Featured: Holly Schindler Thanks Readers

Interview: Holly Schindler

Holly Schindler is the writer of two successful YA novels, Playing Hurt and A Blue So Dark. In Playing Hurt, atar basketball player Chelsea “Nitro” Keyes had the promise of a full ride to college—and everyone’s admiration in her hometown. But everything changed senior year, when she took a horrible fall during a game. Now a metal plate holds her together and she feels like a stranger in her own family.

As a graduation present, Chelsea’s dad springs for a three-week summer “boot camp” program at a northern Minnesota lake resort. There, she’s immediately drawn to her trainer, Clint, a nineteen-year-old ex-hockey player who’s haunted by his own traumatic past. As they grow close, Chelsea is torn between her feelings for Clint and her loyalty to her devoted boyfriend back home. Will an unexpected romance just end up causing Chelsea and Clint more pain—or finally heal their heartbreak?

We are lucky to have Holly Schindler here to visit us!

1. What are some key factors to remember in developing romantic relationships?

Let’s face it—the story of two people who meet, date, fall in love, and ride into the sunset with no hiccups whatsoever is just…dull. You need some drama—some reason the two can’t get together, something that tears the two apart.

But you know, in all honesty, developing the drama for my romance wasn’t really all that different than developing the drama for my debut, a literary novel—I mean, a literary novel is character-driven…But so is a romance novel, to a great extent.

2. Chelsea goes through a tragedy that stops her from following her dream or living to the fullest. What advice do you have for other people in that same situation?

Wow—what a question! I think that the worst thing you can do is continue to focus on the tragedy. That’s not to say you shouldn’t mourn the loss of something you loved. But you’ve also got to keep moving forward, too…

I never had a life-altering injury, but along the way, as I sought a publishing deal, I had all these, “This is it!” moments, where an agent or editor would express interest in one of my manuscripts, and I’d feel certain that I was finally going to break in…Only to have the deal completely fall apart last-minute.

It can be devastating to go through a near-miss like that. But you really do have to dust yourself off and take another step forward. You’ve got to figure out how to reinvent what you’ve got and keep going. That’s what Chelsea realized she had to do at the end of PLAYING HURT—figure out how to reinvent her life, keeping sports in it.

3. First a literary novel, now a romance novel. Is there any other genre you’d like to try? What genres would you stay away from?



I’m always working on a new novel—and, yes, I’ve written other work in other genres that I’m actively trying to place. There’s probably no genre I’d count out. In that respect, I’m constantly surprising myself. If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d write a novel about a couple of athletes, I’d had said you were crazy. I’m NO athlete—I’m a complete klutz.

4. What other projects are you working on now? Can we expect more novels from you anytime soon?



The sooner the better, I say! Yes—my next novel will be released in 2012, with Dial. And—how’s this for yet another new genre?—it’ll be my first middle grade novel.

Thanks Holly for stopping by. I have to say, one of my friends is currently reading both of your books and I can't wait until she gets back to me on what she thinks! Here's a list of links you can use to find and contact her:

HollySchindler.com
Twitter @holly_schindler
Blog

Playing Hurt by Holly Schindler

Playing Hurt

Star basketball player Chelsea "Nitro" Keyes had the promise of a full ride to college—and everyone's admiration back home. Then she took a horrible fall during senior year. Now a metal plate holds her together and she feels like a stranger in her own family.

That summer, Chelsea's dad hires Clint, a nineteen-year-old ex-hockey player and "boot camp" trainer, to work with her at a northern Minnesota lake resort. As they grow close, Chelsea finds that Clint's haunted by his own tragedy. Will their romance end up hurting them all over again—or finally heal their heartbreak?

At First Sight:
I've been following Holly Schindler for a little more than a year and through that journey I've come to fall in love with her writing and her characters. When I saw that she was publishing a new novel, I immediately jumped into the opportunity to read and review it. Not only was the cover beautiful, but the story seemed to ring with me the way good books ring true to your heart.

My Thoughts:
I've never been a real sports-story sort of fan and I was a bit worried that Playing Hurt wouln't be as great as A Blue So Dark. But when I started reading the story (I had about 3 other books I was reading), I just couldn't. put. it. down.

