♥!The Young Adult Book Club!♥ discussion

Leave a question for Jodi Lynn Anderson! She is the author of the widely know Peaches Series, Tiger Lily and our upcoming monthly read Midnight At The Electric :D!

She will be our guest author for June, so make sure to leave a question you'd like for her to answer! It can be about Midnight At The Electric or any of her other books :)

Don't forget to enter the Giveaway once you've posted your question ;)

What inspired you to write this book?

in which book do you want to live? (not your own)

What is your writing process and how long does it take you to write the 1st draft?

Which one of your characters do you relate to the most & why?

What are some of your favorite YA books?

Which was your favorite character to write and why?

If you could be any of the characters that you write about, who would you want to be and why?

Do your characters in this book signifies a particular person in your life? What were your inspirations in building the characters of Midnight at the Electric?

Who are your favorite authors? Or your greatest influences?

Do you ever face writer's block when writing your books ? If yes, what is the average amount of time you have faced it, and how do you overcome it ?

An exotic animal in Kansas seems a bit random, how did Galapagos come about? What made you pick that island and that animal?

How did you get started as a writer and how old were you?

I know writers often have more than one project at a time, what are you working on now?

What made you want to become an author in the first place?

Do you have any plan in near future to write a somewhat retelling again?

Do you listen to music during your writing process? If so, what does you playlist consist of?

How do you manage creative writer's block? Do you ever get inspiration from random people you see like someone you heard at the coffee shop or a woman passing by?

Have you ever created a character based on yourself?

What is a questions you would like to get asked? and how would you answer it :)

Hi all! Thank you for inviting me - this is my first Goodreads chat so I'll do my best to answer your questions!

Galini wrote: "Have you ever created a character based on yourself?"

I think it's hard to write a character that doesn't at least have a little bit of me inside of them. But then again, I think we all have a little bit of everyone else in us. I tend to gravitate to characters who think a lot more than they say - who often say a lot with their silences - because I can identify with that. But I also fall in love with characters who wear everything on their sleeves - often, I feel like I can be that person too. Anytime I really get inside a character, I find I can identify with them.

Jodi wrote: "Hi all! Thank you for inviting me - this is my first Goodreads chat so I'll do my best to answer your questions!"

Hi Jodi! Welcome to The Young Adult Book Club :) We are so excited to have you here and thank you for answering our questions.

I also have one question for you: what's your favorite thing about being an author?

Jenna wrote: "What is a questions you would like to get asked? and how would you answer it :)"

Ha - great question. I love to talk about what motivates me as a writer and I love those kinds of questions. I've spent much of my writing life trying to figure it out 'what is it, exactly, that's is so important to me about writing? What do I have to get down on paper in this short little life?' For me, it's taking the things that are challenging or hard in life, the things that might break us a little, and transforming those things into something magical. I have a strong sense of magic in the ordinary things, it comforts me a lot, and I want very badly to get that across in my stories.

Jude wrote: "Jodi wrote: "Hi all! Thank you for inviting me - this is my first Goodreads chat so I'll do my best to answer your questions!"

Hi Jodi! Welcome to The Young Adult Book Club :) We are so excited to..."

Thanks Jude! About five things come to mind at once and it's hard to pick. I'd have to say...my favorite thing about being an author is getting to write something that feels very particular to me and my life... and then to get to express it and find there are people/readers out there who have felt the same things and gone through similar experiences...I feel crazy lucky when that happens. You find you have all these friends you haven't met. It's surreal.

Jodi wrote: "Jenna wrote: "What is a questions you would like to get asked? and how would you answer it :)"

Ha - great question. I love to talk about what motivates me as a writer and I love those kinds of que..."

AH!! You answered! I think what you do is so beautiful as well as important in trying to show the hardships of life in a different light. Tiger Lily is one of my favorite books of all time and I just got Midnight At The Electric, and i just couldn't agree more about the importance of finding magic in the ordinary things.

To me, books and of course your stories are where i find confort. Thank you so much for answering!!

Vanessa wrote: "Do you listen to music during your writing process? If so, what does you playlist consist of?"

Yes! I've been working on a book for about ten years that is completely dictated by a playlist I made - I think that's why it's taking me so long: I want the book to read just like the playlist sounds. For Midnight at the Electric, I listened to a song from the 'Lost' soundtrack called Life and Death about four hundred times - it's deeply woven into the tone of the story, in my mind. For Tiger Lily, that relationship is much inspired by Phone Went West by My Morning Jacket and a song called For Today by Jessica Lea Mayfield.

