Q&A With Sarah Jaune

Welcome! This evening we’re talking to Sarah Jaune, author of the Shelter trilogy. Because I’m sure you’re as interested as I am about how her mind works. So tonight we’re talking a little bit about how she got into writing, and her new book, The Webs We Weave.

How did you get started writing?

I always had stories floating in my head.  I tell myself stories to fall asleep.  I wrote out a few of them when I was younger, but I didn’t really get into writing until I started writing Harry Potter fanfiction, which is writing in the world of Harry Potter with your own original stories.  The readers of those stories are the ones who helped me really learn to craft and tell stories in a cohesive manner.

Did you always want to be a writer?

No, I actually had no intention of becoming an author.  I had a couple of teachers suggest it through the years, but I never saw it as a job that I could or would do.
Where did you get the idea for the shelter series?

My dad told me about solar storms hitting the earth and wiping everything out.  I think much of the idea for the series built from that, but I also wanted to focus on two young adults trying to survive on their own.

How much research do you do?

A lot.  I spend a lot of time checking and double checking facts before I put them into the story.  I sought out experts, read papers, watched documentaries, and so on.  I spend a lot of time making sure I have the small details correct.
Do you make notes?

It depends on the story.  For some stories I have no idea where the plot is going until it’s already arrived.  I’d say it’s like taking a road trip and seeing where you end up without following a map or plan.  I do keep character notes and some plot points in notebooks.  If I have a specific look for a character, I have details about that in my notebooks.  I will also keep a notebook with me as I travel around through my day to write ideas down.  I often dream my ideas, so I have a notebook in my headboard, too.

How do you get in the mood to write? Is there a time of day you write best?

With the Shelter series I listened to a ton of conspiracy theory podcasts to help me find inspiration and to get paranoid.  It helped set the mood.
My favorite time to write is sitting in the car waiting for my kids to be done with gymnastics.  It’s a whole hour of peace and quiet, but I can write any time.  I am not a morning person, though.  If I’m up early, I’ll sew first until I’m totally awake, then write.
Where do you find inspiration?

I find inspiration in everyday life.  I was driving along and thought about the dreams I’d had the night before, which were some strange dreams, and thought “that could be a novel”.
Who are your favorite authors?

JK Rowling, Kathy Reich, and Preston and Child.  The last two write a series that I love.  I’m also a bit of a forensics nerd.  If I’d been good in science, I’d have loved to be an anthropologist or a meteorologist.  

Your last book, The Webs We Weave. Where did you get the idea for that book?

That was based on a real life experience of mine.  When I was ten, I was in my room and I always slept with the door open because it seemed less scary that way.  I could see the light in the hall.  One night I looked to my door and saw a black mass with blood-red eyes staring at me.  I closed my eyes, sure it would go away, then forced my eyes open and it was still there.  It took me a moment to find my voice, but I slammed my eyes shut again and started screaming for my parents.  I believe now it was a demon.  It was the scariest moment in my life.
I got the chills just listening to it. Have you ever based a character on a real person?

I included my middle child in my first book.  I actually represented him as himself.  For those who know him, this was a very funny inside joke.

Which one is your favorite, out of all your characters?

My favorite character in all my books is Mia because I based her on my own personality type in Myers-Briggs, which is INFJ.  I had a lot of fun exploring this weird thought pattern that I live in all the time.  Fun side note is JK Rowling is also an INFJ.
Speaking of Mia, Why did you have Andrew and Mia separated from the world in Shelter?

This was actually my commentary on the class system that we have in this country.  Mia is from a well-do-to family and she was, literally, sheltered from the world falling apart.  She was given every resource she would need, and trained to survive and thrive.  For most of the world that just wouldn’t happen because the resources aren’t there.  I wanted them isolated because it engenders a sense of “all those out there are bad”.  It becomes us vs. them and the ‘thems’ might be dangerous.  I think that people who are higher up in society, socio-economically, sometimes feel that way.

Was this a message to your readers, that is to say, do you try to weave messages into your writing?

I try to focus on people who are broken, but who are looking for healthy ways of getting out of that brokenness.  I don’t want people to romanticize abuse or dysfunctional relationships.  I may put those elements in a story, but I will also show the steps for getting out of them.

Changing tracks a bit, how did you get published?

A friend of mine, someone I wrote with in the past, said, “hey, I’m starting a publishing company.  Will you write a novel for me to publish?” and I said sure!
I’m sure working with a friend made things a lot easier, is there anything you don’t like about the publishing process?

I really hate publicity.  That’s the part that I would like to ignore.  I could happily sit in my cave and write, but getting out there to try to sell it is very difficult to me.  I end up saying stuff like, “I swear it doesn’t suck.”  
Speaking of publicity, Is there a new book coming out soon?  

