My Deep Dark Secret Dream Job

 

I feel so honored to be the guest blogger on Mormon Mommy Writers! I totally identify with this blog, as the mommy of five kids who started writing when my oldest was a wee babe in arms and who is now just months away from a driving permit.

 

Lately I’ve been on a book tour for my latest book, Big in Japan. Writing it was a blast. I mean, I not only got to learn waaaaay more about sumo wrestling than I’d ever have imagined, I also conjured up a love story for it, which meant figuring out how to bring two very different people from wildly different backgrounds together, how to make them the perfect match, how to put the right obstacles between them, and how to make them overcome it all and find love.

 

Deep Dark Secret confession time: All my life I’ve secretly wished I could be a matchmaker. I mean, I love love. And if I can have an influence, somehow, in bringing about love, well, I love it.

 

But I’m a terrible matchmaker. In real life. I totally stink at it. In fact, I remember when I was a freshman in college, I worked at a department store with this girl from my hometown, and a guy from my ward had seen her and was smitten. My little matchmaker heart went into high gear! I told him to go for it, told her he was a nice guy. He brought her a dozen roses at work. She agreed to go out. Lah dee dah, they got married!

 

But it ended badly.

 

I felt somewhat responsible for the ensuing heartache. Should’ve learned my lesson.

 

And maybe I have. Mostly. Other than suggesting cute girls for my single brother-in-law to take on dates, I now restrict myself to fictional match-ups. And in Big in Japan I was doing my best to fashion them as interlocking puzzle pieces from the clay. Or whatever. I wanted them to be perfect for each other, but make their love seem totally impossible. I mean, he’s a 6’6” and almost 400-lb American. She’s a tiny Japanese girl. He’s low on confidence, she’s practically the princess of her father’s life. The list goes on. The more obstacles between the obviously perfect couple, the more satisfying it is to the reader when they finally overcome, I think.

 

And so, Big in Japan? It isn’t really a romance. It’s more of a sports novel or a coming of age or mainstream fiction. But it has romantic elements. And for that part of the plot to work, I had to really think out the relationship and how to make the match.

 

All my single friends and family should be totally grateful I’ve found this new outlet for my obsession, and they should definitely fear the day I give up writing and focus my energies on them and their lives. As someone says in every Star Wars movie, “Nooooooo!”

 

Jennifer Griffith lives in Arizona with her husband and five kids. Big in Japan is her fourth novel. She blogs at http://AuthorJenniferGriffith.com and can be found on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AuthorJenniferGriffith. Read more about Buck Cooper and his sumo adventures at http://jollyfishpress.com.

(This is just a small note from me, Megan. Today is my last post, and I was so glad to give it to my wonderful friend and her fabulous new book. If you haven't read it, READ IT!
I've loved my time here at MMW, and I'm sad to be leaving, but as is true in all lives, there is a time and season for everything, and my season here is over. It's time to give another  writer the opportunity to share with you her wisdom and insight. I will miss all the women who are dedicated to MMW, especially Nikki, who gave me a chance when I really needed someone else to believe in my writing ability. 
Though I won't be posting every week, I'll certainly be lurking and saying hello from time to time. Ciao!)

J is for: What's up with the name Jennifer?

