Let's talk In Real Life! With the author!

[kristhegirl]

Everyone, I'm so excited to start this conversation. Let's talk about the book In Real Life, with the author herself!

This is not the space for critiques - that would be rude in any author event. Ask questions, talk about what you liked, what resonated with you, ask about publishing, about the YA world, all that kind of stuff. Have fun! Gushing is totally allowed.

Hit it!

[kristhegirl]

I'll get this going since I'm here - and sorry I didn't post it earlier. This sinus thing has thrown me completely.

Anyway! So holy crap, you wrote this awesome book. You also teach high school. Were your characters more informed by your students, or from your own high school days? Or something else?

[yl]

YAY! I can't tell you guys how awesome you all are for buying and reading my book. It seriously means so much to me. xo

[lonegalathome]

I loved the book! I'm curious as to the editing and publishing process. Once you have a story how to you continue to change it to make it what the publisher wants? I feel like it would be hard to change the story or dynamics or something after I had written a first story.

Did you know the whole plot when you started writing, or does it evolve as you go?

What things in Vegas are true that you've done

[yl]

Apr 4, 2016 14:01:52 GMT -5 kristhegirl said:

I'll get this going since I'm here - and sorry I didn't post it earlier. This sinus thing has thrown me completely.

Anyway! So holy crap, you wrote this awesome book. You also teach high school. Were your characters more informed by your students, or from your own high school days? Or something else?

I write less for/about my students and more for/about myself as a teenager. My students are great reminders of what teenagers are getting into these days, and they keep me current on slang and how/what kids are talking about. But I'm really writing the kinds of stories I wish I had when I was a teen. I definitely have some issues from when I was a teenager that I'm still working through with my writing. I think it's also why I teach high school. Heh. Arrested development, for real.

[yl]

lonegalathome Those are all excellent questions that will probably take me a bit to answer, so hold tight.

[yl]

Apr 4, 2016 14:14:22 GMT -5 lonegalathome said:

What things in Vegas are true that you've done

Ok, this one first.

The Hannah/Lo/Oscar in the hotel scene 100% really happened to me. I was the Hannah of the situation, and the Lo/Oscar were my H's friend and some random Vegas girl he brought back to the hotel room to bang. They actually had sex while I was in the next bed. The "seriously" thing still haunts me. I saw him recently and he said he bought my book. I really hope he has no intention of actually reading it. 

The room they stay in at Planet Hollywood is the room I stayed in for my 30th birthday. I also celebrated a lot of my birthday at the bar they all meet up at after the Eiffel Tower. 

I have been to the hotel on the state line and ridden that rollercoaster, but I did it way before I started writing this novel. 

I wanted to put more of my own Vegas experiences in the book, but they weren't really appropriate for a teen novel. 

[yl]

Apr 4, 2016 14:14:22 GMT -5 lonegalathome said:

I loved the book! I'm curious as to the editing and publishing process. Once you have a story how to you continue to change it to make it what the publisher wants? I feel like it would be hard to change the story or dynamics or something after I had written a first story.

Did you know the whole plot when you started writing, or does it evolve as you go?

I'll answer both of these together. This will probably end up being long. 

I never know the whole plot when I first start writing. I'm terrible with plot. For this book, I just knew the characters and their relationship, and I tried to come up with a plot for them. Originally I thought the whole book would be the road trip to Vegas, with lots of flashbacks to Nick and Hannah's friendship, and end w/ Nick and Hannah meeting. But I realized that was boring as hell. So I kept going back and trying to add in complications and raise the stakes for the two of them to make the story more interesting.

I have an agent for my writing. When I sent her the book, she didn't like it. There was still a lot of road trip and a lot of flashbacks. Even though that was how I really wanted the story to be, I also really wanted the book to be published, so I had to let go of a lot of my original ideas for the sake of making a more compelling story. It's hard to let go of your original ideas and change things, but you have to trust that the changes are ultimately making a stronger story. 

After the changes she loved it and she sent it to my editor, who was the editor of my previous book, and she bought it. She had some changes that I was happy to do (the Vegas wedding crashing scene wasn't in the book originally, this was my editor's suggestion and it was the very last thing added to the book) and some I refused to do (she wanted me to take out the drunk dial flashback, which I refused because it's my very favorite scene. I did make some major changes to it, though, and she was fine with it once I changed).

You really have to find an agent/editor who share your vision and trust that they are working with you to make your story/book BETTER. It's hard to change things (it's called "killing your darlings"), but it's almost always worth it in the end. 

