7 Minutes With... Paige Crutcher

I am thrilled to introduce you to my dear friend Paige Crutcher. She is a gifted woman in so many respects - both as a writer, a journalist (she works for Publishers Weekly) and a yoga teacher. When you hear me mention my guru, this is who I'm speaking of. She's given me so much, and I'm so excited to be able to pay back just a bit by sharing her HUGE news - her debut novel, THE ODYSSEY OF FALLING, came out on Tuesday! This book is so fantastic, a really meaty, important, beautifully written YA novel about the journey of a young girl named Odd. I can't recommend it highly enough. And Paige's journey to publication is a study in perseverance and strength. I admire her so much. Without further ado...

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Set your music to shuffle and hit play. What’s the first song that comes up?

Pale Blue Eyes by The Velvet Underground. 

It’s haunting, comforting, and somehow seductive. It sets the stage nicely for writing about the magical and complicated (and sometimes horrible) world of being a teen – and tapping into that time in your life when all the firsts are experienced and everything feels huge. Because it really kind of is.

Now that we’ve set the mood, what are you working on today?

Well, my book released today, so I’m working on not wigging out. Because it’s a pretty surreal feeling to acknowledge that something I made is now out there in the world, for anyone to read. I feel rather naked, and vulnerable, so I’d say today I am working on channeling my brave.

Then I’ll be revising my new contemporary YA novel about a group of misfits in the 90s who reinvent themselves as renegade Merry Pranksters.

What’s your latest book about?

The Odyssey of Falling is about a girl named Odd who finds her recently deceased best friend’s journal, and decides to do the bucket list tucked inside the pages. It’s about loss, hope, getting into trouble, and falling in love. It’s about growing up and growing into who you are meant to be.

Where do you write, and what tools do you use?

My laptop, my hands, and occasionally a really awkweird grimace. I write at my desk, at the kitchen table, in bed, on the couch, on a box, by a fox, wearing socks. I am horrible at routine, and prefer to have alternate views of the world as I slip into a story one.

What was your favorite book as a child?

Anne Rice’s Memnoch the Devil. I read it when I was thirteen or fourteen and it has stayed with me. The language and imagery are gorgeous, and the book made me think. It gave me an escape, and mesmerized me, but it also made me really think about the world, God, and how I viewed it.

What’s your favorite bit of writing advice?

Trust your characters. It can be really hard to trust yourself if you look at writing from the perspective that you’re in control, or the puppet master pulling the strings. If, instead, you trust your characters and acknowledge that the story is their own – and that they know what to do -- I find it’s immensely freeing and a heck of a lot of fun.

What do you do if the words aren’t flowing?

Watch Buffy? Usually I go for a walk, talk plot hiccups with my critique partners or husband, and come back to the page. I put on really angsty indie tunes and get the hell out of my own way. Once I stop fighting myself (or listening to the mean little inner critic), I find story is right where I left it.

What would you like to be remembered for?

For being a damn fine writer, and one hell of a friend. As someone who loved well, made a difference in the lives she encountered, and had a passionate and wonderful love story. And if it’s not too much to ask, I wouldn’t mind being remembered as a super hero. Peaceful Paige—the girl who spread hope.

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Paige Crutcher is a journalist for Publishers Weekly, a yoga instructor, and a voracious reader. She lives outside of Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband, two small dogs, her overactive imagination, and a houseful of books. The Odyssey of Falling is her first book. You can learn more about Paige at: paigecrutcher.com

More About THE ODYSSEY OF FALLING 

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Meet Odd. Audrey “Odd” Ashworth is an exceptionally bright girl with a sympathetic heart. She’s in the top 4% of her class. She’s obsessed with getting into Manhattan School of Music, committed to following the “signs” the universe delivers, and infatuated with the boyfriend of her recently deceased best friend. 

Life is a little strange for Odd. 

Until she finds her best friend’s diary in her crush’s car, and decides to do the bucket list tucked inside the pages. As Odd seeks closure and a way to honor her friend, she discovers there’s nothing wrong with a little strange, especially if it helps you discover who you were meant to be. Along the way, Odd falls into trouble, adventure, and finally love.

10.30.14 - How Do You Use Your Writing To Attain Your Goals?

Last week I asked a hard question - why do you write? Now that you’ve had time to think about it, I have another question for you. 

How do you use your writing to attain your goals?

• Do you lose yourself in story?
• Do you spend your time deep inside your characters heads?
• Do you talk about your work on social media?
• Do you keep plugging away on the same book, year after year?
• Do you write when the spirit moves you?
• Do you wait for lightning to strike and the perfect story to land in your lap?
• Do you write every day, with a schedule and attainable goals? 
• Do you honor your writing time, and expect those around you to honor it too?
• Do you take yourself seriously?
• Do you learn about publishing, enough to understand which path you want to take?
• Do you procrastinate, then complain to friends how hard writing is?