When I was a teenager, I decided I wanted a different name than the one my parents gave me. I tried out all kinds of names, wrote them with my last name in a notebook the way some people do with their boyfriend's last names, but I was sure that "Megan" did not fit me. I was not a Megan. But everything I tried either sounded like an 19th century novel or a stripper.
I even asked my mom if there were any other names they were considering when I was born. (My sister was almost Mercedes. After the car. I know. My mom put her foot down.) But "Hilary", while great for the Secretary of State, didn't fit me at all. I have internalized Megan. And I'm cool with that. At the time I was born, Megan was a very uncommon name, even though there are lots and lots of little girls running around with that moniker these days.
So what is my beef with the name Jennifer? Nothing. Well, except there seems to be a cosmic collusion to give people with the name Jennifer the ability to write amazing books. I don't know if I've pointed this out to you yet, but I have a very good friend from high school, Jennifer Nielsen, whose books have exploded onto the scene. Her newest, the first in the Ascendance Trilogy, The False Prince, just came out this month. I got it yesterday. Read it yesterday. It has been compared to both Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games and Megan Whelan Turner's Newberry Award winning The Thief. I've read both. Enjoyed both. In my opinion, The False Prince blew them out of the water. It was that good.
So I mentioned I got the book yesterday. My very good friend, Jennifer Griffith, also a published author, had purchased the book for me for my birthday. Read her review of The False Prince (and the funny thing that happened with this copy of the book before it reached me). Jennifer Griffith's new book, Big In Japan, is due out in July. I helped her, in a small way, prepare it for submission, and I can tell you it's gonna be big. (No pun intended.) Funny, sweet, and exciting, this book defies genre, but is all together wonderful. (I wish I had a link of some sort to a trailer or cover or something, but I don't have one yet. Come back in July. I'm sure I'll have all kinds of stuff then.)
Of course, I can't fail to mention our very own Jenni James, who while I don't know her personally, is the co-founder with Nikki of this blog. She has seven children, cans, and can write books in a single bound. Like in three weeks. When I was at the ANWA conference, the publisher of her Jane Austen Diaries, Walnut Springs Press, was there. Her editor, Linda Mulleneaux, mentioned Jenni as the only author she knew who could write a book in two months and submit it almost perfectly ready for print.
So here I have three real life examples of Mormon Mommy Writers, all named Jennifer, and all, it seems, with the writing "green thumb". I've been mulling this over for a while, wondering if there was some kind of magic in that name. That if you have that name, and you're a writer, you have a golden ticket to writing fabulous books.
But after I'd pondered this for a while, it occurred to me that I knew something else about these women. They are all determined, driven, and darn hard workers. That while it's an amazing coincidence, what really makes these women worth emulating is their ability to see the job through, to work even when it's hard, and to keep the end goal in sight.
So there it is. I will NOT be changing my name to Jennifer. I will, however, be tempted to tattoo "Determined, Driven, and Darn Hard Worker" on my forearm, if only to continually remind myself that these qualities are the ones that get books written and published.

Wednesday's giveaway: Jennifer Stewart Griffith and BIG IN JAPAN

I'm so excited to do today's giveaway, but before I dive in, I wanted to just say one little thing about how important it is to find the kind of people we want to be...and then be friends with them. Jennifer is my inspiration! She has an amazing ability to be, well, amazing, awe inspiring, hilarious, and a million other wonderful things I'd love to add. She makes my dreams seem possible.

Her new book, BIG IN JAPAN, is due to come out July 21, 2012, so she is graciously offering TWO gifts: a selection of Japanese candy now, and a signed copy of BIG IN JAPAN after its release! Two for the price of one entry! Awesome luckiness! (And I know of what I speak: I've eaten said treats before (so yummy!) and I've read the book: so funny, exciting, and romantic, it'll have you crying and laughing at the same time!)
 

Tell us about yourself: your name, what you write, what your home life is like, your Social security number...okay, maybe not that last one.

          I used to go by Jenny as a kid, then Jen. When I got married and picked up a Welsh last name the whole thing had a plethora of fffs and ths and picked up the full Jennifer Griffith ffth-sound. Now I’m thinking Jenny is nice again. Is this an identity crisis?

            At home, I’m The Mom. My husband works as a judge in our small town, and we have five kids from ages 14 down to 4. Day to day, it’s pretty noisy here. And kind of messy most of the time, I’ll be the first to admit. One time the Boy Scouts called me “The Maker of the Treats.” I need a t-shirt of that. It’s perfect.

            When I just can’t take the chaos, I retreat into my writer mode and think about sumo wrestlers and candy and paintings and beauty pageants and mythology--and write about them. I write for my sanity, and because it’s the one place where I’m only myself, my thoughts, my ideas, my creativity.

            When I first started writing, a friend’s mom (a lovely writer) asked, whether I wouldn’t like to try to write something of deep significance, something that mattered, something that would last. I double blinked. What? Why? No. I wanted to write something that would divert, something that entertained, helped a person escape the daily grind. Something that melted away sweetly, like cotton candy. My little motto about my writing is “Cotton Candy For The Soul.” Light, sweet, gone.