I feel so guilty for having initially felt that way but now I feel even more reassured that whatever comes out of of Schindler's pen (or laptop, computer, etc.) is going to be a true literary work of art.

Chelsea was really--impressive. She seemed intimidating with all her star-ness and athletic ability but the deeper we got into the story, the more it seemed that Chelsea used her sports as a way to make her feel whole. I related to her (we have similar personalities) and I admired the passion she had for basketball (like the passion I have for writing) and, no matter what subject she was passionate about, the feeling transmitted so easily and flawlessly that I will officially say that Holly Schindler is not only a great story-teller, but she's a writer who is able to capture the feelings, personalities, and struggles of her characters fantastically well.

I loved Clint to death. And I thought that the names (Chelsea & Clint) were so cute together! He has times where he's funny, other times when he's confused, and other times when he's just being a boy. I loved the fact that Schindler was able to capture a male POV as well as she captured the female's.

Overall, this book was amazing and, if it hadn't done so before, it has placed Schindler among the top authors that I love. Plus, the romance is AMAZING and full of passion.

In one sentence:
A fantastic sophomore novel that WILL NOT dissappoint.

Plot: 5
Characters: 5
Writing: 5
Cover: 5
Overall: 5
Average: 5

Author Interview: Holly Schindler of A BLUE SO DARK

Today we have Holly Schindler (for the second time, eep!). She's the writer of A BLUE SO DARK, which I reviewed recently here.

1). After you finished writing A BLUE SO DARK, did Aura’s story end for you or do you know what happens to her after A BLUE SO DARK?

As a reader, when I come to the end of a novel—even a novel that wraps up all the loose ends, nice and neat, big red bow and all…a novel in which the main characters ride off into the sunset, happily ever after—I tend to find myself thinking, AND THEN THEY WOKE UP THE NEXT DAY…


What I mean is, I always think of a novel’s ending as just a pause—a moment to take a deep breath—before the next conflict begins…but that’s just the way LIFE is! We get over one mountain, and barely even get a chance to celebrate before we find ourselves staring straight into the next obstacle we’re going to have to overcome.


I can’t say I have it all mapped out, exactly what would happen to Aura and her mother after the book closes. But they’re obviously not going to have smooth sailing from the novel’s ending on. There will definitely be another mountain for those two, which doesn’t exist on the page…while the book was in development, I found myself constantly imagining new possibilities…


2. Do you believe that creativity can lead you to mental illness? Do you think creativity is a way to get OUT of mental illness?

The brain’s a fascinating thing, isn’t it? Even in our modern age, we know so little—and new mysteries crop up all the time: The recent explosion of autism and Alzheimer’s, for example.


Creativity, I think, is every bit as mysterious as mental illness. And I do think the two probably are linked—that’s not to say that I think one leads to another, or one can CURE the other. But I think that spark of inspiration—that end product that an artist can envision? That’s a little like a hallucination, isn’t it? Neither one really exists, except in one person’s mind! Both are figments that only one person can “see.”


I don’t think it’s absurd to think that what the brain does—what neurons fire, etc.—as a creative idea is born is unlike what happens in the brain when a “vision” or hallucination comes to life. I think when we understand creativity completely, we’ll understand mental illness. And vice versa.



3. Out of many artists who have suffered mental illness, who are your favorites?

I tend to really be fascinated by the artists who remain mysteries: those we really don’t seem to understand, and maybe never will…van Gogh (who was talked about often in the book), for instance: I don’t even think I can count the articles I’ve read, “definitively” explaining the reason he cut off his ear. I’ve read everything from that he did it for a woman, that he did it over a fight with Gauguin, even that he did it because he suffered from chronic debilitating inner ear infections.


I’m not sure we really understand van Gogh—even though we do have a lot of his writing (in the form of letters to his brother). I think so much of a person is lost the moment they pass away, and once the people who personally KNEW them are gone? The jigsaw just doesn’t ever get put back together…especially for a complicated person like van Gogh.


I think the same of Emily Dickinson—not that she’s an example of a mentally ill artist, but I’ve always been intrigued…because she’s someone we will never understand. We’ll speculate. We’ll all have our own theories of who she was. But there will never be a definitive answer, because so little remains of her life (other than her poetry). There’s something about that—about the never-knowing-for-sure—that just keeps sending me back to her work.


