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In all the excitement about announcing my new book yesterday, I forgot to point y’all to one of my guest blogs. Kate at Read This Book! asked me to blog about one of my favorite “lost” YA novels. I sing the praises of Gene Stratton Porter’s turn-of-the-century classic, A Girl of the Limberlost. Check it out.
Thank you all so much for your congratulations! I am so excited about this book. It’s a project that has both been a long time in the making, and that kind of flashed up on me quite suddenly. I thought I’d take this opportunity to answer some of the questions that were batted around in the comment section yesterday:
Lell asks: Given just the depths of your love for PERSUASION, was it at all daunting to write a retelling? Or was it one of those fun “This is what I was meant to write” situations with singing and bluebirds?
Actually, it was a little of both. For the better half of the decade, the words “a retelling of Persuasion” has been sitting in my “idea” file, with nothing to hook it onto. I’m a big fan of retellings in general, and I love Austen retellings like Clueless and Bridget Jones’s Diary. (BTW, the Bridget sequel is a very loose retelling of Persuasion.) After participating on a Dragon*Con panel last fall with Heidi Anne Heiner of Sur La Lune Fairy Tales (a fantastic woman and a fantastic site) I started thinking more seriously about how to attempt such a project (even though it’s not a fairy tale).
Around the same time, I started having conversations with my critique partner, Carrie Ryan, about how I, a great lover of Post-apocalyptic fiction, hadn’t written anything post-apocalyptic while there was a post-apocalyptic boom happening all around me. At some point, the words “Post-apocalyptic” and “Persuasion” came together and everyone involved had a lot of fun trying to pronounce it (especially after a few glasses of wine).
Of course, that was just the beginning. I had a lot of other questions I needed to answer before I could turn a phrase I had a lot of fun watching my agent try to pronounce five times fast into a book proposal.
Stacy asks: How the heck did you make it into a post-apocalyptic story?
Obviously, that was question number one. What was the apocalypse? Why did it happen? And, sorry guys, but I’m not going to tell you that yet. But, like all post-apocalyptic writers, I worked backwards. I’m writing about a very particular society so I had to craft an apocalypse that would result in that society. My husband (also a big science fiction fan) and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out all the details.
Stephanie asks: though what age will the heroine be? because i don’t think of Persuasion as a young adult book.
That was the other big question. As I said in my last post, I think of Persuasion as one of Austen’s most “mature” novels. The characters are older and wiser and have been burned before by the time of the story’s action. They aren’t giggly teenagers.
Then again, a lot of characters in contemporary post-apocalyptic YA aren’t giggly teenagers either: Katniss of The Hunger Games, Mary of The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Additionally, Astrid of Rampant and Ascendant is not a giggly teenager either. So once I started thinking about who these characters are, and how they’ve been shaped by the society they live in, it wasn’t difficult at all.
Just because you are diong a teenage retelling of Austen doesn’t mean you have to make the characters into something they are not. Cher of Clueless is clueless because Emma was as well. (And they took what? Twenty years off Paul Rudd’s Mr. Knightley character?) And, despite the fact that Anne and Wentworth are supposedly “older and wiser” they still have their fair share of silly behavior. After all, Anne has been moping for seven years, and Wentworth sets out initially on a petty quest to make her pay for rejecting him. That translates quite easily into the YA realm.
So, to answer your question, the main characters are teenagers.The book is YA.
So my modem is fried. Which means I’m sitting in a coffee shop typing this. People! Outside world! Extraordinary.
Question: “How do you pronounce your last name?(I’ve told some of my friends about your books, and I’m sure I messed up your name)”
Answer: Thank you for telling friends about my book! I tend to say “Peter-froind” (like “Freud” but with an N), but “Peter-friend” is what most of my family sticks with. It’s the Americanized version, since “freund” is German for “friend.” I suppose if you were German, you’d pronounce it “peh-tur-froind.” “Peter-friend” seems to be easiest to most people. It’s unfortunate that people can pronounce “freud” just fine but add that N and it throws everyone out of whack!
Question: “Were you ever a virginal unicorn hunter?”
Answer: Yes, but I’m married now, so those days are behind me. It’s all ironing boards and bread baking and affairs with the milkman.
Question: “What do you love most about unicorns?”
Answer: They are very tasty, but a bit tough, so you have to marinate them for at least two hours in a sauce made from equal parts soy sauce, honey, and olive oil. Delish!
Question: “Who did you want Veronica Mars to be with?”
