Zitat des Tages von Sara Zarr:
There were about ten years of trying, failing, trying again, suffering rejection, etc. My first published book, 'Story of a Girl', was the fourth book I wrote.
I wouldn't say I'm stuck in my adolescence, but I think, like a lot of people, I carry my teen years with me. I feel really in touch with those feelings, and how intense and complicated life seems in those years.
My first job is to write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can.
The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.
I don't want to pretend like I'm some intellectual person who understands Flannery O'Connor.
I was a 'learn by doing' writer - I never took any formal writing classes. So it took a long time to figure things out and find my voice.
We write in ways that, we generally hope, reflect real life, or at least look familiar to humans. And in life, recurring themes are a recurring theme. We never quite conquer a pet vice or a relationship pattern or a communication habit. We're haunted by our particular demons.
I'm so focused on trying to craft the story that I'm in my own little world with it and that process. The one reader I'm trying to please as I write is me, and I'm pretty difficult to please.
Is it good, bad, or neutral to recognize thematic patterns in your own work? When it comes to recurring themes, I'm of the mind that knowledge is probably not power, at least in terms of the work.
I have no desire to go back to San Francisco.
I tend to describe recurring themes as being part of a writer's DNA - something so deeply embedded in us that even we don't notice it until we've written three or four books.
One of my favorite authors is Robert Cormier. He was a devout Catholic and a very nice man, which might not be the impression you get from reading his books.
My books have been translated into various languages and sold in other countries, but I never have any contact with the foreign publishers and am so disconnected from that process that it seems almost imaginary. With 'How to Save a Life', I worked closely with Usborne editors and have been involved in the publicity.
Family or love or romance, whatever it is, is not restricted to perfect people. If it were, it wouldn't exist. All of that comes out in my work in some way.
I always felt that church is where I'm going to find my community and people to live my life with.
I'm not really a plot writer - I'm more interested in the characters and sort of small events that propel the story forward.
I didn't 'decide' to write YA, per se. But every time I thought of a story, it featured characters 15, 16, 17.
I don't like to do too much psychological research because it might turn a character into a patchwork.
I do have a little bit more confidence in - or at least familiarity with - my process. For example, when it feels like it's going badly or that I'm lost, I know I'll eventually find my way because I've been through it before. But writing itself is still hard.
I grew up in San Francisco in the 1970s. We were part of a church that belonged to the California Jesus movement.