You already know the answer to the question, don’t you? The only way to succeed at your writing goals, no matter what they are, is to show up to do your work. Yes, lightning strikes. How many writers can you name who’ve had that one idea that propelled their career and allowed them to never write another book again? Harper Lee comes to mind. J.D. Salinger. 

Ergo, it doesn’t happen all that often. You have to write. You can’t succeed in your career if you don’t write the book of your heart, right now. Write the book that you’ve always wanted to write. Life is too damn short to wait. What if, God forbid, something happened to you tomorrow, and you hadn’t worked on it?

Yes, yes, we have to maintain our careers. We have to feed the family and make the deadlines. But I challenge each and every one of you to spend five minutes each and every day writing the book of your heart.

Because guess what? That’s the book that will break you out. Break you free. Your passion for the story, the characters, the setting, will translate.

And it might break you entirely. You may feel like you’ve already written that book, and no one responded. Or it didn’t achieve the acclaim you wanted. Revisit it. You’re a better writer now. You’ve learned so much. You’ve achieved so much. You can rebuild it. Make it stronger. You know it’s not perfect. Nothing ever is.

Five minutes a day. Only five. Two hundred words. That’s a solid, single, solitary paragraph. That’s all it takes. You do that everyday, starting tomorrow, and the book of your heart will be there waiting for you in a year. 

And when you’re ready, you can love your perfect story into being. Sell it, sit on it, whatever. 

But isn’t THAT why we’re writers? To tap into our very souls and create something that makes our hearts sing?

10.27.14

It's 6:00 p.m., and I haven't gotten a thing done on the WIP, because the edits came in for WHAT LIES BEHIND! I haven't seen this book in two months, so I'm excited to dig in and reacquaint myself with the story. And of course, I had a fun conversation with my editor about the eerie timeliness of the book -- at it's heart, it's about an attack on the U.S. using an Ebola-esque hemorrhagic virus. Yeah. Topical much?

I had a heck of a time writing it, too because the concept was developed last year and I was more than halfway through the story well before the outbreak, and as the outbreak continued to spread, I kept having to change the book so it didn't look like I'd stolen the story from the headlines. Because I, apparently, am simply too prescient when it comes to writing about current events. I remember months ago, telling my agent about my struggles, and he asked if it was at all possible for Ebola to spread in the US. And I assured him it was. To New York, he asked? Oh, yeah, I answered. Hard to spread, because of the nature of transmission, but we'll have a few cases here and there. Trust me, I know way too much about everything that's happening right now.

This isn't the first time I've had a coincidence like this in my writing. As a matter of fact, it seems to happen with alarming frequency. Perhaps I need to start writing books about people winning the lottery and cancer being cured and the alleviation of grief and suffering. It's a thought.

My parents are coming for a visit tomorrow. I have all kinds of things planned, and went shopping tonight and bought all their favorite foods. Made a nice big pot of chicken soup for dinner, too, so the house smells like salt and warmth and happiness.

The larder is full, the edits await, the minions have been gifted with a new catnip trout, and the soup is bubbling away. I call it a day well spent, even though I wrote not a single word.  

Wait. Does the blog count?

10.22.14 - Why Do You Write?

I find the following question to be one of worth to all writers, at every stage of the game, from aspiring to NYT bestseller:

Why do you write? 

I admit to a deep interest in the question. I have a number of author friends whose opinions matter to me a great deal, and I’m curious to see if any of them will stop by and share their answer.* 

I ask also because I recently had the pleasure of attending a writing retreat with a number of brilliant, talented writers, and we touched on this, albeit briefly. I came out of the discussion with this -- I think it’s one of the hardest questions a writer can ask themselves, and truthfully answer.

Because there are a million answers to the question of why create art. Especially when there’s quite a precedent that shows creating our unique “art” does not guarantee fame, fortune, or self-actualization, as so many of us are hoping. On the contrary, it often leads to rack and ruin, unhappiness and divorce, even, at its worst, death.

So why do we keep at it? What is it that drives us?

Here’s a top of mind list of why we write (and by write, I mean create, in any form):

• To be read
• To make a living
• To win awards
• To become famous
• To get a job
• To tell stories that need to be told
• To entertain
• To affect change
• To give people something to think about
• To alter the course of humanity
• To show someone you can
• To get rich
• To win over a love interest
• To get revenge
• To chase away demons
• To satisfy some indefinable inner urge to write
• To heal thyself

There are many more reasons. What do you think, fellow scribblers? Are you willing to share why you do it? I’ll go first. 

I write to entertain, to affect change, to make a living, to chase away demons, to heal my soul, and because I can’t imagine doing anything else.

What about you?

*The comments section of the blog is back open! All previous issues with SPAM have been fixed, and I’ve discovered I like having the conversation here. So feel free to join in, writer and reader alike!

