Aside from a dentist appointment, an oil change for the car, and my yearly poke and prod at my doctor's office, I have one fun thing to look forward to next week. I'll be visiting
Mrs. Geraghty's 3th grade classroom at Lakeshore Elementary in Eau Claire! The class just finished reading My Last Best Friend and they are such smart kids they have already put together a list of questions they would like answered during my visit. I thought I'd warm up my brain a little and answer a few of their questions here:
Mason asks: What made you think of writing My Last Best Friend?
A long time ago, I wrote a little picture book story about a girl named Ida May. Ida did not like her name. She thought it was too short and too plain, so she decided to change it to something with a little more pizazz. I sent the story to an editor who really liked Ida, but she didn't think her story worked well as a picture book. She suggested I revise and expand Ida's story into a chapter book. So that's what I did, for a long time! But when I sent that new story out to editors something still wasn't right with it. They loved Ida, but her story wasn't working well. I almost gave up on poor Ida. But then my daughter started fourth grade. That put me right in the middle of fourth grade life and problems and friendships. One day I was thinking about Ida's story and the line, "I'm Ida May and there's one thing I know. Fourth grade isn't fourth at all" popped into my head. I ran right downstairs and typed that line into my computer. I kept typing until I had several pages of text. When I read through the pages I felt pretty sure that I had finally found a story that was going to work for Ida. It still took a long time and lots of revising, but I finally got it right!
William asks: Were these real characters from your life?
Not exactly. I think there's a lot of me and a lot of my daughter in Ida. But, even so, she's her own person and different from us in lots of ways. I did think of real experiences that had happened to me or people I knew. Those experiences helped me figure out the details that would go into Ida's story. I think those real details help make the story more believable.
Patrick asks: Did your best friend move away?
When I was growing up my best friend was my cousin, Elisebeth. During the summer, Elisebeth's family lived in a cottage that was across the meadow from my house. We spent all our time together playing, camping by our creek, and putting on silly shows for our families. But at the end of each summer Elisebeth and her family moved back to their real home, which was a long ways away. So, for a time, it felt like I was starting each school year without a best friend. I tried to put some of those feelings into Ida's story, too.
Dana asks: Why is Jenna so mean?
One of the characters in My Last Best Friend, Jenna Drews, is a bully to other kids, especially Ida. She's mean and bossy and not a very nice person at all! It can be hard to create a character who is mean because we all wish everyone would be nice and friendly all the time, right? But life just isn't like that. There are mean people in the world, unfortunately, and so stories need mean people, too, in order to make them feel real. Still, even a bully can change and grow, and I hope there's a sense of that happening with Jenna in MLBF.
Lily asks: Why leave notes under the rock?
In MLBF, Ida and the new girl, Stacey Merriweather, write secret notes to each other. I thought it would be fun for readers to imagine them sneaking to a special place to hide their notes. One day I was driving through my town and noticed an old building with a crumbling brick wall. I thought about Ida hiding a note behind one of the loose bricks in that wall. That's when I decided to put a loose brick in a wall at Ida's school and let the girls hide secret notes behind it.
Andrew asks: Will Ida's teacher, Mr. Crow, be in the next book?
Yep! You'll also get to meet a few new characters including Ida's music teacher, Stacey's mom, and Jenna's dad.
Ruth asks: How many books are you planning to write?
At least one more! :)
And with that, I better get back at it! :)
excited
