The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide

SH: In some ways, I would love to have that armor — the wonderful author‘s ego — that I am right, and I know what I‘m doing, and I‘m brilliant.

SM: Yeah, that might be nice.

I think it‘s really good for my kids to see that I have my own life outside of them — that I‘m a real person.

SH: So, we‘re both mothers. And I think that mothers are famously guilt-ridden creatures.

[SM laughs] I mean, we never succeed — we‘re always failing at something. So have you had to deal with guilt of, you know, taking the time — allowing yourself to take the time to be a writer, and to pursue this?

SM: Occasionally. It doesn‘t bother me that often. I think it‘s because my kids are really, really great. They‘re good and they‘re happy. I‘ve seen kids who are treated like the center of the universe, and I don‘t think that‘s entirely healthy. I think it‘s really good for my kids to see that I have my own life outside of them — that I‘m a real person. I think that‘s going to help them when they grow up and have children — to realize that they‘re still who they are.

And then I am pretty careful about when I write. Now it‘s mostly when they‘re in school.

When they were little, though, I never shut myself away in an office — I‘d always written in the middle of their madness — so I‘d be there, and I could get whatever they needed. They know I‘m listening. And they‘re also pretty good about saying: ?Okay, Mommy‘s writing right now.

Unless I‘m bleeding, I‘m not going to bug her.?

And I also write at night. When they come home from school, we do homework and I hear about their day and I make them snacks. The nice thing about writing is, you can do it on your own schedule. But you do lose sleep. You know, I feel like I haven‘t slept eight hours in ten years.

If you start getting a little bit of dialogue in your head, you‘re doomed — you‘ll never get to sleep.

SH: It‘s like having a newborn, writing a book, isn‘t it?

SM: It is. Well, because you lie there in bed — and, oh, heaven help you if you start thinking about plotline. If you start getting a little bit of dialogue in your head, you‘re doomed—

you‘ll never get to sleep.

SH: It is so true. I can sleep pretty well at the beginning of the night. If, for whatever reason, I wake up — or my son comes in and wakes me up anytime between the hours of two and five — and if my mind, for one second, goes back to the book I‘m writing right now, I‘m done for the rest of the night. I can‘t go back to sleep, because my mind starts working over and over it.

I‘ve had to train my brain to do that, on purpose, so that I‘m always writing, even when I‘m not.

SM: You at least put things in the back of your head, so that you‘re solving the problems.

SH: Exactly — so when I sit down to write it‘s more productive, because I‘ve been working over it in my brain. But, like you say, when you do that in the middle of the night, you‘re doomed.

SM: Well, one of my problems right now is that I have not committed to a project at this point in time, and I‘m waiting to be done with the publicity. And that‘s never really going to happen, so I need to just commit to one. I have about fourteen different books, and every night it‘s a new one. And I‘m coming up with solutions for this one point that really bothered me in one story. I thought maybe I couldn‘t write it because of this one point. But then I‘ll wake up at four o‘clock in the morning with a perfect solution, and then I can‘t go back to sleep.

SH: I have found if I just write it down, then my mind can stop working over it.

SM: Exactly.

On Reading and Writing for Young Adults

SH: So far, all of your stories have something of the fantastic in them. You don‘t read only fantasy, though.

SM: Oh, I love mainstream fiction, and there are a lot of books that I really love that are without absolutely any fantasy elements. But, for me, the fantasy ones are for writing. There‘s an extra amount of happiness, that extra oomph, in getting to make your own world at the same time that you‘re writing it. I like that part…. Megalomania… You know, having control over an entire world? [Laughs]

SH: That‘s funny. Like we were talking about earlier, when you‘re a writer there‘s so much that can happen to ego, both good and bad and everything in between. But young-adult authors tend to be pretty down-to-earth, don‘t you think?

SM: Well, I think writing YA keeps you humble. Because everybody says to you: ?Oh… you write for children. Isn‘t that nice?? It can be so patronizing sometimes, and, absolutely, it keeps you humble. It makes it so you can‘t possibly become the ?I am an author? author. There‘s no way to do that when you write for children. [Laughs]

And one of the little ?icing things? of this career is to have these kids come up to tell me that this is the first book they‘ve ever read for pleasure.

SH: I think there‘s also an element of: It isn?t all just about me. We‘ve both written adult books. I think, when you‘re in the adult market, it‘s all about how many books you sell and what awards you get. But when you‘re writing in the children‘s market, it‘s about the children, too.

And you‘re part of this team — with librarians and booksellers and parents and teachers — and you‘re promoting literacy and some good stuff beyond just: I?m writing a book, and now pay me for it. So I think people tend to be more even-tempered and more balanced in the children‘s world.

SM: Because I didn‘t set out to write for children, I would never have thought that my books would promote literacy. Someone would have to be a real reader to ever pick one of these up, just because they‘ve run out of everything else. [Laughs]

And one of the little ?icing things? of this career is to have these kids come up to tell me that this is the first book they‘ve ever read for pleasure, and that they‘ve moved on. Now they‘ve read this other one, and they‘ve read that one, and now they‘re so excited about some other book they‘ve found. And to have written the first book that got them excited to be a reader — oh, that‘s an amazing gift.