YA Author Stacey Kade

Ack! Sorry, I’ve missed the last few Wednesdays. My birthday was in there, as was an out-of-town visit and one week of sickness.

But I’m better now (and older), so back to our regularly scheduled blog!

One of the questions I’m asked most often is, where do you get your ideas?

And honestly, I still don’t have a good answer. I’m sure it’s a combination of life experiences, plus things I’ve read, seen, heard, etc. and a flash of something other that binds them all together in some new way.

All I know for sure is that I love it when new ideas whisper in my ear. And yes, that’s usually the way it happens. Someone new appears on scene to tell me some little snippet about themselves or their situation.

The hardest part for me always is figuring out WHICH idea to pursue. Some of these have been hanging around, waiting in the wings, for literally years. Something about them calls to me, or else they wouldn’t still be in the idea file. (I have both paper and electronic files labled “Ideas.”)

I found this in an article on CNN today, which I found interesting:

“In an interview with Betsy Morris of Fortune, Steve Jobs offered an interesting and, typically, upside-down perspective on focus: ‘People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the many things we haven’t done as the things we have done.’”

Lately I’ve been preoccupied with the concept of finding the “right” idea. I think I’ve always thought that some story ideas are more complete, more functional than others. Or, that others are flawed from the get-go, despite their many appealing qualities, and no matter how much work or time or effort you put into them, they are doomed from the start.

It makes me anxious to think like that because then it feels a bit like gambling when you have to choose what next to work on. You have to bet on the right horse, or you’ll end up broke (i.e. 150 pages in and no story, or worse, a story you hate.)

And that may be partially true…some ideas may be more complete than others from the beginning. But better? I don’t know. Mind you, I’m not talking about their sale-ability or their potential for bestseller-dom, merely an idea’s potential for becoming a complete and functional story.

The more I think about this, the more I wonder if it’s less about the idea and more about me. The theory that some ideas are “better” than others seems kind of flawed (aside from obvious technique issues or marketing/sales impracticalities–like a love story with zombies or something, but I bet someone will find a way to make even that work).

I’ve read so many books that took delightfully unusual concepts–ones that people would say, “Oh, that’ll never work,” and executed them brilliantly. Others that have taken tried-and-true stories and flipped them upside down in some way for a fresh perspective.

I’m beginning to wonder if the x-factor is author interest/commitment. For me, some ideas require more development to turn them from a little kernel into a full blown…uh, whatever a kernel becomes. Ear of corn? Popcorn?

And sometimes in that development process, I get wishy-washy. I like these people, but if I don’t know their story, I’m floundering. Sometimes, to make them part of a story, I have to change things about them or their situation. And then…all of a sudden the developing story isn’t as interesting to me as the kernel was. Or maybe there are too many choices and the process of figuring it out suddenly seems overwhelming and not fun.

Fun. I seriously do think that’s the key. I write because I love it, because it’s fun for me. Not all the time, not every day, and it’s a LOT of hard work, but there are certainly more good days than bad. Otherwise, I wouldn’t do it. Nobody would.

And I have to know enough about the characters and where the story is going to be able to relax enough to have fun.

So maybe that’s the litmus test I’ve been looking for. Not is this the “right” idea…but will it be fun? Am I excited about seeing these scenes play out on paper? Do I know enough about this story that I’ll enjoy seeing it come to life? Or is it more of a vague notion than an idea?

Hmmm. It’s something worth thinking about, at least.

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Random Stuff:
–Liar by Justine Larbalestier is fascinating and unsettling. I highly recommend it, but you should come to it with no expectations (or spoilers). Seriously. I finished it two days ago and I’m STILL thinking about it.

–I CANNOT wait for “V” to start next week! November 3 on ABC, people!

–I am SO enjoying my Kindle, which I got for my birthday. I’ll be writing up my experiences about it probably for next week. I have the most fun downloading the free samples to my Kindle and reading them on the couch. It is DANGEROUS, you guys, how easy it is to buy books this way.

I hang out in the bookstore cafe a lot, writing, reading, just generally chilling out. My favorite spot, thus far, is the Barnes and Noble in Vernon Hills. The people who work there are awesome, and it’s a big B&N so there’s plenty of opportunity for one of my other favorite activities: people-watching. Or, in this case, people-listening.

Writers are, I think, natural eavesdroppers. It’s not intended maliciously, of course, but I think we’re just eternally curious and hearing snippets of lives going on around us is intriguing. We fill in the gaps with what we think the story should be, or at least I do.