Ingvild wrote: "What made you want to become an author in the first place?"

I started writing very young and always wanted to be a writer. I studied Lit in college and became an editor in NYC after I graduated...and once I began meeting authors, I realized, these are just normal people. I think for me, writing is the way I make sense of the world - getting published has been wonderful...but the biggest thing has always been that writing is this lifelong friend I can't live without.

Jacq wrote: "Do you have any plan in near future to write a somewhat retelling again?"

I wouldn't rule it out, but I don't see it anywhere on the horizon right now. I do dip into myth a lot, and sometimes it's obvious and sometimes it isn't. The stranger in the woods that Lenore meets in Midnight at the Electric is definitely inspired by those Grimms stories of something unknown lurking in the woods, Hansel and Gretel and stuff like that. The YA novel I'm working on now is based on the engravings of angels in these old books I have. The Vanishing Season has some undertones of The Little Mermaid. I often go to old stories when I'm stuck - to find those elemental inspirations.

Erin wrote: "Who are your favorite authors? Or your greatest influences?"

I love Francesca Lia Block, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Tom Robbins. I love Virginia Woolf like crazy because I like how she writes about time. One middle grade book I read recently that I was blown away by was Megan Shepherd's The Secret Horses of Briar Hill. I love how these books take dark, real things and give them a sense of magic.

Jodi wrote: "Jude wrote: "Jodi wrote: "Hi all! Thank you for inviting me - this is my first Goodreads chat so I'll do my best to answer your questions!"

Hi Jodi! Welcome to The Young Adult Book Club :) We are ..."

I couldn't agree more! I mean, I myself am not an author, but I can definitely relate to putting hard work into something and then releasing it out into the world and hoping that it will connect with people, that it will resonate with them.

Sometimes the world can feel a little to big and finding people that share and relate to your passions, content or your words can be the best thing ever :)

Spuds wrote: "Do your characters in this book signifies a particular person in your life? What were your inspirations in building the characters of Midnight at the Electric?"

I pull pieces from friends, and myself, and my husband, and his family - I'm pretty much a vulture. My Nana has been sneaking into all my stories recently. (In Midnight at the Electric, she is part of what makes Adri's cousin, Lily both forgetful and wise). There are certain people I just love to write about and they have no idea because they're pretty unrecognizable by the time the final draft rolls around. Lenore, the grieving character in Midnight, carries some of my own reactions to grief when it first came into my life. Catherine, I have to admit, is a tiny bit Jane Eyre. :)

Tweller83 wrote: "I know writers often have more than one project at a time, what are you working on now?"

I'm working on a YA novel partially set in the Dark Ages and partially set in modern-day Manhattan. I'm obsessed with both the Dark Ages and the life I used to have in New York. And the two things feel connected, to me. Also I'm working on a middle grade trilogy about a young girl who hunts the thirteen witches who are responsible for everything terrible in the world.

Karlita wrote: "How do you manage creative writer's block? Do you ever get inspiration from random people you see like someone you heard at the coffee shop or a woman passing by?"

#1 the Waste No Time App. It cuts off my internet. Hallelujah.
#2 When I'm feeling drained and blocked, it's time to get out and do something new. Read a new book or the paper (sooo much inspiration comes from the newspaper, for me) or go to the coffee shop and eavesdrop like you said :), go on a roller coaster, hike, talk to someone I've never met, go see live music, whatever...just fill the well up again. I run a lot. Running jogs my brain out of its funk. Anything that feels the opposite of sitting and writing. HGTV does not work unfortunately but I keep trying.

Angela wrote: "What inspired you to write this book?"

A picture that got stuck in my mind, of a girl in a dust ravaged yard but surrounded by magic. I saw Catherine in my mind, and I couldn't stop thinking about her - because I could see her life was pretty much ravaged, and yet she was surrounded by this light - and I was like, what is that light? Starting a book is often like I see the first scene in the movie, and the fifteenth scene, and the twenty-fifth scene - and then I just have to do the tough work of stringing them together.

Mascha wrote: "in which book do you want to live? (not your own)"

Sorry to be uncreative, but it's hands down Harry Potter. :) Sometimes before falling asleep I listen to these videos that recreate sounds from Harry Potter rooms (like 'This is the sound of Hogwarts library!") and imagine I'm there.

