Photo credit: Chelsea Hadley.
In which Reinhardt talks about why she rarely uses her notebook, how her first book may have been the easiest to write, and getting a sixteen-year-old to translate into IM.
Dana Reinhardt is the author of three novels for young adults. Her most recent book, How to Build a House (Random/Lamb, 2008), tells the story of a resilient teen who leaves her split family and life on the coast for a summer in Tennessee. Reinhardt’s pre-novel-writing experience includes working in the foster care system, fact-checking for a movie magazine, working for PBS’ Frontline, and time spent as a reader for a young adult line at a mass-market paperback house.
We chatted by phone eons ago (she’s very patient). I read through the conversation last month while simultaneously attempting to tackle a novel during NaNoWriMo, and her words rang so true — there’s great advice here for artists of all stripes, and especially for writers.
Dana Reinhardt on the web: danareinhardt.net
Cecil Vortex: Do you have a writing routine you hold to?
Dana Reinhardt: I do. I try my best to stick to writing every workday. It’s a bonus if I do any writing on a weekend. I try to write Monday through Friday as if I had a real job. My goal for each day can change but in general, my rule is that my workday’s not done until I have three pages, which is roughly 1,000 words, maybe a little less. So it’s somewhere in there. I generally don’t let myself off the hook until I’ve done that. And sometimes I can do that in 40 minutes, and sometimes it takes me ten hours. But I try to have that done every single day.
CV: Is there an outline you work off?
DR: I don’t work with outlines. I know a lot of people do, but I don’t. I mean, I know where I’m headed, usually. Before each book so far that I’ve written, I know generally the arc of the story and how I want it to end. And sometimes I’ll have certain things I have an idea that I want to have happen halfway through. But in general, for me, the fun about writing is finding out what happens between the beginning and the end of the story.
CV: Do you try to get a first draft out and then go back and revise? Or do you tend to polish as you go?
Forget not the mud
Forget not the mud caked juice box, those traces of familiar sweetness locked in hannukah gelt coin coverings dented dirtward next to a plate or two of shaded eggplant parmigiana. There was a party here. There were frightened earthworms. Thunder. Gray light. And children being irresponsible.