But that might be why I tackled a subject like the possible connection between creativity and mental illness. There is no real answer right now, just speculation…In the case of mental illness, though, there’s every chance that we WILL know, that we WILL unlock the mystery—maybe even in our lifetimes! The idea of that is utterly thrilling…


Thanks for a fantastic interview, Holly! Great to have you back and congrats on your success. Visit Holly Schindler at her blog here.

A Blue So Dark by Holly Schindler

A Blue So Dark

Terrified that her mother, a schizophrenic and an artist, is a mirror that reflects her own future, sixteen-year-old Aura struggles with her overwhelming desires to both chase artistic pursuits and keep madness at bay.

As her mother sinks deeper into the darkness of mental illness, the hunger for a creative outlet keeps drawing Aura toward the depths of her own imagination—the shadows of make-believe that she finds frighteningly similar to her mother’s hallucinations.

Convinced that creative equals crazy, Aura shuns her art, and her life unravels in the process.

First off, I want to thank Holly Schindler who has been extremely awesome with me and sent me a signed copy of A Blue So Dark, so thank you.

Aura Ambrose shuns her art because she's afraid of becoming a schizo like her mother. But maybe running away from such a big part of herself will make everything worse.

A Blue So Dark is one of those books I've been waiting for all year. The cover is amazing and the story is mindblowing.

I devoured  this book like you don't know how. It is beautifully written and a visual delight, really.

Aura is a likable character whose problems are too big for her age. Her father isn't really there and she's basically on her own. I would have liked her to act sooner and take wiser decisions but I still understood why she did the things she did.

Overall, it was a great story and beautifully written. I give this two thumbs up.

Plot: 5
Characters: 4
Writing: 5
Cover: 5
Overall: 5
Average: 4.8

Yay! It's Christmas: Interview with Holly Schindler

Hi everyone! As part of the Yay! It's Christmas celebration I am here with an interview with Holly Schindler, the debut YA author herself! Check them out!

1.  How did A BLUE SO DARK change from the first outline to the final draft?  Did these changes surprise you?

The book was pretty internal when I started…that was the number one critique I was getting from editors as I submitted the earliest drafts.  Each time I revised the book, I included more scenes, more action.  I had to pull Aura out of her head and allow her to interact with the world around her…it wasn’t a surprise, really…it was a delight, because each time I revised, Aura became more and more of a real person.  I loved bringing her to life!

2.  How has your own life influenced A BLUE SO DARK and your writing in general?

When I started to write A BLUE SO DARK, I pulled out all my old notebooks and journals from high school, to reconnect with my teen “voice.”  When I realized how similar my nearly-thirty-year-old voice was to my fifteen-year-old voice, I really was off and running on the manuscript.  (I even included a few of the poems I wrote as a teen in the book—though they’ve been tweaked to fit the events of the novel!) 

Plus, the novel’s filled with the “furniture” of my life—the story takes place in my girlhood hometown, Aura drives the same car I drove in high school, her mother works at the museum here in Springfield…all of my old haunts show up in the book…

3.  You have signed your third book deal, congratulations!  Did it become easier to land deals after signing A BLUE SO DARK?  What did you learn from the publishing process from A BLUE SO DARK?

Thanks for the congrats!  It’s been a crazy, crazy year…to go from no publications to three books in development!  Sometimes I can’t believe my luck lately. 

…I’m not really sure that it’s any easier to sell a manuscript just because you’ve sold one in the past…I think each book kind of stands on its own, and if it doesn’t cut the mustard, it won’t be acquired.  But, yeah, going through the process once takes the fear-factor (or, really, the worry-factor) out of an acquisition.  You know what the process is, so you know what to anticipate, what the next step is. 

4.  Aura seems to be afraid of herself in some ways and shuns her art.  With many teens today expressing themselves through art, do you think that Aura made it even harder for herself?

Most definitely.  But what I think makes it so rough for her is that art is really central to who she is.  That’s pretty much the way I feel about my writing.  If I’m not writing, I’m pretty lost.  I think if you try to cut yourself off from the thing that makes you tick, for whatever reason—it’s not cool or acceptable—you lose yourself.  And that’s a place you never want to be.

