Hello! Last Tuesday I
attended Tahereh Mafi’s signing in San Diego, part of her Restore Me
tour. The event took place at Mysterious Galaxy and it was hosted by author
Marie Lu.
I almost didn’t make it,
I had to run two blocks to catch the bus, and thankfully I arrived just on
time, picked up my copy of Shatter Me and sat down. Tahereh and Marie
came out at 7:00 pm.
The event was mostly
Marie asking things to Tahereh and complimenting each other. After a brief
introduction Marie started telling her first impression of Tahereh and how she
discovered Shatter Me in BEA when it was about to be released, and
praised Tahereh’s writing that continuously grows as Tahereh ages, she was 23
when Shatter Me came out in 2011. Marie commented that Shatter Me is a
book that stuck with her because of the peculiar voice of the protagonist,
Juliette, something new and refreshing. Then the questions started.
[I recorded the whole
event, and this below is a brief transcription, I omitted some parts to make a
summary of the whole event.]
Marie Lu [ML]: What was like to return to the Shatter Me
world? You wrote the first three
Tahereh Mafi [TM]: It’s a fair question, the last book came out in
2014, 4 years ago. What happened is that at the time I thought the series was
over, I felt it ended in a very good place, Juliet had grown in a great way and
I was ready to move on. I think it was more that I was ready to move on
artistically and creatively that that the story was over, but in the moment it
felt like a good choice. I wanted to do something else, and I did, I moved into
a completely different direction I wrote middle grade novels for a couple of
years.
ML: Amazing middle grade novels. Furthermore
and Witchwood, which if you guys haven’t read them yet, please do.
TM: And it was really fun, a different point of
view, and a very fantastical magical realism. They’re very different and I had
a lot of fun with that. I fully moved on from the Shatter Me series, and I was
having a conversation with someone about the books one day and they asked me a
question about the characters names, and I couldn’t remember their names, and I
thought I probably should know the answer to that question. So I re-read them
start to finish in like 12 hours because I should know what they’re about, and
I enjoyed them.
ML: Because they’re great.
TM: And then I thought very clearly that the story
needed to go on, and Juliette’s story became really clear to me, it became
obvious to me where the story needs to go, and it just felt right. I wanted to
return to the series in that story, but I also wanted to return to YA in
general, so I have two books coming out this year, the first one, Restore Me,
the fourth in the shatter me series, and the second one is a totally different
book, a contemporary novel. Briefly it’s the most autobiographical book I’ve
ever written, it’s based on my experiences as a teenager post 9-11 [Tahereh is
Muslim]. It’s inspired by that but it’s also a love story. It comes out in fall
this year. The next book in the Shatter Me series, book number five, comes out
next spring.
ML: Getting back into writing Restore Me.
Juliette’s voice is always been one of the strongest things about the series
and it makes her such and intense character to follow, and you are writing as
growing and changing as she is growing and changing. Was it challenging
getting back into Juliette’s voice? This new series feels so different from
the first series. Was different revisiting her?
TM: Yeah, of those who don’t know, the Shatter Me
book, the first book, is about a 17 year old named Juliette who has been
isolated for almost a year and she hasn’t touched anyone, she is kind of losing
her mind and the writing reflects her inner chaos. Especially in the first book
the writing is chaotic, hyperbolic and intense. As she grows and finds her
voice, the writing also changes with her. We see that again in Restore Me.
The writing will always evolve with her. It was easy to get back to her. When I
came back to the series it was as if I had paused a move I’d been watching and
when I came back it continued really nice.
ML: Also, Restore Me is from two points of
view, there is also Warner’s point of view, who she hadn’t written before. How
different is to write from his POV opposed to Juliette?
TM: It was great. I had a lot of questions about
the dual POV because people started worrying I would kill one of them, but
that’s not gonna happen. I wrote it like this because I struggled a lot
in the first three books to expand the world from Juliette’s perspective
because she spent most of her time in isolation underground and she doesn’t
know a lot. She was in isolation when the world went to hell and she is like “what
happened?” and there’s always someone else to say “this is what
happened” and Warner knows so much about what went down.
