The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide

The one person who knew what I was doing was my big sister Emily. But my sister‘s so: Everything?s wonderful! Everything?s perfect! You shouldn?t change a single word! [SH laughs]

She‘s so supportive; I knew that it was not a big risk to let her see it. So it was the combination of thinking, I finished this! and Emily saying, ?Well, you have to try and publish it. You have to do it.? I don‘t know how many times we talked when she‘d say, ?Stephenie, have you sent anything out yet??

So then I revised with a purpose. And I revised with a sense of total embarrassment: Oh my gosh. If anyone ever sees this I?ll be so humiliated. I can?t do it. And then Emily would call again, and again I‘d feel this sense like: Maybe I?m supposed to. Then I started doing all the research, you know… like looking for an agent. I didn‘t know that writers had agents. I thought only athletes and movie stars did that.

So that was intimidating and off-putting: I need an agent? This sounds complicated. Then I had to find out how to write literary queries. And summing up my story in ten sentences was the most painful thing for me.

SH: Horrible.

SM: It does not work well. [Laughs] And it was also pretty painful having to put out this letter that says: ?Hi, this is who I am; this is what I‘ve written; this is what it‘s about. I have absolutely no experience, or any reason why I think that you should actually pick this up, because who am I? Thank you very much, Stephenie Meyer.? [Laughs] That was hard.

And sending them out — I don‘t want to remember that often. Because you know how you kind of blank out things that are unpleasant — like childbirth and stuff? It was such a hard thing to do. Back in the neighborhood where I lived at the time, you couldn‘t put mail in your mailbox—

kids stole it — so you had to drive out and go put it in a real mailbox. And to this day I can‘t even go by that corner without reliving the nauseating terror that was in my stomach when I mailed those queries.

SH: Wow.

SM: See, I didn‘t take creative-writing classes like you. I didn‘t take the classes because I knew someone was going to read what I would write. I didn‘t worry about the writing part — it was letting someone else read it. My whole life that was a huge terror of mine: having someone know what goes on inside my head.

With every book, I always see the part that I think people are going to get mad about, or the part that‘s going to get mocked.

SH: So how have you? Because, obviously, millions of people now have read what you wrote. Is it still terrifying for you, every time you put a book out?

SM: Yeah… and with good reason. Because the world has changed — and the way books are received is different now. People are very vocal. And I do not have a lot of calluses on my creative soul — every blow feels like the first one. I have not learned how to take that lightly or let it roll off of me. I know it‘s something I need to learn before I go mad — but it‘s not something that I‘ve perfected. And so it‘s hard, even when you know it‘s coming. You don‘t know where it‘s coming from — a lot of them are sucker punches.

With every book, I always see the part that I think people are going to get mad about, or the part that‘s going to get mocked. With Twilight, I thought: Oh gosh. People are just going to rip me apart for this — if anybody picks it up. Which they?re not going to, because they?re going to read the back and say: A book about vampires? Oh, come on — it?s been so done. So I knew it was coming.

But there were always some things I wasn‘t expecting that people wouldn‘t like. I mean, with everything you put out, you just have to know: There are going to be people who really like it, and that‘s going to feel really good. But there are going to be people who really dislike things that are very personal to me, and I‘m just going to have to take it.

SH: But it‘s so terrifying. I don‘t know how you even have the courage to do it every time. The book of mine that I thought was going to be my simplest, happiest book, just a sweet little fun book that people would enjoy — that was the one that got slammed the hardest. Like you said, it was things I never could have anticipated that people didn‘t like.

As I look back on it, I think if I had a chance, I would take those parts out, or change those things that people hated. But I didn‘t know at the time. And so now, as I‘m writing another book — I know there are things that people are going to hate. But I don‘t know what they are.

[SM laughs] If I only knew what they were, I would be sorely tempted to change them to try and please everyone! I do the very best I can, but you can never anticipate what it is that people are going to react to.

SM: See, I have a very different reaction to that, because I can?t change it — it is the way it is. I mean, there are things I can do in editing — and I can polish the writing. I know I can always do better with that. And I know that, even in the final form, if I could have another three months to work on it, I would never stop polishing, because I can always make every word more important.

But I just can‘t change what happens, because that‘s the way it is. That‘s the story: Who the people are dictates what happens to them. I mean, there are outside forces that can come in, but how the characters respond to them eventually determines where they‘re going to be. Once you know who they are, there‘s no way to change what their future is — it just is what it is.

And so my reaction, when the criticism is really bad and really hard, is: I wish I would have kept this in my computer. I should have just held on to this work and have it be mine alone.

Because sometimes I wonder: Is it worth it to share it? But then you feel like you‘re not doing your characters a service with that — they deserve to live more fully, in someone else‘s mind.

Yes, I know I sound crazy! [Laughs]

SH: No. I totally, totally understand that. I remember hearing writers talk about how their characters are almost alive, and almost have a will of their own. And I thought they were kinda full of crap [SM laughs] but there is something to it. I think that it‘s a balance, though. There‘s the idea of these characters that are alive in my mind, and then there‘s me, the author. And I have some power to control the story, and to try and make it a strong story — but, then, the characters also have some power to say no.

SM: Yeah.

You can‘t change who they are to make the story go easier.