Episode 36: Did you ever forget what to write? With Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
Welcome! On today’s episode we have the kid question, “Did you ever forget to write?” answered by authors Grace Lin and Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich.
TRANSCRIPTS:
Grace Lin: Hi. I'm Grace Lin, children's book author and illustrator of many books, including the middle grade novel, Where The Mountain Meets The Moon, and the picture book, A Big Mooncake For Little Star.
Grace Lin: Today, I'm here with Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich. Author of the middle grade novels 8th Grade Superzero, Two Naomis, and its sequel Naomi Too, both co-written with Audrey Vernick. And the picture book Someday Is Now by Clara Looper and the 1958 Oklahoma City students.
Grace Lin: Hi, Olugbemisola.
Olugbemisola R.: Hi, Grace. How are you?
Grace Lin: Good. I apologize for messing up your name numerous times. Luckily, this podcast is edited, so the listeners will not hear how many times I messed up your name. Thank you so much for being here and for your patience.
Olugbemisola R.: Thank you so much for having me.
Grace Lin: Are you ready for today's question?
Olugbemisola R.: I am.
Grace Lin: Okay. Today's question is from a person named Nicole. And Nicole asks-
Nicole: Did you ever forget what to write?
Grace Lin: Did you ever forget what to write?
Olugbemisola R.: Nicole, that is a fantastic question, and I have to say that I almost always forget what to write. Even when I think that I have a fantastic, wonderful, surefire idea, sometimes I get an idea and I sit down, I have my blank sheet of paper and my pen, and I say, "Okay. Go." To myself. And then it's like the idea of flies out of my head and just... I completely lose the idea.
Olugbemisola R.: Sometimes even when I've already written a lot, I just forget what the rest of the story is going to be. So, that's one of the reasons why I love the process of revision and re-writing and re-thinking and re-seeing my story. Because when I have an idea, I make little notes. They don't really have to be full sentences even, sometimes I just make sketches or doodles. Little notes and words about the idea so that when I get to that point where I forget, I can go back to my notes and go back to my sketches and go back and think, "What was I thinking when I had this idea? What made me so excited about this idea? What are all of the different things that I want readers to see and know and think about when they read the story?"
Olugbemisola R.: So that helps me to kind of remember what I wanted to say or what I was wondering about in the first place.
Grace Lin: You know, that happens a lot to me too. Usually what happens is that I will be out walking and I'll come up with a great idea and then I'll come back home and be like, "I have to write that idea now." And then I completely forget. "What was that?"
Olugbemisola R.: Yes.
Grace Lin: All I remember, it was really good.
Olugbemisola R.: Yes. That happens a lot. And sometimes I don't have my notebook and pen with me. Even though I usually always try and carry a little notebook and pen or pencil, sometimes I don't have anything to write with, or I don't have maybe my phone to record with, so sometimes saying it out loud helps me remember when I get back.
Olugbemisola R.: So, if I say it out loud to myself, wherever I am, even if I feel a little silly talking to myself, that helps me remember later on.
Grace Lin: That's a good tip. I remember once I was at the grocery store and I was so desperate. I forgot my phone, I forgot my notebook. I remember scrolling it down on like a napkin at the grocery store. And then what's so funny is that I'll come home, I'm like, "I got that great idea." And then I'll read my scrawls, I'm like, "Oh, wait. This idea wasn't so good after all."
Olugbemisola R.: Yeah. Or sometimes I write it so fast I can't really read what I wrote down.
Grace Lin: Sometimes it happens to me like right before I go to sleep at night, I'll be like, "Oh, yeah. That's really good." And I'll kind of scrawl something down on the notebook by the bed and in the morning, I'm like, "What does this say?"
Olugbemisola R.: Yes. Exactly.
Grace Lin: So I think forgetting what to write is something that plagues a lot of writers.
Olugbemisola R.: Yes. It does.
Grace Lin: But it's a really good tip to say it out loud. I wonder if there's other tips like that besides saying it out loud and always bringing things with you?