ML: I fairly enjoyed reading Warner’s POV because
it’s interesting to watch him interact again with Juliette and everyone else. I
love that you explored how characters heal from the pain they experienced. I
think you have a great talent of digging deep into your characters. Do you
have a favorite character you like to write about in the series? Is it one of
the POV characters or a side character?
TM: My favorite character is Kenji, of course, he
is so much fun and I have fun writing him, he reminds me a bit of myself and
quite a bit of my brothers, so he feels really real to me. But I enjoy all of
them in different ways; there is a lot of me in warner. I like to imagine that
he has a tailor who makes all his clothing customized for him, because that is
my dream. I just want one in my house who asks me “what do you want me
to make today?” the dream.
I just finished reading
the second Warcross book, and it is amazing! I’m a huge Marie Lu
fangirl, I own all of her books and have read them all. There’s a special place
in my heart for Warcross, and I’m obsessed with it. Mark your calendars.
ML: It means a lot to me, thank you.
TM: Such a talented writer. It is visually
stunning, it felt so cinematic. How was that experience to you?
ML: There is a lot of wish fulfillment. It was
inspired by a lot of travels me and my husband did recently. I grew up with
videogames, loving Japanese culture, and I wanted to put that into the story.
And I want to go back to talking about you, you sneaky lady. You write so fast,
it’s incredible; I don’t know how you do it. So, right before Restore Me
you wrote your middle grade books, Furthermore and Witchwood ,
and they’re so lush and different. What was like getting into middle grade
and writing this completely different voice?
TM: It was really fun. I didn’t know I was writing
a middle grade novel, I thought I was writing another YA novel, but my editor
told me it was clearly middle grade and I thought about it for a minute and got
really angry, and then I realized it was definitely a middle grade novel. It was
inspired by some of my favorite books like Anne of Green Gables, Alice
in Wonderland, The Little Princess, Chronicles of Narnia. Those are
some of my favorite books and this is a love letter to all those books, and now
I realize all of them are middle grade.
ML: I think it’s hard to have a natural voice that
fits YA and middle grade, it’s really cool. Do you think you prefer one or
the other? Was there something most challenging for you while writing Restore
Me?
TM: The hardest part about writing Restore Me
is that I was pregnant. I don’t know if you know this, but in the last
trimester of pregnancy you actually lose 30% of your brain cells because your
baby is taking them for their brain, and I felt like a potato in deadline, it
was really hard. Otherwise, it was really fun to write Restore Me.
ML: I know you can’t tell much about this, but
what can we generally expect of the rest of the
TM: Restore Me is the first of three more
books in the series, it’s a new trilogy, and stuff happens. Do you want to
talk more about Warcross? Tell what it is about.
ML: Warcross is my current series, is a
duology. The first came out last fall, and is in a version of our world maybe
ten years in the future, it’s about this girl Emika Chen, who is 18 years old,
she is a bounty hunter. In this world there is a game called Warcross
that has taken the world by storm, it was created by this young billionaire,
Hideo Tanaka. Emika has admired him all her life, but now she’s down on her
luck and in desperation for money she hacks into the international Warcross
championships, into the game so everyone who was watching the championships can
see her and the next days she is in every newspaper imaginable, and Hideo calls
her and asks her if she wants to travel to Tokyo and it kinda goes from there.
TM: There is a great romance too.
ML: Hey, romance it's really hard for me to write,
I actually look through your books for inspiration. romance it’s really hard to
do.
TM: If you had to choose from killing a character
and making them kiss, wich would you chose?
ML: Oh…
TM: Both at the same time?
ML: In terms of speed I would rather kill a
character. It took me one hour to write four lines of romantic dialogue. I
don’t know what people say. I really don’t know. I like you, I like you
too. None wants to read that.
