How to use this Page

I am changing up my Wednesday series just a little today to join in Debbie Diesen and Dan Hannah’s blog & book tour of THE NOT VERY MERRY POUT-POUT FISH, the latest hardcover children’s picture book from The New York … Continue reading →

Deb Diesen is a wonderful writer, good friend, and perhaps(?) an alien abductee. You may not know that her first book, THE POUT POUT FISH, was named by Time Magazine as one of the top ten children’s books of 2008. Check it out–you can’t help but smile.  Enjoy this lighthearted interview with Deb, and check out her website at Jumping the Candlestick.   Shutta

**********************************************************************************

1. Let’s start out with something kids often wonder. How old were you when you first started seriously writing?

My first period of “serious” writing came in elementary school.  When I was in third or fourth grade, I decided to try writing a poem about a butterfly.  I put a lot of work into the poem, then typed it up on my Mom’s typewriter (this was WAY before computers).  I went downstairs with my carefully typed poem, and showed it to my Mom.  She told me it was great.  Then she said, “But put a date on it.  Writers always date their work.”

My mom had no idea the significance of those words to me.  Not only did she instill in me an excellent habit (I still always date my drafts and revisions), but more importantly she gave me belief in myself as a Real Writer.  I took that belief and immediately poured it into a very productive writing period, penning poem after poem, and even a “novel” (a thinly veiled rip-off of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, but I was earnest about it).  All through elementary school, I knew with certainty that I was a writer, and write I did.

Unfortunately, my belief in my writing slowly faded over the years.  By the time I reached the age of thirty, I’d pretty much set aside my writerly dreams.  But then I became a parent; and the experience of reading and re-reading and re-re-reading wonderful children’s books to my kids reawakened my own desire to write.  About a decade ago, I once again picked up my pen. I haven’t set it down since.

2. How many book rejections did you get before you got your first acceptance?

Spread across the various manuscripts I was submitting, I had had exactly 99 rejections before I got the wonderful phone call telling me that Farrar, Straus & Giroux would publish my story The Pout-Pout Fish.

I now have two other books on the way, and though I stopped counting rejections after the first acceptance, and I don’t think I had a full 99 more before either of the other contracts, I do continue to receive plenty of rejections.  They go with the territory!

3. How do you make up names for your characters?

I must have used up all my naming energy in picking names for my two kids, because my characters have some pretty unimaginative names!  The main character in The Pout-Pout Fish is, um, “Mr.. Fish,” and his pals are, er, Ms. Clam (a clam); Mr.. Jelly (a jellyfish); Mrs.. Squid (a squid); and Mr.. Eight (an octopus).  I guess you could say I use the Captain Obvious technique for character names.

(Either that, or no technique at all…  None of the babies in The Barefooted, Bad-Tempered Baby Brigade (Tricycle Press, 2010) have names!)

4. When you write do you like quiet, music, or lots of activity around you?

I definitely need quiet to do my writing.  Most of my writing is done either late at night or very early in the morning, when no one else in the household is stirring.

Fortunately, ideas for my writing show up in all sorts of circumstances.  Good thing, because it’s usually pretty chaotic around my house!

5. What’s the earliest childhood memory you can think back to? Does it appear in any of your writing?

That’s a great question which I unfortunately don’t have a very good answer for!  For whatever reason, I don’t have a lot of strong memories of my childhood.  Those things that I do recall tend to be snap shot sensations that come back to me here and there, mostly out of the blue.  They feel almost like poems, rather than like memories, if that makes any sense at all.

6. What age child do you have in your head? Is there more than one child up there?

It’s standing room only up in my head!  I’ve got kids of every age and disposition.  Luckily, most of them are fairly well-behaved, with a tendency to be sweet and silly.  But there are a few pranksters amongst the bunch, and they’re all of them rather LOUD!

7. Why do you like to write for young readers?

Books and reading played a hugely significant role in my own childhood.  Writing for kids is a way for me to circle back to that — to acknowledge and celebrate the lifelong impact of books on kids, and to hopefully touch the life of a child or two in the process.

8. What do you have hidden in a dresser drawer? (We won’t tell, will we everyone?)

A shorter answer might be to list what I don’t have in my dresser drawer (I’m a bit of a clutter prone packrat, I must admit).  But I went just now to look, and found a set of three tiny pinecones on a small twig.  Wow! I’d forgotten they were in there. Perhaps they’re magical!  At the very least, they’re beautiful.  Maybe I should liberate them from the drawer and set them on my desk.  In fact, I think I will!  Ah. Much better.  (And more room for my socks that way…)

9. What do your favorite pair of socks look like?

Oddly enough, they look just like pine cones!  Just kidding.  No, my favorite socks are bright red and patterned with yellow and blue diamonds and sunbursts and other designs.  They’re completely different than the other 99.99% of my sock collection, which is based entirely on the traditional concept of Solid Colors.

10. If you woke up in the morning and found someone else’s shoes in your refrigerator, what would you think?

Initially, I’d simply move them aside to get to the creamer for my coffee.

But once the caffeine kicked in, I’d immediately figure my kids were up to something…

11. Have you ever been abducted by aliens? If so, did they wear socks? What did they have hidden in their zormorpholaters? And were they missing any shoes?

If I were to tell you that the shoeless aliens wore ankle socks with little puff balls (as were popular in the 1980s) and hid dark chocolate in their zormorpholaters, this should not be construed as an admission of a brief but enlightening alien abduction that occurred exactly three years and twenty-two days ago.

12. Will you name a character in your next book after me?

Shutta, every book should have a character named after you!