[nutmeg8484]

You mentioned that you submitted an idea for a companion novel, Did you get a contract for it? Who is it about? Will we see Nick and Hannah in the future? I *need* to know.

I feel like Hannah and Nick's relationship would have played out one of two ways. Either they would go to college near one another and continue their adorable relationship, or they would eventually drift apart because they can't go back to how it was. What do you think their relationship would become?

[bshelly]

Kudos to you on a job well done. I very much enjoyed reading your work and getting to know these characters. As a fellow high school teacher, I found myself laughing a lot because you really nailed how high school students taklk and interact.

You included in the forward that you met YH online. Does any of your relationship parallel Nick and Hannah's?

Which character was your favorite to write? Your least favorite?

[yl]

Here's a little timeline of the book, in case you're curious. 

Jan 2012-Jan 2013: Wrote the book. (Drafted it, re-drafted it, revised it, polished it)

Jan 2013: Sent it to my agent. She didn't like it. Considered giving up. Moped. 

Feb/Mar 2013: Got the contract for my other book. Put IRL to the side. 

Mar 2013-Oct 2013: Wrote/revised/edited my other book. (This was SUPER fast. I didn't know I would write that fast.)

Oct 2013-Feb 2014: Went back to IRL when I wasn't doing things for the other book. Rewrote a ton of it. Threw a lot of it out the door. Tried really had to make it work. 

Feb 2014: Sent it back to my agent. She hated it again. But then I fixed a few things and she finally loved it. HOORAY! She sent it to the editor who I worked on my other book with and she wanted it, so it sold. Yay!

Feb 2014 - Oct 2014: Revised IRL w/ my editor. It was originally supposed to come out in 2015, but I lagged on edits, so they pushed it back to 2016.

June 2014: Other book came out.

Oct 2014 - Aug 2015: Copy edits, line edits, cover design, pass pages, advance copies, stuff like that to get the book ready to print. 

Aug 2015 - Feb 2016: Lots of waiting and promo.

March 2016: IRL released!


tl;dr: Publishing is a slow process

[lonegalathome]

yl, when you say your editor bought the book - do you actually get $$ - or is that just lingo for getting it picked up - so you can eventually get $$ when consumers buy it?

[yl]

Apr 4, 2016 14:37:14 GMT -5 nutmeg8484 said:

You mentioned that you submitted an idea for a companion novel, Did you get a contract for it? Who is it about? Will we see Nick and Hannah in the future? I *need* to know.

I feel like Hannah and Nick's relationship would have played out one of two ways. Either they would go to college near one another and continue their adorable relationship, or they would eventually drift apart because they can't go back to how it was. What do you think their relationship would become?

I'm waiting to hear back, so keep your fingers crossed! Because it would be a companion novel, we can really only try to sell it to the same editor, and if she or the publisher doesn't want it (like if IRL sales aren't what they hoped)(this is why you all buying it means so much!), it will not happen. But I've only written a little bit of it, so it won't be a huge loss of work. But seriously, keep the ju-ju coming, and I'll let you guys know when I hear. 

It would be about Frankie, and it takes place at a Coachella-type music festival over the course of a weekend. And, yes, Hannah and Nick are there, too. 

I ended it where I did because I really like people to sort of insert whatever ending they want for Hannah and Nick. Some people are jaded and see that, realistically, there's no real way they could make it work. And some people are hopeless romantics and see that when you care about someone you will do anything to make it work out. But, I agree, it would be one of the other. But I'm not saying...like John Green says, books belong to their readers. Heh. (But they WILL be together in the Frankie book. But that takes place like 2 weeks later. LOL)

[yl]

Apr 4, 2016 14:43:45 GMT -5 bshelly said:

Kudos to you on a job well done. I very much enjoyed reading your work and getting to know these characters. As a fellow high school teacher, I found myself laughing a lot because you really nailed how high school students taklk and interact.

You included in the forward that you met YH online. Does any of your relationship parallel Nick and Hannah's?

Which character was your favorite to write? Your least favorite?

Thank you! 

Yes, I met MH on AOL in 1998. LOL 
But our relationship wasn't really like this one at all. Mainly because technology has changed so much since then and also because we were close to each other, so we met in person pretty quickly. The relationship was inspired by two people I saw on a reality TV show and also informed by a lot of my own online friendships. 

My favorite character was Frankie. I LOVE her. Didn't really have a least favorite. I liked them all. Even Jordy.

