Debut Author Interviews

Ann Dee Ellis is the author of This Is What I Did: (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Summer 2007)

• Ann Dee Ellis on...Prior Research
• Ann Dee Ellis on...Ideas
• Ann Dee Ellis on...Training
• Ann Dee Ellis on...Celebrations
• Ann Dee Ellis on...Character and Self
• Ann Dee Ellis on...Outlines
• Ann Dee Ellis on...Book Memory
• Ann Dee Ellis on...First Novels
• Ann Dee Ellis on...Character's Conflict
• Ann Dee Ellis on...Family Appreciation

How much research and/or meditation about your subject did you do before you began your first draft?

My research for THIS IS WHAT I DID was non-traditional but still challenging. I had to ask my husband a lot about motorcycles, knots, and manga. In addition to his wealth of knowledge, I did some additional web research. I already knew quite a bit about scouting and winter camping but near the end of the editing process I realized I had some Klondike Derby facts wrong. Hmm. Oh and I had to do a lot of palindrome writing/research.

Where did you get the idea for your book?

Like my primary character Logan, someone close to me got “kicked in the balls at scouts” and was constantly bullied. I think all of us were bullied at some time growing up (or maybe we were the bullies?). The bulk of the book comes from my own insecurities and awkwardness that I still deal with every day. I even feel awkward writing this.

They always say, you write what you know.

What writing training have you had?

My Writing Training

1. Writing a reflections contest story in fifth grade about a murderous old mother and her two sons who chase a group of kids down an old shaft. Hmm. I didn’t win. The judges said it reminded them of a popular movie that was out that year. I was of course very upset and won the next year with a story about a talking water fountain.
2. Bawling uncontrollably the summer between 7th and 8th grade because the protagonist in the novel I was reading had been caught toilet papering her crush’s VW bug.
3. Acting out The Crucible in 10th grade.
4. Majoring in English in college. I didn’t take one creative writing class. For some reason it didn’t occur to me so I spent the four years drinking literature.
5. Writing creative non-fiction in graduate school as an outlet to my more “serious studies.” I wrote about wanting to get on tables and scream during lectures. I wrote about my best friend who was so far away. I wrote about boys who kissed me and told me they loved me and then never called. I wrote about my mom forgetting things I didn’t think she should forget.
6. Taking my first workshop class in grad school and realizing that it was okay to do something I loved. It didn’t mean I was selling out.
7. Finding a some amazing mentors: Chris Crowe, John Bennion, Louise Plummer, and Dean Hughes.
8. Teaching writing classes when I was still figuring out how to write.

How did you celebrate your book sale?

1. Screamed.
2. Laughed.
3. Sat on the couch and looked at the wall.
4. Went out for sushi with my alwaysthereforme husband.
5. Screamed.
6. Got kicked out of the sushi bar.
7. Screamed.

Is your main character like yourself?

Totally. Well, not totally but in a lot of ways Logan and I are similar. I never know what to say and I tend to feel like I’m on the outside of things. I’ve gotten more confidence over the years and I like to think Logan does too by the end of the novel.

Do you outline before writing?

Sometimes I wish I outlined but no, I don’t. This has gotten me in trouble on numerous occasions. I was lucky with This Is What I Did: because I basically sat down and wrote the first page. When I reread it, I realized I had a sort of plot all set up with just the few sentences I had written. Of course this changed and changed and changed but at least I had some direction.

My second book has not been so lucky but I like seeing where the character takes me. The problem is when she takes me the wrong way and it’s hard to delete, retrace, start over.

Sigh.

What is your earliest book memory?

My mom read to my sister and me every night. We’d climb into her king size waterbed and squish around until we got comfortable. She read a chapter a night to us and I remember begging her to keep going—and I really wasn’t just trying to put off bedtime … my mom made me cherish books, cherish the my imagination, cherish words.

Was this the first full-length novel you wrote, or rather the first that you sold?

My first novel was written while I was in graduate school and it’s called My First Not-Love. It’s about a girl who trusts the wrong guy and ends up in a pretty horrible situation. The format is a combination of instant messages, emails, and journal entries. It was a very emotional book for me to write and I hope that one day it will be published. We’ll see.

What drew you to the conflict you created for your main character?

I was sitting in an empty three story house that my husband and I were renting for the summer. We had been married one week and he was at work. I was sitting on the floor (we had no furniture and weren’t planning on getting any) with my laptop buzzing. I wasn’t going to work that summer; instead we had decided I would write a novel. I remember feeling so alone that May morning. I was supposed to sit all day every day in this hollow house and write? It was a weird sense of emptiness I hadn’t anticipated.

I wrote five sentences and Logan, my main character was born. He was lonely. He was confused. He was awkward. He was supposed to be a normal kid happy with normal things. But he wasn’t.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was drawn to Logan because he was so different from me but so much the same as me. We often have feelings we don’t count on. Feelings we don’t understand and in many cases don’t want to understand. Logan was loaded down with these confusions and the two of us had to work them out together.

Plus, like Logan, I like palindromes and I really like the outfits at The Hot Dog Factory.

Now that you’re under contract, does your family better appreciate your writing?

My family has always been a bit sarcastic about my writing life. If I ever got dumped or got a speeding ticket, they’d say, “Write an essay about it.” I guess they were used to be dramatically scribbling away in the corner whenever anything went wrong. When I got the contract for This Is What I Did: they were a bit shocked. It’s not that they didn’t think I could do it, they are actually very supportive people. I think they were just shocked that made my scribblings public. Now they are always asking about my next project and make me promise to never put a character resembling them in any of my books. They follow that with, “Well, if you do put me in, I better be really cool.” Of course.