5.  What was the hardest and easiest part about writing Aura’s story?

The easiest part was that first draft…it just really flew.  Once I got started, I completed the manuscript in two months!  I polished it up a bit, then began to submit…and the rejection slips started pouring in.  The HARDEST part was then distancing myself from a project I loved and had connected with from the start so that I could identify its faults and figure out how to begin rewriting.  (Sometimes, you feel a little like you’re ripping the arms off your baby when you do a global revision!) 

6.  Can you describe your writing in two words? 

MAN, this is a hard one.  The first thing that comes to mind is literary fiction.  But my favorite books are those that combine the literary (characters and beautiful writing) with great plots.  I want to find myself asking both, “What’s going to happen next?” and, “How will this character change?” as I’m reading a book.  Which is what I try to remember as I’m writing a new manuscript.  (Pretty long-winded two-word answer, huh?)   

7.  How did you come up with the title A BLUE SO DARK?  Were there other title ideas before this one? 

A BLUE SO DARK is actually a phrase I lifted from the manuscript.  And, yes, there were other titles before that one…I submitted the manuscript under four different titles, actually.  When Flux acquired the book, the working title was THE OCEAN FLOOR.  My editor was kind of lukewarm about the title, and suggested I troll the manuscript for other possibilities.  I sent him several, but when I finally shot him A BLUE SO DARK, he immediately sent me a THAT’S IT! kind of e-mail.  Lukewarm no more…

8.  What are your favorite genres to read? 

Uh, all of ‘em.  Seriously.  My tastes run the gamut.  I was a literature major in undergraduate school, and I still do love the classics.  As far as contemporary lit goes, I read everything from children’s books to YA to romance to mystery to horror to fantasy to literary fiction…about the one genre I never really connected with as much as the others was sci fi…but as soon as I say that, I have to remind myself of the William Gibson and Ursula K. Le Guin novels I enjoyed…so, no, nothing’s out!  If it’s in print, I’ll read it!

9.  Who are your favorite authors?

Hear that scraping sound?  Yeah, that’s me dragging my feet.  Every time I start to list my absolute faves, I start to think that there’s just not enough space in the world to list them all.  And the thing is, I know from my own experience how hard it is to break into the publishing world.  So I figure everything that’s in print has merit.  EVERY author has some quality to admire, be it their character development, their ability to infuse the pages with humor, their ability to juggle subplots, etc…I try to learn something from EVERY novel I read…

10.  What would you say are some similarities and differences between you and Aura?

The most obvious difference is that I didn’t grow up with a schizophrenic mother.  But Aura’s voice is probably more like the voice in my own head than any other character's I’ve ever written…her humor, her observations all pretty much just sound like me.

11.  Is there ever any time when you have doubted your writing and wanted to give up?

I decided to devote myself to my writing full-time when I got out of graduate school back in ’01.  And I won’t lie—it got frustrating…especially as three unpublished years turned into four…then five, six, SEVEN.  But I always felt like I was getting a little bit closer to publication, as no-way-hozay rejections were becoming this-was-such-a-close-call rejections.  I felt like if I just stuck it out a little longer, the work would eventually pay off. 

12.  What advice would you give to other writers about the process of writing and the road to publication? 

Just follow your heart.  If you REALLY love writing, sink your nails in and don’t let go.  Don’t allow anybody else to convince you it’ll never happen.  Every writer gets to their first publication eventually…the only way you don’t is by giving up.

13.  Finally, what is the message you want your readers to obtain from A BLUE SO DARK? 

I really don’t want to put a message in my readers’ heads before they even open the book.  I just want them to discover Aura and her story on their own, to draw their own conclusions…which they’ll be able to do, starting May 1, 2010! 

…I can’t wait for A BLUE SO DARK to hit bookstore shelves.  The idea of it gives me goose bumps, actually… 

Thanks, Holly!

You can check out Holly Schindler's website here and her blog is here. Don't forget to get A BLUE SO DARK on May 2010! I know I can't wait :)

Introducing Holly Schindler!

Hi fellow readers! I needed to post this post because I'm very excited and I wished to share the news. I've been contacted by a 2010 YA debut novelist Holly Schindler saying that she likes my blog and I almost jumped out of my seat! So I would like to do a shout out to her here. You can visit her blog here. Her book is called A Blue So Dark and it will come out next year (her site has official updates). Let's give this lovely new YA novelist a warm welcome fellow bloggers!