There is a new book!  It’s called The Overseer’s Son and it should be out in a few weeks.  I’m very excited about this.  It’s a story for a younger audience, although the adults who have read it all seem to enjoy it.  My oldest child wanted a story that he could read, and he’s eleven.  He’s a very advanced reader, but obviously I had to make sure the content was not too mature.

Your first book, Shelter came out on January 20th, 2015, Prison in the beginning of April, Seeds in early August, and The Webs We Weave was released mid October. How do you write so quickly?

I type very quickly, and the words tend to fall onto the page without a lot of forethought on my part.  Sometimes I will give a scene a lot of thought in the day(s) leading up to writing it, but often it just comes out fully formed without dithering over it.  On a very good day I can type 14 pages in a word document, although I typically only shoot for 5.
How do you produce the covers for the books? Do you take your own photographs?

I have taken my own pictures thus far for Shelter and Seeds.  I bribed two teens from my church for Shelter and dressed my toddler up as a girl to get that shot.  For Seeds, I dyed my friend’s hair blonde, curled it, and hunted up a really old truck to get the shot.  It was the one I really wanted.  We tried to get an artist for Prison’s cover, but he ended up too busy.  For The Webs We Weave, I used my middle child as my model and an artist added in the demons in the trees.  For The Overseer’s Son, it will be all hand drawn and I saw a few of the pictures, including some of the chapter art and it looks amazing!

I know I’m looking forward to seeing it.

Are there any new projects in the works?

So the overseer’s son is one of 6 books, and the plan is to release them one every other month for a year. so I’m about a quarter to a third of the way through writing the second book and we should be publishing the second book in the beginning of February.  The goal will be book 3 in early April, and so on.

Well that’s all the questions I have. We can now open the floor to other questions. If anyone has one they can type them into the chat bar.

Thank to to Sarah for answering them all, thank all of you for joining us, and have a lovely evening

Weekend Catch Up

So I'm going to attempt to make a more regular thing of catching up the blog on finished products of the crafted variety. Since I've finished it since the first post, I should share the finished Elsa sweater, yes?

It's done!

I learned a lot about charting while making this sweater. For those interested, the sweater itself minus my charts, is Paper Dolls by Kate Davies. I added some snowflakes to the hem and cuffs, and totally reworked the yoke to depict Elsa, the north mountain and 4 different snowflake charts. It involved two handed Fair Isle, duplicate stitch, and intarsia. It is not a good chart for a beginner.

You'll have to excuse the rushed photo, I was excited.

Elizabeth was beyond thrilled.

Napping baby

As she is known to do on weekends, Rosalyn passed out on Nick's shoulder for her morning nap. The last few weeks we have been settling her down on a makeshift palette on the floor of the living room while she sleeps, but today Nick just sat himself down in a chair and left her cradled in his arms. I looked over at him, and he said "I was going to put her down but I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to do this."

And as I looked at her, legs spilling over his arm, little head barely balanced on the crook of his elbow, I realized, he's right. She's growing up way too fast.

She's only a hair over 8 months old now, but is well over 30 inches tall, has been making her way everywhere with a low crawl that would make any Drill Sargent proud, and pulls up to her knees on anything that will stop moving long enough. She still doesn't have many clear words aside from "mama" and "dada" but she's trying to say "nurse" and "cat" and understands a lot. She's eating solids with more aplomb than her sister ever did, and one of these days might finally cut that third tooth.

Where has the time gone?

I stumbled across an old picture of Elizabeth yesterday while looking for my oldest project on Ravelry. She might have been 2 and a half in the picture. She didn't have her glasses yet, was all bright eyes and short wavy blonde hair, wearing her favorite dress at the time.

I just can't get over how little she is. I've looked at her baby pictures recently. Looking at how much she and her sister looked alike at any given age. (The answer is a resounding "ish") It didn't resound as much as this picture. I can easily understand that she's no longer the pre-walking toothless baby that she used to be. But for some reason there's just this huge disconnect between baby-Elizabeth, and Kindergarten-Elizabeth. Probably for that very reason. I'm in denial. My baby isn't a baby anymore. She's in elementary school. She's hit a milestone, arguably her biggest since she started preschool 3 years ago. (which coincidentally, was shortly after the picture above was taken) 

And now Rosalyn is, with all good fortune, following in her sister's footsteps at a cheetah's pace. Where Elizabeth was perfectly content to just sit and watch and never crawl at all, Rosalyn only stops moving when she's asleep. Both girls are wearing a few sizes above where their age says they should wear. (Elizabeth is wearing a 7 or Small at 5 years, and Rosalyn's been in 18 month size since she was 6 months old)  At times I wonder how tall they'll end up. I'm above average height for a woman at 5'8.5" and Nick's about average for a guy at 5'8". Will they end up taller than both of us? Will they ever stop growing? 