TM: She’s married!
ML: mmm… well and that’s what Warcross is
about, and Warcross 2 is about the same, I can't tell much about it, but
there is more Emika, and more Hideo.
TM: When are you doing
the title reveal?
ML: I don’t know, we’re getting close to the cover
reveal, and we got a title but I have no idea when it’ll be revealed. The book
should be out this fall, so, sometime between.
Before the event
started, if you had a question for them you had to write it in a paper card and
place it in a bowl, this to avoid spoilers, so after this talk, the part of
questions from the audience started, Marie read them and excluded the ones with
spoilers.
ML: What’s happening with the tv show?
TM: I don’t know. Real talk. Our executive producer
guy who I loved and it's been so great, got a new job somewhere else, so we’ll
see what happens.
ML: Where do you continue to draw your
inspiration? And by the way I love Warner, he is my number one sexy dream book
boyfriend.
TM: For warner in particular?
ML: I don’t know, its not specific.
Girl in the public: For warner
TM: I feel like warner feels like a real person to
me, who came to life in the beginning of the series and now everything he does
is bound by the person I met when the series started. That sounds weird as an
answer. I don’t know.
ML: Did you have much say in the art direction
of the stunning covers?
TM: Yes and no. The first image in the Shatter Me
cover is inspired by an image created by someone named Cheri Davenport, it's like an eye with a waterfall, but it's more
monstrous, and scary looking, and I asked my publisher to make it prettier.
ML: Which character
would you like to date, and who would be your BFF?
TM: I’m married and
I really like my husband. Love him in fact, so I chose him over a fictional
character. But BFF. almost definitely Kenji.
ML:
What is the most drastic thing you’ve had to do to meet a deadline?
TM: I don’t know, what's the most
drastic thing you’ve done?
ML: Kill a man.
TM: Poor man.
ML: If I had to go to a event I
would lie and say I got the pox.
TM: I don’t have an interesting
answer to this. I’ve never missed a deadline. I’m looking at my husband, like
“you know?” [Ransom Riggs, Tahereh’s husband, was there as well taking
pictures]
RR: Don’t sleep?
TM: Oh yeah, don’t sleep,
but that goes without saying. Give up on food and water? I don’t return my
mom’s phone calls.
ML: Do
you have a muse for Warner?
Someone
in the audience pointed to Ransom.
TM: No, I had Warner before I met
my husband.
ML: Why
do you chose the settings that you do?
TM: I usually say that I create the
characters first and the setting grows up around them. I always create the
characters first and they always have a voice and a story, Who are they? What’s
their deal? What’s happening? When I started writing Shatter Me I had
this image of a girl inside my head. I could see her very clearly, a girl in a
corner in complete isolation, and I wanted to know who she was so I started
asking questions, and the world built up around her.
ML:
What is one thing about publishing you wish someone would have told you?
TM: Only one thing? Hmmm. There’s
so many things. I guess it’s the thing, that in any industry, not just
publishing, people want to work with people they like. So don’t be a not nice
person. It’s the most important thing in everything you do.
There’s
this saying about being a triangle. In order to do any kind of work in any
industry you have to be two of these things all the time: be very good at your
job, be a very good person, and meet all your deadlines. You have to be two of
those things at all times. My favorite combination is to be all three, but if
you can't, try to be nice and meet your deadlines.
After
that the signing started, I was number 11, so I didn’t wait long. I asked Marie
Lu to recommend me a song to listen while reading Batman Nightwalker,
and she told me to listen You Want it Darker by Leonard Cohen. I also
asked her what’s next for her after Warcross 2, she told me she has
something next, but can’t talk about it yet.
When I
talked with Tahereh I asked her to recommend me a song to listen while reading Shatter
Me or Furthermore, and she told me that she didn’t had a specific
song in mind, but Shatter Me is sad and Furthermore is happy.
So,
that was it, I hope you like this post :) Have you read these authors?
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario