The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide

SM: I wrote down the dream on June second. I had it all marked on my calendar: the first day of my summer diet; the first day of the swim lessons. It‘s kind of funny to know exactly what day you started being a writer! And I finished it around my brother‘s wedding, which was — he just had his anniversary — I think it was the twenty-ninth of August?

SH: So this was done in less than three months — just an outpouring of words.

SM: Yeah.

SH: Was the story going through your head all day long, even when you weren‘t writing?

SM: Even when I was asleep — even when I was awake. I couldn‘t hold conversations with people. All my friends just thought that I had dropped them, because I lived in my own world for a whole summer.

But here was this really hot, muggy, nasty summer. And when I looked back on it later, it seemed like I‘d spent the whole summer in a cool, green place, because that‘s how distant my brain was from what was really going on. I wasn‘t there — which is sad. [Laughs]

I was physically there for my kids, and I took care of them. And I had my little ones, one on my leg and one on my lap, most of the time I was writing. Luckily, the TV was behind me [laughs] so they could lean on my shoulder, you know, watch Blue?s Clues while I was typing.

But I don‘t think you can keep up that kind of concentrated effort for more than a summer. You have to find some balance eventually.

SH: You have to come up for air.

SM: Yeah.

SH: How did you? You‘re so busy as a mom. Every moment of the day, with three little kids, is occupied. Suddenly, you‘re inserting this huge other effort into it. How did you allow yourself to do that?

SM: A lot of the time it didn‘t feel like it was a choice. Once I got started writing, it felt like there was so much that I had been keeping inside for so long.

It was a creative outlet that was the best one I‘ve ever found.

SH: Not just this story. But very active storytelling and creating, I‘m sure, had been percolating in you for years.

SM: It was a creative outlet that was the best one I‘ve ever found. I‘ve done other creative things: birthday cakes and really great Halloween costumes, if I do say so myself. I was always looking for ways to creatively express myself. And it was always kind of a frustrating thing — it was never enough. Being a mom, especially when kids are younger — when they get older, it‘s a lot easier — you have to be about them every minute. And a lot of who Stephenie is was slipping away.

SH: Yeah.

SM: The writing brought that back in with such force that it was just an obsession I couldn‘t… I couldn‘t be away from it. And that was, I think, kind of the dam bursting, and that huge surge at first. And then I learned to manage it.

SH: You would have to. But what a tremendous way to start!

SM: It was. It felt really good — it felt really, really good. And I think when you find something that you can do that makes you feel that way, you just grasp on to it.

SH: So you had never written a short story before.

SM: I had not ever considered writing seriously. When I was in high school, I thought of some stories that might be a good book, but I didn‘t take it seriously, and I never said: ?Gosh, I‘m going to do that.? I considered it momentarily — the same way I considered being a professional ballerina.

SH: Right.

SM: Oh, and I was going to be so good [SH laughs] in my Nutcracker. I would have been fantastic — except that, obviously, I have no rhythmic skill, or the build for a ballerina, at all. [SH laughs] So it was like one of those nonsensical things — like wanting to be a dryad.

And then, when I was in college, I actually wrote a couple chapters of something… because I think it‘s the law: When you‘re an English major, you have to consider being an author as a career. But it was a ridiculous thing. I mean, there‘s no way you can make a living as a writer — everybody knows that. And, really, it‘s too hard to become an editor — that‘s just not a practical solution. If you‘re going to support yourself, you have to think realistically. You know, I was going to go to law school. I knew I could do that. I knew that if I worked hard, I‘d be kind of guaranteed that I could at least get a decent job somewhere that would pay the bills.

There‘s no guarantee like that with writing, or anything in the publishing industry.

You‘re not guaranteed that you will be able to feed yourself if you go down that path, and so I would have never considered it. I was — I still am — a very practical person.

SH: So you really had to go into it from the side… by fooling yourself that you‘re not actually writing a book.

SM: I think there was this subconscious thing going on that was protecting me from thinking of the story in a way that would keep me from being able to finish it.

I always needed that extra fantasy world. I had to have another world I could be in at the same time.

SH: Right. But, of course, you were a reader. You‘ve been an avid reader for your whole life.

SM: That was always my favorite thing, until I found writing. My kids and my husband used to tease me, because my hand would kind of naturally form this sort of bookholder [SH laughs], this claw for holding books. Because I had the baby in one arm and the book in the other — with the bottle tucked under my chin and the phone on my shoulder. [Laughs] You know, the Octopus Mom. But I always had a book.

I always needed that extra fantasy world. I had to have another world I could be in at the same time. And so, with writing, I just found a way to have another world, and then to be able to be a lot more a part of it than as a reader.