[yl]

Apr 4, 2016 14:52:22 GMT -5 lonegalathome said:

yl , when you say your editor bought the book - do you actually get $$ - or is that just lingo for getting it picked up - so you can eventually get $$ when consumers buy it?

I did get a small advance. Usually the author gets an advance, which can be anywhere from like $500 to 6 figures plus, depending on a lot of factors. 

When the book goes on sale, it has to earn out the advance before the author starts making royalties.

So, let's say my advance is $1,000 and I earn 5% royalties on the sales. When the book goes on sale, my 5% royalties up to $1,000 actually goes back to the publisher to pay back my advance. Then after it's paid back, I'll start getting my 5%. If it never makes back what they gave me for my advance, I'll never make any money beyond that.

I hope that makes sense. I'm not good at explaining number things.

[lonegalathome]

yl, so if I bought your book for $12 you only get $0.60?

color me sad.

[yl]

Apr 4, 2016 15:21:06 GMT -5 lonegalathome said:

yl, so if I bought your book for $12 you only get $0.60?

color me sad.

I just used 5% for ease of explanation. None of those #s are real.

[mrsbeachcat]

Have you considered optioning the movie rights? (Yes, I realize that's such a Hollywood thing of me to ask)

Also, who is your dream cast? (You can totally say, like, Joshua Jackson circa 1999 for Nick, or anything like that)

[lonegalathome]

Apr 4, 2016 15:25:26 GMT -5 yl said:

Apr 4, 2016 15:21:06 GMT -5 lonegalathome said:

yl , so if I bought your book for $12 you only get $0.60?

color me sad.

I just used 5% for ease of explanation. None of those #s are real.

I feel much better now  

At 60 cents I was about to paypal you some money since you created much more than sixty cents worth of enjoyment for me!

[yl]

Apr 4, 2016 15:27:29 GMT -5 mrsbeachcat said:

Have you considered optioning the movie rights? (Yes, I realize that's such a Hollywood thing of me to ask)

Also, who is your dream cast? (You can totally say, like, Joshua Jackson circa 1999 for Nick, or anything like that)

I do have a film agent. (There's a very Hollywood reply to your very Hollywood question...LOL) I would love to option the movie rights! Mo' money!

I imagine Nick as either Andrew Garfield in Spiderman or Dylan OBrien in The Internship

 


Hannah is tough because there aren't enough Korean actresses out there, sadly. I imagine her a lot like a teen version of Julia Cho in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. 


Grace was inspired by the look of Jenna Ushkowitz's Glee character


Frankie is 100% Hayley from Paramore


This is less dream cast and more "famous people I imagine the characters looking like"

[kristhegirl]

Those are basically exactly how I pictured the characters and it's freaking me out.

[Deleted]

How did you find your agent(s)?

When did you know you wanted to be an author?

What gave you the courage to take the leap from wanting to doing? I have a vague recollection of you mentioning you did NaNoWriMo.

Which came first, IRL or the MFA program?

If you become successful enough to quit teaching if you want to, do you think you ever would? (Maybe too loaded a question so skip if so.)

Which character speaks most to who you were in high school? If you wanted to be more like another character, who did you wish you'd be?

Favorite band/album in high school? Now?

[yl]

@officedronette 's questions:

How did you find your agent(s)?
I had a previous manuscript that I wrote and wanted to publish, so I sent query letters to agents (2 paragraphs describing the action of the book) to see if anyone was interested in it. I got several requests from agents to read the entire thing. My agent offered to represent me pretty quickly, so I accepted her offer of representation.

That book never sold. I'm currently rewriting it in all my free time.

When did you know you wanted to be an author?
I don't really know. I've always been a writer in some form or another, but I didn't think I was any good at it. I made this crazy bucket list before I turned 30 with dumb things like "write a novel" and "run a marathon" on it, and then I actually went out and did both of those dumb things. I kinda liked the process of writing a novel and started doing a bunch of research and by that time I was so invested that I decided I had to do it. LOL

What gave you the courage to take the leap from wanting to doing? I have a vague recollection of you mentioning you did NaNoWriMo.
My leap felt slow to me, so it never really felt courageous...more like slowly getting into the pool. I did NaNoWriMo 2008 for fun. Then after that I started trying to fix that book. (I re-wrote it 3x...that's the one that got me my agent that I'm re-writing again right now) During that time I started researching how to write books and what the next step was. I started going to writing conferences and that sort of thing. The learning process was so long that by the time I was ready to query an agent it just felt like the natural next little step, not like a big scary leap. I guess it helped going into it all thinking nothing would ever come of it.

