Episode #79: Have you ever gotten bored of writing in your book and had to take a break? -with Greg Neri
Welcome! Today on Kids Ask Authors, we have a great kid question answered by authors Grace Lin and Greg Neri: “Have you ever gotten bored of writing in your book and had to take a break?”
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 am here with Greg Neri, the author of the middle grade novel, Ghetto Cowboy, and its upcoming sequel, Polo Cowboy. Hi, Greg.
Greg Neri: Hi.
Grace Lin: Thanks so much for joining me today.
Greg Neri: My pleasure.
Grace Lin: Are you ready for today's question?
Greg Neri: I am. Go ahead.
Grace Lin: All right. Today's question is from a young person named Xavier and Xavier asks...
Xavier: Have you ever got bored writing in your book and had to take a break?
Grace Lin: Have you ever gotten bored of writing your book and had to take a break?
Greg Neri: I would have to say no. I kind of have the opposite problem, which is, sometimes my brain gets overwhelmed by the amount of materials. Because a lot of my stories are inspired by real life, like Ghetto Cowboy's a good example. So that's the story about inner city cowboys in North Philadelphia. And it's such a unusual set up, I go into something like that, it's perfect to write about. There's so any stories and characters and I start collecting everything. And pretty soon my brain fills up to the point where I am so excited, but kind of overwhelmed. Like I don't know where to start, which stories to pick. Can I put everything in there?
Greg Neri: And so sometimes, I get overwhelmed and I have to stop and put everything aside for a moment just to kind of see what sticks. If I'm not thinking about all those millions of incredible details, like what are the things that pop and kind of stick to my brain? And once I can kind of simplify that and just forget everything and go with what remains, then I can start writing again. But yeah, I do stop, but it's not from being bored, because I'm never bored, it's just from too much information.
Grace Lin: So what are the things that you do on your break that help you?
Greg Neri: Well, a lot of times it's just physical stuff, like mowing the lawn, stuff where you're not thinking because your brain just can overthink itself into oblivion. So doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, doing the laundry, building a fence. Just physical stuff where you're just not thinking. And it's in that moment when you're not thinking about stuff, like the answers come to you like, oh, this is really a story about this and it should start here. So you have to kind of empty your brain. It's very zen like.
Grace Lin: I love that answer because when I was reading this question to you, I was thinking like, "Have I ever gotten bored?" Because I do take breaks often, but I don't think... I agree. For me, it's the same thing. It's not from boredom. But I wouldn't say that it's always from overwhelm. It's more about, sometimes I don't know where to go next. So sometimes it's not so much overwhelm, but maybe it's a frustration or that feeling of being lost. Like, "Oh, no. I'm not sure. What should happen next?" And I agree, taking those breaks and doing... I don't build fences or mow the lawn.
Greg Neri: Well, I built my first fence this summer. So it's sort of like a big monumental thing. And the other thing too is, books take so long to write. Sometimes it feels like it just never ends because you're doing so many drafts, revisions, copy edits, marketing, all this stuff. Like building a fence is a very definite thing. Like, one day, there's no fence. You need a fence. You get the wood, you get the nails, you start building. You figure out how to work it, how to make it happen. It starts going up. And then one day, there it is. It's done. It's finished. It's not like lingering. It's not like going to be revised. You don't have to wait for it to be launched. You don't have to wait for touring, for... It's like there. And so that is very satisfying when everything else just takes forever.
Grace Lin: That is a good point. That's really smart, you know? Because that's true, like to have something that you could just do physically, have in front of you, and then it's there... That is what's so frustrating about books, it's because it's so kind of nebulous and it takes years and years and years.
Greg Neri: Right.
Grace Lin: And I think one of the things that I have done or I've tried to take up as a break is like gardening, because I do love gardens. But it hasn't really been a really great thing for me. Like I don't really stick with it too much and I think it's because of that reason that you say. Like, because you plant the seed... Because it's too much like books, where you plant the seed and then like-
Greg Neri: Right. You have to wait for it to grow.
Grace Lin: Yeah. Like, "Okay, now it's a pile of dirt."
Greg Neri: Right.
Grace Lin: So I could see taking something that's a little bit more... that has a faster, more concrete result would be good.
Greg Neri: Even just like a simple thing like mowing the lawn. Like, you let the grass grow until it becomes too much and it's kind of out of control. You get your lawn mower out for an hour. You're just like mowing and trimming and doing all this stuff, and then you can stand there and look at it and it looks great again. It's like kind of immediately satisfying.
Grace Lin: You know, all of a sudden, I realize one of my big procrastination techniques is to like do the dishes, clean up my room. I was thinking, "Oh, maybe that's why I do that," is because you want to just like say, "Oh, the dishes are done." It's something that's just done.
Greg Neri: Right. Well, the other thing I do, which is interesting is when I procrastinate, I start playing around in Photoshop, which is my other passion, like design work. And one of the things I originally learned was like, if you can make the cover or the poster for your story, like that exercise of distilling it down to an image and a title and a tone sometimes really helps me figure out what this thing really is.
Greg Neri: So I just play with visual elements, like pictures and titles, and maybe a tagline. And if I can do that, which is like easier and kind of more satisfying and fun to play with, sometimes that really helps solve the problem of like what my angle is going to be in diving into this story.