Mary wrote: "What is your writing process and how long does it take you to write the 1st draft?"

I have a very inefficient writing process. I do an outline, then a draft, then maybe a couple of more drafts, then I re-outline, re-draft, etc...until I finally get a first draft to my editor, and then the process begins again once I get her letter, though it's a little easier after that. I'm not a linear or a logical thinker, I'm more of a word vomiter. I'll sometimes have a good cry about the final scene when 75% of the book hasn't even been outlined yet.

Mary wrote: "What is your writing process and how long does it take you to write the 1st draft?"

Oh and it takes about a year. Although my first book took two months. I think it's like those hermit crabs where you just grow into the amount of time you're given.

Lee-ann wrote: "Which one of your characters do you relate to the most & why?"

Tiger Lily. I related deeply to her tendency to be silent when she really, really needs to speak. It's like the more she needs to say something, the more she swallows it - and I have been there many times. But she's also strong and independent, and so am I. And she feels at home and free in the woods.

Karolina wrote: "If you could be any of the characters that you write about, who would you want to be and why?"

I think maybe the girl witch hunter I'm writing about now, for my Thirteen Witches trilogy. I want to hunt the bad things in the world and take them out with my awesome magic arrows.

Kira wrote: "Which was your favorite character to write and why?"

Tinkerbell, from Tiger Lily, and Galapagos, from Midnight at the Electric. I love to write about quirky observers.

Mystic wrote: "Do you ever face writer's block when writing your books ? If yes, what is the average amount of time you have faced it, and how do you overcome it ?"

Know when to walk away, know when to run :) I think it's differentiating between the times I just don't want to do the work because the work is hard.... and then knowing when I really need to get up and get as far from what I'm doing as possible. I tend to sit and sit and wrestle and wrestle with something when instead I just need to go for a walk and it will sort itself out. OR jump to a different chapter. I can obsess about the first chapter until the cows come home and sometimes you just have to move on, to chapter nine or whatever.

Spuds wrote: "Do your characters in this book signifies a particular person in your life? What were your inspirations in building the characters of Midnight at the Electric?"

For Midnight at the Electric, because there are a lot of times and characters in the narrative, I knew I had to create characters who strongly carried the thread of the story. Some things about each of them I knew right away. But for other pieces of them, I had to ask myself: how does this person carry the thread that holds this story together? How does Lenore carry the idea of electricity, and what is she looking for that she shares with the others? For each person, I had to ask those questions - what's she missing and how is it served by electricity, and by galapagos the tortoise, and by travel? So parts of them are parts of people I know, parts of them are just made up, and parts of them are there to tie then to each other.

Mary wrote: "What are some of your favorite YA books?"

I am so behind on my reading now because I have a toddler, but I can tell you what I'm dying to read. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. The And I Darken books by Kiersten White. Anything by Adam Silvera. Amy Reed's Nowhere Girls. Argh, so many.

Nikki wrote: "An exotic animal in Kansas seems a bit random, how did Galapagos come about? What made you pick that island and that animal?"

I love writing about animals and I do it a lot - especially in my middle grade books. I kept thinking - wouldn't it be cool to have a really old animal in this book to tie these lives together? Hmm, a turtle seems fun.' And then it was like...which turtles live longest, and out of those, which are land dwellers (since she had to be able to live on a farm)? I just keep narrowing the field until I got to Galapagos - no other animal would do. I loved that these tortoises are a bit weird and homely looking in real life. I fell in love with her after that.

Jacinda wrote: "How did you get started as a writer and how old were you?"

I wrote in diaries constantly - about my feelings, about people I knew, describing my surroundings and my house and bugs I caught. It was great training for writing fiction. I can't remember a time where I didn't write.

I worked as an editor in New York when I was in my early twenties, and that experience helped me segue into writing my own stories, because I learned so much about structuring novels. I loved being an editor just about as much as I love being a writer.

Ok thank you guys for all of the thought-provoking questions- I hope I've answered all of them and if not, please feel free to reach out to me. Thank you Jude for moderating!

xo Jodi

❤️

Thank you Jodi, we feel incredibly thankful that you took the time to answer everyone's questions - and also a big thank you to everyone who participated in this thread.

Best wishes to everyone!