Episode #112: What part of making a book do you procrastinate on? with Livia Blackburne
Welcome to another episode of Kids Ask Authors! This week, we interview Livia Blackburne and the kid question is, “What part of a book do you procrastinate on?” Great question!
TRANSCRIPTS:
Grace Lin: Hello. I'm Grace Lin children's book, author, and illustrator of many books, including the middle grade novel, When the Sea Turned to Silver and the picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star. Today, I'm here with Livia Blackburne, the author of I Dream of Popo, illustrated by Julia Kuo. The art from I Dream of Popo is also featured in the picture book exhibit Asians Everyday, which you can see now online. Hi, Livia.
Livia Blackburne: Hello.
Grace Lin: Thank you so much for joining me today.
Livia Blackburne: Oh, thank you for having me.
Grace Lin: Are you ready for today's kid question?
Livia Blackburne: I am.
Grace Lin: All right. Today's kid question is from a person named Anne, and Anne asks...
Anne: What part of making a book do you procrastinate the most on?
Grace Lin: What part of making a book do you procrastinate the most on?
Livia Blackburne: Yes. Well, there's a lot of competition for that I think. But I think probably writing the first draft is the hardest for me, just going from a blank page to having something. If I have something to edit, then I'm perfectly great, but just getting those first words on the page. So I've had some tricks to kind of get better about it over the years. Sometimes I'll do voice recognition now and just talk through the first draft or else I'll play mind games and be like, okay, this can be really terrible. I just need to get something down. And that helps a lot too, but still it's my biggest hump to get over.
Grace Lin: Okay. I have a couple questions for what you said. All right. First is the voice recognition. So how do you do that? Go step by step. I think that'll be interesting. So how do you use the voice recognition to get you through your procrastination?
Livia Blackburne: Yes. So the voice recognition, I use Dragon Naturally Speaking. I started using it because I had some wrist issues and I just kept on using it. So it's software that you buy for Windows. You got to make sure that your microphone is a quality microphone, that helps a lot. I just turn it on and I just start talking in. You need to train the software to get higher accuracy and to be honest, it's still not as good as typing, and I have to go through and correct a lot. So that's why I usually only use it for my very first draft, where I'm changing a lot anyways and often I'll be going through and just writing a completely different, a complete second draft that's starting over almost. So that way it works out better for me.
Grace Lin: So how much of the draft do you use for voice recognition? Do you do the whole book that way?
Livia Blackburne: I call it my zero draft. I'll have pretty much a version of every scene just talked out, but it'll be completely, the tenses might be different. I might be talking in first person where I know the novel's going to be in third person. It's more like notes to myself. I'm just mapping out what happens and the beats I want and sometimes I go off on tangents and it's okay. It's just to get over that mental block.
Grace Lin: Oh, that's so interesting. Oh, wow. That's a great one. Because I procrastinate quite a bit too, so that might be a really good hint for me in the future.
Livia Blackburne: Okay, good. Yeah.
Grace Lin: My other question is, what are the things you do to procrastinate?
Livia Blackburne: Well, social media, checking my email. I've had so many different internet blockers, Freedom, they work to some degree, but if the motivation to procrastinate is high enough, I'll find some way around them. So it's kind of a constant struggle. I've put in blockers to stop procrastinating. And then I find ways around the blockers. It's like an arms race against myself almost.
Grace Lin: That makes sense. The thing is for me, the way I procrastinate is I procrastinate doing very useful things. So I can kind of talk myself into thinking that I'm actually being productive. Like I'll do the laundry, or I'll clean my studio. And all this is like, yes, this is very good. So I can kind of feel, I don't know if good about myself is the right word, like holy about the way that I'm procrastinating. But I know really, I'm really just procrastinating. And I often think, gosh, I really must not want to do my book if I'm willing to do the laundry instead of writing.
Livia Blackburne: Right. Well, I kind of wish I was that kind of procrastinator because my house is a mess.
Grace Lin: Well, the sad thing is my house is a mess too. It's not like that really helps. Well, that's cool. I'm so interested on your tricks on how you don't procrastinate by using that Dragon software. That's really cool. I'm trying to think if I have any tricks of how I stop procrastinating. I think the best thing for me to stop procrastinating is usually when I have a deadline.
Livia Blackburne: Oh yes, yes.
Grace Lin: And then I see it. And I'm like, "Uh, oh."
Livia Blackburne: Right. Deadlines. Word count, word count quotas. Deadlines help with word count quotas too.
Grace Lin: Yes. Kind of thinking like, if I don't get it done, I'll get in trouble. So sometimes that helps me.
Livia Blackburne: Yes. But I've noticed that my deadlines have to be imposed by other parties. They have to be like actual contracts. I've tried telling my agent to be mean to me at this state, if I don't have something done, or maybe my agent is just too nice. I don't know. Doesn't quite work.
Grace Lin: No, I completely know what you mean, because I have a deadline from the publishing company, and then I'll give myself and a deadline. Okay. So then I should definitely get this done by then, and this, and I'll make my own kind of schedule. And of course my own schedule, I always completely ignore. But then the real publisher deadline, I'm like, uh oh.
Livia Blackburne: Right, well we muddle through somehow.
Grace Lin: Yes. Now when I look at all my books, I'm like, I can't believe I actually finished them all. Well thank you so much, Livia.
Livia Blackburne: All right, thank you.
Grace Lin: Thanks Livia, bye.
Livia Blackburne: Bye.
Today’s Kid Book Review comes from Penelope. She is reviewing, I Dream of Popo, by Livia Blackburne and illustrated by Julia Kuo.
This book is about a girl and her Popo, which means grandma in Mandarin Chinese. The girl used to live with her Popo in Taiwan and then she had to move away to San Diego,California. She met new people, learned English, but she missed her Popo. She video chats with her Popo and tells her about her adventures in her new home. When the girl visits her Popo again in Taiwan, she doesn’t remember Mandarin Chinese as well, but she still loves her Popo. I liked this book because it reminded me of my grandmothers. They both came from Taiwan and China and I sometimes video chat with them and they cook me yummy foods. I also liked how the girl had a strong relationship with her Popo. They always loved each other even when things got hard and when the girl forgot the language her Popo spoke.
Thank you Penelope!
More about today’s authors:
New York Times bestselling author Livia Blackburne is a Chinese American author who wrote her first novel while researching the neuroscience of reading at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since then, she’s switched to full time writing, which also involves getting into people’s heads but without the help of a three tesla MRI scanner.
She is the author of the MIDNIGHT THIEF (An Indies Introduce New Voices selection) and ROSEMARKED (A YALSA Teens Top Ten nominee), as well as the picture book I DREAM OF POPO, which received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus.
Grace Lin, a NY Times bestselling author/ illustrator, won the Newbery Honor for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and her picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star, was awarded the Caldecott Honor. Grace is an occasional commentator for New England Public Radio , a video essayist for PBS NewsHour (here & here), and the speaker of the popular TEDx talk, The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf. She is the co-host of the podcast Book Friends Forever, a kidlit podcast about friendship and publishing (geared for adults). Find her facebook, instagram , twitter ( @pacylin) or sign up for her author newsletter HERE.
Please visit the Asians, Everyday exhibit found online at the Carle Museum featuring Livia Blackburne!
“Award-winning children’s book author and illustrator Grace Lin curated this online exhibition, launched May 2021 in honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Asians, Everyday showcases positive Asian American representation. The selected artworks and books, featuring contemporary characters and stories, celebrate our common humanity by depicting Asian Americans living their everyday lives.”
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