Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty

1. What made you decide to write Young Adult?

Well, when I got the idea for a novel set in an espresso shack, it somehow
felt like a young story, with high school aged characters. Also, many of the
writers I know who were writing adult fiction started crossing over into
YA-Land about five or six years ago, and I started to get YA-curious. I tried
reading YA and was amazed at this explosion of really fun, edgy, innovative
fiction, so I wanted to try my hand at it.

2. Do you find any differences in writing YA compared to your Red Dress Ink books? Do you approach it any differently?

I read this amazing quote from Sherman Alexie the other day about the difference in writing for YA audiences. Thanks to the wonder of the internet, I'm just going to Google it right now and put it here. It's from YPulse, by the way, a really smart and interesting site. "Writing for teens involves a stripped-down technique. You tend to write more like Hemingway than Faulkner. More like Emily Dickinson than T.S. Eliot. It's not a matter of more complex thoughts, but the number of adverbs and adjectives. In the adult world, the number of adverbs and adjectives can be confused with great writing." The way I'd put it is that YA tends to be cleaner, and I don't mean that it avoids the f-bomb, I mean it's edited more carefully and avoids pretension. Young readers have very little patience with pretension, and that's as it should be. I find writing for this audience wonderfully liberating.

3. What's your writing process like?

I write in the mornings. I use some outlines, but generally go for an organic first draft--meaning it surprises me a lot, though I've usually got a general idea about where it's headed. I also do a fair amount of collage and keep that by my workspace so I have a colorful map of the book to keep me in the right mental space.

4. Are there any authors you'd say influenced your style of writing?

I'd say many, many writers have influenced my work and they continue to influence me today. I'm particularly fond of British writers, from Shakespeare and the Brontes to Helen Fielding, Phillip Pullman, Nick Hornby and Louise Rennison. I have to hold back sometimes and force myself not to use British slang, since it sounds pretty stupid coming from an American!

5. What sparked the idea for CONFESSIONS OF A TRIPLE SHOT BETTY?

I got the idea like this: my boyfriend and I would sometimes get coffee at this little espresso stand, and we loved the girls who worked there--they were funny and sassy and good at what they did. They inspired us to write a song called "Mocha Shack Girl." (I've posted this song on my MySpace profile, if you want to hear it; it's also on the Penguin web page for Triple Shot Betty: www.penguin.com/confessionsofatripleshotbetty). After that I got the idea to use a drive through espresso stand as a setting for a book. While I was mulling this over one of my students started telling me hilarious stories about Espresso a Go-Go, the place where she worked, and pretty soon I was hooked on the idea. It just seemed like the perfect backdrop for drama--a magical little claustrophobic world where the caffeine is free and you've got a constant stream of characters you can interact with, but none of them have access to the inner sanctum of the coffee shack.

6. Describe the story in three words.

Summery, Effervescent, Caffeinated.

7. What do you like best about Geena?

She doesn't hesitate to tell people what's up with her, and she knows how to skate. I like those qualities. Also, her journal maintains a sense of humor. When I was in high school my journals were full of bad poetry and self-indulgent emoting.

8. Which character surprised you the most over the course of the story?

Amber! She really snuck up on me. She's not really a character in Much Ado About Nothing, which my plot mirrors, so I had to figure that out. Anyway, I kind of fell in love with her bravado and her in-your-face attitude. I know she can be rude at times, but I admire her. She's got a larger role in the sequel.

9. What was your favorite scene to write?

Probably the Auggie Doggie scene. It was kind of a tangent but I had fun with it.

10. What would readers be surprised to know about you?

Umm...I've never learned to balance a checkbook? I failed algebra? I like to swim with flippers on because it makes me feel super powerful? I'm full of surprises, I guess!

11. What's next for you?

It's called TRIPLE SHOT BETTYS IN LOVE and it's loosely based on Cyrano De Bergerac. We're looking at January 09 as a possible pub date. There's a Valentine theme running through it.

Interview by Lisa
May 2008