Olugbemisola R.: I think, for me, going back to why I had a particular idea in the first place always helps. Because sometimes I sort of... I can lose track of my story myself, or lose track of what I wanted to write, so in the beginning... I'm not really an outliner. I know a lot of people do like to make outlines. I don't really make outlines, but sometimes when I have an idea, I just write down all the questions that I have about the idea, or I write down all of the... A list of the different things about the idea that I want to say.
Olugbemisola R.: Maybe even if it's just like a little line of dialogue or a funny word or an image that pops into my mind. And I make that list so that later when I forget what to write, I go back to my list and that kind of jogs my memory.
Grace Lin: Oh. That's so great. Did you have any problems about forgetting what to write with any of your books?
Olugbemisola R.: Oh. My goodness. In my first book, 8th Grade Superzero, I didn't even realize I had forgotten some things until my editor pointed them out to me. So, in the story my main character Reggie, his mom... He has a conversation with his mom about 1/3 of the way through the story and then I had sort of forgotten about her in the rest of the book. And so at one point she leaves the room to go somewhere and then she just never comes back and I had totally forgotten that she never came back.
Olugbemisola R.: Like I had just completely forgotten. Good thing my editor, when she sort of laid out... She was an outliner. And when she sort of laid that out, she was like, "Okay. So, we kind of lost track of the story here and we lost track of the characters." And she was very good at helping me, sort of, make little charts and maps to keep track of... Because I had a lot of characters. I do like to write a lot of characters in stories and sort of keep track of everyone in the story, where they were, and just making sure that they stayed throughout the story. Or at least they got wrapped up early on.
Grace Lin: That's good. It's nice to have somebody to kind of watch over you when you're writing.
Olugbemisola R.: Yes. That was a great thing about also having a collaborator, my friend, Audrey Vernick for the Naomis books. We could kind of help each other remember like, "Well, okay. If this happened, if you wrote this in this chapter, then we have to make sure that we keep it going or there's some sort of resolution and it doesn't just trail off later on." So, having a collaborator was really good for that.
Grace Lin: Great. Well, so that's some good tips there, Nicole. Every author kind of forgets what to write, but if you can say things out loud, write it down or have somebody kind of look over your shoulder, it really does help you not forget what you want to write.
Grace Lin: So, thank you so much for answering this question and thank you so much, Nicole, for asking it.
Olugbemisola R.: Thank you, Nicole. And thank you so much, Grace, for having me. This was a lot of fun.
Grace Lin: Thanks. Bye.
Olugbemisola R.: Bye.
Today’s BOOK REVIEW comes from Andie! Andie is reviewing, No Small Potatoes: Junius G. Groves and His Kingdom in Kansas by Tonya Bolden, illustrated by Don Tate.
The book I would like to talk about is No Small Potatoes: Junius G. Groves and His Kingdom in Kansas by Tonya Bolden, illustrated by Don Tate. This book is about Junius G. Groves, a potato farmer who was the potato King of Kansas. He grew millions of potatoes by working hard. I like this book, because it's a story that demonstrates you should never give up and should always work hard.
Thank you so much Andie!
More about today’s authors:
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich made up stories for her little sister when she was young, including one "true story" that she'd starred on Sesame Street, but had turned herself invisible to viewers. Today, she writes fiction and nonfiction, including the NAACP Image Award nominee Two Naomis, with Audrey Vernick, and its sequel, Nerdy Book Club winner Naomis Too. She's the author of 8th Grade Superzero, a Notable Book for a Global Society, Someday is Now: Clara Luper and the 1958 Oklahoma City Sit-ins, a Notable Social Studies Trade Book, Above and Beyond: NASA's Journey to Tomorrow, and the editor of The Hero Next Door, a middle grade anthology from We Need Diverse Books. She lives with her family in NYC where she writes, makes things, and needs to get more sleep.
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.
Special thanks to the High Five Books & Art Always Bookstore, Ms. Carleton’s 2nd grade class at Jackson Street School for their help with our kid questions and reviews.