Answer: Logan. I never bought any of her boyfriends but Logan. Duncan, in particular, was disastrous. Then again, if Veronica is with Logan, that means he can’t be my boyfriend. Hmmmm…
Question: “What should I major in to become a writer?”
Answer: Major in anything you want. I did Geology, and then, because I wound up taking classes that worked for the Literature major (which fell into every category from Film to American Studies) I wrote another paper and took a second major in that. I think it’s better, actually, if you don’t major in English, Literature, or Writing. It means that you know stuff that every other yahoo trying to write a book out there doesn’t know. If you major in Epidemiology or Computer Science or 17th Century Danish History, while the rest of us are breaking our backs doing research for our books, you’re sitting pretty, because you already know all this stuff. Ask Tess Gerritsen or John Grisham or Michael Crichton.
Plus, it’s way easier to get a job to support you while you write with an Epidemiology or Computer Science degree. Danish History I don’t know about.
Question: “How hard a job is writing?”
Answer: 6.7. Kidding. It’s the best job ever, since I can work whenever and wherever I want, and I get paid for making things up. At the same time, it’s the hardest because the onus is entirely on me to create a demand. People don’t actually need what I do. I’m not a butcher or a baker or an overpriced espresso maker. So I have to write something that people actually want to spend their discretionary income on.
Question: “How do you respond to the blank stares from people when you say you’re a writer?”
Answer: I feel very lucky that I don’t get blank stares. I do however, get an automatic assumption that “I’m a writer” equals “unemployed.” The conversation goes like this:
Cocktail Party Guest: “I’m a lawyer. So, what do you do?”
Me: “I’m a novelist.”
CPG: “Oh. Um, er, anything… published?”
Me: “Yes. My third book comes out from Random House this month.” (Inwardly, I wonder why no one ever responds to “I’m a lawyer,” with “Oh, Um, er… an employed one?” Yet the assumption is that I’m an out of work novelist. Believe me, if I were, I would say something like, “I’m a barista at Starbucks” or etc.)
I’ve taken to telling folks at cocktail parties that I’m a smoke jumper. More believable. Of course, then you do get blank stares.
Question: “What time of day is best for writing?”
Answer: For me? All times are the same. Sometimes i get good writing done in the morning, sometimes in the evening. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and go write until I can fall back to sleep. I probably shouldn’t admit this.
Question: “When writing a book do you already have an idea on the ending for some characters?”
Answer: Absolutely. In fact, it’s pretty rare that I don’t know what will happen to the characters, or that it changes while writing. The interesting thing about writing a series is looking back to where the characters were at the end of the first or second book, and thinking about where they’ll be by the end of the fourth. I didn’t necessarily have that all mapped out, though I did have a general impression. George, of course, is abducted by aliens. And Odile becomes a kindergarten teacher.
Having said that, however, I love it when characters surprise me. For example, when I first started writing Secret Society Girl, I didn’t think of Poe as a major character, but he appeared on the page and insisted upon being included. So I did. I always try to go with my gut when things like that happen. If there’s an interesting character hanging out in the wings, use him!
Question: “Where do you get your ideas?”
Answer: Varies from book to book. With the Secret Society Girl series, it was a conversation I had with my now-husband about the bizarre and misleading way Yale secret societies are represented by Hollywood. I wanted to write a story about secret societies the way they really are — where the twenty year old members aren’t constantly committing murders that the “powerful” members of the society are somehow hushing up, or being branded, or being given hundreds of thousands of dollars — but where the personal, collegiate level intrigues and influence can be every bit as mysterious and devastating. The impression is that a secret society can destroy your life, empty your bank account, ruin your family… the reality is far more mundane (though no less important to the people involved).
Rampant developed from an overheard snippet of dialogue, a dream, and a bit of research that snowballed. It’s all about playing what if. What if I a girl who buys into the conspiracy theories of secret societies were to join one? What if unicorns weren’t the fluffy gentle creatures we think they are? What if they were dangerous?
 Question: “Is it true that, like, 99% of our presidents were in secret societies?”
Answer: I haven’t the foggiest. I believe some of the founding fathers were Freemasons — though according to Wikipedia, John Q. Adams, at least, was a vocal opponent. People love to point out the signs and symbols of Freemasonry in some of the emblems of our country, design of our money, etc. But saying you were in a fraternal order in the 18th century is pretty much like saying you were a member of a certain societal class. And then I bet a huge number of our presidents were in fraternities in college. Or do secret societies with Greek letters not count? Other than that, I know that at least Presidents Taft and both Bushes were in Skull & Bones.
