ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kate is the writer of the YA novel DISNEYLANDERS, published by Orchard Hill Press. She is a former editor of video game strategy guides and wrote MOSHI MONSTERS MOSHLING ZOO: Prima Official Game Guide. She received an MFA in creative writing from UC Riverside, Palm Desert.
Where to Stalk Kate!
INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR KATE ABBOTT
TeamNerd Reviews: What are the top five lessons you’ve learned from writing a book
you can pass onto upcoming authors?
Kate
Abbott: Ooh,
good question! I think if there are some things I would have wanted to know
before I wrote this book, they would be:
1) Write about something you have a real passion for. You face so
much work and rejection as a writer that you need to have a love of your
subject matter to sustain you.
2) Make yourself sit down and work, even when you don't feel like
it. If you have to trick yourself into sitting down and doing it, that is
totally OK! Whatever makes you able to put your butt into the chair and get to
work. I read a tip somewhere that suggested leaving off in the middle of a
scene, or even a sentence, to make it easier to pick up again in the next
writing session. I totally do that. I also tell myself some days that I only
have to write for 15 minutes, if I think that's all I can manage. Almost every
single time I say it, I end up writing for longer than that.
3) Your process is OK, no matter what it is, as long as it helps
you do the work. Whether you write every day or don't, whether you plan your
plot ahead of time or just sit down and see where the story takes you, it's all
good as long as it works for you.
4) Read a lot. Read books like you want to write. Great writing
will rub off on your writing.
5) Develop a community of writers, whether it is online, by going
back to school, by going to local writing meet-ups, by joining a society of the
genre you're writing. Writing friends understand you in a way no other friends
can.
TeamNerd Reviews: Diversity has become a big issue in Middle Grade and Young Adult
fiction. Why do you feel diversity in books within the content and the cover is
something that matters?
Kate
Abbott: I think
it's super important for all readers to find people they can relate to being
portrayed in books. It's incredibly validating when you find a character like
yourself in a book that you love. I wrote my book for my 12-year-old self, who
was always looking for a character like me in books I read.
TeamNerd Reviews: How did you approach balancing the romance between Casey and Bert
in Disneylanders with the difficulties they both face with their set of
parents? Were there any struggles you faced?
Kate Abbott: I really didn't want to
write only about the romance. I think teenagers--and, well, everybody--deal
with romantic complications, but also with friendship, family, their own
personal obstacles--there's never any one isolated part of life that we deal with
that doesn't relate to everything else. I tried to show all of Casey's
struggles and how they interconnected with each other--how her new romance
impacted how her parents saw her, how her recent failed friendship impacted her
romance. It was tricky not to let one element overshadow the others.
TeamNerd Reviews: What’s some good advice you could give to both teens and parents
about opening the lines of communication so each side is better heard?
Kate
Abbott: I think
it's probably important to have enough free time together to be comfortable
just talking about anything. Like when you're riding in a car. And to not have
only big serious "talks," but to have lots of small conversations
throughout life. I'm trying to do this with my own son who's only six years
old, but I hope that by taking his concerns seriously now, and talking about
them freely, no matter what they are, he'll be more comfortable talking to me
about anything when he's older.
TeamNerd Reviews: When you
were a teenager, what were some of the books that helped inspire you or had a
profound effect on you?
Kate
Abbott: I had a
hard time finding books that I felt were targeted to me when I was a young
teenager. I felt sort of caught between books I loved as a kid and feeling
ready to read "grown up" books. I really loved To Kill a
Mockingbird, The Bean Trees, The Outsiders, Matilda, Harriet the Spy...books
of all kinds. Any book was inspirational to me, really, because from the time I
was a little kid, I always thought there was something magical about seeing an
author's name on a book's cover.
TeamNerd Reviews: What was one of your biggest fears when you were fourteen
entering high school?
Kate
Abbott: Oh jeez,
what wasn't a fear of mine! I was afraid of not making friends, of getting lost
in the big school, of getting made fun of for not having the "right"
backpack or clothes, that I would commit a breach of freshman etiquette, like
sitting on the seniors' bench.... My most pressing fear was that I had gotten
an absolutely terrible haircut the day before high school started and I was
afraid people would ridicule me. I cried and cried about it, and of course that
only made me look even worse the next day. Nobody ever said anything about it,
but I felt self-conscious for weeks.
TeamNerd Reviews: If you could play any Disney Princess for the day and rewrite the
fairytale, which princess would you choose and what changes would you make?
Kate
Abbott: I would
be Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty and I would not dance with or make
plans to see a stranger I'd met in the woods. Maybe if I thought he wasn't a
creeper, I'd say we could meet in a public place. But I definitely wouldn't
invite him to my home that night!
TeamNerd Reviews: Would there ever be a sequel to Disneylanders? A possibility of
seeing Casey and Bert together again? *crosses fingers*
Kate
Abbott: I
wouldn't rule it out completely, but I don't have any immediate plans for a
sequel. I kind of like leaving their story up to them.
TeamNerd Reviews: What upcoming book projects are you working on that we can hope to
see in the near future?
Kate
Abbott: I'm
working on very different kinds of books right now. I just completed a memoir
of my experience going into and out of postpartum depression, called Walking
After Midnight. I'm looking for a publisher for it and hope to find a home
for it soon! I just started writing a new adult mainstream novel about a young
woman inheriting her family's home by a lake. Like Disneylanders, it
involves the mixing of family and romance and growing up.
TeamNerd Reviews: Let’s wrap this up with some fun questions!
Kate
Abbott:
Favorite
Line from a Disney Movie: It's from "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas,
which I LOVED as a teenager:
"You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew"
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew"
Favorite
Villain from a Disney Movie: Maleficent. She's just SO MAD about not getting invited to a
party!
Favorite
TV Shows When You Were a Teen: When I was a young teen: Full House. Older: Seinfeld.
Favorite
Hang Out Spot When You Were a Teen: This is gonna sound weird, but the gym. Although I rarely
exercised there! I just met my friends and we hung out by the tennis courts and
talked until it was dark. Sometimes we played air hockey. Occasionally we
actually exercised and played tennis.
Worse
Date You Ever Went On: An awkward date I wasn't sure was a date or not. I'm still not
sure.
Scariest
Ride At Disney For You (whether now or when you were younger):
Splash Mountain is the
scariest for me now. I know that sounds ridiculous! But something about not
being connected to the track when your log tips over and goes over the edge
really freaks me out. I've had nightmares about the log flipping over, even
though I know that's not really possible!
Thank you so much for the really fun and great questions, TeamNerd
Reviews!!
CHECK OUT DISNEYLANDERS!
Head on over to the I HEART YA 2014 Giveaways page to win a SIGNED copy of Disneylanders!
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