Judy, my mom never talks about the

things young girls think most about. She

doesn't know how I feel. I don't know

where I stand in the world. I don't know

who I am. That's why I read to find

myself from Elizabeth, age 13.

This means absolutely the world to me,

everything to me. That to know that my

books have touched

young readers and readers of all ages in

such a personal way. um that we're

connected in this way. And when I read a

letter like this about a girl who just

wants to feel normal, that's me. I was a

girl who just wanted to feel normal.

So I never dreamed

of anything like this when I started to

write. You know, my first dreams were

very simple.

please let somebody want to publish

something that I write. And then I get a

little more greedy and I say, "Okay, now

something's been published. Maybe

someday I'll hear from somebody who's

read one of my books."

And

then when that came true, I just

stopped.

I just stopped. I never dreamed of

this kind of success over so many years.

People ask me, "What's your legacy?"

And the only thing I can think to say,

and the most important thing is that

I've connected with readers for so many

generations now. And to me, that's I

couldn't ask for anything else.

when I was in my mid20s and these

creative urges started to bubble up like

I have to do something I have to do

something uh and I had little kids and

so I wasn't in those days I wasn't

working outside of the home I was trying

to find something that I could do at

home and I started making felt pictures

for children's bedrooms and um with a

lot of determination and hutspot I must

say looking back I packed them up in a

suitcase and I was living in suburban

New Jersey and I took the bus to New

York City and I marched into

Bloomingdales with my felt pictures and

someone took pity on me and led me to

the buyer of children's accessories who

looked in my suitcase and took out the

three pictures and he said I want this

one in pink and green. And I want this

one in red and blue. And it was, "Oh my

god, he's going to buy these and sell

them." And I believed I was I believe I

was paid $9 for each one. They sold them

for $18.

And I was in heaven. I was in heaven. I

had creative work that I could do in my

basement. I had a little workshop down

there. Um and that was I never could

have imagined anything better than that.

But you know after a year my fingers got

itchy from the glue and um I was a young

mother reading a lot of books to little

children and like so many I thought I

could do this or I'm going to try to do

this and that's when I sat down and

started to do imitation Dr. Seuss. Bad

imitation Dr. Seuss, but rhyming books,

rhyming picture books. And that's where

it started. And after that, I did some

stories for little children that weren't

rhyming, but um that I envisioned as

picture books. And then one day, an

advertisement came in the mail from NYU.

I had graduated from NYU, so I got their

mailings. and it talked about a class in

writing, people who were interested in

writing for kids from picturebook age to

twins.

And I thought, "This is an omen. I have

to do this." And so I did.

And I I do believe that that teacher

gave me my first professional

encouragement.

And that's where it all started.

The absolute first acceptance that I had

was for a little picture story book

called The One in the Middle is the

Green Kangaroo. That was my real first

book. And when that call came in, I was

in the same place I was when Dick's call

came in. But when that call came in, um,

they said, "And we can offer you $300."

And I was like, "Okay." You know,

because there was going to be an

illustrator and probably the other $300

was going to go to her or him. And I put

down the phone and I went whooping

through the house and I went downstairs

into the we had a little finished

basement down there where my children

were playing with some other children

with some product called silly sand. All

I remember about it was it was in a big

bowl that I had given them and I think

you added water and then you could

sculpt things. And I just put my hands

into that bowl of silly sand and threw

it up in the air and went carrying on.

And little Lorie Murphy, who was playing

with them, who lived in the house behind

us, went home and told her mommy that

Larry's mommy has gone crazy,

which was true. I had gone crazy because

it was the most exciting moment of my

life. But then Dick's call was really

more exciting. I understood that that

was something different. That this was

working with a real editor. I didn't

have that with the first book. It was a

book I sent in and a book that they

accepted. I don't remember if there was

copy editing or anything or if I changed

anything, but with Dick, I knew this was

the real deal. I was in a real

publishing company, and

this editor

liked my work enough to publish it. That

was very exciting.

And we kind of grew up together, you

know, we came of age together

professionally

and Bradberry Press

became,

I think, you know, the finest publisher

of children's books. For a long time,

they were there is no more Bradberry

Press, sadly, but the books are still

alive and well with another publisher.

I've had so many defining moments. You

know, I feel so lucky from that first

moment that Margaret was published and

got a good review in the New York Times

um to um to being offered an honorary

degree at Mount Holio. And I have to

tell you that Man Holio was the college

that my guidance counselor at my all

girls public high school in New Jersey

wanted me to go to. I didn't know

anything about colleges. I'd never even

heard of Mount Holio, but she thought I

belonged there. However, I couldn't take

um standardized tests. I took them, but

I panicked and I couldn't answer any of

the questions. And so I did my SATs by

um randomly

filling in the blanks. And of course

when you do that you don't do very well.