Question: “Why is the Ivy League called the Ivy League, and what is it, exactly?”
Answer: The phrase originally referred to only an athletic league, like the “Big Ten” or “Division I” or etc. In fact, it is still used that way: Yale sports teams compete within the Ivy League Conference. The teams included are: Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, and Dartmouth. I have heard two stories: that the term came from the ivy on the college building walls, and that the term is a misprint of the fact that originally there were only four (IV) teams in the league: Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers. There were other schools that came in and out over the centuries, like (I think) Bowden. Or maybe Bowden was offered a position in the conference and turned it down? There are a lot of rumors and legends.  At any rate, only later did the term come to mean anything other than an athletic competition.
 Question: “Is the conspiracy theory website working again?”
Answer: Nope, but it will be when the new site launches! (Note to the uninitiated: I made a web site to match the one that plays a major role in Under the Rose. It’s currently unavailable. I guess the powers that be have more influence than we’d thought!)
Question: Why are your books set at “Eli University” instead of Yale?
Answer: Because it’s fiction, and it’s fun to make up names for things. No, seriously. Why does Superman work at The Daily Planet in Metropolis, rather than The Chicago Sun? I think it’s much more rare, in fiction, for writers to talk about real companies. In The Devil Wears Prada, Prada might be real, but Runway magazine is not. I’m not trying to pull anything over on the reader; anyone with eyes can see that Eli is extensively based on Yale. Even the name “Eli” is a shout-out. You’ll note in the books that I never talk about Yale. Yale does not exist in the world of the books. I talk about Princeton, or Harvard, or Stanford, or NYU… but in this world, there is no Yale, no other Ivy League college in New Haven. In its place, there is Eli.
 The extra layer of fiction gives me leeway, as an author, to not constantly be worried about literal accuracy. I can change geography or traditions or facts to suit the story, because I’m not talking about a real place. Rose & Grave is not Skull & Bones, but its own secret society, composed of a variety of society traditions drawn from collegiate, professional, fraternal, and religious secret societies. Eli is not Yale, nor is it connected to the Yale Corporation. When I’m talking about deans or professors or leaders of campus organizations or rivalries, it’s not real people or real organizations I’m talking about. I make it all up for the sake of the story.
Question: How many books are there in the secret society girl series? Answer: Four. The first three are, in order: Secret Society Girl, Under the Rose, and Rites of Spring (Break). I’m working on the fourth one now, and it will be released in summer of 2009.
Winner of the “Read it before the Release” Rites of Spring (Break) giveaway is….
LIZA!
Liza, email me with your address and I’ll get you a copy of ROSB and some other goodies.
So, as part of the redesign of my website, I’m putting up a new FAQ. I already have some of my biggest hits down (**cough**cough**wereyouinasecretsociety**cough**cough**) but I’m sure there’s stuff I’m missing.
One of my recent faves: Why would otherwise intelligent, Ivy-League educated students let themselves become slaves to the weird rituals in a secret society?
Diana: Why would otherwise intelligent people paint their faces and do the wave at football games? Why would they kiss under mistletoe? Why would they blow out candles on a birthday cake? If you stop and think about some of the rituals you participate in, don’t they seem silly? “Ooh, I’m going to cover this lovely cake with burning sticks of wax and then I’m going to breathe and spit all over it before giving it to my friends to eat.” Now that’s weird. But we do these things all the time because it’s part of societal norms. It doesn’t seem odd, and everyone else who is part of our society does the same thing. If you think about it in those terms, it doesn’t seem so silly, and the people who particpate in it as part of a special group, it’s nothing more than a game — like dressing up on Halloween, holding your glass up to toast people’s health and good fortune, cheering for your school/team/country at a sports event. They aren’t slaves, they’re participants, doing things of their own free will that doesn’t hurt them or anyone else.
Of course, I could just find FAQ questions based on what has brought people to my site recently. Stuff like:
- the analysis of under the rose by diana peterfreund (looks like someone is doing a book report)
- free reads (Well, aside from the Great Blog Voice Experiment, not so much)
- kill your darlings (a perennial fave!)
- out of fashion sparkly jeans (since I was in college, yes)
- passive voice is 12% good or bad (Huh? I wonder if they mean “using it 12% of the time” Either way, passive voice is perfectly fine. Use it as needed and directed.)
- mystery novel three acts inciting incident (I use four-act, myself.)
- characters in under the rose by diana peterfreund (Book-report person, back again)
- diane peterfreund (close enough!)