            I’m not out to write the Great American Novel. I’m not taking myself that seriously. However, I have a cousin who lives in Egypt, and during all that turmoil last February, she emailed me and said she’d been reading one of my novels (the chocolate one.) It was just what she needed to help her get through the time of being barricaded into her house while gunshots fired at the end of her street. Deep significance? Maybe not, but it is something, something we all need from time to time.

 How long have you had the "writing bug"?

            I started writing in third grade, keeping a journal every day. It’s not exciting reading because “Today was a good day,” appears on every single page of the entire year 1980—except one day in May. That day I wrote, “Today I fell off the stage, hit my head, and wet my pants and had to walk home alone.” Kid tragedy! But I learned young that writing can be cathartic. I’m one of those who writes because I must.

            After my first baby, I was home all day, and my husband was working full time and in school. He told me I should start that novel. And I did. And it ended up being published. Of course, I worked on it for six years. I’ve been writing ever since.

 How did the idea for "Big In Japan" strike? How did all the elements come together?

            My husband is my muse. One day we were sitting around, and I was telling him some of the quirky things that happened on my mission to Japan. I’d heard of an American who had come to Japan and was “getting huge” in order to join a sumo training stable. Gary said, “That would be a cool novel, an American guy who goes to Japan and becomes a sumo wrestler and falls in love.” That nugget started the story.

            It was fun to dig into my personal experiences in Japan (none of them sumo-related) and impose them on my characters. I wanted to take the reader of the manuscript on a little trip to the streets of Japan, to experience (if only a taste) of what it feels like to be there. It’s an amazing country, and the people and their culture are truly unique.

            You’d be surprised how little ready-information there is about sumo out there. I combed the internet for weeks and weeks trying to understand the sport, its traditions, its rules. There aren’t really even any books about it an English-speaker can read. Amassing the info was tricky, but as I dug, my eyes were really opened. I found it to be much more than we Westerners assume. It’s not just two big fat guys slapping flesh. It’s sheer strength! And the grace is astounding. Youtube videos of bouts were especially instructional.

            There’s also a darker side to sumo. At first I thought the book would be a simple, straightforward, humorous sports novel. The more I learned about sumo, the more I realized the other facets of the sport needed to be delved into, and I tried to do that while keeping the tone buoyant and throwing in some funny stuff.

How did you slip inside the psyche of Buck Cooper, a tall, overweight, blond loser of a guy, when you are a petite, brown-haired superwoman?
            Hahaha. That’s funny. At five-foot-one, I won’t be attempting sumo wrestling any time soon, that’s for sure.

            A while back I read a book by Dwight Swain, a master writing teacher. It was called Story People, and he gave some great advice about imbuing our characters with emotion. He said writers should mine their memories, and come up with touchstone experiences—guilt, shame, fear, jealousy, hatred, elation, and so on—from our own lives. Do our best to remember every nuance of those emotions. Write them out in very detail of the crushing feelings. (This is where a personal journal becomes solid gold.)

            His point was, we don’t have to have had the identical experience a story person has had, but we’ve all had experiences that produce similar emotions. We apply the feeling of our own emotion into the situation we’ve put our character into.

              

What is the best piece of writing advice you ever received? Why was it so important to you?

            Words on the page. Words on the page. You can always go back and edit, improve, as long as there are words on the page. Stop writing back and forth. Move it forward to the end and then go back and edit. If I didn’t hear this, I think I’d get mired in editing, perfecting paragraphs and sentences rather than getting the plot on the page.

           

 What types of books do you like to read?

            Classics-wise, I love Jane Austen (who doesn’t?) and several of those dramatic Brontës. My favorite author is Anthony Trollope, who is like Dickens but without the social commentary—a zillion details, five major subplots. I also read contemporary lit, cozy mysteries, legal thrillers, YA of all kinds, anything with crisp prose. Ooh! I love reading art history, too. And about gardens. And travel books. And celebrity biographies. My secret obsession is AutoWeek magazine. Tons more. Never-ending book love.

Here are her important places to follow:
Jennifer's blog: Cotton Candy 4 the Soul
Facebook: Jennifer Stewart Griffith
Twitter: @GriffithJen

 Let us know you've followed her in these places, and it will add another ticket with your name on it into the pot!

Thanks, Jennifer, for all your generous participation. I'm so jealous of the winner!