Which came first, IRL or the MFA program?
I started IRL in Jan 2012 and got into my program Feb 2012. IRL was the first thing I workshopped there.

If you become successful enough to quit teaching if you want to, do you think you ever would? (Maybe too loaded a question so skip if so.)
I honestly can't imagine this ever happening. I love teaching, and it also gives me benefits and a pension, so it would have to be a massive amount of success to make me give that up, which is almost impossible to acheive. I don't know that I would do well writing full time, either. I work better when I'm busy. It might be fun to teach PT or teach at the college level.

Which character speaks most to who you were in high school? If you wanted to be more like another character, who did you wish you'd be?
Hannah, definitely. Lots of reviews complain that she's annoying because she's indecisive and bad at communication and those make me LOL because those are traits I tool straight from myself.
Teen YL would have loved to be more like Frankie.

Favorite band/album in high school? Now?
My senior year I got super into Smashing Pumpkins.
Now my favorite bands are Cold War Kids, Brand New, and Jimmy Eat World

[nutmeg8484]

Apr 4, 2016 17:37:59 GMT -5 yl said:

@officedronette 's questions:

Snip

Which character speaks most to who you were in high school? If you wanted to be more like another character, who did you wish you'd be?
Hannah, definitely. Lots of reviews complain that she's annoying because she's indecisive and bad at communication and those make me LOL because those are traits I tool straight from myself.
Teen YL would have loved to be more like Frankie.

So they are mad that a teenage character in a YA book acts like a teenager. Sounds about right...

[Deleted]

yl - love you, girl. Thanks for answering all those! I love hearing about the behind the scenes type details.

Jimmy Eat World is my favorite and has been since I got Clarity in high school. One of our last spontaneous dates pre-baby was to go see them out on Long Island last minute.

Reading IRL reminded me how integral music was to my high school experience - for me the big ones were records like Clarity, or Blink-182's Cheshire Cat or Dude Ranch, or Lagwagon's Hoss.

[Deleted]

Oh I thought of another I had while reading. How did you decide Hannah's race? It struck me as an interesting choice and I wondered if it was difficult for you or if you had any concerns/anxieties about writing outside your race, for lack of a better way of phrasing it. (I know authors do this with some frequency - write main characters of opposing genders/races - it just strikes me as harder in some ways and a bit contrary to the "wisdom" of "write what you know.")

[yl]

Apr 4, 2016 18:20:20 GMT -5 @officedronette said:

yl - love you, girl. Thanks for answering all those! I love hearing about the behind the scenes type details.

Jimmy Eat World is my favorite and has been since I got Clarity in high school. One of our last spontaneous dates pre-baby was to go see them out on Long Island last minute.

Reading IRL reminded me how integral music was to my high school experience - for me the big ones were records like Clarity, or Blink-182's Cheshire Cat or Dude Ranch, or Lagwagon's Hoss.

Did you see the dedication? MH's AOL screenname when we started talking was lagwgn101 LOLOL

[dalia123]

I wanted to punch Frankie the whole time! She's the kind of girl I always hated (because I'd be so jealous of her!) yl was she your favorite character to write about or like her personality is your favorite?

[ashiscute]

Apr 4, 2016 18:58:41 GMT -5 @justinslovo said:

I guess my question is not necessarily for yl, but a general discussion.

Does anyone feel lile Nick got off easy? If I was Hannah (hehe) although I don't have her personality type, I can't imagine letting him off the hook so easily!

Does anyone else feel like he was essentially cheating on Hannah?!

I LOVE Frankie and wondered if she knew all along that Nick loved Hannah and she still chose to be overly nice to her.

Do we find out if Hannah and her sister get busted? (Or am I forgetting?)

I thought nick got off super easy. I was less offended he wasn't up front about Frankie than that he wasn't in his band. That seemed like such an awful omission to me.

+1 that I loved Frankie! So refreshing to make her a likable character instead of going the easy way of making her a bitch.

[kristhegirl]

What kind of punishment (for lack of a better word) should Nick have gotten, if you feel he got off easy?

I wanted to dislike Frankie, but she was cool. She just was. I was totally Team Hannah because obviously she belonged with Nick, but Frankie was great.

yl I loved that he wrote the songs. Loved that. I loved that Hannah never guessed, but was such a fan of his lyrics. That little circle was very satisfying for me.