In the Author’s Tent: Jeannine Garsee

This is Perfect Jeannine Garsee. Note how polished and polite she looks—how her legs are crossed just so, hands folded neatly in her lap.

 

 No doubt, you’ll recognize Jeannine’s alter ego,  onegrapeshy

 

And this is Writer Jen. Can you see the wheels turning behind those innocent eyes, the mischievous smile spreading across her face?

 

Young Adult author…closet comedienne…psychiatric nurse…friend. If you want to meet the real Jeannine Garsee, step inside the Author’s Tent. 

This one-post interview is divided into three acts: SAY THE WORD (STW), Writerly Stuff, and our regular feature, The Lightning Round. If you want to read my STW book review first, click here.) 
 

 ACT I: SAY THE WORD

 

Congratulations on your starred review from Booklist! Tell us about that experience–where were you, and what did it mean to you as a writer?

 

I was right at my computer when I received an e-mail, and of course I was so thrilled I had to run right out and treat myself to giant Mocha Java Kula (no, do NOT hold the whipped cream) and about seventeen candy bars. Not only is it an honor, but also a validation because it’s been such a struggle to hold down a full-time job while struggling to find some success with my writing. It kind of knocked that self-defeating “okay, I wanna quit now” idea right out of my head. 
 

Shawna, the main character in STW, enjoys a privileged lifestyle, even if her personal life’s a mess. That said, and without resorting to stereotype here, the setting is somewhat of a surprise. Can you speak to that?

 

I know! It’s like Cleveland has gotten such a bad rap over the years. The truth is I LOVE this city. Shaker Heights, where STW is set, and also Before, After, and Somebody in Between to an extent, is a beautiful, diverse suburb close enough to the city to maintain that urban feel, yet with a kind of “small town” familiarity to it. There, you can find any kind of home, from rented apartments or duplexes to pricey condos, single homes and million-dollar estates. It’s an old, gracious city. I wish I lived there myself! Cleveland itself is very dedicated to the arts, with a wonderful theater district, a world-renown orchestra, several museums, etc. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

 

Everybody’s family holds tight its secrets, and I think you’ve done an amazing job with foreshadowing in this book. Can you speak to the process of doing just that…of holding back the mystery while moving the plotline forward?

 

When I write my first draft, I only have a very general idea of the direction I want it to go in. I never even know the end until I get to the end, and that’s no exaggeration. So while I do try to hold back important details, this is usually done in later revisions by going back and adding certain things to the plot, or snippets of dialogue, or maybe a brief glimpse into a character’s past. I’m a firm believer in getting the whole story down first and then working these details in while revising, even if it means cutting out scenes I’ve already written. Does this make sense? I know some readers were able to figure certain things out before Shawna did (LeeLee, for example) but that’s fine, because it’s not intended to be a mystery, and Shawna, being Shawna, and often in denial, watches these events unfold from her own narrow perspective.

 

How was it that you decided to cast Shawna’s father as a doctor and her mother as an artist?

 

I think this is a good example of how some characters kind of “write themselves.” I knew immediately that I wanted Shawna’s father to be a physician (though originally he was a cardiologist) because physicians, particularly surgeons, can often harbor that God complex; their "need to control" often the people they work with (like me) straight up the wall. I knew an OB-GYN exactly like Dr. Gallagher back when I worked in that field. Conversely, I needed her mother to be something quite the opposite. A photographer seemed natural, and helped explain Shawna’s own interest in art and photography.

 

Let’s say you’re hosting a dinner party for Shawna—maybe it’s to celebrate her going off to college. What’s on the menu, and who else will you invite?

 

Well, if it was up to me to throw a party for Shawna, let’s just say I’d definitely have to have it catered. Shawna’s a healthy eater—hello, bran muffins and soy mango shakes?—and besides, I could never top the elaborate dinners she and Klara throw. Therefore, because Shawna lives not all that far from me, I’m throwing her a party at Cleveland’s Rascal House restaurant and ordering up their huge, fabulous White Pizzas. I’d invite her friends from school, of course. I would NOT invite her Aunt Colleen.  I’d also invite my own friends and family, who listened to me whine through months of revisions. I’d definitely invite the Goodmans, though they’d have to bring their own food. I’d make sure there was a band. We’d party all night!

 

What’s your favorite scene in this novel, and why?

 

This is always a tough question, partly because I always have more than one “favorite” scene, and also because, after I answer this question, I always think of a better one! But the one that sticks with me is one I found to be one of the hardest scenes to write, and that’s near the end when Shawna and Schmule cut school to see Fran, and Shawna talks about how her mother left her. I think it’s my favorite because—this will definitely sound weird—the dialogue came to me in absolute spontaneity, as if I were watching a movie and jotting down the lines. I feel it’s the scene where Shawna’s pure heartbreak over her mother’s abandonment—not her anger or resentment or embarrassment—really shows for the first time.   

