Originally Posted 31 December 2009
Hayley let me interview her for my tiny corner of the world! So without further ado:
1. I know you get asked this only all the time, but explain Green to someone who has never ever heard of it?
It depends… sometimes I make a lame joke and say, “You know how teenagers all think they’re the center of the universe and it changes their lives to discover they’re not? Well, my main character’s life changes when she discovers that she IS. Oh, and her boyfriend is a werewolf.”
Other times, I’m more serious and explain that it’s a YA paranormal romance with a few twists — not only is the girl, as well as her love interest, supernatural, but she’s more powerful than he is; Green has a strong tie to real history and historical figures, as well as historical fiction; and I tried to stay away from “traditional” supernatural creatures as much as possible (outside of Werewolf Boyfriend). Rather than culling the majority of my characters from popular Greco-Roman or Norse mythologies, I explored stories and creatures from Japanese, Maori, Celtic, Breton, and Germanic traditions (among others). And then I usually close with another lame quip of, “And there are no vampires.”
2. What got you into writing Green?
It’s funny, but the story of my connection to this plot and the character of Lindy Cook (the protagonist) could be said to have begun any number of places. I never sat down and said, “OK, I’d like to write a novel. I’d like for it to have fantastical elements and historical fiction, and lots of kissyface, and… and…” Instead, Green and the rest of the Metempsyche universe feel very organic to me. It’s the story I was always meant to write.
I actually just remembered the other day that in sixth grade, the author Debbi Chocolate (Imani in the Belly) came to my school and ten kids — including me — were chosen to do a writing workshop with her. She gave us thirty minutes to write a story, and mine was about a teenage girl who took one-hundred years to age one year, basically giving her a first-person account of most of the major events in history. Obviously, that’s not really Lindy, at all, given the synopsis of Green, but I feel like it shows an inherent interest of mine to create one character who has gotten to experience… everything.
More specifically, and less cheesily, the idea for the basic identity of Lindy’s character — a high school girl who was literally the embodiment of the universe — came to me when I was sixteen myself. However, her name wasn’t Lindy, she was a cheerleader, and the rest of the world in which she lived was pretty much nonexistent. Oh, and she was supposed to fight the FBI or something, I don’t know. I tried a few times to write her story, but it never panned out. I never got further than a prologue full of shadowy no-ones and a lot of running.
I never forgot about the idea, but I also stopped attempting to do anything about it until one early early morning about six months after my college graduation. Through the rest of high school, college, and after, I explored all different genres of writing — playwriting and screenwriting, hard-boiled mystery, journalism, chick lit. I never really attempted paranormal romance or urban fantasy, but the bug was still there. Then, I went back to campus to visit my best friend, who writes really fascinating comic books. I fully maintain that there’s just some sort of fantastical idea-bug in the air wherever she is, because I fell asleep… I woke up at five o’clock in the morning… wrote 25 pages of what was to be Green… and fell back asleep. When I woke at a more reasonable time, I found the pages, reread what I’d written, and just felt that it was right.
3. How long did it take from first writing Green to the publishing world?
Well, I guess depending on where you’d count the start date, either twelve years and counting, six years and counting, or just over a year and counting. But there’s still a long road left to go. I don’t think that the process of a writer is ever really done. That might be a bastardized Michelangelo Buonarroti quote, but I’m not sure.
4. What is your dream job that is not in the literary field?
Cafe-owning ballerina on broadway.
5. What book, or book series do you consider to be highly overrated?
I have never read a single Animorphs book, and I don’t think I ever will. I also think that people give Ernest Hemingway WAY too much credit.
6. Is there a certain genre of books you just cannot get into?
I’m not a fan of really hardcore scifi or epic fantasy. I respect it for how much research and detail is put into the stories, but I usually have a hard time reconciling the stories with the ideas they present — if characters are living on a planet a different distance from their sun than Earth, and with different geographic and anthropological boundaries than Earth, I just don’t believe that they would eat three meals a day and pull out a pocketwatch to check the time. I think that’s part of the reason that I do really enjoy paranormal romance and urban fantasy, though — I love the idea of “our world plus otherworld.” Otherworld on its own is a little much for me, I guess.
7. If you could only read five books, a series could count as one book, for the rest of your life which five?
The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, The Universe in a Nutshell by Dr. Stephen Hawking, The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot, only I wouldn’t bring Princess on the Brink on account of the Michael/Judith thing.
8. I know you were a fellow history major. What got you into history and made you decide to major in it?
I’ve always been fascinated by history. As a very small child, all of my favorite movies took place in the first half of the 20th Century (Pete’s Dragon, Bedknobs & Broomsticks, Summer Magic, Polly). Then I discovered the American Girl series, and history had me at Samantha Parkington.
I have a theory that there are so many historical fiction series for girls because pre-teen and teen girls are inherently nosy and want to know about other girls’ stuff: “What are her clothes like? What kinds of boys does she know? What does she do for fun?”
History majors just never lose that nosiness. I focused on social history and emphasized pop culture history and its effect on adolescent girls (my thesis was on The Beatles & Boy Bands!) and it opened a lot of diaries, closets, and idealized fantasy crushes for me to explore. That was fun.
9. What is your favorite 90’s cartoon?
Doug! Actually, most of the cartoons I watched in the ’90s are probably actually considered cartoons of the ’70s and ’80s. I watched a lot of Muppet Babies and Care Bears, and my dad and I made a tradition of The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show. You can read about my eccentric taste in cartoons here: http://hayleyanneperkins.com/blog/?p=229
10. Anything else?
I just want to thank everyone who has shown support for me and for my writing, especially over the rollercoaster of new experiences that was 2009. And Happy New Year!