In any case, the other day, in an effort to distract myself from the guy loudly clipping his fingernails (yes, seriously!) in the cafe (double gross) without any attempt to clean up after himself (gagging now), I was half-reading and half-listening to a conversation between a girl and her mom. Actually, it was a bit more one-sided than that. The girl had some kind of college guide and was reading descriptions, very amusing, tongue-in-cheek ones, of various colleges to her mother.

In that instant, I had a sudden flashback to those days of trying to pick my school out of the giant tome of possibilities. All of them sounded good on paper. Of course, they did. What self-respecting university PR person would send in “Eh. It’s okay as long as you don’t mind seeing the same 300 people over and over again”? Or, “Good luck meeting your professor. He’s the guy who never shows up for class”?

No, the true test of a college and whether it was right for you was the college visit day. And oh, can I tell you the sucky experiences I had?

Two school visits spring to mind in particular. The first, a small private school offered me a very good scholarship (as in, almost all my tuition paid) to be one of their “top scholars” on campus. Sounds good except…total campus population? 500. My high school? 800. It was terrifying exactly how tiny and incestous the place was. Everybody knew everyone and everything…people I’d never even met knew who I was and who I was staying with. I felt like I couldn’t breathe just on the visit weekend. The girls I was staying with also took great pains to tell me that they didn’t really have to study either. “It’s totally a party school.” Um, yeah, with the same 250 guys, assuming a 50/50 split between the genders, minus those who have girlfriends, are gay, are interested in your roommate, are not interested in you…which would leave, what, seven possible dating prospects?

And in fact, I suspected they were telling the truth about the studying thing. I didn’t see a single person with a book open the whole weekend–and trust me, I saw almost everyone on campus, literally–which made me feel really good about their “top scholar” offer. Eeesh.

Second, and this one was by far worse…I stayed with a friend I knew from church camp and her two roommates, whom I didn’t know prior to that visit. One of the roommates was locked in a drama with my friend and the other roommate, but no one seemed able to explain what had happened to cause this. The other roommate had her out of town boyfriend in town for the first time since leaving him in the summer.

During my visit, my church camp friend promptly got wasted and passed out in her bed. The angry roommate left in a huff to stay next door. And the third roommate and her boyfriend, despite having been given ample alone time earlier in the evening and refusing my offer to stay with the angry roommate next door, decided to have sex in the middle of the night while I attempted to sleep on the floor…three feet away.

Yeah. After having attended college, this seems like small stuff (oh, the stories I could tell.) But as a high school senior trying to find a place where I thought I might belong…it was enough to make me run screaming in the other direction.

These were both incidents that could have happened on any college campus (if you could find another one equally small, in the case of the first example), and on another visit or a different weekend, it might have turned out differently. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I didn’t spend the night at any more colleges after that second visit, including the one I actually chose, Valparaiso University. Oddly enough, what convinced me there was simply the feeling I got when I walked onto campus. It felt like home.

So, how about you…anybody else have college visit day horror stories? I’m sure mine are tame compared to others!

I’ve been a fan of Chuck Taylors (some of you may know them as Converse) since my sophomore year in college when I bought my first pair (w/blue and green plaid flannel…hey, it was the mid-nineties and flannel, baby, was hot!) My dad was amused. They were very retro to him because, as a kid growing up in the 50s and 60s, that’s what he wore.

So imagine my delight when I was browsing the web (read: procrastinating) and found that you can make your own custom Chucks! You can pick the colors, the pattern (no, thank you) and even have text put on the heel strip or the side. You can make Chucks with your school colors, your grad year, your upcoming college colors, whatever. I just love that!

Dude. I am so all over this. Now I just have to pick my colors and text. My book title (yes, I’m a dork and that was my FIRST thought) is too long. You only get 12 characters, unfortunately. Hmmm. Could maybe be Ghost & Goth–that’s only 10. But it sounds like a bar or a band name.

Go forth and design your custom Chucks here.

Tap & Gown is the fourth and final book in the Secret Society Girl series by Diana Peterfreund. I was lucky enough to pick up a copy a little early and have finished it already! I loved this series, and though I’m sad to see it end, it was great fun to see Amy and her friends again as they try to figure out what life after graduation will be like. (Also? I *heart* Poe!)

Bad to the Bone is the next book in the WVMP Radio adult urban fantasy series by Jeri Smith-Ready, and I’ve been WAITING for so long to get my hands on this one. This series is a different twist on the vampire genre and that’s what makes it so engaging! Also, Ciara Griffin, the main character and a recovering con artist, is one of the most interesting characters I’ve come across in a long time. Can’t wait to start reading it tonight.