I never understood how people say "I can't wait" when it comes to kids growing up, etc. I hate the idea of wishing time away when you can't go back and pick it up later. Am I curious? Yes. Am I more than a little nervous? Oh yeah. 

Can I wait? Absolutely.

I was drinking my cup of tea this morning and trying to wake up while catching up on Facebook. Any form of social media has been recently swarmed with the news of Robin Williams' death, favorite movie quotes he made, and videos of some of his movies. What happened along side these posts were heartfelt notes about reaching out, talking to someone, anyone if you had suicidal thoughts. And then I came across Matt Walsh's response. 

I could go on and on about what he said, but you're better off going and reading it, and then coming back here to finish this. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Done? Okay. Sorry about that. What you've read is pretty much the furthest from the truth. But it's important, I feel, to understand how some inexperienced people see depression. They may say they see it as a disease, but as Mr Walsh has clearly implied, it's one we can simply shake ourselves out of with happy thoughts and a little faith, hope, and pixie dust. There's always hope, he said. 

As someone who's struggled against depression and suicidal thoughts, let me just say when you're at the bottom of the barrel, there is no hope. When you feel alone in a large crowd of people you don't have hope, you don't have joy, you don't have love. You don't have anything but the bone crushing, lung burning despair, that obliterates every happy thought you've ever had in your entire life. That's the disease. That is what causes lives to end in suicide. Anyone who says it's not the disease that ends the life has never experienced severe depression firsthand. 

I've seen a lot of people say that taking your own life is selfish. 

It's tragic, it's preventable, it's a disservice, but don't call it selfish. Calling it selfish, especially to someone who struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts, it adding more guilt to an already stressed psyche. Depression is riddled with guilt. So riddled in fact, that it's nearly transparent with it. Conquering it, in part, at least for me, was learning to let go of the guilt, to not let it overpower my life. Both literally and figuratively speaking. It's learning to be a little selfish. In a way, depression may be only thinking about yourself, but trying to get over depression is actually thinking about yourself. 

Okay, now for good news; innocent bystanders, you can do something. You can talk. You can listen. You can absolutely not stand idly by while someone you love, like, or even have seen in passing at work spirals out of control. You can smile at someone who looks like they're having a bad day. You can ask people "how are you?" and actually care how they answer it. If someone says "fine" and looks not fine, then try to figure out why. 

Battling depression isn't about giving someone "something to live for", because everyone has that on some level. Everyone, every single person, has the potential to have something fantastic that makes life "worth living". What that is depends on the person. Fighting depression is finding out what works to get you beyond letting those thoughts control your life. For some people it's medication. For me, medication had the opposite effect, and counseling was the way to go. Some people need sunlight, some need faith, and some need long periods of introspection. Everyone's different, that's why people are still struggling with depression. 

In ways, I still struggle. I still have moments of illogical despair. I occasionally have a few lingering thoughts that keep me up at night, but they aren't accompanied by suicidal thoughts anymore. I just have to remind myself that I'm stronger than my depression. That I can and will stop thinking that way, because its not healthy. Being really stubborn helps me 'reset' myself. But my new way of thinking took years to get right. It took talking to several professionals. Deciding that I didn't like their imagery of storing bad thoughts in a trash can. (My thoughts are still not trash, doctor) Discovering my anti-depressants were what were making me act on my suicidal thoughts, and deciding to discontinue taking my medication. Finding a councilor. And seeing years later, that it wasn't a choice. It was a war. One I was lucky enough to win.

The Beginning, a very good place to start.

It occurred to me as I was sitting on my couch this afternoon, trapped under a peacefully sleeping baby, (trapped, because the rule with sleeping babies at my house is that you don't wake them) that I should start a blog. 

Why a blog? Why does anyone blog? To get information out into the world wide web. To vent about this, that, and the other. Oh man, "the other" gets a lot of gossip. There are endless possible reasons for one to start a blog. Being positioned on the precipice of my blog, who can say what it will evolve itself into? A few things I can tell you with certainty: I'm a mom, and I'm a crafter. My girls (5 years and 6 months) take up most of my time, and my husband, Nick, is lucky enough to get the rest. You'll likely hear them mentioned from time to time. I'm active on Ravelry and spend 99.9% of my time there in the HPKCHC. I go by elizabethsmommy, and you may add me if you'd like. I'd be lying if I said I won't post pictures of yarn, or projects I'm working on. 

Oh look, there's some now.

I also tend a garden, bake, sing, and various other things. I tend to be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

I can also tell you what you won't find here: drama. At least I hope not. 

Happy reading!