A new year and
new guest posts by awesome authors sharing with us what they know, what they
like, and what they write.
Today the author
Sashi Kaufman is visiting, she’s the author of this awesome YA Contemporary
that will release on March, 1st.
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| click the image to see the book on goodreads. |
Andrew West goes to an all-girls school and he still can’t get a date. If that’s not bad enough, his Mom is the headmaster. Everyone seems to have the wrong idea about Andrew. His teachers think he’s a good student who doesn’t apply himself -he really is trying. The kids at his old school thought he was a goth. His cousin Barry thinks he’s gay.
When his Thanksgiving break goes tragically awry he decides to run away. He catches a ride with a strange group of older teenagers. The Freegans are street performers and dumpster divers. As Andrew travels the country with his new friends he leaves behind the expectations of others and discovers what he expects of himself.
When his Thanksgiving break goes tragically awry he decides to run away. He catches a ride with a strange group of older teenagers. The Freegans are street performers and dumpster divers. As Andrew travels the country with his new friends he leaves behind the expectations of others and discovers what he expects of himself.
So now I leave
all of you with Sashi and this amazing post.
Here’s What I Know
Here's what I know
about the phrase, "Write what you know."
I think it's deadly
if you interpret it too literally.
If everyone only
wrote exactly what they knew, then literature would be composed of little more
than a series of highly dramatic self indulgent journal entries. You know, like
facebook.
My current work in
progress has a main character who is a partially deaf seventeen year old guy.
He plays soccer too. I played soccer until 8th grade but that's about all we
have in common, at least on the surface. As I hammer out this first draft I
periodically get the giggles when I know I've mixed up corner kicks and goal
kicks. Or when I realize I have no idea if hearing aids have a test button.
Here's why I feel
qualified to write about someone so different from "what I know". I
think we have spheres of knowing and if something is within one of those
spheres then I feel qualified to write about it. For example, I am a daughter
and a sister. Therefore I feel pretty qualified to write about families. I'm
also now a mother. I wrote characters who were parents before I was one, but my
writing about parents definitely changed once I became one. In my debut The
Other Way Around the main character Andrew West runs away from home with a
group of older teenagers who are street performers and dumpster divers. When I
first wrote the draft his mother was kind of a dragon lady. Whenever they spoke
on the phone she was harsh and uncaring and he was selfish and unsympathetic to
her fears about his well being. My editor (also a parent) pointed out
that I might try a a little harder to imagine the experience from her
perspective and that might soften and deepen my portrayal of her. He was right.
In the time between first draft and this particular set of revisions I had
become a mother myself. And that changed everything that I knew about how to
write that part of the book. I hope it made it better.
Does that mean that
everyone who is a parent should write about parenting? Or that if you're a
sister, you know what it's like to be or have a brother? No, not necessarily.
Everyone has different spheres. I like to think that the home I grew up in,
where few gender stereotypes were modeled or visible, made me particularly open
to what makes us human more than what makes us male or female. You can read my
book and see if you agree :)
It's possible to
research the rules for penalty kicks or the buttons on a hearing aid. More
challenging to research feelings. I remember high school and middle school
vividly and the feelings I attach to those experiences. I remember the fear of
being different or being excluded -which are some of the things my main character
wrestles with. I remember the desire to have someone I was attracted to notice
me and I remember the desperation and despair when they did not. I remember the
incredible breath in your mouth tension before a first kiss. I remember the
ones that made my knees wiggle, and the ones that mopped my face with spit.
The more you are
open to experience and the feelings that come with it, then the more you know.
The better you observe yourself, your reactions as well as the people around
you and their reactions and feelings, the more you extend your spheres of
understanding.
I believe that
readers will hold you accountable for a character who rings false more than a
detail about soccer rules. So write what you know. Write everything you know.
It's probably a lot more than you think.
Sashi Kaufman is a middle school English and science teacher who
lives in Portland, Maine with her husband and daughter. She is also an amateur
trash picker. The Other Way Around is her debut novel and it will charge into
the world on March 1st 2014.
on twitter @sashikaufman
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