7 Minutes With... Pam Jenoff

Welcome Pam Jenoff to the Tao! I'm absolutely fascinated by her books, and jealous of her covers, because the meaty stories within give the art department so much to work with! Pam and I share a publisher, so I've been lucky enough to get my hands on her books before others, and I'm telling you,  if you haven't read her before, you're going to love them.

We are also fellow alums from George Washington University, and she followed a path into the foreign service which I'd originally been aiming for, so I'm doubly fascinated by her life and writing. Which, of course, influences her books. Maybe she'll pop into the comments and give us an extra answer - does life imitate art, or vice versa? Regardless, Pam's the whole package, people, and then some. So here we go!

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Set your music to shuffle and hit play. What’s the first song that comes up?

Return to Innocence by Enigma.  But the truth is, I don’t work to music.  Sadder truth is I have the worst musical taste on the planet – think Mandy Patinkin meets Counting Crows.

Now that we’ve set the mood, what are you working on today?

I just turned in my next book, called Summer Boys.  It’s the story of Adelia, a 16 year old Italian Jewish refugee who makes her way to America in 1941 and meets an Irish family with four sons.  She falls in love with the eldest just as America enters the war and when tragedy strikes, she flees her pain to wartorn London.

While my editor is reading that manuscript, I’m starting No Man’s Land, which is the story of a single mom trying to protect her homosexual son in Nazi Germany.

 What’s your latest book about?

The Winter Guest is the story of twin Polish sisters, Helena and Ruth Nowak, who are struggling to raise their younger siblings in Poland during the Second World War.  Things get complicated when Helena finds a wounded Jewish American paratrooper in the woods and hides him.

Where do you write, and what tools do you use?

I can write anywhere.  I have written in castles and mountaintop retreats, but also in my doctor’s waiting room and in my car.  I can tell you which Starbucks in my town open at 6 versus 6:30 on the weekends.  But I’m most comfortable in my office where I teach.  In the early stages of a book when I’m just throwing down words, I can use a notebook computer, but in later stages I need the big screen of a desktop.  I take notes and brainstorm long hand.

What was your favorite book as a child?

I was a huge reader.  Mary Poppins stands out, because it was so formative in my dream to go to England, which was fulfilled when I went to Cambridge.  I was also big on the Betsy Tacy series, about young girls in turn of the century Minnesota.

What’s your favorite bit of writing advice?

Anne Lamott has a quote and I’m going to paraphrase here, that before kids she couldn’t write if there were dirty dishes in the sink, and after kids she could write if there was a corpse in the sink.  So true.  You have to let the house be messy and things go undone if you are going to preserve your precious writing time.

I also like a lot of the writing advice from Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones about silencing your inner editor and just getting the words out.

What do you do if the words aren’t flowing?

I work very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.  I don’t believe in writer’s block.  When I was practicing law, I couldn’t simply say, “I can’t write that brief; I’m not inspired.”  I just did it, and I take much the same approach to writing.  That said, there are things that help: I read something at night, a book on craft or some research and take notes so that I have prompts to write from the next morning, even if I’m bleary eyed from not sleeping.

What would you like to be remembered for?

Being a good mom.  But since I think we are talking about writing, I want to be remembered for handling the very difficult material surrounding World War II and the Holocaust with respect, and for making people think about that era in a way that challenges some stereotypes and conventional wisdom.  I lived in Poland and became very close to the survivors and my assumptions about that part of the world were challenged; I want that to come across in my books.  I call them my love songs to Jewish Europe and I hope they will be taken that way.

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Pam Jenoff is the internationally bestselling author of seven novels, including The Kommandant’s Girl and The Winter Guest, as well as a short story in the anthology Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion.  She is a graduate of GWU, Cambridge and Penn Law.  A former diplomat with the State Department, political appointee at the Pentagon and attorney, Pam lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and three small children where in addition to writing, she teaches law school.

Pam is always happy to skype with book clubs and will be touring the country extensively this year.  You can find her full tour schedule at www.pamjenoff.com

 More About THE WINTER GUEST

Life is a constant struggle for the eighteen-year-old Nowak twins as they raise their three younger siblings in rural Poland under the shadow of the Nazi occupation. The constant threat of arrest has made everyone in their village a spy, and turned neighbor against neighbor. Though rugged, independent Helena and pretty, gentle Ruth couldn't be more different, they are staunch allies in protecting their family from the threats the war brings closer to their doorstep with each passing day. 

 Then Helena discovers an American paratrooper stranded outside their small mountain village, wounded, but alive. Risking the safety of herself and her family, she hides Sam—a Jew—but Helena's concern for the American grows into something much deeper. Defying the perils that render a future together all but impossible, Sam and Helena make plans for the family to flee. But Helena is forced to contend with the jealousy her choices have sparked in Ruth, culminating in a singular act of betrayal that endangers them all—and setting in motion a chain of events that will reverberate across continents and decades.