Blogfest 2009

I don’t really have particular themes, but I definitely have certain tricks that I turn to all the time.

For example, my characters fall a lot. Tally’s always flying or falling or jumping off things. In the Midnighters series, Jonathan can sort of fly, though it’s more like jumping really far. And even my most earthbound characters do lots of climbing and parachuting. Maybe it’s because I have flying dreams, or because I have a fear/fascination with heights. There’s something very satisfying about a character jumping into the void to escape (or land in) a problem.

Another trick I constantly use is similes. I have at least one on each page, sometimes many, though I try to pace myself. This might be from reading Raymond Chandler as a college student (he is the MASTER of similes) or from working in computers in the 1990s. Back then, I often had to explain software to people who didn’t understand computers at all, and metaphors, similes, and analogies were always very helpful. Similes are a great technique for introducing people into an unfamiliar setting, like the future or a fantasy world, while making them feel at home. That’s why my books have more than the US Recommended Daily Allowance of similes, I guess.

Oh yes. Somehow, I never tire of broken friendships, sex, destructive behaviors, betrayal, crippling fear of death, and thwarted love. Go figure! I have no clue what this says about me as an individual…

A lot of my work is about returning to a certain place and seeing it through new eyes. Spiderwick is about the return of a family to a house that that family, if not those particular people, had abandoned. Tithe is very much about Kaye and her mother returning to the place where Kaye grew up and unravelling the secrets of her past there.  Ironside, in many ways, has Roiben doing the same thing.  In my new book, The White Cat, again a character has been away (this time at boarding school) and has to come home and clean out the garbage house where he lived with his parents and two brothers. But in looking through things, he discovers secrets.

I can remember two times when I left home and then returned (during college and during a summer-long arts program in high school) and how odd I felt.  More than changed from the time away, what I realized was that I’d changed when I was home and just not known it until I was away.  For some reason that theme seems to haunt my work.

Yeah in a way I do.  I’m all about the powerful heroine who comes from a solid family background, typically in the Midwest, who dreams big and ventures to cosmopolitan cities like LA , New York, or Washington, DC.  Also, my characters tend to have positive relationships with older characters and they listen to their advice.  All of my characters have flaws, but that makes them likeable and real.

OK, here’s a question. Imagine that you’re walking into your house on a normal weekday evening. Everyone in the family is home. Is the house: (a) serenely peaceful, with only the quiet hum of a single radio to break the silence? Or is it: (b) filled with the competing sounds of two different CDs or radios being played loudly from different rooms, while someone else is watching TV in another room, and voices are raised in noisy debate in the kitchen? Oh, and three different animals are all trying to get you to pet them?

If the answer was (b), then you’re growing up in a house a lot like mine when I was growing up. Maybe that’s why I’m so obsessed with family life. I grew up in a big, noisy, loving, close-knit family. Even when we were furious at each other (or at any of our extended relations, most of whom were extremely involved in our lives), none of us would ever have questioned that family was the most important thing in anybody’s life.

I grew up with two younger brothers who participated in or observed (and commented on!) all of my most important adventures. I grew up with parents who were caring and aware of just about everything we got up to, good or bad, and who were determined to keep us safe as well as challenging us to grow.

I grew up with the stories of my ancestors from all over the world – from my great-grandfather Moshe, whose family fled to America after a *pogrom* burnt down their house in the Ukraine, to my great-grandmother Katerina, who made the brave choice to follow her childhood sweetheart all the way from Croatia to America, even though it might mean never seeing her home again. All of those ancestors made decisions that caused me to be born. Without those choices, I wouldn’t be alive now.

Sometimes I’ve thought that I had to go away to college to understand who I really was, separate from my family. But the truth is, without my family, I would be a completely different person – and a much, much less happy one. My brothers and parents and I might all live in different cities, now, but they’ll always be one of the most important and beloved parts of my life no matter where I live. Whenever I’m with them, no matter where we are, I’m home.

So it’s not surprising that almost everything I write, from short stories to novels, is somehow about the concept of family: how our families shape and define us for better or worse, how they can cage us in with fear or give us the strength we need to go forward, how we can define ourselves within them, and how we can protect them when they need us. Whether we love our families or curse them, I honestly think we can never truly escape them – and personally, I’m thankful for that.