- passive voice it takes a long time to think of these example sentences. (I’m guessing this is our 12% friend, again. I don’t think it would, if you were trying to find sample sentences. But maybe they were searching for a particular article and that’s the only sentence they could remember?)
What questions would you like to see answered on my FAQ? Ask away here, in the comments section. Anonymous is fine.
All commenters entered to win a prize. Gee, wonder what it could be?
 Today’s Winner of the Dirty Little Lies Giveaway is Dragonfly_in_NC! Congratulations, Dragonfly. Please email me with your address and I’ll get you your prize.
Everyone else, leave a comment here to be entered into the final drawing of the giveaway. Tomorrow, I’ll also be doing the drawings for the old SSG Giveaway final prizes (including hoodie) that I flaked about last month. Oops, oops and double oops. Sorry. Deadline brain.
Last night, I went to a bookclub meeting about my book. This is the second such event I’ve attended. The first was my mom’s bookclub, which was great, but they were all friends of my mom and usually parents of kids I grew up with, so I felt a little more comfortable around them. Last night was my first event with total strangers. It was lovely. I was fascinated to hear what people thought of my book, and how they interpreted various choices I’d made in the novel.
I think I might have frustrated them a little because so many times I responded to questions like, “What did you mean when you wrote…” with “What did you think I meant?” Finally, someone started joking that I sounded like a shrink, when what I really sounded like was a Lit major from Yale. I think the true meaning of books falls somewhere between the author’s intention and the reader’s interpretation. (For instance, Upton Sinclair wrote a book aimed at uncovering the sins against the poor immigrant workers in the meat factories and instead everyone got up in arms about the quality of their food!) Which is not to say that people shouldn’t pay attention to what authors are trying to say in their books, nor that I’m not tryign to say something. But if you see something else, which maybe I didn’t, or maybe isn’t as well-developed in my brain, but filtered through your reading experiences it spoke to you in a particularly strong manner, then that’s perfectly valid. I’ve had people pick up copies of my book, read the cover flap and say, “You put a lesbian in your book!” and get really excited. I feel weird, because, well, the lesbian is actually a minor character and I wouldn’t want them buying it and getting disappointed at all the het stuff, but if they identify with Demetria more than Amy, that’s fine too.
So I wanted to know what they thought. I wanted to know if they thought the patriarchs were really capable of accomplishing all the things they threatened to do. I wanted to know if they thought Brandon was correct in the choices he made about Amy. I wanted to know if they thought Malcolm’s actions were valid or hysterical. I have my ideas. I know how I interpret them. (No, yes, and a little bit of both, for the record.) But it was interesting to see what other people thought. And I can’t say if I’m right or not. I can say that Malcolm thinks he’s being perfectly rational. But whether or not he is is an opinion. I can say that Brandon thinks he’s making the right choice in regards to Amy, but whether or not it is correct depends on how much of a romantic you are. So I ended up answering a lot of questions like that. I know what the characters were thinking, and so I could provide clarity on those issues (see below), but I can’t make absolute statements about whether or not the character’s beliefs are right or wrong. That’s where the discussion part comes in.
Once again, I witnessed the “Brandon is weak”/”Brandon is the man I want to marry” dichotomy, though, interestingly, there didn’t seem to be any George fans in the group. Usually, the people who dislike Brandon are totally into George. I also heard the following FAQs: “Is Poe getting together with Amy this summer?” and “Is Poe gay?” I’d like to take this opportunity to answer in the negative to both. Non. Nyet. Negatory. Uh-uh. And no way, Jose.
I gotta tell you, I *love* meeting with bookclubs. It’s so fascinating to hear how different people interpret the story I wrote. It usually sparks a debate about feminism and women’s issues and sexism, etc, but the fascinating thing about this discussion was how almost all the women there (who were in their late twenties to their late fifties) agreed that women of Amy’s generation were being lulled into a false sense of security about equal rights, and were going to get slapped in the face when they got into the corporate world. I think that women of my generation (or my seven-years-older) had a similar experience. We didn’t spend a lot of time talking about sexism in college. After we graduated, we talked about it plenty. They seemed to interpret some of the plot points through the lens of a group of women who were experiencing this for the first time. They even interpreted Brandon’s role in the story as a sort of role-reversal of sexual positions, which is a very interesting way to view it, and one that I hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about before, but I think might be quite valid.
It was especially interesting to hear them talk about this first book from the perspective of having just finished the second. How do thse issues manifest itself in the second book? What am I trying to say with how the relationship develops between the various characters, with how the feminism plotline develops? A few times tonight, I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, “Oh, what a good point! You know, that’s a major issues in book two!” No spoilers, right?