Grace Lin: Oh, that's so cool. Was there a specific moment in either Ghetto Cowboy or Polo Cowboy where you needed to take a break that you remember?
Greg Neri: Yeah. Polo Cowboy was so interesting because I had gotten the idea for it several years ago and was kind of working on it in between other stuff. I would just do research and gather stuff, and that research pile just got bigger and bigger and bigger, bigger, and there was just so much great stuff. Eventually, I said, "Okay, I'm going to dive in and do it." And I wrote about a hundred pages and then kind of like stopped. I wasn't quite sure. It just kept growing bigger and bigger, like too big to be a sequel to a book that had a certain size. It was going to be twice as big.
Greg Neri: So I put it aside for a long while, did that whole thing. Then I figured out, okay, I'll do this. I'll simplify it to this. Did the same thing, started writing again and still, it was way too much stuff. It was all good, but you can't write a sequel that's twice as long as the original.
Greg Neri: And finally, I just had so much research and books and videos and I threw everything away. And I went to a remote location where it's going to be by myself for like a week. And I said, "I'm going to write this whole book in a week and just like speed write it. And I won't worry about anything. I won't care. It's going to be bad. It's going to be horrible. But I'm going to just relish that. Don't worry about it that it's not going to be any good. Write this scene. This makes no sense. It doesn't matter. Like what's the style? It's horrible. It doesn't matter."
Greg Neri: And in that process, like the stuff that stuck to my brain that really made what the story was about, that stuff started to come out. And even though I was kind of relishing, like, "You know what'd be fun? If this character did this." Even though I can't justify it, it makes no sense, I'm just going to write that scene because it would be like so much fun. It's like the direct opposites clashing. I just started doing that stuff that was fun.
Greg Neri: And then I knew at the end it was going to be a big old mess. But a funny thing happened. When I got to the end and I read it, it actually worked. I ignored all the rules. I threw everything out. I was just writing for fun, just like great scenes that would be fun to watch. And that's the stuff you want to read, you know? And so I just learned a lot. Just like don't worry about it. Don't overthink things. Keep it simple. Do the things you want to see. And eventually, it'll come together.
Grace Lin: That's amazing. And you were able to write the whole book in a week?
Greg Neri: Well, a very sketchy draft.
Grace Lin: That's really amazing.
Greg Neri: But pretty much. I went back and revised it, but 80% of it was the-
Grace Lin: Was there.
Greg Neri: ... made the final cut. Yeah.
Grace Lin: Yeah. I mean, I think for our listeners, I think even though you actually did the physical writing in a week [crosstalk 00:09:50]-
Greg Neri: Oh, yeah. I did five years of pre-writing.
Grace Lin: ... of researching, yeah, and thinking and thinking.
Greg Neri: Right.
Grace Lin: So I think it's kind of like that old Picasso quote, where he like scribbles on a napkin and says, "It's worth a million dollars." And they're like, "You just scribbled that in five seconds. Why is it worth so much?" And he's like, "Because it took my whole life to learn how to scribble like that."
Greg Neri: Yeah, exactly. Speaking of Picasso, I would take my daughter to museums a lot while she was growing up and she would always look at some abstract painting or whatever and say, "Yeah, I could have done that." And my answer would be, "Yeah, but you didn't." Sometimes, it takes somebody to think to do that. Like you wouldn't have done that just out of the blue, you have to think and try it. And that's like the art.
Grace Lin: Yeah, exactly. So I hope our listeners, you've just got to sit down and try it.
Greg Neri: Exactly.
Grace Lin: All right. Well, thank you so much, Greg, for answering today's question, and thank you Xavier for asking such a great one. I hope you liked the answer. I loved it. Thanks so much.
Greg Neri: All right.
Grace Lin: Bye.
Greg Neri: Bye.
Today’s BOOK REVIEW comes from Jordan! The review is on the book, Ways to Make Sunshine by Renee Watson and illustrated by Nina Mata.
The book I would like to talk about is Ways to Make Sunshine by Renée Watson. This book is about a 4th grade girl named Ryan. She shares what happens in her life when her family moves to a new (old) house. Ryan races a bully at school, she discovers spooky hairpins, she messes up her Easter speech at church. And she invents new recipes.
I liked this book because even though Ryan tries to do her best, she sometimes messes up. It was funny too.
Thank you Jordan!
More about TODAY’S authors:
G. Neri is the Coretta Scott King honor-winning author of Yummy: the Last Days of a Southside Shorty and the recipient of the Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award for his free-verse novella, Chess Rumble. His books have been translated into multiple languages in over 25 countries. They include Tru & Nelle, Grand Theft Horse, Hello, I'm Johnny Cash, and Ghetto Cowboy, which was made into the upcoming movie, Concrete Cowboy, starring Idris Elba. In 2017, he was awarded the first of two National Science Foundation grants that sent him to Antarctica. Prior to becoming a writer, Neri was a filmmaker, an animator/illustrator, a digital media producer, and one of the creators of The Truth anti-smoking campaign. He is currently co-chair of the Antarctic Artists and Writers Collective and writes full-time while living on the Gulf Coast of Florida with his wife and daughter. You can find him online at www.gneri.com.
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.
