The Ultimate YA Reading Group

7. The first few chapters start with a fact about dolphins from The Magic and Mystery of Dolphins. What fact interested you the most? 

How about if I give you a fact that was cut during revision.  When you get into the water with a dolphin, they use their echolocation to give you a quick MRI.  Dolphins often discover illnesses or tumors or even pregnancies when the people are unaware of the condition.  That fact was originally included to tie into something different that happened with Desiree.  But when those scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, so did that very cool fact.  By the way, The Magic and Mystery of Dolphins does not exist.  It’s as fictional as the rest of the story even if the facts about dolphins are real.

8. All types of cliques can be found in high school. What is your opinion about how young adults should associate themselves during their transition to adulthood? 

I’ve never, ever been a fan of cliques even though they’ve probably existed since the beginning of time. Here’s what I believe:  It’s always more comfortable to associate with people who are like you, but it’s always more interesting to associate with those who aren’t.  Hey!  That’s pretty good!  I might have to use that in a book someday.

9. Do students still pass notes in class? I always thought they just texted.

Hard for me to say cause it’s been a while since I’ve been in high school. =P But, I gotta say phones are not allowed in my son’s during class time.  They aren’t even allowed to get into their backpacks and look for pencils ‘cause the teachers are pretty wise to the texting thing.

10. List the top 5 songs you can think of that can go on Jane’s character playlist.  Her playlist is a really eclectic with a mix of rock songs that span from the early 70s to today.  Here goes: “Numb” by Linkin’ Park, “You Belong with Me” by Taylor Swift, “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf, “Raise your Glass” by P!NK, “Drive” by Incubus

11. For our aspiring writers, what is the easiest and hardest part of writing a book?
Oh my!  For aspiring writers huh?  I think the mileage on this varies quite a bit, but I can tell you what was easy and hard for me. 
Easy:  Doing the work.  I really enjoy every part of the process first drafts, revision, editing.  Um, okay on second thought, maybe not proofreading for the twenty-fifth time, but almost every part of the process.
Hard:  Knowing when it’s done. I’ve already admitted to being a perfectionist, so I have a bad habit of tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, tweaking.  See the proofreading note above? I’m supposed to be fixing a misspelling and I make a small change and of course that can lead to a small mistake.  Argh!  I really need Jane’s mom to take over at this point and to stay entirely focused. 
For me, this is actually the scariest part of self-pubbing. The fear that I might be putting out a work that is half-baked. For authors using legacy publishing, that is one of the nice things, someone tells you it’s done.  Anyone who has been around this industry for a while knows that there are plenty of books that are done, that do not get acquired for one reason or another.  But, and this is huge, it is capital H Hard to make that call about your own work.

12. What are you working on next? Any new releases coming up in the future?
Yes, I’m planning on having at least one new book—and hopefully two or three—released in 2012. But I’d like to keep the details under wraps.  They’re all quite a bit different from Dolphin Girl, but I can tell you this much—all my books have independent, flawed girls as the main character and a little bit of fantasy/magical realism woven into the story. =D