getting book recommendations are some of my favorite ones to get. if it wasn't for book recommendations, i'd probably be stuck in a world of bitches from New York who do nothing but spend daddy's money. no joke.
white oleander by Janet Fitch has to be one of the best recommendations i've ever gotten, because by the end of the first chapter, i could tell it would be one of my favorite books. it tells the story of Astrid. A teen girl who is forced into foster homes after her mom is charged for murder. It goes through all of her horrors in the foster homes, and even touches down on some controversial topics like falling in love with a grown man while she is still a teenager.
so good. seriously. apparantly it's been made into a movie as well, but i haven't gotten to see that yet.
then a few months after reading White Oleander, i was lurking around in my library when i spotted another novel by Janet, titled Paint It Black. A young Los Angeles girl named Josie has a hell of a time trying to get her life back to feeling normal after she finds out her lover, Michael, has commited suicide in a cheap hotel. not only does she have to struggle with mourning the death of her boyfriend, but she also has to deal with his bitch of a mother who is a concert pianist and basically blames her for his suicide.
though after awhile, michael's icequeen mother starts to come around to josie, and josie starts to do some snooping of her own, discovering more about michael than she ever knew while he was alive.
another truly amazing novel to go on my 'favorite books list.' after both books were such personal big hits for me, i was so pumped when i got a friend request from the author herself on myspace. Fitch is a really amazing writer. never have i read two books who can make me feel every emotion that the characters are feeling at that time. and not only are the plots good, but the books will leave you thinking about them for weeks afterwards. words can't even described how excited i was when she agreed to answer any questions i had for her. so here's the long awaited interview i had. there's even a hint at what her next book will be like!
How did you start to get into writing?
I'm a reader, I always lived in my books more than I lived in the real world.
Did you have any idea that writing would turn into a career and that it would take you as far as it did?
At the beginning I thought it would be a career, that it would happen overnight. Then I didn't sell anything, and had pretty much resigned myself to feeling lucky if I placed a short story every year or two. When it finally did turn into a career, it surprised the hell out of me.
Besides writing, do you have any other jobs?
Teaching, editing.
Have you had any similar experiences to any of the characters in your books?
Only on the inside.
Has there been any parts in your books that have been difficult for you to write? ie: Astrid's love affair with an older man in White Oleander, etc.
In Paint It Black, identifying her lover at the morgue... and the chapter where she goes out to 29 palms.
In White Oleander--the confrontation with the mother at the end. I did not want to write that. It was not in the first version of the book I sent to the publisher.
Everyone gets a bad case of writers block, how do you get rid of yours?
I write something from a different place in the book. Also, I will do writing exercises, using photographs, or music, or scent, just to get the process going again. If a boulder falls on your path, you don't try to go through it. YOu go around it.
Are you working on any new books right now, and can there be a hint as to what it's like?
I'm working on a book that takes place in Los Angeles in 1923. The protagonist is a Russian exile, a poet who ends up working as a chambermaid at a luxury hotel where she was abandoned with a monster hotel bill.
If you weren't writing books, what would you be doing instead?
So hard to know... artist probably. Assemblage artist. Teacher, librarian, researcher... maybe a detective, people talk to me, and I'm used to following a research trail. When I was a kid I wanted to be a secret agent.
Tips that you would give younger kids who want to get into writing as a profession?
Write a lot, read good books, a fun thing to do is take a paragraph of a writer you think is really good and put your own words into their sentence structures so you can see how they put a sentence together. You learn a lot that way. And especially, don't show your work to people who don't like you!! I made that mistake.
What do you like to do when you're not writing?
I like to paint... walk... hang out with friends... listen to music. Of course, read.
If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?
I'd like people to be more imaginative, more curious about other people, rather than making assumptions about them. More curious about the world.
Where has been your favorite place to travel to?
Bali
For some more writer's tips, more information on the novels, and book touring information on Janet Fitch, check out her myspace.
No comments:
Post a Comment