It’s days like this where I feel blessed to have the opportunity to work in my dream job. I can’t believe how lucky I am to spend every day doing something I love so much. I only hope I can continue doing it.
It was with great sadness that I learned of the death of Steve Irwin on Monday. When Sailor Boy and I were in Australia, we visited his zoo in Beerwah. Irwin was not as popular in Australia as he was over the rest of the world. Apparently, his family had had their little croc showcase for several generations before Irwin’s savvy business sense turned it from a local tourist attraction to a major media industry. As far as the locals were concerned, it was just their little local zoo and the guy was rumored to have a TV show. SB and I were there a few days after the world began censuring Irwin for bringing his infant into the croc pool with him. Because of that, we didn’t see Irwin at the zoo. (He was hiding out from the media.) What we did see was a marvelous, well-kept animal sanctuary full of fascinating info about the animals and staffed by intelligent, well-trained people who loved their work, were passionate about conservation in all its forms, respected and feared the dangerous animals they worked alongside, and truly wanted to teach everyone who came into the zoo to feel the same way. I’ve never seen employees love their boss so much. I’ve never seen such a large and successful business so honestly pay tribute to their humble beginnings. It’s not lip service there. Did you know the Irwins cut out every newspaper article they find about their work and tack them up — with pushpins — on the wall of the original barn that housed the croc show? It’s great.
 One of the best things about Irwin’s message is that just because an animal is dangerous or completely uncuddly is no reason that it doesn’t deserve protection and conservation any less than the cute otters or dolphins or etc. The ugly and dangerous endangered species are every bit as valuable to the ecosystem of the world, can teach us every bit as much about nature, and are every bit as worthy.
Of course, at the zoo, they only let you pet the cuddly ones. Here are pictures of Sailor Boy and me with the more cuddly of the creatures in Beerwah (Yes, it’s a picture of SB. Gasp away! I think I can squeak in under the No Pics of SB rule because you don’t actually see his face. It’s like those reality shows where they blur out faces of the people who don’t sign release waivers.)
Steve Irwin was a man who lived his life doing what he loved more than anything in the world, and through his work, he made us love it too. It’s not often you get to say something like that.
There’s a lot of good blogtalk going on right now. First of all, the conversation is hopping in the storywriter’s post. Genre conventions are being debated in front of a student audience (I think I need to be brushing up on my lit theory!) over at Jennifer Echols’s blog. The validity of my anecdotal statistic of “I sold in three years. Hear that’s about average” from my FAQ post is being questioned at Shalanna’s blog (and for several posts after). And, finally, Julie Ramsey cuddled with Sting.
And now we’re going to talk about what I learned from my path to publication. As I was typing it out yesterday, I realized that it’s pretty easy to see the origins of all of my biggest writing mantras.
1. “Join a writer’s organization.” Everything i needed to knwo abotu being a novelist, I learned from TARA.
2. “Contests are a crapshoot.” Yeah, I won the Maggie and the Molly and stuff. But I never finalled in the Golden Heart. My Golden Heart scores were pretty much always abysmal.
3. The always-present “Get an agent.” I waited 10 months for a form rejection from a editor on a requested partial, while well-agented friends of mine sold to her left and right. I wasted several months in a futile back and forth with an editor when a good agent would probably have a) realized that this was never going to turn into a marriage and b) there are other fish in the sea for me to be submitting to. Finally, once I got an agent, I sold in a matter of days.
4. “Find a good critique partner.” One of my critique partners let me live in her house. Another pitched my book, sight unseen, to a pile of industry folk and started the buzz. Its corollary, “Good isn’t necessarily the same set as published”: neither of mine are published (yet!!!!)
Someone else might have a whole different group of experiences that have colored their opinions about the industry and how a writer should operate within it. These have been my experiences, and so these are my views. I’m interested to hear Jaci’s.
I’m trying to put together an FAQ for my website, so I’m going over chats and blogs and things and trying to figure out what ARE the most frequently asked questions.
So far I’ve got:
1. How did you get an agent and sell your book?
2. Are you in a secret society?
3. What are you working on now?
4. Where do you get your ideas?
5. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? (Actually, I don’t get that question, because it’s pretty obvious that I do.)
6. What parts of your book are real?
7. How do you write your books?
So, here’s your opportunity to make your Q an FAQ. Post ‘em here. Be immortalized on the on the new secretsocietygirl.com
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