 

I love the imagery on the book jacket. How did you react when you first saw it, and how did the cover art come about?

 

I thought it was perfect. Of course I was afraid to say it was perfect, because I thought it’d jinx me and they’d decide not to use it. The double faces reflect Shawna’s ambivalence throughout the story, how her loyalties are torn between her two families, and between the person she is and the person she hopes to become. I like to think of the black “swirlies” on the cover as her mother’s spirit, who’s with her throughout the story, often in maddening, disruptive ways.

 

You once mentioned that STW is not the novel you intended to write. What’s the story behind that?

 

I originally meant this to be a story about Shawna and her best friend, LeeLee, and how difficult it can be for gays and straights to maintain friendships in high school, which, as I know from experience, can be difficult. When I was still playing around with that idea, however, a great deal of media attention was focused on the issue of gay marriage. Because I’d also recently written a paper for college about children of gay partners, and what happens to them if those relationships end, my interest was renewed, so Shawna acquired a gay mother and it took off from there.

 

ACT II: WRITERLY STUFF

How do you develop your plotlines and characters? Do you

a)    create an organizational structure beforehand

b)    dance with your muse

c)     pray for a miracle

d)    fly by the seat of your pants

e)    other?

 

Ha! A combination of c and d, I think. Because my rough drafts (which I consider my outlines) are all over the place—STW, as well as a paranormal I recently finished, were well over 120,000 words. I start praying for that miracle as soon as I start to revise: please, God, let this mess make sense!

 

Is your writing influenced in any way by your day job?

 

Martha, the main character in my first novel, was loosely based on a girl I’d met while working as a nurse on a medical floor. In STW, Shawna is interested in medical school, her dad is a doctor, and there is a scene at the beginning where her mother is on life support. I obviously drew a lot of that from my own experiences as a nurse. Now that I’m working as a psychiatric nurse, I’m using a lot of my knowledge and experience to create a bipolar protagonist in my third (yet to be submitted) novel. So yes, I’d have to say my job has definitely influenced a lot of my writing, even though the stories themselves are not based in the medical world.

 

Thinking back to your childhood, who was a mentor for you in your reading and writing life?

 

I still remember the first time my mother took to me the library (I think I was six) and how blown away I was by the idea that you could take any book home with you! My mom wasn’t a huge novel reader herself, but she knew how it important it was that her children be exposed to all the worlds available to us through literature. I remember reading out loud to her regularly, especially the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

 

As for writing itself, the truth is I had no mentors when I was younger. I grew up in a working class family, and my parents, first and second generation Americans, stressed “realistic” goals, i.e. finding a decent job, a good husband, raising a family etc. I think they classified “authors” right up there with astronauts and presidents. It was incomprehensible that a child of theirs would achieve such a thing, though they did encourage it as a “hobby.”

 

Your LiveJournal blog (onegrapeshy) is very popular. What inspired that user name? And a related question, if I may: In what ways is writing a blog entry different and/or similar to writing a novel?

 

My original user name was a combination of my maiden and married names, because it was all I could think of on the spur of the moment when I started by account back in 2005. Later, I sprang for the $15 (or whatever it was) to have it changed to “onegrapeshy.” This was taken from a line from my Before/After, where Martha’s certain somebody thinks she’s about “one grape shy of a fruit salad.” J

 

For me, for the most part, writing a blog entry is nothing like working on a novel. At first I took great pains to make sure my entries were writing-related and had more of a literary flare to them. After a few of these such entries, I was like, what am I DOING? Writing is damn hard! Sometimes I just need to rant, or make people laugh, and simply blab about various things the way I blab in real life. I don’t want my journal to be “work” and don’t like to use it strictly for self-promotion; there are so many excellent writing-related blogs out there, on LJ as well as other sites that I don’t feel the need to compete. Sometimes girls just wanna have fun, right?

 

Words of advice for aspiring authors, in 5 words or less!

 

Strength, hope, nerves, passion, and postage.

 

ACT III: LIGHTNING ROUND (where there are no wrong answers, whew, and you don’t have to edit your thinking)

Favorite word? Because

Least favorite word?  Food—as in, "Hey, we’re outta food!"

Doonesbury or Bizarro?

Wicked or Legally Blonde?

Cracker Jacks or TWIZZLERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Take-out or Room service, on the double!

 Amy Winehouse or Carrie Underwood? Carrie, only because I don’t laugh when I look at her.

Light sabers or kitchen knives?
 
Thanks, Jen, for spending time with us in the Author’s Tent. Any time you want to come back, just say the word!

Jeannine (Jen) Garsee is the author of two published novels: SAY THE WORD and BEFORE, AFTER, and SOMEBODY in BETWEEN. To learn more about Jen, click here. You can also follow her on LiveJournal (onegrapeshy), Facebook, and Twitter (@jeanninegarsee). And if you haven’t already been inside the Author’s Tent with R. A. (Russ) Nelson, you can catch his act here and here.