Episode #68: What is the hardest part about making a book? -With J.Anderson Coats
Welcome! We have a great kid question today answered by Grace Lin and J. Anderson Coats: “What is the hardest part about making a book?”
TRANSCRIPTS:
Grace Lin: Hello, 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. Today I am here with J. Anderson Coats, the author of the middle-grade novel, The Green Children of Woolpit and R is for Rebel. Hi Jillian.
J. Anderson Coats: Hey Grace, how are you? Thank you so much for having me today.
Grace Lin: Oh, great. I'm so happy to hear from you. Are you ready for today's question?
J. Anderson Coats: I am indeed.
Grace Lin: Okay, today's question is from a person named Tina and she asks-
Tina: What is the hardest part about making a book?
Grace Lin: What is the hardest part of making a book?
J. Anderson Coats: Wow. That is a really good question because there are so many hard things about making a book. I think for me the absolute hardest thing is ignoring that little voice in your head that's constantly telling you, "This isn't very good. These characters are boring. Nothing's going on. You can't do this," because we all have that little voice in our head kind of talking over our shoulder, and it speaks to that aspect of fear and doubt. So, I feel that when you're an author, when you're a creative person in general, the hardest part is to ignore that little voice and to kind of say, "Well, okay, maybe it's not right now going the way I want, but if I keep going, and I keep trying, then it will be good, and it will get done, and I will be happy with it.
Grace Lin: Do you have any tricks on getting rid of that voice?
J. Anderson Coats: Well, let's see. I think the first one is to remember that every book that I've ever read, that I've ever loved, every book that you've ever read and ever loved, started out as somebody's terrible garbage fire first draft. Somebody struggled through it, somebody else had the same fears and doubts and yet they finished it. They sat down, they asked for help, they asked their friends, they got some feedback, and they kept working at it. They didn't give up. That helps me to remember that even the books that I love and I think are masterpieces everybody goes through that. All authors have that same voice in their head, and if they could ignore their voice, that negative voice in their head, I can ignore mine too.
Grace Lin: That's good advice. Yeah, I'm not sure if it's the hardest part of making the book for me, but it's definitely one of the hardest parts, that first draft, just getting it all out. It's the fear, and it's also just finding all the words, like taking all your ideas and trying to figure out how to get it into the words on the page. I always find that so hard. It's kind of like squeezing that last little drop of toothpaste out of the toothpaste tube. Like, "Come on, something has to come out."
J. Anderson Coats: Exactly. No, I feel that too. It feels like at the end of the day sometimes there's just not much left in the tank.
Grace Lin: Yeah. I think maybe one of the reasons it feels that way is that fear, because I do know that one of the ways that I've gotten over that fear, I mean, one of the ways I've gotten over that feeling of like, "I don't have any words," has been to tell myself, "Okay, just write a terrible story. It's okay, nobody has to see this." That always kind of loosens me up. So I think you're right when you say it's that fear, you're afraid that what you're writing is not going to be good. So that's what makes all the words like freeze up in the tube. So, I would say that that is one of the hardest parts of making a book.
Grace Lin: What do you think is the second hardest for you?
J. Anderson Coats: Ha ha. The second hardest is, I think, finding the story. I think what you were saying is sometimes having that you just, "Where are the words, what are words?" Kind of when you have a cool idea, and you get partway through and you get to that point that every author gets to where, usually for me it's about a quarter of the way through, and you're like, "Cool, cool, that was a really great beginning. Now what?"
J. Anderson Coats: To have that sort of ... There are so many different ideas, or so many options. Sometimes having that range of choice is sort of paralyzing, and to sort of take some time, and to take a walk, or journal, or take some time to figure out what is the story here if there are so many choices? What is this character, what do they want, what are they trying to do, what are they afraid of, what will they gain, how do they win? To sort of tease that out, to think of a the universe of stories what's this one story going to be?
Grace Lin: That's true. I was thinking for me, another hard part is after I finish the story, and I love the story so much, the hardest part is giving it to somebody to read and being like, "Oh no, I love this story, and I just spent so long on it, and what if they don't like it?" That's so hard for me, is to like let somebody else read what I've been working on after working on it for so long.
J. Anderson Coats: Same. Especially because you have this feeling of like, "Oh my gosh, this is so not done. It's just not ready to be read by other humans, and that's such an important part of the process to make it.
Grace Lin: It needs to be.
J. Anderson Coats: Yeah, exactly. That's how you make it better, because you're trapped in your own head, and another person who has different life experiences, and background, and just a different worldview is going to be able to point out things that would have never occurred to you. Almost always those are the things that just start lighting up ideas in my head and really enhance and deepen the story.
Grace Lin: Yeah. It makes a book better, but at the same time it's such a hard thing to let somebody else read what you've been working on sometimes,
J. Anderson Coats: It really is, which is why whenever I'm reading for somebody I always try to be very mindful of that. When I share my thoughts with them to make sure that they are useful thoughts, honest, but yet constructive and useful, something that they can actually act on.
Grace Lin: Yes, definitely. That's something always to remember when you're reading somebody else's work. That it's something that they've worked just as hard on as what you've worked on. So that's always good to remember. Thank you so much, Tina, for your really, really good question. That was such a good question, Tina. Thank you so much, Jillian for answering it.
J. Anderson Coats: Thank you so much for having me here today, Grace. Kids out there, keep writing.
Grace Lin: Yay. Bye.
J. Anderson Coats: Bye-bye.
Today’s BOOK REVIEW comes from Sarah. She is reviewing “Love Like Sky” by Leslie C. Youngblood.
Love Like Sky, by Leslie C. Youngblood, shows that even if your family isn’t related by blood, you are still a family. I liked this book because my family isn’t all related by blood, either. In the book, G-baby has to get used to her new stepsister and stepfather. She is sad when it seems that her new stepsister, Tangie does not like her. She also has to get used to her father’s new wife, Millicent. When her little sister, Peaches, gets sick with meningitis things go downhill. G-baby’s mother and father are fighting. Also, her best friend is bullied and used by the most popular girl at G-baby’s old school. Can G-baby bring her family together and help her friend all at the same time? Read this fun book to find out! In July of 2021 the sequel, Forever This Summer, will be coming out and I can’t wait to read it!
Thank you Sarah!
More about today’s authors:
J. Anderson Coats has received two Junior Library Guild awards and earned starred reviews from Kirkus, School Library Journal, the Horn Book Review, and Shelf Awareness. Her newest books are Spindle and Dagger, a historical YA set in medieval Wales that deals with power dynamics and complicated relationships, and The Green Children of Woolpit, a creepy middle-grade fantasy inspired by real historical events. The Wicked and the Just was one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Teen Books of 2012 and won the Washington State Book Award for Young Adults. She is also the author of The Many Reflections of Miss Jane Deming, a middle-grade novel set in Washington Territory in the 1860s which won the 2018 Washington State Book Award for Middle Grade, as well as being a 2017 Junior Library Guild selection and one of Kirkus’s Best Historical Middle Grade Books of 2017. Her short story, “Mother Carey’s Table,” appeared in A Tyranny of Petticoats: 15 Stories of Belles, Bank Robbers, and Other Badass Girls (Candlewick, 2016). She is also the author of R is for Rebel, which Booklist called “empowering and timely story about resistance.” The Night Ride, an action-adventure set in a historical-ish world, is forthcoming in 2021.
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.