Still don't know why but I didn't. But

to go to Mount Holio you had to also

take what we called the afternoon SATs,

subject matter SATs. And I just knew I

couldn't do that. So whatever Mount

Holio College was, I could not apply to

Mount Holio. Fortunately, I got into

some good schools anyway because I was a

good student, but my SAT scores were as

low as you could get, as you can

imagine, when you answer at random and

you never read the questions. Um, so I

accepted this honor to have an honorary

degree from Mount Holio. I knew I'd have

to give a commencement address,

but I knew what I was going to do

because I looked up Mount Holio and I

discovered that Mount Holio College was

no longer insisting that you give SAT

scores or worse afternoon SAT scores.

They were also admitting

young women based on their portfolios

and their recommendations from school

and I had been a good student and I read

this and I thought yes this is what I'm

going to say and I got up there on the

stage and I told my story to the Mount

Holio graduates about why

I was so proud to get this honorary

degree because even though I couldn't

Oh, when I was 18 because I was too

scared to take those tests. Here I was

now and I wasn't scared anymore.

About a year and a half ago, um, my

husband and I founded a bookstore in Key

West. We are affiliated with the great

books and books in Miami, Mitchell

Kaplan's fabulous bookstores. When we

got to town 20 years ago, we had four or

five bookstores and now we were down to

one used bookstore. So, we really wanted

a shop. I mean, this is a town of

writers and artists and people who love

to read, love books, and we just felt we

wanted to do this. Of course, like many

things I do, we didn't think this

through. What would this really mean if

it happened? and we got to have a

wonderful fullervice bookshop. What

would it mean for us? And we just went

with it. It is so incredibly exciting.

You can probably tell I'm very excited

by our bookshop. And it came at the

right time for me in my professional

life because after 50 years and after

five years locked up writing in the

unlikely event, I really felt

I've done what I wanted to do and I'm

not going to write any more long novels.

I'm not saying that I'll never write

another book. I don't know. There are

little things brewing on the back

burners, but not a three to five year

project. On my next birthday, I'll be

80, and I don't want to um be locked up

anymore. I'm too happy to be around

people. I love that. I love the energy

of being at the bookshop. So the first

season, George and I work seven days a

week and that was a lot and it's

exhausting and I'm out front. I'm, you

know, the front person and so I'm on my

feet out there all day every day meeting

wonderful people, locals, snowbirds,

um, visitors from all over the world.

And there's just so many book lovers and

they're so excited to find a real I

don't know if we should say

old-fashioned, but a real indie

bookstore where they can come in and

talk to staff about books. And um that's

wonderful. We now have three paid

employees and during our high season

which is winter we have a lot of

volunteers wonderful volunteers. One

knows poetry. One used to work in a

bookshop in the UK and there are real

book lovers and they can help our

customers find what they're looking for

which is great. I can't tell you how

excited I am every day to get up and go

to work. And every day, I shouldn't say

this to you because of course you're all

writers, but I've written for a long

time. And every day now, I get up and I

say, "Thank you. Thank you. I don't have

to write today. I can go to my

bookshop." So, for me, it's um a

wonderful change. I could never get up

and not have something to do that's

creative. And there's a lot of creative

energy that goes into the the the jeing

of my books every day. That's what

someone told me it's called. Uh I used

to call it petting my books. But I love,

you know, I love displaying them. I love

moving them around. I love handling

them. I love telling people about them.

So, I've learned the other side of the

story. I'm not sure that it would have

been a good thing for me to know when I

was writing. It's um

returns is a very painful time for me.

But when you only have so much room in a

bookshop,

eventually books are going to go back so

that new books can come in. That is so

so hard. And and my mentors said to me,

Judy, you're going to have to learn to

be ruthless. And I said, no, no, I can't

because I know what it's like. I know

that feeling about please keep my book

in your bookshop. Please give it as much

time as you can. And so I promise you

I'll do that for you when your books are

published. Uh I will give them as much

time and attention as I possibly can.

I'll display them as well as I can. Um

because I love them and I know what it's

like and I love you for writing them.

Imagination

has always been such a part of my life.

I mean, every kid imagines,

you know, it's just that some stop or

it's not so important to them. But my

childhood imagination,

my making up those stories in my head,

that's never stopped. And that's

probably been the most powerful force in

my life that I have this thing, that I

have this imagination, that I'm able to

conjure up people and stories.

That's it for me. That's been my life.

And I'm eternally grateful for wherever

that came from. My husband says to me,

"Judy, you have too much imagination."

And I just

give him a grin. And I think to myself,

nobody can have too much imagination,

let alone a writer. There's no writer

who has too much imagination. The best

thing for you to do right now is to

start writing or get back to what you

were writing. And don't think about it

too much. Don't overanalyze it. Just let

it happen. Just sit down, start doing

it, and good luck.