What was your favorite book as a child?  Did you enjoy writing when you were young?

"I loved to read and write.  I kept a journal.  When I was in junior high, I read To Kill a Mockingbird .  I even remember where I was sitting when I read it!  I was looking for healthy father figures, since my dad wasn't able to fill that role in my life.  Atticus Finch was the guy!  That book has effected the way I create character.  I try to create characters that can be role models.  I don't have Harper Lee's skill, but I do remember that we, as authors, can do something special for our readers through our characters."

How do you deal with writer's block?

"If I'm stuck on a story, I go back and remember what I was trying to do originally.  Usually I'll find that, without meaning to, I've gotten away from my original premise."

What is the best writing advice you've ever received?

"Write when you feel like it and write when you don't.  Sit your butt in the chair."  

What is the worst advice?

"Only write what you know.  As writers, we need to grow in our knowledge.  We need to research.  When I wrote about growing giant pumpkins in Squashed, I had to find out how to do that.  And I'm telling you now, I had never grown a vegetable that lived.   But I knew about growing a big dream, so I layered that onto my story."

What is the story behind the story of Rules of the Road?

"The interesting thing about Rules of the Road is that ten years before I wrote young adult lit, I was a struggling screenwriter. I created Harry Bender, the world's greatest shoe salesman, for a movie I was going to write. I had a rough car accident, changed writing careers, and began to write novels. But I kept this character in my idea file.   When I decided to write Rules of the Road, I knew it was time to address the alcohol issues I had experienced with my dad. I began with that theme, and then the shoes came and I remembered Harry and I yanked him into it.  The story changed as I adapted Jenna and grew her into this family and the crazy milieu of the shoe business.

"My father was an alcoholic, my grandmother had Alzheimer's Disease, although they called it 'hardening of the arteries' back then.  People may think the book is autobiographical, but it's not.  You can put your experiences into your story character, but it's important that you have enough distance so the story isn't emotionally bleeding."


There's a magical place in a writer's process where ideas flow so freely, that current time, place, and situation dissolve, as writers truly live inside the scenes they're creating.  Have you ever had this happen to you?

"It usually happens when I don't expect it.   I was stuck on Thwonk, and I sat in my chair, frustrated, and the whole idea for my third book came to me.  So I wrote it down and went back to Thwonk.  It was like having too much traffic on the highway.  

"I've learned to trust my subconscious.  If I don't get something right away, I believe it's inside me, cooking somehow.  It will get out. But I can't always control it.  You can make yourself nuts.  Sometimes it's important to stop writing and go do something else that feeds your creative soul.  I need to do that more.  I can drive myself pretty hard."

What is the biggest creative problem you've ever faced?

"The toughest book I've written was Hope Was Here, which won a Newbery Honor Medal.  It's nice to know that your problem children can go out into the world and make you proud.  It's a story that grapples with so many things -- honor in politics, cancer, the importance of caring about community, what it's like to learn to trust again when you've been burned so many times.  The plot was getting bogged down, the humor wasn't coming.  I had a list by my computer of careers I could go into in case this book didn't work.  My editor, Nancy Paulsen, showed me how to cut the political speeches and show the power of the people behind them by what they did.  I learned the show, don't tell rule so powerfully as a writer in the working and reworking of this story.  I had to strip away layers and layers.  I had to write a campaign that didn't have any political speeches.  I had to do it all through the characters."

Often a writer's voice is difficult to find.  How do you find yours?

"I used to be a runner.  There's a runner's high when you run past being tired.  That happens with writers.  When I'm writing a book, halfway or two thirds of the way through my first draft, the characters begin to tell me where the story is going.   The voices click in."


How does a story develop for you?  Do you start with plot? Character?

"I don't tend to start with plot.  I start with character and emotion.  As I get to know my characters, they will determine where the story will go.  Plot can take over; character can be one-dimensional.  I put characters in a kooky setting and see what happens.  Also, I've learned that when you get to the end of the book, you have to rework the beginning.  The seeds of the end of the book need to be in the beginning. When you're in the second or third draft, these things start to happen.  Writing novels is very cognitive.  You ask yourself, does that make sense?  Where are the holes in my story, in my characters' lives?"

Any advice for writing humor?

"I think it's important to have humor with depth.  It gives your characters multiple layers.  My first drafts aren't particularly funny.  I'm getting the serious underpinnings down. Have your characters grapple with real issues.  It's only when I know who my characters are and how they view the world, that I can come up with humor for them. One-liners are fine, but they don't define the depth of the heart.  I can't remember who said: don't write a joke, write an important thought in an off-beat way."  

Tell us about winning the Newbery Honor.  

"My sister said the best thing.  When she found out Hope Was Here won the honor book, she remembered in fifth grade, when a school librarian told her just to look for the gold and silver stickers.  Now I have one of those!  When the stickers came, I thought of putting one on each cheek to make a fashion statement.  When the phone call came, they called at 8:00 in the morning.  I thought it was a telemarketer.  I was in my pajamas.  I didn't get out of my office until 4:00 p.m.; the phone just didn't stop ringing."

Do you have any anecdotes to share regarding your visits to schools?

"One girl came up to me, grabbed my hand and said, 'Mrs. Bauer!  I always thought you'd be younger.'

"I've been doing a lot of traveling, and I really feel good about what I'm seeing in schools.  Kids are understanding stories.  They have important insights and they care about the world and big ideas.  I have a great deal of respect for adolescents.  I think sometimes the media paints them as not having the depth that they have."

Have you ever been censored?

"One school librarian decided she didn't want me to talk about Squashed. She said, 'It's a very nice book but I wouldn't want any of the overweight people to feel uncomfortable.'  The whole point of the book is empowerment.  But we never know where a story will concern a reader.  The only thing we can do as writers is write the story and be who we are."

Any last bit of advice or philosophy about writing for children?
     
"I think writing for young people is a true responsibility.  It's a tough world out there that kids are exposed to.  I'm not advocating we should only write stories about kittens with sunhats.  I think we need to show that life can be hard, but we need to show how things can be overcome through emotional strength and getting help.  I see being a writer to young people as a bearer of light.  We are teaching whether we think about it that way or not.  You can teach by all kinds of examples.  It's one of the things humor can do, too.  You can have the message and humor makes it light.  I think about when my daughter was in middle school.  I'd ask myself, what would I like her to read?   What do I want her to know?  I think through the eyes of a mother.

"I try to show how great adversity, if it's addressed, can really make us stronger.  Having traveled some difficult roads myself as a teenager, I can underscore the importance of strategically placed adults in my life.  And I learned how to overcome things through a sense of humor.  The combination of those things fuels my writing.   I have faith in God and believe He has a purpose for all of us.  I wish I had a better sense, as a teenager, that there was a purpose for me.  It would have made things easier.  Now as an adult, I revisit some of the pain I had, but I layer on some of the things I've learned as an adult.  I find the process amazingly redemptive."